FLORENCE

AND NORTHERN TUSCANY

WITH GENOA

BY EDWARD HUTTON

 * * * * *

 O rosa delle rose, O rosa bella, Per te non dormo nè notte nè giorno, E sempre penso alla tua faccia bella, Alle grazie che hai, faccio ritorno. Faccio ritorno alle grazie che hai: Ch'io ti lasci, amor mio, non creder mai. 

WITH SIXTEEN ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR BY WILLIAM PARKINSON AND SIXTEENOTHER ILLUSTRATIONS

SECOND EDITION

LONDON, 1907, 1908

 * * * * *

TO MY FRIEND WILLIAM HEYWOOD

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

 FREDERIC UVEDALE: A ROMANCE STUDIES IN THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS ITALY AND THE ITALIANS THE CITIES OF UMBRIA THE CITIES OF SPAIN SIGISMONDO MALATESTA COUNTRY WALKS ROUND FLORENCE. (_In the Press_). ROME. (_In preparation_)

 * * * * *

[Illustration: FROM THE UFFIZI]

 * * * * *

CONTENTS

 I. GENOA II. ON THE WAY III. PORTO VENERE IV. SARZANA AND LUNA V. CARRARA, MASSA DUCALE, PIETRA-SANTA, VIAREGGIO VI. PISA VII. LIVORNO VIII. TO SAN MINIATO AL TEDESCO IX. EMPOLI, MONTELUPO, LASTRA, SIGNA X. FLORENCE XI. PIAZZA DELLA SIGNORIA AND PALAZZO VECCHIO XII. THE BAPTISTERY--THE DUOMO--THE CAMPANILE--THE OPERA DEL DUOMO XIII. OR SAN MICHELE XIV. PALAZZO RICCARDI, AND THE RISE OF THE MEDICI XV. SAN MARCO AND SAVONAROLA XVI. SANTA MARIA NOVELLA XVII. SANTA CROCE XVIII. SAN LORENZO XIX. CHURCHES NORTH OF ARNO XX. OLTR'ARNO XXI. THE BARGELLO XXII. THE ACCADEMIA XXIII. THE UFFIZI XXIV. THE PITTI GALLERY XXV. FIESOLE AND SETTIGNANO XXVI. VALLOMBROSA AND THE CASENTINO XXVII. PRATO XXVIII. PISTOJA XXIX. LUCCA XXX. OVER THE GARFAGNANA

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

IN COLOUR

 VIEW FROM THE UFFIZI ON THE ROAD BADIA A SETTIMO PONTE VECCHIO LOGGIA DE' LANZI PIAZZA DEL DUOMO OR SAN MICHELE THE FLOWER MARKET, FLORENCE CHIOSTRO DI S. MARCO S. MARIA NOVELLA OGNISSANTI VIA GUICCIARDINI PONTE VECCHIO THE BOBOLI GARDENS COSTA DI S. GIORGIO OUTSIDE THE GATE

IN MONOTONE

 PORTO VENERE PISA WAX MODEL FOR THE PERSEUS IN THE BARGELLO, BENVENUTO CELLINI THE MADONNA DELLA CINTOLA, BY NANNI DI BANCO, DUOMO, FLORENCE SINGING BOYS FROM THE CANTORIA OF LUCA DELLA ROBBIA, OPERA DEL DUOMO, FLORENCE THE CRUCIFIXION, BY FRA ANGELICO, S. MARCO, FLORENCE ST. JOHN THE DIVINE, BY DONATELLO, DUOMO, FLORENCE THE LADY WITH THE NOSEGAY (VANNA TORNABUONI), IN THE BARGELLO, BY ANDREA VERROCCHIO "LA NOTTE, " FROM TOMB OF GIULIANO DE' MEDICI, BY MICHELANGELO THE ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS, BY DOMENICO GHIRLANDAJO, ACCADEMIA THE THREE GRACES, FROM THE PRIMAVERA, BY SANDRO BOTTICELLI, ACCADEMIA THE BIRTH OF VENUS, BY SANDRO BOTTICELLI, UFFIZI GALLERY THE ANNUNCIATION, BY ANDREA VERROCCHIO, UFFIZI GALLERY PIETÀ, BY FRA BARTOLOMMEO, PITTI GALLERY THE TOMB OF ILARIA DEL CARETTO, BY JACOPO DELLA QUERCIA, DUOMO, LUCCA THE TOMB OF THE MARTYR S. ROMANO IN S. ROMANO, LUCCA, BY MATTEO CIVITALI

[Illustration: A MAP OF THE CITIES OF NORTHERN TUSCANY]

 * * * * *

I. GENOA

I

The traveller who on his way to Italy passes along the Riviera diPonente, through Marseilles, Nice, and Mentone to Ventimiglia, orcrossing the Alps touches Italian soil, though scarcely Italy indeed, atTurin, on coming to Genoa finds himself really at last in the South, thetrue South, of which Genoa la Superba is the gate, her narrow streets, the various life of her port, her picturesque colour and dirt, herimmense palaces of precious marbles, her oranges and pomegranates andlemons, her armsful of children, and above all the sun, which lends aneternal gladness to all these characteristic or delightful things, telling him at once that the North is far behind, that even CisalpineGaul is crossed and done with, and that here at last by the waves ofthat old and great sea is the true Italy, that beloved and ancient landto which we owe almost everything that is precious and valuable in ourlives, and in which still, if we be young, we may find all our dreams. What to us are the weary miles of Eastern France if we come by road, thedreadful tunnels full of despair and filth if we come by rail, now thatwe have at last returned to her, or best of all, perhaps, found her forthe first time in the spring at twenty-one or so, like a fair womanforlorn upon the mountains, the Ariadne of our race who placed in ourhand the golden thread that led us out of the cavern of the savage tothe sunlight and to her. But though, indeed, I think all this may beclearer to those who come to her in their first youth by the long whiteroads with a song on their lips and a dream in their hearts--for thesong is drowned by the iron wheels that doubtless have their own music, and the dream is apt to escape in the horror of the night imprisonedwith your fellows; still, as we are so quick to assure ourselves, thereare other ways of coming to Italy than on foot: in a motor-car, forinstance, our own modern way, ah! so much better than the train, andtruly almost as good as walking. For there is the start in the earlymorning, the sweet fresh air of the fields and the hills, the long haltat midday at the old inn, or best of all by the roadside, the afternoonfull of serenity, that gradually passes into excitement and eagerexpectancy as you approach some unknown town; and every night you sleepin a new place, and every morning the joy of the wanderer is yours. Younever "find yourself" in any city, having won to it through manyadventures, nor ever are you too far away from the place you lay at onthe night before. And so, as you pass on and on and on, till the roadwhich at first had entranced you, wearies you, terrifies you, relentlessly opening before you in a monstrous white vista, and you whobegan by thinking little of distance find, as I have done, that only theroads are endless, even for you too the endless way must stop when itcomes to the sea; and there you have won at last to Italy, at Genoa. 

If you come by Ventimiglia, starting early, all the afternoon that whitevision will rise before you like some heavenly city, very pure and fullof light, beckoning you even from a long way off across innumerable andlovely bays, splendid upon the sea. While if you come from Turin, it isonly at sunset you will see her, suddenly in a cleft of the mountains, the sun just gilding the Pharos before night comes over the sea, opening like some great flower full of coolness and fragrance. 

It was by sea that John Evelyn came to Genoa after many adventures; andthough we must be content to forego much of the surprise and romance ofan advent such as that, yet for us too there remain many wonderfulthings which we may share with him. The waking at dawn, for instance, for the first time in the South, with the noise in our ears of the bellsof the mules carrying merchandise to and from the ships in the _Porto_;the sudden delight that we had not felt or realised, weary as we were onthe night before, at finding ourselves really at last in the way of suchthings, the shouting of the muleteers, the songs of the sailors gettingtheir ships in gear for the seas, the blaze of sunlight, the pleasantheat, the sense of everlasting summer. These things, and so much morethan these, abide for ever; the splendour of that ancient sea, thegesture of the everlasting mountains, the calmness, joy, and serenity ofthe soft sky. 

Something like this is what I always feel on coming to that proud cityof palaces, a sort of assurance, a spirit of delight. And in spite ofall Tennyson may have thought to say, for me it is not the North but theSouth that is bright "and true and tender. " For in the North the sky isseldom seen and is full of clouds, while here it stretches up to God. And then, the South has been true to all her ancient faiths and works, to the Catholic religion, for instance, and to agriculture, the oldlabour of the corn and the wine and the oil, while we are gone afterLuther and what he leads to, and, forsaking the fields, have taken tominding machines. 

And so, in some dim way I cannot explain, to come to Italy is likecoming home, as though after a long journey one were to come suddenlyupon one's mistress at a corner of the lane in a shady place. 

It is perhaps with some such joy in the heart as this that the fortunatetraveller will come to Genoa the Proud, by the sea, lying on the bosomof the mountains, whiter than the foam of her waves, the beautiful gateof Italy. 

II

The history of Genoa, its proud and adventurous story, is almost whollya tale of the sea, full of mystery, cruelty, and beauty, a legend of seapower, a romance of ships. It is a narrative in which sailors, halfmerchants, half pirates, adventurers every one, put out from the cityand return laden with all sorts of spoil, --gold from Africa, slaves fromTunis or Morocco, the booty of the Crusades; with here the vessel of theHoly Grail bought at a great price, there the stolen dust of a greatSaint. 

This spirit of adventure, which established the power of Genoa in theEast, which crushed Pisa and almost overcame Venice, was held in checkand controlled by the spirit of gain, the dream of the merchant, so thatColumbus, the very genius of adventure almost without an after-thought, though a Genoese, was not encouraged, was indeed laughed at; and Genoa, splendid in adventure but working only for gain, unable on this accountto establish any permanent colony, losing gradually all her possessions, threw to the Spaniard the dominion of the New World, just because shewas not worthy of it. Men have called her Genoa the Proud, and indeedwho, looking on her from the sea or the sea-shore, will ever questionher title?--but the truth is, that she was not proud enough. She trustedin riches; for her, glory was of no account if gold were not added toit. If she entered the first Crusade as a Christian, it was really herone disinterested action; and all the world acknowledged her valour andher contrivance which won Jerusalem. But in the second Crusade, as inthe next, she no longer thought of glory or of the Tomb of Jesus, shewas intent on money; and since in that stony place but little bootycould be hoped for, she set herself to spoil the Christian, to providehim at a price with ships, with provender, with the means of realisinghis dream, a dream at which she could afford to laugh, secure as she wasin the possession of this world's goods. Then, when in the thirteenthcentury those vast multitudes of soldiers, monks, dreamers, beggars, and adventurers came to her, the port for Palestine, clamouring fortransports, she was sceptical and even scornful of them, but willing togive them what they demanded, not for the love of God but for a price. Even that beautiful and mysterious army of children which came to herfrom France and Germany in 1212 seeking Jesus, she could hold incontempt till, weary at last of feeding them, she found the galleys theydemanded, and in the loneliness of the sea betrayed them and sold themfor gold as slaves to the Arabs, so that of the seven thousand boys andgirls led by a lad of thirteen who came at the bidding of a voice toGenoa, not one ever returned, nor do we hear anything further concerningthem but the rumour of their fate. 

Thus Genoa appears to us of old and now, too, as a city of merchants. She crushed Pisa lest Pisa should become richer than herself; she wentout against the Moors for Castile because of a whisper of the booty; shesought to overthrow Venice because she competed with her trade in theEast; and to-day if she could she would fill up the harbour of Savonawith stones, as she did in the sixteenth century, because Savona takespart of her trade from her. What Philip of Spain did for God's sake, what Visconti did for power, what Cesare Borgia did for glory, Genoa hasdone for gold. She is a merchant adventurer. Her true work was the Bankof St. George. One of the most glorious and splendid cities of Italy, she is, almost alone in that home of humanism, without a school of artor a poet or even a philosopher. Her heroes are the great admirals, andadventurers--Spinola, Doria, Grimaldi, Fieschi, men whose names lingerin many a ruined castle along the coast who of old met piracy withpiracy. Even to-day a Grimaldi spoils Europe at Monaco, as his ancestorsdid of old. 

One saint certainly of her own stock she may claim, St. CatherineAdorni, born in 1447. But the Renaissance passed her by, giving her, itis true, by the hands of an alien, the streets of splendid palaces weknow, but neither churches nor pictures; such paintings as she possessesbeing the sixteenth century work of foreigners, Rubens, Vandyck, Ribera, Sanchez Coello, and maybe Velasquez. 

Yet barren though she is in art, at least Genoa has ever been fulfilledwith life. If her aim was riches she attained it, and produced much thatwas worth having by the way. Without the appeal of Florence or Siena orVenice or Rome, she is to-day, when they are passed away into dreams orhave become little more than museums, what she has ever been, a city ofbusiness, the greatest port in the Mediterranean, a city full of variouslife, --here a touch of the East, there a whisper of the West, a busy, brutal, picturesque city, beauty growing up as it does in London, suddenly for a moment out of the life of the place, not made orcontrived as in Paris or Florence, but naturally, a living thing, shyand evanescent. Here poverty and riches jostle one another side by sideas they do in life, and are antagonistic and hate one another. YetGenoa, alone of all the cities of Italy proper is living to-day, livingthe life of to-day, and with all her glorious past she is as much a cityof the twentieth century as of any other period of history. For, whileothers have gone after dreams and attained them and passed away, she hasclung to life, and the god of this world was ever hers. She has made toherself friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, and they have remainedfaithful to her. Her ports grow and multiply, her trade increases, stillshe heaps up riches, and if she cannot tell who shall gather them, atleast she is true to herself and is not dependent on the stranger or thetourist. The artist, it is said, is something of a daughter of joy, andin thinking of Florence or Venice, which live on the pleasure of thestranger, we may find the truth of a saying so obvious. Well, Genoa wasnever an artist. She was a leader, a merchant, with fleets, withargosies, with far-flung companies of adventure. Through her gatespassed the silks and porcelains of the East, the gold of Africa, theslaves and fair women, the booty and loot of life, the trade of theworld. This is her secret. She is living among the dead, who may or maynot awaken. 

If you are surprised in her streets by the greatness of old things, itis only to find yourself face to face with the new. People, tourists donot linger in her ways--they pass on to Pisa. Genoa has too little toshow them, and too much. She is not a museum, she is a city, a city oflife and death and the business of the world. You will never love her asyou will love Pisa or Siena or Rome or Florence, or almost any othercity of Italy. We do not love the living as we love the dead. They pressupon us and contend with us, and are beautiful and again ugly andmediocre and heroic, all between two heart beats; but the dead ask onlyour love. Genoa has never asked it, and never will. She is one of us, her future is hidden from her, and into her mystery none has dared tolook. She is like a symphony of modern music, full of immense gradualcrescendos, gradual diminuendos, unknown to the old masters. Only Rome, and that but seldom, breathes with her life. But through the music ofher life, so modern, so full of a sort of whining and despair in whichno great resolution or heroic notes ever come, there winds an old-worldmelody, softly, softly, full of the sun, full of the sea, that is alwaysthe same, mysterious, ambiguous, full of promises, at her feet. 

III

The gate of Italy, I said in speaking of her, and indeed it is one ofthe derivations of her name Genoa, --Janua the gate, founded, as thefourteenth-century inscription in the Duomo asserts, by Janus, a Trojanprince skilled in astrology, who, while seeking a healthy and safe placefor his dwelling, sailed by chance into this bay, where was a littlecity founded by Janus, King of Italy, a great-grandson of Noah, andfinding the place such as he wished, he gave it his name and his power. Now, whether the great-grandson of Noah was truly the original founderof the city, or Janus the Trojan, or another, it is certainly older thanthe Christian religion, so that some have thought that Janus, that oldgod who once presided at the beginning of all noble things, was thedivine originator of this city also. And remembering the sun thatcontinually makes Genoa to seem all of precious stone, of moonstone oralabaster, it seems indeed likely enough, for Janus was worshipped ofold as the sun, he opened the year too, and the first month bears hisname; and while on earth he was the guardian deity of gates, in heavenhe was porter, and his sign was a ship; therefore he may well have takento himself the city of ships, the gateway of Italy, Genoa. 

And through that gate what beautiful, terrible, and mysterious thingshave passed into oblivion; Saints who have perhaps seen the very face ofJesus; legions strong in the everlasting name of Caesar, that have lostthemselves in the fastnesses of the North; sailors mad with the song ofthe sirens. On her quays burned the futile enthusiasm of the Middle Age, that coveted the Holy City and was overwhelmed in the desert. Throughher streets surged Crusade after Crusade, companies of adventure, lonelyhermits drunken with silence, immense armies of dreamers, the chivalryof Europe, a host of little children. On her ramparts Columbus dreamed, and in her seas he fought with the Tunisian galleys before he set sailwestward for El Dorado. And here Andrea Doria beat the Turks andblockaded his own city and set her free; and S. Catherine Adorni, wearyof the ways of the world, watched the galleons come out of the west, andprayed to God, and saw the wind over the sea. O beautiful and mysteriousarmies, O little children from afar, and thou whose adventurous namemarried our world, what cities have you taken, what new love have youfound, what seas have your ships furrowed; whither have you fled awaywhen Genoa was so fair?

 * * * * *

It was about the year 50 when St. Nazarus and St. Celsus, fleeing fromthe terror of Nero, landed not far away to the east at Albaro, bringingwith them the new religion. A lane leading down to the sea still bearsthe name of one of them, and, strangely as we may think, a ruined churchmarks the spot crowning the rock above the place, where a Temple ofVenus once stood. Yet perhaps the earliest remnant of old Genoa is to befound in the Church of S. Sisto in the Via di Prè, standing as it doeson the very stones of a church raised to the Pope and martyr of thatname in 260. In the journey which Pope Sixtus made to Genoa he is saidto have been accompanied by St. Laurence, and it is probable that achurch was built not much later to him also on the site of the Duomo. However this may be, Genoa appears to have been passionately Christian, for the first authority we hear of is that of the Bishops, to whom sheseems to have submitted herself enthusiastically, installing them in theold castello in that the most ancient part of the city around PiazzaSarzano and S. Maria di Castello. This castello, destroyed in thequarrels of Guelph and Ghibelline, as some have thought, may be found inthe hall-mark of the silver vessels made here under the Republic. Veryfew are the remnants that have come down to us from the time of theBishops. An inscription, however, on a house in Via S. Luca close to S. Siro remains, telling how in the year 580 S. Siro destroyed the serpentBasilisk. In the church itself a seventeenth-century fresco commemoratesthis monstrous deed. 

Of the Lombard dominion something more is left to us; the story at leastof the passing of the dust of St. Augustine. It seems that at thebeginning of the sixth century these sacred ashes had been brought fromAfrica to Cagliari to save them from the Vandals. For more than twohundred years they remained at Cagliari, when, the Saracens taking theplace, Luitprand, the Lombard king, remembering S. Ambrogio and Milan, ransomed them for a great price and had them brought in 725 to Genoa, where they were shown to the people for many days. Luitprand himselfcame to Genoa to meet them and placed them in a silver urn, discoveredat Pavia in 1695, and carried them in state across the Apennines. Someof the beautiful Lombard towers, such as S. Stefano and S. Agostino, where the ashes are said to have been exposed, remind us perhaps morenearly of the Lombard dominion. Then came Charlemagne and his knightsand the great quarrel. But though Genoa now belonged to the Holy RomanEmpire, she was not strong enough to defend herself from the raids ofthe Saracens, who in the earlier part of the tenth century burnt thecity and led half the population into captivity. 

Perhaps it is to Otho that Genoa owes her first impulse towardsgreatness: he gave her a sort of freedom at any rate. And immediatelyafter his day the Genoese began to make way against the Saracens on theseas. You may see a relic of some passing victory in the carved Turk'shead on a house at the corner of Via di Prè and Vico dei Macellai. Norwas this all, for about this time Genoa seized Corsica, that fatalisland which not only never gave her peace, but bred the immortalsoldier who was finally to crush her and to end her life as a freepower. 

There follow the Crusades. These splendid follies have much to do withthe wealth and greatness of Genoa. It was from her port that Godfrey deBouillon set sail in the _Pomella_ as a pilgrim in 1095. He appears tohave been insulted at the very gate of Jerusalem, or, as some say, atthe door of the Holy Sepulchre. At any rate he returned to Europe, whereUrban II, urged by Peter the Hermit, was already half inclined toproclaim the First Crusade. Godfrey's story seems to have decided him;and, indeed, so moving was his tale, that the crowd who heard him criedout urging the Pope to act, _Dieu le veult_, the famous and fatal crythat was to lead uncounted thousands to death, and almost to widowEurope. In Genoa the war was preached furiously and with success by theBishops of Gratz and Arles in S. Siro. An army of enthusiasts, monks, beggars, soldiers, adventurers, and thieves, moved partly by the love ofChrist, partly by love of gain, gathered in Genoa. With them wasGodfrey. They sailed in 1097: they besieged Antioch and took it. Contentit might seem with this success, or fearful in that stony place ofventuring too far from the sea, the Genoese returned, not empty. For onthe way back, storm-bound perhaps in Myra, they sacked a Greekmonastery there, carrying off for their city the dust of St. JohnBaptist, which to-day is still in their keeping. 

Was it the hope of loot that caused Genoa in 1099 to send even a largercompany to Judaea under the great Guglielmo Embriaco, whose tower to-dayis all that is left of what must once have been a city of towers? Whoknows? He landed with his Genoese at Joppa, burnt his ships as Caesardid, though doubtless he thought not of it, and marching on Jerusalemfound the Christians still unsuccessful and the Tomb of Christ, as now, ringed by pagan spears. But the Genoese were not to be denied. If thevalour of Europe was of no avail, the contrivance of the sea, thecunning of Genoa must bring down Saladin. So they set to work and made atower of scaffolding with ropes, with timbers, with spars saved fromtheir ships. When this was ready, slowly, not without difficulty, surelynot without joy, they hauled and heaved and drove it over the burningdust, the immense wilderness of stones and refuse that surroundedJerusalem. Then they swarmed up with songs, with shouting, and leapt onto the walls, and over the ramparts into the Holy City, covered withblood, filled with the fury of battle, wounded, dying, mad with hatred, to the Tomb of Jesus, the empty sepulchre of God. 

Then eight days after came that strange election, when we offered thethrone of Palestine to Godfrey of Bouillon; but he refused to wear acrown of gold where his Saviour had worn one of thorns, so we proclaimedhim Defender of the Holy Sepulchre. 

But the Genoese under Embriaco as before returned home, again notwithout spoil. And their captain for his portion claimed the _Catino_, the famous vessel, fashioned as was thought of a single emerald, truly, as was believed, the vessel of the Holy Grail, the cup of the LastSupper, the basin of the Precious Blood. To-day, if you are fortunate, as you look at it in the Treasury of S. Lorenzo, they tell you it isonly green glass, and was broken by the French who carried it to Paris. But, indeed, what crime would be too great in order to possess oneselfof such a thing? It was an emerald once, and into it the Prince of Lifehad dipped His fingers; Nicodemus had held it in his trembling hands tocatch the very life of God; who knows what saint or angry angel in theheathen days of Napoleon, foreseeing the future, snatched it away intoheaven, giving us in exchange what we deserved. Surely it was an emeraldonce? Is it possible that a Genoese gave up all his spoil for a greenglass, a cracked pipkin, a heathen wash pot, empty, valueless, afraud?--I'll not believe it. 

Embriaco, however, returned once more to Palestine with his men, fighting under Godfrey at Cesarea; and again he came home in triumph, his galleys low with spoil. And indeed, though we hear no more ofEmbriaco, by the end of the first Crusade, Genoa had won possessions inthe East, --streets in Jaffa, streets in Jerusalem, whole quarters inAntioch, Cesarea, Tyre, and Acre, not to speak of an inscription in theChurch of the Holy Sepulchre, "Prepotens Genuensium Presidium, " whichGodfrey had carved there, while the Pope gave them their cross of St. George as arms, which, as some say, we got from them. 

Strangely as we may think, in the second Crusade, and even in the third, so disastrous for the Christian arms, Genoa bore no part; no part, thatis, in the fighting, though in the matter of commissariat and shippingshe was not slow to come forward and make a fortune. And indeed, she hadenough to do at home; for Pisa, no less slow to join the Crusades, became her enemy, jealous of her growing power and of her possession ofCorsica, so that in 1120 war broke out between them, which scarcelyceased till Pisa was finally beaten on the sea, and the chains of PortoPisano were hanging on the Palazzo di S. Giorgio. 

Soon, however, Genoa was engaged in a more profitable business, anaffair after her own heart, in which valour was not its own reward, --Imean, in the expedition in 1147 against the Moors in Spain. Certainlythe Pope, Eugenius III it was, urged them to it, but so they had beenurged to fight against Saladin without arousing enthusiasm. Yet in thisnew cause all Genoa was at fever heat. Wherefore? Well, Granada was agreat and wealthy city, whereas Jerusalem was a ruined village. So theysent thirty thousand men with sixty galleys and one hundred and sixtytransports to Almeria, which after some hard fighting, for your Moor wasnever a coward, they took, with a huge booty. In the next year they tookTortosa, and returned home laden with spoil, silver lamps for the shrineof St. John Baptist, for instance, and women and slaves. 

Still, Genoa had no peace, for we find her making a stout and successfuldefence shortly after against Frederic I, the whole city, men, women, and children, on his approach from Lombardy, building a great wall aboutthe city in fifty-three days, of which feat Porta S. Andrea remains themonument. Then followed that pestilence of Guelph and Ghibelline; out ofwhich rose the names of the great families, robbers, oppressors, tyrants, --Avvocato, Spinola, Doria, the Ghibellines, with the Guelphs, Castelli, Fieschi, Grimaldi. Nor was Genoa free of them till the greatAdmiral Andrea Doria crushed them for ever. Yet peace of a sort therewas, now and again, in 1189 for instance, when Saladin won backJerusalem, and the Guelph nobles volunteered in a body to serve againsthim, leaving Genoa to the Ghibellines, who established the foreignPodestà for the first time to rule the city. But this gave them nopeace, for still the nobles fought together, and if one family becametoo powerful, confusion became worse confounded, for Guelph andGhibelline joined together to bring it low. Thus in the thirteenthcentury you find Ghibelline Doria linked with the Guelph Grimaldi andFieschi to break Ghibelline Spinola. The aspect of the city at that timewas certainly very different from the city of to-day, which is mainly ofthe sixteenth and seventeenth centuries where it is not quite modern. Then each family had its tower, from which it fought or out of which itissued, making the streets a shambles as it followed the enemy home orsought him out. The ordinary citizen must have had an anxious time ofit with these bands of idle cut-throats at large. But by the close ofthe twelfth century the towers, at any rate, had been destroyed by orderof the Consuls, the only one left being that which we see to-day, Torredegli Embriachi, left as a monument to a cunning valour. The thirteenthcentury saw the domination of the Spinola family, or rather of onebranch of it, the Luccoli Spinola, which as opposed to the old S. Lucabranch seems to have lived nearer the country and the woods, and wasapparently most disastrous for the internal peace of the city; andindeed, until the Luccoli were beaten and exiled, as happened in thebeginning of the fourteenth century, there could be no peace; truly theonly peace Genoa knew in those days was that of a foreign war, when thegreat lords went out against Pisa or Venice. 

The Venetian war, unlike that against Pisa, ended disastrously. Itsorigin was a question of trade in the East, where the Comneni had givencertain rights to Genoa which on their fall the Venetians refused torespect. The quarrel came to a head in that cause of so many quarrels, the island of Crete, for the Marquis of Monferrat had sold it to theVenetians while he offered it to the Genoese, he himself having receivedit as spoil in the fourth Crusade. In this quarrel with Venice, Genoacertainly at first had the best of it. In 1261, or thereabout, shefounded two colonies at Pera and Caffa, on the Bosphorus and in theEuxine, thus adding to her empire, which was rather a matter of businessthan of dominion. This is illustrated very effectually by the history ofthe Bank of St. George, which from this time till its dissolution at theend of the eighteenth century was, as it were, the heart of Genoa. Itwas Guglielmo Boccanegra, the grandfather of a more famous son, whobuilt the palace which, as we now see it on the quay, is so sad andruinous a monument to the independent greatness of the city. And sinceits stones were, as it is said, brought from Constantinople, whereMichael Paleologus had given the Genoese the Venetian fortress ofPancratone, it is really a monument of the hatred of Genoa for Venicethat we see there, the principal door being adorned with three lions'heads, part of the spoil of that Venetian fortress. This palace, on thedeath of Boccanegra, Captain of the People, was used by the city as anoffice for the registration of the _compere_ or public loans, whichdated from 1147 and the Moorish expedition. From the time of thefoundation of the Bank the shares were, like our consols, to be boughtand sold and were guaranteed by the city herself, though it was not till1407 that the loans were consolidated and the Palazzo delle Compere, asit was called, became the Banco di S. Giorgio. Indeed, though its realpower may be doubted, it administered, in name at any rate, the coloniesof Genoa after the fall of Constantinople. 

Of the building itself I speak elsewhere; it is rather to its place inthe story of Genoa that I have wished here to draw attention. 

And it was now, indeed, that Genoa reached, perhaps, the zenith of herpower. For in 1284 comes the great victory of Meloria, which laid Pisalow. Enraged partly at the success of Genoa in the East, partly at hergrowing power and general wealth, Pisa, with that extraordinary flamingand ruthless energy so characteristic of her, determined to dispose ofGenoa once and for all. Nor were the Genoese unwilling to meet her. Indeed, they urged her to it. The two fleets, bearing some sixtythousand men, that of Pisa commanded by a Venetian, Andrea Morosini, that of Genoa by Oberto Doria, met at Meloria, not far from Boccad'Arno, when the Pisans were utterly defeated, partly owing to thetreachery of the immortal Count Ugolino, who sailed away withoutstriking a blow. [1] Yet in spite of her defeat Pisa carried on the warfor four years, when she sued for peace, which, however, she could notkeep, so that in 1290 we find Corrado Doria sailing into the PortoPisano, breaking the chain which guarded it, and carrying it back toGenoa, where part of it hung as a trophy till our own time on the façadeof the Palazzo di S. Giorgio. 

Nor were the Genoese content, for soon after this victory we find them, led by Lamba Doria, utterly beating the Venetians at Curzola, in theAdriatic, where they took a famous prisoner, Messer Marco Polo, justreturned from Asia. They brought him back to Genoa, where he remained inprison for nearly two years, and wrote his masterpiece. Whether it wasthe influence of so illustrious a captive, or merely the naturalexpression of their own splendid and adventurous spirit, about this timethe Doria fitted out two galleys to explore the western seas, and to tryto reach India by way of the sunset. Tedisio Doria and the brothersVivaldi with some Franciscans set out on this adventure, and neverreturned. 

With the fourteenth century Genoa for a time threw off the yoke of hergreat nobles, Spinola, Doria, Grimaldi, Fieschi. The wave of revolt thatpassed over Europe at this time certainly left Genoa freer than she hadever been. The people had claimed to name their own "Abbate, " inopposition to the Captain of the People. They chose by acclamationSimone Boccanegra, who, however, seeing that he was to have no power, refused the office. "If he will not be Abbate, " cried a voice in thecrowd, "let him be Doge"; and seeing the enthusiasm of the people, thisgreat man allowed himself to be borne to S. Siro, where he was crownedfirst Doge of Genoa for life. The nobles seem to have been afraid tointerfere, so great was the eagerness of the people. And it was aboutthis time that the Grimaldi, driven out of Genoa, seized Monaco, whichby the sufferance of Europe they hold to-day. It is true, that for atime in 1344 the nobles gathered an army and returned to Genoa, Boccanegra resigning and exiling himself in Pisa; but twelve years laterhe was back again, ruling with temperance and wisdom that great city, which was now queen of the Mediterranean sea. 

To follow the fortunes of the Republic one would need to write a book. It must be sufficient to say here that by the middle of the century warbroke out with Venice, and was at first disastrous for Genoa. Then oncemore a Doria, Pagano it was, led her to victory at Sapienza, off thecoast of Greece, where thirty-one Genoese galleys fought thirty-six ofVenice and took them captive. But the nobles were never quiet, alwaysthey plotted the death of the Doge Giovanni da Morta, or Boccanegra. Itwas with the latter they were successful in 1363, when they poisoned himat a banquet in honour of the King of Cyprus--for they had possessedthemselves of a city in that island. Thus the nobles came back intoGenoa, Adorni, Fregosi, Guarchi, Montaldi, this time; lesser men, butnot less disastrous for the liberty of Genoa than the older families. Sothey fought among themselves for mastery, till the Adorni, fearing to bebeaten, sold the city to Charles VI of France, who made them hisrepresentative and gave them the government. And all this time the warwith Venice continued. At first it promised success, --at Pola, forinstance, where Luciano Doria was victorious, but at last beaten atChioggia, and not knowing where to turn to make terms, the supremacy ofthe seas passed from Genoa to Venice, peace coming at last in 1381. 

Then the Genoese turned their attention to the affairs of their city. Inthe first year of the fifteenth century they rose to throw off theFrench yoke. But France was not so easily disposed of. She sent MarshalBoucicault to rule in Genoa; and he built the Castelletto, which wasdestroyed only a few years ago in our father's time. In 1409, however, Boucicault thought to gain Milan, for Gian Galeazzo Visconti was dead. In his absence the Genoese rose and threw out the French, preferringtheir own tyrants. These, Adorni, Montaldi, Fregosi, fought togethertill Tommaso Fregosi, fearing that the others might prove too strong forhim, sold the city to Filippo Maria Visconti, tyrant of Milan. So theVisconti came to rule in Genoa. 

This period, full of the confusion of the petty wars of Italy, whileSforza was plotting for his dukedom and Malatesta was building his Roccain Rimini; while the Pope was a fugitive, and the kingdom of Naples in astate of anarchy, is famous, so far as Genoa is concerned, for hervictory at sea over King Alfonso of Aragon, pretender against René ofAnjou to the throne of Naples. The Visconti sided with the House ofAnjou, and Genoa, in their power for the moment, fought with them; sothat Biagio Assereto, in command of the Genoese fleet, not only defeatedthe Aragonese, but took Alfonso prisoner, together with the King ofNavarre and many nobles. That victory, strangely enough, made an end ofthe rule of the Visconti in Genoa. For, seeing his policy led that way, Filippo Maria Visconti ordered the Genoese to send their illustriousprisoners to Milan, where he made much of them, fearing now rather theFrench than the Spaniards, since the Genoese had disposed of the latterand so made the French all-powerful. This spoliation, however, enragedthe Genoese, who joined the league of Florence and Venice, desertingMilan. At the word of Francesco Spinola they rose, in 1436, killed theMilanese governor outside the Church of S. Siro, and once more declareda Republic. To little purpose, as it proved, for the feuds betwixt thegreat families continued, so that by 1458 we find Pietro Fregosi, fearing the growing power of the Adorni, and hard pressed by KingAlfonso, who never forgave an injury, handing over Genoa to Charles VIIIof France. 

Meantime, in 1453, Constantinople had fallen before Mahomet, and thecolony of Galata was thus lost to Genoa. And though in this sorrybusiness the Genoese seem to be less blameworthy than the rest ofChristendom--for they with but four galleys defeated the whole Turkishfleet--Genoa suffered in the loss of Galata more than the rest, a factcertainly not lost upon Venice and Naples, who refused to move againstthe Turk, though the honour of Europe was pledged in that cause. But allItaly was in a state of confusion. Sforza, that fox who had possessedhimself of the March of Ancona, and had never fought in any cause buthis own, on the death of Visconti had with almost incredible guileseized Milan. He it was who helped the Genoese to throw out the French, only to take Genoa for himself. A man of splendid force and confidence, he ruled wisely, and alone of her rulers up to this time seems to havebeen regretted when, in 1466, he died, and was succeeded in the Duchyof Milan by his son Galeazzo. This man was a tyrant, and ruled like abarbarian, till his assassination in 1476. There followed a brief spaceof liberty in Genoa, liberty endangered every moment by the quarrels ofthe nobles, who at last proposed to divide the city among them, andwould have thus destroyed their fatherland, had not Il Moro, LudovicoSforza of Milan, intervened and possessed himself of Genoa, which heheld till 1499, when Louis XII of France defeated him, Genoa placingherself under his protection. 

Meanwhile Columbus, that mystical dreamer who might have restored toGenoa all and more than all she had lost in colonial dominion, was bornand grew up in those narrow streets, and played on the lofty rampartsand learned the ways of ships. Genoa in her proud confusion heard himnot, so he passed to Salamanca and the Dominicans, and set sail fromCadiz. Yet he never forgot Genoa, and indeed it is characteristic ofthose great men who are without honour in their own country, that theyare ever mindful of her who has rejected them. The beautiful letterwritten to the Bank of St. George in 1498 from Seville, as he was aboutto set out on what proved to be his last voyage, is witness to this. 

"Although my body, " he writes, "is here, my heart is always with you. God has been more bountiful to me than to any one since David's time. The success of my enterprise is already clear, and would be still moreclear if the Government did not cover it with a veil. I sail again forthe Indies in the name of the Most Holy Trinity, and I return at once;but as I know I am but mortal, I charge my son Don Diego to pay youyearly and for ever the tenth part of all my revenue, in order tolighten the toll on wine and corn. If this tenth part is large you arewelcome to it; if small, believe in my good wish. May the Most HolyTrinity guard your noble persons and increase the lustre of yourdistinguished office. "

Such were the last words of Columbus to his native city. You may see hisbirthplace, the very house in which he was born, on your left in theBorgo dei Lanajoli, as you go down from the Porta S. Andrea. 

It was in 1499 that Louis of France got possession of Genoa. He held thecity, cowed as it was, till 1507, when, goaded into rebellion byinsufferable wrongs, the people rose and threw out his Frenchmen withtheir own nobles, choosing as their Doge Paolo da Novi, a dyer of silk, one of themselves. Not for long, however, was Paolo to rule in Genoa, for Louis retook the city, and Paolo, who had fled to Pisa, was capturedas he sailed for Rome, and put to death. 

It was now that it came into the mind of Louis, who had learned nothingfrom experience, to build another fort like to the Castelletto, to witthe Briglia, to bridle the city. This he did, yet there lay the bridleon which he was to be ridden back to France. For the Genoese neverforgave him his threat, which stood before them day by day, so that atthe first opportunity, Julius II, Pope and warrior, helping them, theyrose again, and again the French departed. And in 1515 Louis died, andFrancis I ruled in his stead. Then, the nobles of Genoa quarrelling asever among themselves, Fregoso agreed with the French king, who made himgovernor of the city. The Adorni, angry at this, made overtures to theEmperor, Charles V it was, who sent General Pescara and twenty thousandmen to take the city. There followed that most bloody sack, to the cryof Spain and Adorni, which lives in history and in the hearts of theGenoese to this day. This happened in 1522, and thereafter AntoniottoAdorni became Doge as a reward for his treachery. 

But already the deliverer was at hand, scarcely to be distinguished atfirst from an enemy. Five years were the length of Adorni's rule, andall that time the French attacked and strove for the city, and in theirranks fought he who was the deliverer, Andrea Doria, Lord Admiral ofGenoa, the saviour of his country. 

Then in 1527 the French got possession of Genoa. Now Filippino Doria, nephew to the Admiral, had won a victory in the Gulf of Palermo overthe Spanish fleet. But Francis, that brilliant fool, thought nothing ofthis service, though he claimed the prisoners for himself, for he likedthe ransom well. Then the Admiral, touched in his pride, threw over theFrench cause and joined the Emperor. In 1528 a common action between thefleet under Doria and the populace within the city once more threw outthe French, and Doria entered Genoa amid the acclamation of themultitude, knight of the Golden Fleece and Prince of Melfi. 

This extraordinary and heroic sailor, born at Oneglia in 1466 or 1468 ofone of the princely houses of Genoa, before 1503 had served under manyItalian lords. It was in 1513 that he first had the command of the fleetof Genoa, while three years later he defeated the Turks at Pianosa. Hehelped Francis into Genoa and he threw him out; while he lived he ruledthe city he had twice subdued, and his glory was hers. Yet truly itmight seem that all Doria did was but to transfer Genoa from theSpaniard to the Frenchman and back again. In reality, he won her forhimself. He drove the French not only out of Genoa, but out of herdominion. He filled up the port of Savona with stones, because she hadunder French influence sought to rival Genoa. With him Genoa ruled thesea, and with his death her greatness departed. And he was as liberal ashe was powerful. Charles V knew him, and let him alone. He himself asLord of Genoa gave her back her liberties, set up the Senate again, opened the Golden Book, Il Libro d'Oro, and wrote in it the names ofthose who should rule; then he set up a parliament, the Grand Council ofFour Hundred, and the old quarrels were forgotten, and there was peace. 

But who could rule the Genoese, greedy as their sea, treacherous astheir winds, proud as their sun, deep as their sky, cruel as theirrocks! If the Admiral had brought the Adorni and the Fregosi low, thereyet remained the Fieschi, old as the Doria, Guelph too, while they hadbeen Ghibelline. 

It is true that the old quarrels were done with, yet strangely enough itwas on the Pope's behalf that the Fieschi plotted against the Doria. Now, Pope Paul III had been Doria's friend. In 1535 he had for aremembrance of his love given the Admiral that great sword which stillhangs in S. Matteo. But now, when Andrea's brother, Abbate di SanFruttuoso came to die, and it was known that he had left the Admiralmuch property close to Naples, the Pope, swearing that the estates of anecclesiastic necessarily returned to the Church, claimed Andrea'sinheritance. But the Admiral thought differently. Ordering Giannettino, his nephew, to take the fleet to Civitavecchia, he seized the Pope'sgalleys and had them brought to Genoa. Now, when the Genoese saw thisstrange capture convoyed into Genoa--so the tale goes--they were afraid, and crowded round the old Admiral, demanding wherefore he made war onthe Church, and some shouted sacrilege and others profanation, whileothers again besought him with tears what it meant. And he answered, sothat all might hear, that it meant that his galleys were stronger thanthose of His Holiness. 

Then the Pope, knowing his man, gave way, but forgot it not. So that hecalled Gian Luigi Fieschi to him, the head of that family, a Guelph of aGuelph stock, and put it into his mind to rise against the Admiral, andto hold Genoa himself under the protection of Francis I. The blow fellon 1st January 1547. Now, on the day before, the Admiral was unwell andlay a bed, so that Fieschi waited on him in the most friendly way, and, as it is said, kissed many times the two lads, grand-nephews of theAdmiral, who played about the room. Not many hours later, the Fieschiwere in the streets rousing the city. Giannettino, nephew to theAdmiral, hearing the tumult, ran to the Porta S. Tommaso to hold it andenter the city, but that gate was already lost, and he himself soondead. Truly, all seemed lost when Fieschi, going to seize the galleys, slipped from a plank into the water, and his armour drowned him. Thenthe House of Doria rallied, and their cry rang through the city; littleby little they thrust back their enemies, they hemmed them in, theytrod them under foot; before dawn all that were left of the Fieschi wereflying to Montobbio, their castle in the mountains. Thus the Admiralgave peace to Genoa, nor was he content with the exile or death of hisfoes, for he destroyed also all their palaces, villas, and castles, spoiling thus half the city, and making way for the palaces which havenamed Genoa the City of Palaces, and which we know to-day. For thirteenyears longer Andrea Doria reigned in Genoa, dying at last in 1560. Andat his death all that might make Genoa so proud departed with him. In1565 she lost Chios, the last of her possessions in the East, and beforelong she lay once more in the hands of foreigners, not to regain herliberty till in 1860 Italy rose up out of chaos and her sea bore theThousand of Garibaldi to Sicily, to Marsala, to free the Kingdom. 

IV

As you stand under those strange arcades that run under the housesfacing the port, all that most ancient story of Genoa seems actual, possible; it is as though in some extraordinarily vivid dream you hadgone back to less uniform days, when the beauty and the ugliness of theworld struggled for mastery, before the overwhelming victory of themachine had enthroned ugliness and threatened the dominion of the soulof man. In that shadowy place, where little shops like caverns open oneither side, with here a woman grinding coffee, there a shoe-maker athis last, yonder a smith making copper pipkins, a sailor buying ropes, an old woman cheapening apples, everything seems to have stood stillfrom century to century. There you will surely see the _mantilla_ wornas in Spain, while the smell of ships, whose masts every now and thenyou may see, a whole forest of them, in the harbour, the bells of themules, the splendour of the most ancient sun, remind you only of oldthings, the long ways of the great sea, the roads and the deserts andthe mountains, the joy that cometh with the morning, so that there atany rate Genoa is as she ever was, a city of noisy shadowy ways, coolin the heat, full of life, movement, merchandise, and women. 

And as it happens, this shadowy arcade, so close to the hotels (underwhich, indeed, you must make your way to reach one of the oldest ofthese hostelries, the Hôtel de la Ville), is a place to which thetraveller returns again and again, weary of the garish modernity thathas spoiled so much of the city, far at least from the tram lines thathave made of so many Italian cities a pandemonium. It is from thischaracteristic pathway between the little shops that one should set outto explore Genoa. 

Passing along this passage eastward, you soon come to the Bank of St. George, that black Dogana, built with Venetian stones fromConstantinople, a monument of hatred and perhaps of love, --hatred of theVenetians, of the Pisans too, for here till our own time hung the ironchains of Porto Pisano that Corrado Doria took in 1290; and of love, since it was to preserve Genoa and her dominion that the Banca wasfounded. Over the door you may still see remnants of the device theGuelph Fieschi Pope, Innocent VII, gave to his native city when he cameto see her, the griffin of Genoa strangling the imperial eagle and thefox of Pisa; while under is the motto, _Griphus ut has agit, sic hostesGenua frangit_. 

It was Guglielmo Boccanegra who built the place, as the inscriptionreminds you, --it was his palace. But only the façade landward remainsfrom his time, with the lions' heads, the great hall and the façadeseaward dating from 1571, eleven years after Doria's death. In the toweris the old bell which used to summon the Grand Council; it is ofseventeenth-century work, and was presented to the Bank by the Republicof Holland. [2]

Within, the palace is a ruin, only the Hall of Grand Council being inany way worth a visit. Here you may see statues of the chief benefactorsof the city from the middle of the fourteenth century to the middle ofthe seventeenth. And by a curious device worthy of this city ofmerchants, each citizen got a statue according to his gifts. Those whosave 100, 000 lire were carved sitting there, while those who gave buthalf this were carved standing; less rich and less liberal benefactorsgot a bust or a mere commemorative stone, each according to hisliberality, and this (strangely we may think), in a city so religiousthat it is dedicated to Madonna, might seem to leave nothing for thewidow with her mite who gave more than they all. 

One comes out of that dirty and ruined place, that was once so splendid, with a regret that modern Italy, which is so eager to build grandiosebanks and every sort of public building, is yet so regardless of oldthings that one might fancy her history only began in 1860. Mr. LeMesurier, in the interesting book already referred to, has suggestedthat this old palace, so full of memories of Genoa's greatness, shouldbe used by the municipality as a museum for Genoese antiquities. Ishould like to raise my voice with his in this cause so worthy of thecity we have loved. Is it still true of her, that though she is proudshe is not proud enough? Is it to be said of her who sped Garibaldi onhis first adventure, that all her old glory is forgotten, that she iscontent with mere wealth, a thing after all that she is compelled toshare with the latest American encampment, in which competition shecannot hope to excel? But she who holds in her hands the dust of St. John Baptist, who has seen the cup of the Holy Grail, whose sons stormedJerusalem and wept beside the Tomb of Jesus, through whose streets thebitter ashes of Augustine have passed, and in whose heart Columbus wasconceived, and a great Admiral and a great Saint, is worthy ofremembrance. Let her gather the beautiful or curious remnants of hergreat days about her now in the day of small things, that out of pastsplendour new glory may rise, for she also has ancestors, and, like thesun, which shall rise to-morrow, has known splendour of old. 

As you leave the Banca di S. Giorgio, if you continue on your way youwill come on to the great ramparts, where you may see the sea, and soyou will leave Genoa behind you; but if, returning a little on your way, you turn into the Piazza Banchi, you will be really in the heart of theold city, in front of the sixteenth-century Exchange, Loggia dei Banchi, where Luca Pinelli was crucified for opposing a Fregoso Doge who wishedto sell Livorno to Florence. Passing thence into the street of thejewellers, Strada degli Orefici, where every sort of silver filigreework may be found, with coral and amber, you come to Madonna of theStreet Corner, a Virgin and Child, with S. Lo, the patron of all sortsof smiths, a seventeenth-century work of Piola. These narrow shadowyways full of men and women and joyful with children are the delight ofGenoa. There is but little to see, you may think, --little enough butjust life. For Genoa is not a museum: she lives, and the laughter of herchildren is the greatest of all the joyful poems of Italy, maybe theonly one that is immortal. 

With this thought in your heart (as it is sure to be everywhere inItaly) you return (as one continually does) to the Arcades, and turningto the left you follow them till you come to Via S. Lorenzo, in which isthe Duomo all of white and black marble, a jewel with mystery in itsheart, hidden away among the houses of life. 

It was built on the site of a church which commemorated the passing ofS. Lorenzo through Genoa. Much of the present church is work of thetwelfth century, such as the side doors and the walls, but the façadewas built early in the fourteenth century, while the tower and the choirwere not finished till 1617. The dome was made by Galeazzo Alessi, thePerugian who built so much in Genoa, as we shall see later. Possibly thebas-reliefs strewn on the north wall are work of the Roman period, butthey are not of much interest save to an archeologist. 

Within, the church is dark, and this I think is a disappointment, nor isit very rich or lovely. Some work of Matteo Civitali is still to be seenin a side chapel on the left, but the only remarkable thing in thechurch itself is the chapel of St. John Baptist, into which no womanmay enter, because of the dancing of Salome, daughter of Herodias. Therein a marble urn the ashes of the Messenger have lain for eightcenturies, not without worship, for here have knelt Pope Alexander III, our own Richard Cordelion, Federigo Barbarossa, Henry IV after Canossa, Innocent IV, fugitive before Federigo II, Henry VII of Germany, St. Catherine of Siena, and often too, St. Catherine Adorni, Louis XII ofFrance, Don John of Austria after Lepanto, and maybe, who knows, Velasquez of Spain, Vandyck from England, and behind them, all themisery of Genoa through the centuries, an immense and pitiful company ofmen and women crying in the silence to him who had cried in thewilderness. 

Other curious, strange, and wonderful things, too, S. Lorenzo holds forus in her treasury: a piece of the True Cross set in a cruciform casketof gold crusted with precious stones, stolen, as most relics have been, this one from the Venetians in the fourth Crusade, when the EmperorBaldwin, whom Venice had crowned, sent it as gift to Pope Innocent IIIby a Venetian galley, which, caught in a storm, took shelter in Modonein Hellas, where two Genoese galleys found her and, having looted her, sent the relic to S. Lorenzo in Genoa magnanimously, as Giustinianisays. Here also beside this wonder you may see the cup of the HolyGrail, stolen by the French, who, forced to return it, sent this brokengreen glass in place of the perfect emerald they carried away; or maybe, who knows, it was but glass in the beginning. Yet, indeed, the Genoesepaid a great price for it, thinking it truly the emerald of the PreciousBlood, but they may have deceived themselves in the joy that followedthe winning of the Holy City: though that is not like Genoa. Howeverthis may be, and with relics you are as like to be right as wrongwhatever your opinion, there is but little else worth seeing in S. Lorenzo. 

As you follow the Via S. Lorenzo upwards, you come presently on yourleft to the Piazza Umberto Primo, in which is the Palazzo Ducale, theancient palace of the Doges, rebuilt finally in 1777; and at last, still ascending, you find yourself in the great shapeless PiazzaDeferrari, with its statue to Garibaldi, while at the top of the Via S. Lorenzo on your right is the Church of S. Ambrogio, built byPallavicini, with three pictures, a Guido Reni, the Assumption of theVirgin, and two Rubens, the Circumcision and S. Ignatius healing amadman. Not far away (for you turn into Piazza Deferrari and take thesecond street to the left, Strada S. Matteo) is the great Doria Churchof S. Matteo, in black and white marble, a sort of mausoleum of theDoria family. Now, the family of Doria, one of the most ancient inGenoa, the Spinola clan alone being older, emerges really about 1100, and takes its rise, we are told, from Arduin, a knight of Narbonne, who, resting in Genoa on his way to Jerusalem, married Oria, a daughter ofthe Genoese house of della Volta. However this may be, in 1125 a certainMartino Doria founded the Church of S. Matteo, which has since remainedthe burial-place and monument of his race. Martino Doria is said to havebecome a monk, and to have died in the monastery of S. Fruttuoso atPortofino, where, too, lie many of the Doria family; but certainly asearly as 1298 S. Matteo became the monument of the Doria greatness, forLamba Doria, the victor of Curzola, where he beat the Venetian fleet, was laid here, as you may see from the inscription on the oldsarcophagus at the foot of the façade of the church to the right. Thefaçade itself is covered with inscriptions in honour of various membersof the family: first, to Lamba, with an account of the battle. It readsas follows: "To the glory of God and the Blessed Virgin Mary, in theyear 1298, on Sunday 7 September, this angel was taken in Venetianwaters in the city of Curzola, and in that place was the battle of 76Genoese galleys with 86 Venetian galleys, of which 84 were taken by thenoble Lord Lamba Doria, then Captain and Admiral of the Commune and ofthe People of Genoa, with the men on them, of which he brought back toGenoa alive as prisoners 7400, along with 18 galleys, and the other 66he caused to be burnt in the said Venetian waters, --he died at Savonain 1323. "[3] It was in this engagement that Marco Polo was takenprisoner and brought to Genoa. 

The second inscription on this façade refers to the battle of Sapienza, when in 1354 Pagano Doria beat the Venetians off the coast of Greece. Itreads as follows:[4] "In honour of God and the Blessed Mary. In thefourth day of November 1354, the noble Lord Pagano Doria with 31 Genoesegalleys, at the Island of Sapienza, fought and took 36 Venetian galleysand four ships, and led to Genoa 1400 men alive as captives with theircaptain. "

The third inscription deals again with a defeat of the Venetian fleet, by Luciano Doria in 1379. It reads as follows:[5] "To the glory of Godand the Blessed Mary. In the year 1379, on the 5th day of May, in theGulf of the Venetians near Pola, there was a battle of 22 Genoesegalleys with 22 galleys of the Venetians, in which were 4075 men-at-armsand many other men from Pola; of which galleys 16 were taken with allthat was in them by the noble Lord Luciano Doria, Captain General of theCommune of Genoa, who in the said battle while fighting valiantly methis death. The sixteen galleys of the Venetians were conducted intoGenoa with 2407 captive men. "

The fourth inscription refers to the earlier victory of Oberto Doriaover the Pisans. It is as follows:[6] "In the name of the Holy Trinity, in the year of Our Lord 1284, on the 6th day of August, the high andmighty Lord Oberto Doria, at that time Captain and Admiral of theCommune and of the Genoese people, triumphed in the Pisan waters overthe Pisans, taking from them 33 galleys with 7 sunk and all the rest putto flight, and with many dead men left in the waters; and he returned toGenoa with a great multitude of captives, so that 7272 were placed inthe prisons. There was taken Andrea Morosini of Venice, then Podestàand Captain General in war of the Commune of Pisa, with the standard ofthe Commune, captured by the galleys of Doria and brought to this churchwith the seal of the Commune, and there was also taken Loto, the son ofCount Ugolino, and a great part of the Pisan nobility. "

The fifth inscription refers to the victory of Filippino Doria, nephewto the great Admiral over the Spanish galleys in the Gulf of Salerno, which led Andrea, to the consternation of Genoa, to attack the Pope'sgalleys at Civitavecchia. 

Within, the church was altered in 1530 by Montorsoli, the Florentine whowas brought from Florence by the Admiral. And there above the high altarhangs his sword, given him by Pope Paul III, his friend and enemy. There, too, in the left aisle is the Doria chapel, with a picture ofAndrea and his wife kneeling before our Lord. In the crypt, which wasdecorated in stucco by Montorsoli, you may see his tomb. 

 Questo è quel Doria, che fa dai Pirati Sicuro il vostro mar per tutti i lati. 

The beautiful cloister contains the statues of Andrea and Giovandrea, broken by the people in 1797. Close by is the Doria Palace, given by theRepublic to Andrea when he refused the office of Doge. It is decoratedwith the privileged black and white marble, and bears the inscription, _Senat. Cons. Andreae de Oria Patriae Liberatori Munus Publicium_. 

If you return from S. Matteo to the Piazza Deferrari and then follow theVia Carlo Felice (and without some sort of guidance such as this you arelike to be lost in the maze of the city) on your way to the beautifulPiazza Fontane Marose, you pass on your left the Palazzo Pallavicini, empty now of all its treasures. 

On your right as you enter this square of palaces is the Palazzo dellaCasa, once the Palazzo Spinola, decorated with the black and whitemarble, built in the early part of the fifteenth century, in the placewhere the old tower of that great family once stood. It is the palace ofthe oldest Genoese family, and the statues in the façade represent themost famous members of the clan, as Oberto, the son of the founder ofthis branch of the race, the Luccoli Spinola, Conrado, who ruled thecity in 1206, and Opizino, who married his daughter to TheodorePaleologus, Emperor of Constantinople, and lived like a king and wasbanished in 1309. The palace itself is said to have been built with theremains of the Fieschi palace which the Senate destroyed in 1336. Beyondit rise the Palazzo Negrone and the Palazzo Pallavicini, while oppositethe Negrone Palace the Via Nuova, now called Via Garibaldi (for theItalians have a bad habit of renaming their old streets), opens, a vistaof palaces, where all the greatness and splendour of Genoa rise upbefore you in houses of marble, and courtyards musical with fountains, walls splendid with frescoes, and rooms full of pictures. 

Before passing into this street of palaces, however, the travellershould follow the difficult Salita di S. Caterina, which climbs betweenPalazzo della Casa and Palazzo Negrone towards the Acqua Sola, thatlovely garden, passing on his way the old Palazzo Spinola, where many anold and precious canvas still hangs on the walls, and the spoiledfrescoes of the beautiful portico are fading in the sun. 

It is perhaps in the Via Garibaldi, Via Cairoli, and Via Balbi, avenuesof palaces narrow because of the summer sun, bordered on either side bytriumphant slums, that the real Genoa splendid and living may best besurprised. Here, amid all the grave and yet homely magnificence of theprinces of the State, life, with a brilliance and a misery all its own, ebbs and flows, and is not to be denied. Between two palaces of marble, silent, and full maybe of the masterpieces of dead painters, you maycatch sight of the city of the people, a "truogolo" perhaps with a greatfountain in the midst, where the girls and women are washing clothes, and the children, whole companies of them, play about the doorways, while above, the houses, and indeed the court itself, are bright withcoloured cloths and linen drying in the wind and the sun. It is a citylike London that you discover, living fiercely and with all its might, but without the brutality of our more terrible life, where as herewealth rises up in the midst of poverty, only here wealth is noble andwithout the blatancy and self-satisfaction you find in our squares, andpoverty has not lost all its joyfulness, its air of simplicity andromance, as it has with us. 

It is these palaces, so noble and, as one might think, so deserted, thatGaleazzo Alessi built in the sixteenth century for the nobles of Genoa. And it is his work, whole streets of it, that has named the city theCity of Palaces, as we say, and has given her something of that proudlook which clings to her in her title, La Superba. Yet not altogetherfrom the magnificence of her old streets has this name come to her, butin part from the character of her people, and in great measure, too, from her brave position there between the mountains and the sea, a cityof precious stone in an amphitheatre of noble hills. Nothing that Genoacould build, steal, or win could even be so splendid as that birthrightof hers, her place among the mountains on the shores of the great sea. 

As one enters Via Garibaldi from Piazza Marose down the vistaed streetwhere a precious strip of the blue sky seems more lovely for the shadowyway, the first house on the right is Palazzo Cambiaso, built by Alessi, while on the left, No. 2, is Palazzo Gambaro, which belonged to theCambiaso family. No. 3 on the right is Palazzo Parodi, another ofAlessi's works, built in 1567 for Franco Lercaro; No. 4 is PalazzoCarega; No. 5, Palazzo Spinola, again by Alessi; while Palazzo GiorgioDoria, No. 6, was also built by him. Here, beside frescoes by theGenoese Luca Cambiaso, you may find a Vandyck, a portrait of a lady anda Sussanah by Veronese. In the Palazzo Adorno too, No. 10, the work ofAlessi, you may find several fine pictures, among them three trionfi inthe manner of Botticelli, and a Rubens; while in Palazzo Serra, No. 12, but you may not enter, there is a fine hall. The Palazzo Municipale, built by Rocco Lurago at the end of the sixteenth century, has fivefrescoes of the life of the Doge Grimaldi, and Paganini's violin, aGuarnerius, on which Señor Sarasate played not long ago. 

It is, however, in Palazzo Rosso, No. 18, possibly a work of Alessi's, that you may see what these Genoese palaces really are, for the MarchesaMaria Brignole-Sale, to whom it belonged, presented it to the city in1874. It is into a vestibule, desolate enough certainly, that you passout of the life of the street, and, ascending the great bare staircase, come at last on the third storey into the picture gallery. There isafter all, but little to see; for, splendid though some of the picturesmay once have been, they are now for the most part ruined. Thereremains, however, a Moretto, the portrait of a Physician, and theportrait of the Marchese Antonio Giulio Brignole-Sale on horseback, thebeautiful work of Vandyck. Looking at this picture and its fellow, theportrait of the Marchesa, it is with sorrow we remember the fate thathas befallen so many of Vandyck's masterpieces painted in this city. Foreither they have been carried away, like the magnificent group of theLommellini family to Edinburgh, the Marchesa Brignole with her child toEngland, or they have been repainted and spoiled. 

It was in 1621, on the 3rd October, that Vandyck, mounted on "the besthorse in Rubens' stables, " set out from Antwerp for Italy. After stayinga short while in Brussels, he journeyed without further delay acrossFrance to Genoa. With him came Rubens' friend, Cavaliere GiambattistaNani. He reached Genoa on 20th November, where his friends of the deWael family greeted him. 

The city of Genoa, herself without a school of painting, had welcomedRubens not long before very gladly, nor had Vandyck any cause tocomplain of her ingratitude. He appears to have set himself to paint inthe style of Rubens, choosing similar subjects, at any rate, and thus tohave won for himself, with such work as the Young Bacchantes, now inLord Belper's collection, or the Drunken Silenus, now in Brussels, areputation but little inferior to his master's. Certainly at this timehis work is very Flemish in character, and apparently it was not tillhe had been to Venice, Mantua, and Rome that the influence of Italy andthe Italian masters may be really found in his work. A disciple ofTitian almost from his youth, it is the work of that master whichgradually emancipates him from Flemish barbarism, from a too seriousoccupation with detail, the over-emphasis of northern work, the mereboisterousness, without any real distinction, that too often spoilsRubens for us, and yet is so easily excused and forgotten in the merejoy of life everywhere to be found in it. Well, with this shy andrefined mind Italy is able to accomplish her mission; she humanises him, gives him the Latin sensibility and clarity of mind, the Latinrefinement too, so that we are ready to forget he was Rubens'country-man, and think of him often enough as an Englishman, endowed ashe was with much of the delicate and lovely genius of so many of ourartists, full of a passionate yet shy strength, that some may think isthe result of continual communion with Latin things, with Italy andItalian work, Italian verse, Italian painting, on the part of a race notLatin, but without the immobility, the want of versatility, common tothe Germans, which has robbed them of any great painter since the earlyRenaissance, and in politics has left them to be the last people ofEurope to win emancipation. 

Much of this enlightening effect that Italy has upon the northerner maybe found in the work of Vandyck on his return to Genoa, really a newthing in the world, as new as the poetry of Spenser had been, at anyrate, and with much of his gravity and sweet melancholy or pensiveness, in those magnificent portraits of the Genoese nobility which time andfools have so sadly misused. And as though to confirm us in this thoughtof him, we may see, as it were, the story of his development during thisjourney to the south in the sketch-book in the possession of the Duke ofDevonshire. Here, amid any number of sketches, thoughts as it were thatTitian has suggested, or Giorgione evoked, we see the very dawn of allthat we have come to consider as especially his own. We may understandhow the pride and boisterous magnificence of Rubens came to seem alittle insistent a little stupid too, beside Leonardo's Virgin and Childwith St. Anne now in the Louvre, which he notes in Milan, or that LastSupper which is now but a shadow on the wall of S. Maria delle Grazie. And above all, we may see how the true splendour of Titian exposes theostentation of Rubens, as the sun will make even the greatest fire lookdingy and boastful. Gradually Vandyck, shy and of a quiet, serenespirit, becomes aware of this, and, led by the immeasurable glory of theVenetians, slowly escapes from that "Flemish manner" to be master ofhimself; so that, after he has painted in the manner of Titian atPalermo, he returns to Genoa to begin that wonderful series ofmasterpieces we all know, in which he has immortalised the tragedy of aking, the sorrowful beauty, frail and lovely as a violet, of HenriettaMaria, and the fate of the Princes of England. And though many of thepictures he painted in Genoa are dispersed, and many spoiled, some fewremain to tell us of his passing. One, a Christ and the Pharisees, is inthe Palazzo Bianco, not far from Palazzo Rosso, on the opposite side ofthe Via Garibaldi. But here there is a fine Rubens too; a Gerard David, very like the altar-piece at Rouen; a good Ruysdael, with somecharacteristic Spanish pictures by Zurbaran, Ribera, and Murillo; andwhile the Italian pictures are negligible, though some paintings anddrawings of the Genoese school may interest us in passing, it ischaracteristic of Genoa that our interest in this collection should bewith the foreign work there. 

As you leave Via Garibaldi and pass down Via Cairoli, on your left youpass Via S. Siro. Turning down this little way, you come almostimmediately to the Church of S. Siro. The present building dates fromthe seventeenth century, but the old church, then called Dei DodiciApostoli, was the Cathedral of Genoa. It was close by that the blessedSirus "drew out the dreadful serpent named Basilisk in the year 550. "What this serpent may really have been no one knows, but Carlone haspainted the scene in fresco in S. Siro. 

Returning to Via Cairoli, at the bottom, in Piazza Zecca on your left, is one of the Balbi palaces; while in Piazza Annunziata, a littlefarther on, you come to the beautiful Church of Santissima Annunziatadel Vastato, built by Della Porta in 1587. 

Crossing this Piazza, you enter perhaps the most splendid street inGenoa, Via Balbi, which climbs up at last to the Piazza Acquaverde, theStatue of Columbus, and the Railway. The first palace on your right isPalazzo Durazzo-Pallavicini, with a fine picture gallery. Here you maysee two fine Rubens, a portrait of Philip IV of Spain, and a Silenuswith Bacchantes, a great picture of James I of England with his family, painted by some "imitator" of Vandyck, though who it was in Genoa thatknew both Vandyck and England is not yet clear; a Ribera, a Reni, aTintoretto, a Domenichino, and above all else Vandyck's Boy in WhiteSatin, in the midst of these ruined pictures which certainly once wouldhave given us joy. The Boy in White Satin is perhaps the loveliestpicture Vandyck left behind him; though it is but partly his after all, the fruit, the parrot, and the monkey being the work of Snyders. 

On the other side of the Via Balbi, almost opposite the PalazzoDurazzo-Pallavicini, is the Palazzo Balbi, which possesses the loveliestcortile in Genoa, with an orange garden, and in the Great Hall a finegallery of pictures. Here is the Vandyck portrait of Philip II of Spain, which Velasquez not only used as a model, or at least remembered when hepainted his equestrian Olivarez in the Prado, but which he changed, fororiginally it was a portrait of Francesco Maria Balbi, till, as is said, Velasquez came and painted there the face of Philip II. CertainlyVelasquez may have sketched the picture and used it later, but it seemsunlikely that he would have painted the face of Philip II, whom he hadnever seen, though the Genoese at that time might well have asked him todo so. [7]

As you continue on your way up Via Balbi, you have on your right thePalazzo dell' Università, with its magnificent staircase built in 1623by Bartolommeo Bianco. Some statues by Giovanni da Bologna make it wortha visit, while of old the tomb of Simone Boccanegra, the great Doge, made such a visit pious and necessary. 

Opposite the University is the Palazzo Reale, which once belonged to theDurazzo family. A crucifixion by Vandyck is perhaps not too spoiled tobe still called his work. 

So at last you will come to the Piazza Acquaverde and the Statue ofColumbus, which is altogether dwarfed by the Railway Station. Not faraway to the left, behind this last, you will find the great PalazzoDoria. It is almost nothing now, but in John Evelyn's day, whenaccompanied by that "most courteous marchand called Tornson, " he went tosee "the rarities, " it was still full of its old splendour. "One of thegreatest palaces here for circuit, " he writes, "is that of the Princed'Orias, which reaches from the sea to the summit of the mountaines. Thehouse is most magnificently built without, nor less gloriously furnishedwithin, having whole tables and bedsteads of massy silver, many of themsett with achates, onyxes, cornelians, lazulis, pearls, turquizes, andother precious stones. The pictures and statues are innumerable. To thispalace belong three gardens, the first whereof is beautified with aterrace supported by pillars of marble; there is a fountaine of eagles, and one of Neptune, with other sea-gods, all of the purest white marble:they stand in a most ample basine of the same stone. At the side of thisgarden is such an aviary as S^r. Fra. Bacon describes in his _SermonesFidelium_ or Essays, wherein grow trees of more than two foote diameter, besides cypresse, myrtils, lentiscs, and other rare shrubs, which serveto nestle and pearch all sorts of birds, who have an ayre and placeenough under their ayrie canopy, supported with huge iron workestupendious for its fabrick and the charge. The other two gardens arefull of orange trees, citrons, and pomegranates; fountaines, grotts, andstatues; one of the latter is a colossal Jupiter, under which is asepulchre of a beloved dog, for the care of which one of this familyreceiv'd of the K. Of Spayne 500 crownes a yeare during the life of thefaithful animal. The reservoir of water here is a most admirable pieceof art; and so is the grotto over against it. "

Close by Palazzo Doria is the Church of S. Giovanni di Prè, with itsEnglish tomb and Lombard tower, and memories of the two Urban popesUrban V and Urban VI, the first of whom stayed here on his way back toRome from the Babylonian captivity, while the other murdered eight ofhis Cardinals close by, and threw their bodies into the sea. This is thequarter of booty, the booty of the Crusaders, and it is in such a placeand in the older part of the town near Piazza Sarzano and in the narrowways behind the Exchange that, as I think, Genoa seems most herself, theport of the Mediterranean, the gate of Italy. Yet what I prefer in Genoaare her triumphant slums, then the palaces and villas with theirbigness, so impressive for us who came from the North, which seem to bea remnant of Roman greatness, a vision as it were of solidity andgrandeur. Something of this, it is true, haunts almost every Italiancity; only nowhere but in Genoa can you see so many palaces together, whole streets of them, huge, overwhelming, and yet beautiful houses, that often seem deserted, as though they belonged to a greater and moresplendid age than ours. 

It is altogether another aspect of these splendid buildings that you seefrom the ramparts towards Nervi, from the height of the Via Corsica orfrom the hills. From there, with the whole strength and glory of the seabefore you, these palaces, which in the midst of the city are soindestructible and immortal, seem flowerlike, full of delicate hues, fragile and almost as though about to fade; you think of hyacinths, ofthe blossom of the magnolia, of the fleeting lilac, and the lily thattowers in the moonlight to fall at dawn. Returning to the city in thetwilight with all this passing and fragile glory in your eyes, it isagain another emotion that you receive when, on entering the city, youfind yourself caught in the immense crowd of working people flockinghomewards or to Piazza Deferrari, to the cafés, through the narrowstreets, amid swarms of children, laughing, running, gesticulating orfighting with one another. From the roofs where they seem to live, fromthe high narrow windows, the warren of houses that would be hovels inthe North, but here in the sun are picturesque, women look down lazilyand cry out, with a shrillness peculiar to Genoa, to their friends inthe street. It is a bath of multitude that you are compelled to take, full of a sort of pungent, invigorating, tonic strength, life crowdingupon you and thrusting itself under your notice without ceremony orannouncement. If on the 2nd November you chance to be in Genoa, you willfind the same insatiable multitude eagerly flocking to the cemetery, that strange and impossible museum of modern sculpture, where the deadare multiplied by an endless apparition of crude marble shapes, thevisions of the vulgar hacked out in dazzling, stainless white stone. What would we not give for such a "document" from the thirteenth centuryas this cemetery has come to be of our own time. It is the cruderepresentation of modern Italian life that you see, realistic, unique, and precious, but for the most part base and horrible beyond words. Allthe disastrous, sensual, covetous meanness, the mere baseness of themodern world, is expressed there with a naïveté that is, by somemiraculous transfiguration, humorous with all the grim humour of thatthief death, who has gathered these poor souls with the rest becausesomeone loved them and they were of no account. The husk of theimmortality of the poet and the hero has been thrust upon the mean anddisgusting clay of the stockbroker; the grocer, horribly wrapped ineverlasting marble, has put on ignominy for evermore; while theplebeian, bewildered by the tyranny of life, crouches over his deadwife, for ever afraid lest death tap him too on the shoulder. How thewind whistles among these immortal jests, where the pure stone of theCarrara hills has been fashioned to the ugliness of the middle classes. This is the supreme monument not of Genoa only, but of our time. In thatgrotesque marble we see our likeness. For there is gathered inindestructible stone all the fear, ostentation, and vulgar pride of ourbrothers. Ah, poor souls! that for a little minute have come into theworld, and are eager not altogether to be forgotten; they too, like theancients, have desired immortality, and, seeing the hills, have soughtto establish their mediocrity among them. Therefore, with an obscene andvulgar gesture, they have set up their own image as well as they could, and, in a frenzied prayer to an unknown God, seem to ask, now thateverything has fallen away and we can no longer believe in the body, that they may not be too disgusted with their own clay. Thus in frenzy, fear, and vanity they have carved the likeness of that which was onceamong the gods. 

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Cf. P. Villari: Primi due Secoli della Storia di Firenze (2^oEdizione), vol. I. P. 246. 

[2] See Le Mesurier, _Genoa: Five Lectures_, Genoa, A. Donath, 1889, auseful and informing book, to which I am indebted for more than onecurious fact. 

[3] See Le Mesurier, _op. Cit. _ p. 82. Le Mesurier thinks that "thisangel" refers to "the central figure in a bas-relief" above theinscription and below the right-hand window of the church. 

[4] See Le Mesurier, _op. Cit. _ p. 98. 

[5] See Le Mesurier, _op. Cit. _ p. 107. 

[6] See Le Mesurier, _op. Cit. _ p. 78. 

[7] See Justi, _Velasquez and his Times_ (English translation), 1880, page 315, and Le Mesurier, _op. Cit. _, page 163. 

II. ON THE WAY

It was already summer when, one morning, soon after sunrise, I set outfrom Genoa for Tuscany. The road to Spezia along the Riviera di Levante, among the orange groves and the olives, between the mountains and thesea, is one of the most beautiful in Europe. Forgotten, or for the mostpart unused, by the traveller who is the slave of the railway, it hasnot the reputation of its only rivals, the Corniche road from Nice toMentone, the lovely highway from Castellamare to Sorrento, or the roadbetween Vietri and Amalfi, where the strange fantastic peaks lead you atlast to the solitary and beautiful desert of Paestum, where Greece seemsto await you entrenched in silence among the wild-flowers. And there, too, on the road to Tuscany, after the pleasant weariness of the way, which is so much longer than those others, some fragment of antiquity isto be the reward of your journey, though nothing so fine as the desertedholiness of Paestum, only the dust of the white temple of Aphroditecrowning the western horn of Spezia, where it rises splendid out of thesea in the sun of Porto Venere. 

This forgotten way among the olive gardens on the lower slopes of themountains over the sea, seems to me more joyful than any other road inthe world. It leads to Italy. Within the gate where all the world is agarden, the way climbs among the olives and oranges, fresh with thefragrance of the sea, the perfume of the blossoms, to the land ofheart's desire, where Pisa lies in the plain under the sorrowful gestureof mountains like a beautiful mutilated statue, where Arno, parted fromTiber, is lost in the sea, dowered with the glory of Florence, thetribute of the hills, the spoil of many streams, the golden kiss of thesun; while Tuscany, splendid with light and joy, stands neither for Godnor for His enemies, but for man, to whom she has given everythingreally without an afterthought, the songs that shall not be forgotten;the pictures full of youth; and above all Beauty, that on a night inspring came to her from Greece as it is said among the vineyards, beforethe vines had budded. For even as Love came to us from heaven, and wasborn in a stable among the careful oxen, where a few poor shepherdsfound a Mother with her Child, so Beauty was born in a vineyard in theearliest dawn, when some young men came upon the hard white preciousbody of a goddess, and drew her from the earth, and began to worshipher. Then in their hearts Beauty stirred, as Love did in the hearts ofthe shepherds and the kings. Nor was that vision, so full of wisdom (avision of birth or resurrection, was it?) less fruitful than that otherso full of Love, when Mary, coming in the twilight of dawn, saw theangel and heard his voice, and after weeping in the garden, heard LoveHimself call her by name. Well, if the resurrection of God was revealedin Palestine, it was here among the Tuscan hills that man rose from thedead and first saw the beauty of the flowers and the mystery of thehills. Here, too, is holy land if you but knew it, full of old forgottengods, out-fashioned deities beside whose shrines, though they be hushed, you may still hear the prayers of worshippers, the tears of desire, thelaughter of the beloved. For the old gods are not dead. Though they beforgotten and the voice of Jesus full of sorrowful promises has beguiledthe world, still every morning is Aphrodite new born in the spume of thesea, and in many an isle forsaken you may catch the notes of Apollo'slyre, while Dionysus, in the mysterious heat of midday when thehusbandman is sleeping, still steals among the grapes, and Demeter evenyet in the sunset seeks Persephone among the sheaves of corn. If Jesuswanders in the ways of the city to comfort those who have forgotten thesun, in the woods the gods are still upon their holy thrones, and theirlove constraineth us. Immortal and beloved, how should they pass away, for, beside their secret places, of old we have hushed our voices, andchildren have played with them no less than with Jesus of Nazareth. Thegods pass, only their gifts remain, the sun and the hills and the sea, but in us they are immortal, not one have we suffered to creep away intooblivion. 

Thus I, thinking of the way, came to Nervi. Now the way from Genoa outof the Pisan gate to Nervi is none of the pleasantest, being suburb allthe way; but those eight _chilometri_ over and done with, there isnothing but delight between you and Spezia. Nervi itself, thatsurprising place where beauty is all gathered into a nosegay of sea andseashore, will not keep you long, for the sun is high, and the road iscalling, and the heat to come; moreover, the beautiful headland ofPortofino seems to shut out all Italy from your sight. Once there, youtell yourself, what may not be seen, the Carrara hills, Spezia perhaps, even Pisa maybe, miles and miles away, where Arno winds through themarshes behind the Pineta to the sea. Now, whether or not in your heartof hearts you hope for Pisa, a white peak of Carrara you certainly hopeto see, and that ... Why, that is Tuscany. So you set out, leaving Genoaand her suburb at last behind you, and, climbing among olive groves, orange gardens, and flaming oleanders, with here a magnolia heavy withblossom, there a pomegranate mysterious with fruit and flowers, afteranother five miles you come to Recco, a modest, sleepy village, where itis good to eat and rest. In the afternoon you may very pleasantly takeboat for Camogli, that ancient seafaring place, full of the débris ofthe sea, old masts and ropes, here a rusty anchor, there a golden net, with sailors lying asleep on the parapet of the harbour, and the wholeplace full of the soft sea wind, languorous and yet virile withal, theshady narrow ways, the low archways, the crooked steps pleasant with thesong of the sea, the rhythm of the waters. 

In the cool of the afternoon you leave Camogli and climb by the bywaysto Ruta, whence you may see all the Gulf of Genoa, with the proud cityherself in the lap of the mountains, and there, yes, far away, you maysee the stainless peaks of Tuscany, whiter than snow, shining in thequiet afternoon; and nearer, but still far away, the crest of the hornof Spezia, with the ruined church of Porto Venere--a church or a temple, is it?--on the headland beside the island of Palmaria. Beside you arethe sea and the hills, two everlasting things, with here an old villa, beautiful with many autumns, in a grove of cypress, ilex, and myrtle, those three holy trees that mark death, mystery, and love; while fardown on the seashore where the foam is whitest, stands a little ruinedchapel in which the gulls cry all day long. But your heart turns evertoward Italy yonder--towards the hills of marble. Will one ever reachthem, those far-away pure peaks immaculate in silence, like a thought ofGod in the loneliness of the mountains? Far away below you lies Rapalloin the crook of the bay among the oleanders and vines. It is there youmust sleep, far away still from those visionary peaks, which yet will insome strange way give you a sense of security, as though a legion ofbright angels, ghosts in the pale night (for they fade away in thetwilight), invisible to other men, were on guard to keep you from allharm. Somehow it is always into a dreamless sleep one falls in Rapallo, that beautiful and guarded place behind Portofino, where the sea is likea lake, so still it is, and all the flowers of the world seem to haverun for shelter. It is as though one had seen the Holy City, and thoughit was still far off, it was enough, one was content. 

[Illustration: ON THE ROAD]

Rapallo itself, as you find on your first morning, is beautiful, chieflyby reason of its sea-girt tower. The old castle is a prison, and thetown itself, full of modern hotels, is yet brisk with trade in oil andlace; but it is not these things that will hold you there, but thatsea-tower and the joy of the woods and gardens. And then there are somesurprising things not far away. Portofino, for instance, with its greatpine and the ilex woods, its terraced walk and the sea, not the lake ofRapallo, but the sea itself, full of strength and wisdom. Then thereis San Fruttuoso, with its convent among the palm trees by the seashore, whither the Doria are still brought by sea for burial. Here they lie, generation on generation, of the race which loved the sea; almostcoffined in the deep, for the waves break upon the floor of the cryptthat holds them. They could not lie more fitly than on the shore of thissea they won and held for Genoa. San Fruttuoso is difficult to reachsave by sea. In the summer the path from Portofino is pleasant enough, but at any other time it is almost impassable. And indeed the voyage byboat from Rapallo to Portofino, and thence to San Fruttuoso, should bechosen, for the beauty of the coast, which, as I think, can nowhere beseen so well and so easily as here. Then, in returning to Portofino, theroad along the coast should be followed through Cervara, where Guido, the friend of Petrarch and founder of the convent, lies buried, whereFrancis I, prisoner of Charles V, was wind-bound, to S. Margherita, thesister-town of Rapallo, and thence through S. Michele di Pagana, whereyou may see a spoiled Vandyck, to Rapallo. Who may speak of all thesplendid valleys and gardens that lie along this shore, for they aregardens within a garden, and where all the world is so fair it is not ofany private pleasaunce that one thinks, but of the hills and thewild-flowers and the sea, the garden of God. 

And if the road, so far, from Genoa beggars description, so that I havethought to leave it almost without a word, what can I hope to say of theway from Rapallo to Chiavari? Starting early, perhaps in the company ofa peasant who is returning to his farm among the olives, you climb, inthe genial heat, among the lower slopes between the great hills and thesea, along terraces of olives, through a whole long day of sunshine, with the song of the cicale ever in your ears, the mysteriouslong-drawn-out melody of the _rispetti_ of the peasant girls reachingyou ever. And then from the stillness among the olives, where the shadeis delicate and fragile, of silver and gold, and the streams creepsoftly down to the sea, the evening will come as you pass along thewinding ways of Chiavari, for in the golden weather one is minded to gosoftly. So in the twilight pursuing your way you follow the beautifulroad to Sestri-Levante, where again you are within sound of the sea thatbreaks on the one side on a rocky and lofty shore, and on the othercreeps softly into a flat beach, the town itself rising on thepromontory between these two bays. There, under the headland among thewoods, you may find a chapel of black and white marble, surely the hauntof Stella Maris, who has usurped the place of Aphrodite. 

Many days might be spent among the woods of Sestri, but the road callsfrom the mountains, and it is ever of Tuscany that you think as you setout at last, leaving the sea behind you for the hills, climbing into thePasso di Bracco, that, as it seems, alone divides you from the land youseek. It is a far journey from Sestri to Spezia, but with a good horse, in spite of the hill, you may cover it in a single long day from sunriseto sunset. The climb begins almost at once, and continues really forsome eighteen miles, till Baracchino and the Osteria Baracca arereached, in a desolate region of mountains that stretch away for ever, billow on billow. Then you descend only to mount again through thewoods, till evening finds you at La Foce, the last height before Spezia;and suddenly at a turning of the way the sunset flames before you, staining all the sea with colour, and there lies Tuscany, those fragile, stainless peaks of Carrara faintly glowing in the evening sun purple andblue and gold, with here a flush as of dawn, there the heart of thesunset. And all before you lies the sea, with Spezia and the great shipsin its arms; while yonder, like a jewel on the cusp of a horn, PortoVenere shines; and farther still, Lerici in the shadow of the hillswashed by the sea, stained by the blood of the sunset, its great castleseeming like some splendid ship in the midst of the waters. From thebleak height of La Foce, whence all the woods seem to have run down tothe shore, slowly one by one the lights of the city appear like greatgolden night flowers; soon they are answered from the bay, where theships lie solemnly, sleepily at anchor, and at last the great light ofthe Pharos throws its warning over sea and seashore; and gathering inthe distance on the far horizon, the night splendid with blue and gold, overwhelms the world, bringing coolness and as it were a sort ofreconciliation. So it is quite dark when, weary, at last you findyourself in Spezia at the foot of the Tuscan hills. 

Spezia is a modern city which has obliterated the more ancientfortresses, whose ruins still guard the two promontories of her gulf. The chief naval station in Italy, she has crowned all the heights andislands with forts, and in many a little creek hidden away, youcontinually come upon warships, naval schools, hospitals, and such, while in her streets the sailors and soldiers mingle together, givingthe town a curiously modern character, for indeed there is little elseto call your attention. The beautiful bay which lies between PortoVenere and Lerici behind the line of islands, that are reallyfortifications, is, in spite of every violation, a spectacle ofextraordinary beauty, and in the old days--not so long ago, afterall--when the woods came down to the sea, and Spezia was a tiny village, less even than Lerici is to-day, it must have been one of the loveliestand quietest places in the world. Shut out from Italy by the range ofhills that runs in a semicircle from horn to horn of her bay, in thosedays there were just sun and woods and sea, with a few half paganpeasants and fishermen to break the immense silence. And, as it seems tome, by reason of some magic which still haunts this mysterious seashore, it is ever that world half pagan that you seek, leaving Spezia verygladly every morning for San Terenzo and Lerici for Porto Venere and theenchanted coast. 

Leaving Spezia very early in the morning, there is nothing moredelightful than the voyage across the land-locked bay, past thebeautiful headlands and secret coves, to San Terenzo and Lerici. If youleave the steamer at San Terenzo, you may walk along a sort of seawall, built out of the cliff and boulders of the shore, round more than onelittle promontory, to Lerici, whose castle seems to guard the Tuscansea. Walking thus along the shore, you pass the Villa Magni, Shelley'shouse, standing, not as it used to do, up out of the sea, for the roadhas been built really in the waves; but in many ways the same still, forinstance with the broad balcony on the first storey, which pleasedShelley so much; and though a second storey has been added since, andeven the name of the house changed, a piece of vandalism common enoughin Italy to-day, where, since they do not even spare their owntraditions and ancient landmarks, it would be folly to expect them topreserve ours, still you may visit the rooms in which he lived withMary, and where he told Claire of the death of Allegra. 

The house stands facing the sea in the deepest part of the bay, nearerto San Terenzo than to Lerici. Both Trelawney and Williams had beensearching all the spring for a summer villa for the Shelleys, who, alittle weary perhaps of Byron's world, had determined to leave Pisa andto spend the summer on the Gulf of Spezia. Byron was about to establishhimself just beyond Livorno, on the slopes of Montenero, in a huge andrambling old villa with eighteenth century frescoes on the walls, and atangled park and garden running down to the dusty Livorno highway. Theplace to-day is a little dilapidated, and its statues broken, but in thesummer months it becomes the paradise of a school of girls, a fact whichI think might have pleased Byron. 

However, the Shelleys were thinking of no such faded splendour as VillaDupoy for their summer retreat. "Shelley had no pride or vanity toprovide for, " says Trelawney, "yet we had the greatest difficulty infinding any house in which the humblest civilised family could exist. 

"On the shores of this superb bay, only surpassed in its natural beautyand capability by that of Naples, so effectually had tyranny paralysedthe energies and enterprise of man, that the only indication of humanhabitation was a few most miserable fishing villages scattered along themargin of the bay. Near its centre, between the villages of San Terenzoand Lerici, we came upon a lonely and abandoned building called theVilla Magni, though it looked more like a boat or bathing house than aplace to live in. It consisted of a terrace or ground-floor unpaved, andused for storing boat-gear and fishing-tackle, and of a single storeyover it, divided into a hall or saloon and four small rooms which hadonce been white-washed; there was one chimney for cooking. This place wethought the Shelleys might put up with for the summer. The only goodthing about it was a verandah facing the sea, and almost over it. So wesought the owner and made arrangements, dependent on Shelley's approval, for taking it for six months. "

Shelley at once decided to accept the offer of this house, though it wasunfurnished. Mary and Claire presently set out for Spezia, Shelleyremaining in Pisa to manage the removal of the furniture. He reachedLerici on 28th April, writing, immediately on his arrival, to Mary inSpezia. 

_April 28, 1822_. 

"DEAREST MARY, --I am this moment arrived at Lerici, where I amnecessarily detained waiting the furniture, which left Pisa last nightat midnight; and as the sea has been calm and the wind fair, may expectthem every moment.... Now to business--Is the Magni House taken? if notpray occupy yourself instantly in finishing the affair, even if you areobliged to go to Sarzana, and send a messenger to me to tell me of yoursuccess. I, of course, cannot leave Lerici, to which place the boats(for we were obliged to take two) are directed. But _you_ can come overin the same boat that brings this letter, and return in the evening. 

"I ought to say that I do not think there is accommodation for you allat this inn; and that even if there were, you would be better off atSpezia; but if the Magni House is taken, then there is no possiblereason why you should not take a row over in the boat that will bringthis, but don't keep the men long. I am anxious to hear from you onevery account. --Ever yours, S. "

Shelley's fears as to the accommodation of Lerici were by no meanswithout foundation. Within the last two years a decent inn has been openthere in the summer, but before that the primitive and not very cleanhostelry in which, as I suppose, Shelley lodged, was all that awaitedthe traveller. [8] It was not for long, however, that Shelley was left indoubt about the house. Villa Magni became his, and, after much troublewith the furniture, for the officials put the customs duty at £300sterling, they were allowed to bring it ashore, the harbour-masteragreeing to consider Villa Magni "as a sort of depôt, until furtherleave came from the Genoese Government. "

It was here that, very soon after they had taken possession of thehouse, Claire learned from Shelley's lips of the death of her child, andon 21st May set out for Florence. A few evenings later, Shelley, walkingwith Williams on the terrace, and observing the effect of the moonshineon the water, grasped Williams, as he says, "violently by the arm andstared steadfastly on the white surf that broke upon the beach at ourfeet. Observing him sensibly affected, I demanded of him if he were inpain; but he only answered by saying, 'There it is again--there!' Herecovered after some time, and declared that he saw, as plainly as hethen saw me, a naked child (Allegra) rise from the sea and clap itshands as in joy, smiling at him. " Was this a premonition of his owndeath, a hint, as it were, that in such a place one like Shelley mightwell hope for from the gods? Certainly that shore was pagan enough. Sometimes on moonlight nights, in the hot weather, the half savagenatives of San Terenzo would dance among the waves, singing in chorus;while Mrs. Shelley tells us that the beauty of the woods made her "weepand shudder. " So strong and vehement was her dread that she preferred togo out in the boat which she feared, rather than to walk among the pathsand alleys of the trees hung with vines, or in the mysterious silence ofthe olives. 

Thus began that happy last summer of Shelley's life. Day by day, he, with Trelawney and Williams, watched for that fatal plaything, thelittle boat _Ariel_, which Trelawney had drawn in her actual dimensionsfor him on the sands of Arno, while he, with a map of the Mediterraneanspread before him, sitting in this imaginary ship, had already madewonderful voyages. And one day as he paced the terrace with Williams, they saw her round the headland of Porto Venere. Twenty-eight feet longby eight she was: built in Genoa from an English model that Williams, who had been a sailor, had brought with him. Without a deck, schooner-rigged, it took, says Trelawney, "two tons of iron ballast tobring her down to her bearings, and then she was very crank in a breeze, though not deficient in beam. " Truly Shelley was no seaman. "You will dono good with Shelley, " Trelawney told Williams, "until you heave hisbooks and papers overboard, shear the wisps of hair that hang over hiseyes, and plunge his arms up to the elbows in a tar bucket. " But hesaid, "I can read and steer at the same time. " Read and steer! Butindeed it was on this very bay, and almost certainly in the _Ariel_, that he wrote those perfect lines: "She left me at the silent time. "

It was here too, in Lerici, that Shelley wrote "The Triumph of Life, "that splendid fragment in _terza rima_, which is like a pageant suddenlybroken by the advent of Death: that ends with the immortal question--

 "Then, what is life? I cried, "

which was for ever to remain unanswered, for he had gone, as he said, "to solve the great mystery. " Well, the story is an old one, I shall nottell it again; only here in the bay of Lerici, with his words in myears, his house before me, and the very terrace where he worked, theghost of that sorrowful and splendid spirit seems to wander even yet. What was it that haunted this shore, full of foreboding, prophesyingdeath?

It was to meet Leigh Hunt that Shelley set out on 1st July with Williamsin the _Ariel_ for Leghorn. For weeks the sky had been cloudless, fullof the mysterious light, which is, as it seems to me, the most beautifuland the most splendid thing in the world. In all the churches and by theroadsides they were praying for rain. Shelley had been in Pisa with Huntshowing him that most lovely of all cathedrals, and, listening to theorgan there, he had been led to agree that a truly divine religion mighteven yet be established if Love were really made the principle of itinstead of Faith. On the afternoon following that serene day at Pisa, heset sail for Lerici from Leghorn with Williams and the boy CharlesVivian. Trelawney was on the _Bolivar_, Byron's yacht, at the time, andsaw them start. His Genoese mate, watching too, turned to him and said, "They should have sailed this morning at three or four instead of now;they are standing too much inshore; the current will set them there. "Trelawney answered, "They will soon have the land-breeze. " "Maybe, "continued the mate, "she will soon have too much breeze; that gafftopsail is foolish in a boat with no deck and no sailor on board. " Then, pointing to the south-west, --"Look at those black lines and the dirtyrags hanging on them out of the sky--they are a warning; look at thesmoke on the water; the devil is brewing mischief. " Then the mist whichhad hung all day in the offing swallowed the _Ariel_ for ever. 

It was not until many days after this, Trelawney tells us, "that myworst fears were confirmed. Two bodies were found on the shore--one nearViareggio, which I went and examined. The face and hands and parts ofthe body not protected by the dress were fleshless. The tall, slightfigure, the jacket, the volume of Aeschylus in one pocket, and Keats'poems[9] in the other, doubled back, as if the reader, in the act ofreading, had hastily thrust it away, were all too familiar to me toleave a doubt in my mind that this mutilated corpse was any other thanShelley's. "

A certain light has been thrown on the manner in which Shelley and hisfriend met their death in a letter which Mr. Eyre wrote to the _Times_in 1875. [10] Trelawney had always believed that the Livorno sailors knewmore than they cared to tell of that tragedy. For one thing, he had seenan English oar in one of their boats just after the storm; for anotherthe laws were such in Tuscany, that had a fishing-boat gone to therescue of the _Ariel_ and brought off the poet and his companions, shewould with her crew have been sent into quarantine for fear of cholera. It is not, however, to the Duchy of Tuscany that Shelley owes his death, but to the cupidity of the Tuscan sailors, one of them having confessedto the crime of running down the boat, seeing her in danger, in the hopeof finding gold on "the milord Inglese. " There seems but little reasonfor doubting this story, which Vincent Eyre communicated to the _Times_in 1875: Trelawney eagerly accepts it, and though Dr. Garnett andProfessor Dowden politely forbear to accuse the Italians, such crimesappear to have been sufficiently common in those days to confirm us, however reluctantly, in this explanation. Thus died perhaps the greatestlyric poet that even England had ever borne, an exile, and yet not anexile, for he died in Italy, the fatherland of us all. Ah! "'tis Deathis dead, not he, " for in the west wind you may hear his song, and in thetender night his rare mysterious music; when the skylark sings it is asit were his melody, and in the clouds you may find something of therefreshment of his spirit. 

 "Nothing of him that doth fade But doth suffer a sea-change Into something rich and strange. "

FOOTNOTES:

[8] For the identity of this inn see Leigh Hunt, _Autobiography_. Constable, 1903, vol. Ii. P. 123. 

[9] The Keats was doubled open at the "Lamia. "

[10] _Trelawney Records_. Pickering, 1878, pp. 197-200, accepts thisstory, as clearing up what for fifty years had been a mystery to him. 

III. PORTO VENERE

It is perhaps a more joyful day that may be spent at Porto Venere, thelittle harbour on the northern shores of the gulf. Starting early youcome, still before the sea is altogether subject to the sun, to a littlebay of blue clear still water flanked by gardens of vines, of agaves andolives. Here, in silence save for the lapping of the water, the earlysong of the cicale, the far-away notes of a reed blown by a boy in theshadow by the sea, you land, and, following the path by the hillside, come suddenly on the little port with its few fishing-boats and litterof ropes and nets, above which rises the little town, house piled onhouse, from the ruined church rising high, sheer out of the sea to thechurch of marble that crowns the hill. Before you stands the gate ofPorto Venere, a little Eastern in its dilapidation, its colour of fadedgold, its tower, and broken battlement. Passing under the ancient archpast a shrine of Madonna, you enter the long shadowy street, where redand green vegetables and fruits, purple grapes, and honey-coloured_nespoli_ and yellow oranges are piled in the cool doorways, and the oldwomen sit knitting behind their stalls. Climbing thus between the housesunder that vivid strip of soft blue sky, the dazzling rosy beauty of theruined ramparts suddenly bursts upon you, and beyond and above them thegolden ruined church, and farther still, the glistening shiningsplendour of the sea and the sun that has suddenly blotted out the softsky. A flight of broken steps leads to a ruined wall, along which youpass to the old church, or temple is it, you ask yourself, so fair itlooks, and without the humility of a Christian building. To yourright, across a tossing strip of blue water, full of green and gold, rises the island of Palmaria, and beyond that two other smaller islands, Tisso and Tissetto, while to your left lies the whole splendid coastshouting with waves, laughing in the sunshine and the wind of earlymorning, and all before you spreads the sea. As I stood leaning on theruined wall looking on all this miracle of joy, a little child, who hadhidden among the wind-blown cornflowers and golden broom on the slope ofthe cliffs, slowly crept towards me with many hesitations and shypeerings; then, no longer afraid, almost naked as he was, he ran to meand took my hand. 

[Illustration: PORTO VENERE. 

_Alinari_]

"Will the Signore see the church?" said he, pulling me that way. 

The Signore was willing. Thus it was, hand in hand with Eros, that Imounted the broken steps of the tower of Venus, his mother. 

How may I describe the wonder of that place? For at last, he before, Ifollowing, though he still held my hand, we came out of the stairway onto a platform on the top of the tower surrounded by a broken battlement. It was as though I had suddenly entered the last hiding-place ofAphrodite herself. On the floor sat an old and lame man sharpening ascythe, and beside him a little child lay among the broken corn that wasstrewn over the whole platform. Where the battlements had once frowned, now stood sheaves of smiling corn, golden and nodding in the wind andthe sun. Suddenly the lad who had led me hither seized the flail andbegan to beat the corn and stalks strewn over the floor, while the oldman, quavering a little, sang a long-drawn-out gay melody, and thelittle girl beat her tiny hands in time to the work and the music. Then, unheard, into this miracle came a young woman, --ah, was it notPersephone, --slim as an osier in the shadow, walking like a brightpeacock straight above herself, climbing the steps, and her hands wereon her hips and on her black head was a sheaf of corn. Then she breatheddeep, gazed over the blue sea, and set her burden down with its fellowson the parapet, smiling and beating her hands at the little girl. 

Porto Venere rises out of the sea like Tintagel--but a classic sea, asea covered with broken blossoms. It was evening when I returned againto the Temple of Venus The moon was like a sickle of silver, far awaythe waves fawned along the shore as though to call the nymphs from thewoods; the sun was set; out of the east night was coming. In the greatcaves, full of coolness and mystery, the Tritons seemed to be playingwith sea monsters, while from far away I thought I heard the lamentablevoice of Ariadne weeping for Theseus. Ah no, they are not dead, thebeautiful, fair gods. Here, in the temple of Aphrodite, on the thresholdof Italy, I will lift up my heart. Though the songs we made are dead andthe dances forgotten, though the statues are broken, the templesdestroyed, still in my heart there is a song and in my blood a murmur asof dancing, and I will carve new statues and rebuild the temples everyday. For I have loved you, O Gods, in the forests and on the mountainsand by the seashore. I, too, am fashioned out of the red earth, and allthe sea is in my heart, and my lover is the wind. As the rivers sing ofthe sea, so will I sing till I find you. As the mountains wait for thesun, so will I wait in the night of the city. 

For my joy, and my lord the sun, I give you thanks, that he is splendidand strong and beautiful beyond beauty. For the sea and all mysteriousthings I give you thanks, that I have understood and am reconciled withthem. For the earth when the sun is set, for the earth when the sun isrisen, for the valleys and the hills, for the flowers and the trees, Igive you thanks, that I am one with them always and out of them was Imade. For the wind of morning, for the wind of evening, for the tendernight, for the growing day, take, then, my thanks, O Gods, for thecypress, for the ilex, for the olive on the road to Italy in the sunsetand the summer. 

IV. SARZANA AND LUNA

It was very early in the morning when I came into Tuscany. LeavingSpezia overnight, I had slept at Lerici, and, waking in the earlieststill dawn, I had set out over the hills, hoping to cross the Macrabefore breakfast. 

In this tremulous and joyful hour, full of the profound gravity of youthhesitating on the threshold of life, the day rose out of the sea; so, alily opening in a garden while we sleep transfigures it with its joy. 

As I climbed the winding hill among the olives, while still a cooltwilight hung about the streets of Lerici, the sun stood up over thesea, awakening it to the whole long day of love to come. Far away in theearly light, over a sea mysterious of blue and silver and full ofecstasy, the coast curved with infinite beauty into the golden crest ofPorto Venere. Spezia, like a broken flower, seemed deserted on theseashore, and Lerici itself, far below me, waking at morning, watchedthe sleeping ships, the deep breathing of the sea, the shy and yet proudgesture of the day. 

Then as I crossed the ridge of the hill and began to follow the roaddownward towards Tuscany between the still olives, where as yet theworld had not seen the sun, suddenly all that beautiful world, about tobe so splendid, was hidden from me, and instead I saw the delta of agreat river, the uplifted peaks of the marble mountains, and there wasTuscany. 

Past Arcola, that triumphal arch of the middle age, built on high like acity on an aqueduct, I went into the plain; then far away in thegrowing day I saw the ancient strongholds of the hills, the fortressesof the Malaspina, the castles of the Lunigiana, the eyries of the eaglesof old time. There they lay before me on the hills like _le grandiombre_ of which Dante speaks, Castelnuovo di Magra, Fosdinovo of theMalaspina, Niccola over the woods. Then at a turning of the way at thefoot of the hills I had traversed, under that long and lofty bridge thathas known so well the hasty footstep of the fugitive, flowed Magra. 

 ... Macra, che, per cammin corto Lo genovese parte dal Toscano. 

Thus with Dante's verses in my mouth I came into Tuscany. 

Now the way from Macra to Sarzana lies straight across that great deltawhich hides behind the eastern horn of the Gulf of Spezia. At the Macrabridge you meet the old road from Genoa to Pisa, and entering Tuscanythus, Sarzana is the first Tuscan city you will see. Luna Nova theRomans called the place, for it was built to replace the older cityclose to the sea, the ruins of which you may still find beside the roadon the way southward, but of Roman days there is nothing left in the newcity. 

It was a fortress of Castruccio Castracani, the birthplace of a greatPope. Of Castruccio, that intolerant great man, I shall speak later, inLucca, for that was the rose in his shield. Here I wish only to remindthe reader who wanders among the ruins of his great castle, thatCastracani took Sarzana by force and held it against any; and perhaps torecall the words of Machiavelli, where he tells us that the capture ofSarzana was a feat of daring done to impress the Lucchesi with thesplendour of their liberated tyrant. For when the citizens had freed himfrom the prison of Uguccione della Faggiuola, who had seized thegovernment of Lucca, Castruccio, finding himself accompanied by a greatnumber of his friends, which encouraged him, and by the whole body ofthe people, which flattered his ambition, caused himself to be chosenCaptain-General of all their forces for a twelvemonth; and resolving toperform some eminent action that might justify their choice, heundertook the reduction of several places which had revolted followingthe example of Uguccione. Having for this purpose entered into strictalliance with the city of Pisa, she sent him supplies, and he marchedwith them to besiege Sarzana; but the place being very strong, before hecould carry it, he was obliged to build a fortress as near it as hecould. This new fort in two months' time rendered him master of thewhole country, and is the same fort that at this day is calledSarzanella, repaired since and much enlarged by the Florentines. Supported by the credit of so glorious an exploit, he reduced Massa, Carrara, and Lavenza very easily: he seized likewise upon the wholecountry of Lunigiana ... So that, full of glory, he returned to Lucca, where the people thronged to meet him, and received him with allpossible demonstrations of joy. 

It is, however, rather as the home of Nicholas V, I think, that Sarzanaappeals to us to-day, than as the stronghold of Castruccio. The tyrantheld so many places, as we shall see, his prowess is everywhere, butTommaso Parentucelli is like to be forgotten, for his glory is notwritten in sword-cuts or in any violated city, but in the forgottenpages of the humanists, the beautiful life of Vespasiano da Bisticci. And was not Nicholas V. The first of the Renaissance Popes, thelibrarian of Cosimo de' Medici, the tutor of the sons of Rinaldo degliAlbizzi and of Palla Strozzi? Certainly his great glory was the care hehad of learning and the arts: he made Rome once more the capital of theworld, he began the Vatican, and the basilica of S. Pietro, yet he wasnot content till he should have transformed the whole city into orderand beauty. In him the enthusiasm and impulse of the Renaissance aresimple and full of freshness. Finding Rome still the city of theEmperors and their superstition, he made it the city of man. He was thefriend of Alberti, the Patron of all men of learning and poets. "Greecehas not fallen, " said Filelfo, in remembering him, "but seems to havemigrated to Italy, which of old was called Magna Graecia. " Yet TommasoParentucelli[11] was sprung of poor parent and even though they may havebeen _nobili_ as Manetti tells us, _De nobili Parentucellorumprogenie_, [12] that certainly was of but little assistance to him in hisyouth. 

"Maestro Tomaso da Serezano, " says Vespasiano the serene bookseller ofFlorence, with something of Walton's charm--"Maestro Tomaso da Serezano, who was afterwards Pope Nicholas V, was born at Pisa of humble parents. Later on account of discord in that city, his father was imprisoned, sothat he went to Sarzana, and there gave to his little son in his tenderyears lessons in grammar, which, through the excellence of hisunderstanding, he quickly learned. His father died, however, when he whowas to come to such eminence was but nine years old, leaving two sons, our Maestro Tomaso, and Maestro Filippo, who later was Cardinal ofBologna. Now Maestro Tomaso fell sick at that time, and his mother, seeing him thus ailing, being a widow and having all her great hope inher sons, was in the greatest anxiety and sorrow, and prayed Godunweariedly to spare her little son. Thus intent in prayer, hoping thathe would not die, she fell asleep about dawn, when One called to her andsaid: 'Andreola (for that was her name), doubt nothing that thy sonshall live. ' And it seemed in her vision that she saw her son in abishop's robe, and One said to her that he would be Pope. Waking thenfrom this dream, immediately she went to her little son and found himalready better, and to all those in the house she told the vision shehad had. Now, when the child was well, because of the steadfast hopewhich the vision had given her, she at once begged him to pursue hisstudies; which he did, so that when he was sixteen he had a very goodknowledge of grammar and the Latin tongue, and began to work at logic, in order later to come at philosophy and theology. Then he left Sarzanaand went to Bologna, so that he might the better pursue his studies inevery faculty. At Bologna he studied in logic and in philosophy withgreat success. In a short time he became learned in all the sevenLiberal Arts. Staying at Bologna still he was eighteen, and Master ofArts, lacking money, it was necessary for him to go to Sarzana to hismother, who had remarried, in order to have money to furnish hisexpenses. She was poor and her husband not very rich, and then Tomasowas not his son, but a stepson: he could not obtain money from them. Determined to follow his studies, he thought to go to Florence, themother of studies and every virtue at that time. So he went thither, andfound Messer Rinaldo degli Albizzi, a most exceptional man, who carriedhim off to instruct his sons, giving him a good salary as a young man ofgreat virtue. At the end of a year Messer Rinaldo left Florence, andMaestro Tomaso wishing to remain in the city, he arranged for him toenter the service of Messer Palla di Nofri Strozzi; and from him he hada very good salary. At the end of another year he had gained so muchfrom these two citizens that he had enough to return to Bologna to hisstudies, though in Florence he had not lost his time, for he read inevery faculty. "

Such were the early years of one of the most cultured and princely ofthe Popes. Born in 1398, he was himself one of the sons of the earlyRenaissance. Not altogether without pedantry, he yet by his learning, byhis patronage of scholars and artists (and indeed he was perhaps thefirst Pope who preferred them to monks and friars), secured for theRenaissance the allegiance of the Church. He died in a moment ofmisfortune for Europe in 1455, just after the fall of Constantinople, being succeeded on the throne of Christendom by Pius II, Pius Aeneas ashe called himself in a moment of enthusiasm, one of the most human ofall those men of the world who have become the vicegerent of Jesus. Nicholas V was not a man of the world, he was a scholar, full of theenthusiasm of his day. As a statesman, while he pacified Italy, he sawByzantium fall into the hands of the barbarians. He was a Pagan in whomthere was no guile. His enthusiasm was rather for Apollo and the Musesthan for Jesus and the Saints. With a simplicity touching anddelightful, he watched Sigismondo Malatesta build his temple at Rimini, and was his friend and loved him well. Pius II, with all his love ofnature and the classics, though his own life was full of unfortunatesecrets and his pride and vanity truly Sienese, could not look onunmoved while Malatesta built a temple to the old gods in the States ofthe Church. But then Pius had not lived all the long years of his youthat Luna Nova. Who can tell what half-forgotten deity may have foundMaestro Tomaso asleep in the woods, that magician Virgil in hishands, --for on this coast the gods wander even yet, --and, creepingbehind him, finding him so fair, may have kissed him on the ears, as thesnakes kissed Cassandra when she lay asleep at noon in Troy of old. Certainly their habitations, their old places may still be found. We arenot so far from Porto Venere, and then on the highway towards Massa, notlong after you have come out of the beautiful avenue of plane trees, itself like some great temple, through which the road leaves Sarzana, you come upon the little city of Luna, or the bright fragments of it, among the sand of what must once have been the seashore, with here afold of the old amphitheatre, there the curve of the circus, whilescattered on the grass softer than sleep, you may find perhaps thecarved name of a goddess, the empty pedestal of a statue. 

Lying there on a summer day in the everlasting quietness, unbroken evenby a wandering wind or the ripple of a stream, some inkling of that oldRoman life, always at its best in such country places as this, comes toyou, yes, from the time when Juno was yet a little maid among the mossyfountains and the noise of the brooks. Tacitus in his _Agricola_, thatconsoling book, tells us of those homes of a refined and severesimplicity in Frejus and Como, but it is to Rutilius, with his strangegift of impressionism, you must go for a glimpse of Luna. In hisperfect verses[13] we may see the place as he found it when, glidingswiftly on the waves, perhaps on a day like this, he came to those wallsof glistening marble, which got their name from the planet that borrowsher light from the sun, her brother. The country itself furnished thosestones which shamed with their whiteness the laughing lilies, whiletheir polished surface with its veins threw forth shining rays. For thisis a land rich in marbles which defy, sure of their victory, the virginwhiteness of the snow itself. 

Well, there is but little left of that shining city, and yet, as I laydreaming in the grass-grown theatre, it seemed to be a festal day, andthere among the excited and noisy throng of holiday-makers, just for amoment I caught sight of the aediles in their white tunics, and then, far away, the terrified face of a little child, frightened at thehideous masks of the actors. Then, the performance over, I followed homesome simple old centurion was it?--who, returned from the wars on thefar frontier, had given the city a shady walk and that shrine ofNeptune. We came at last to a country house of "pale red and yellowmarble, " half farm, half villa, lying away from the white road at thepoint where it begins to decline somewhat sharply to the marshlandbelow. It is close to the sea. Large enough for all requirements, andnot expensive to keep in repair, my host explains. At its entrance is amodest but beautiful hall; then come the cloisters, which are roundedinto the likeness of the letter D, and these enclose a small and prettycourtyard. These cloisters, I am told, are a fine refuge in a storm, forthey are protected by windows and deep over-hanging eaves. Facing thecloisters is a cheerful inner court, then the dining-room towards theseashore, fine enough for anyone, as my host asserts, and when thesouth-west wind is blowing the room is just scattered by the spray ofthe spent waves. On all sides are folding doors, or windows quite aslarge as doors, so that from two sides and the front you command aprospect of three seas as it were; while at the back, as he shows me, one can see through the inner court to the woods or the distant hills. Just then the young mistress of the place comes to greet me, bidden bymy host her father, and in a moment I see the nobility of this life, full of pure and honourable things, together with a certain simplicityand sweetness. Seeing my admiration, my host speaks of his daughter, ofher love for him, of her delight in his speeches, --for he is ofauthority in the city, --of how on such occasions she will sit screenedfrom the audience by a curtain, drinking in what people say to hiscredit. He smiles as he tells me this, adding she has a sharp wit, iswonderfully economical, and loves him well; and indeed she is worthy ofhim, and doubtless, as he says, of her grandfather. Then my proud oldcenturion leads me down the alleys of his garden full of figs andmulberries, with roses and a few violets, till in the perfect stillnessof this retreat we come to the seashore, and there lies the white cityof Luna glistening in the sun. As I take my leave, reluctantly, for, Iwould stay longer, my hostess is so sweet, my host so charming, I catchsight of the name of the villa cut into the rosy marble of the gates:"Ad Vigilias Albas" I read, and then and then ... Why, what is this? Imust have fallen asleep in that old theatre among the débris and thefine grass. Ad Vigilias Albas--"White Nights, " nights not of quite blankforgetfulness, certainly. But it is with the ancestors of Marius I seemto have been talking in the old city of Luna, that in his day hadalready passed away. [14]

It was sunset when I found myself at the door of the Inn in Sarzana. 

FOOTNOTES:

[11] Even the name is uncertain. In the Duomo here, in Cappella di S. Tommaso, you may find his mother's grave, on which she is calledAndreola dei Calandrini. His uncle, however, is called J. P. Parentucelli. In two Bulls of Felix V he is called Thomas deCalandrinis; cf. Mansi, xxxi. 190. 

[12] Muratori, _Rer. Ital. Scrip. _, III. Ii. 107. 

[13] Sed deverticulo fuimus fortasse loquaces: Carmine propositum jam repetamus iter. Advehimur celeri candentia moenia lapsu: Nominis est auctor sole corusca soror. Indigenis superat ridentia lilia saxis, Et levi radiat picta nitore silex. Dives marmoribus tellus, quae luce coloris Provocat intactas luxuriosa nives. 

[14] You may see the place to-day--but it is of plaster now--as Paterdescribes it. --_Marius the Epicurian_, vol. I. 20. 

V. CARRARA, MASSA DUCALE, PIETRA-SANTA, VIAREGGIO

And truly it is into a city of marble that you come, when, following thedusty road full of the ruts of the bullock-wagons, past Avenza, thatlittle city with a great castle of Castruccio Castracani, after climbinginto the gorge where the bullocks, a dozen of them it may be, yoked to asingle dray, take all the way, you enter the cold streets of Carrara, that are always full of the sound of falling water. And strangelyenough, as one may think, in this far-away place, so close to themountains as to be littered by their débris, it is an impression ofbusiness and of life that you receive beyond anything of the sort to befound in Spezia. Not a beautiful city certainly, Carrara has a littlethe aspect of an encampment, an encampment that has somehow becomepermanent, where everything has been built in a hurry, as it were, ofthe most precious and permanent material. So that, while the houses areof marble, they seem to be with but few exceptions mere shanties withoutbeauty of any sort, that were built yesterday for shelter, and to-morrowwill be destroyed. It is true that the Church of S. Andrea is a buildingof the thirteenth century, in the Gothic manner, with a fine façade andsculptures of a certain merit, but it fails to impress itself on thetown, which is altogether alien from it, modern for the most part in thevulgar way of our time, when ornament is a caprice of the rich andmerely ostentatious, the many living, without beauty or light, inbarracks or huts of a brutal and hideous uniformity. 

It was a Sunday evening when I came to Carrara; all that world oflabouring men and women was in the streets; in the piazza a band played;close to the hotel, in a tent set up for the occasion, a particularlyatrocious collection of brass instruments were being blown with mightand main to attract the populace to a marionette performance. The wholeworld seemed dizzy with noise. After dinner I went out into the streetsamong the people, but it was not any joy I found there, only a merebrutal cessation from toil, in which amid noise and confusion, thelabourer sought to forget his labour. More and more as I went among themit seemed to me that the mountains had brutalised those who won fromthem their snowy treasure. In all Carrara and the valley of Torano I sawno beautiful or distinguished faces, --the women were without sweetness, the men a mere gang of workmen. Now, common as this is in anymanufacturing city of the North, it is very uncommon in Italy, wherehumanity has not been injured and enslaved by machinery as it has withus. You may generally find beauty, sweetness, or wisdom in the faces ofa Tuscan crowd in any place. Only here you will see the man who hasbecome just the fellow-labourer of the ox. 

I understood this better when, about four o'clock on the next morning, Iwent in the company of a lame youth into the quarries themselves. Thereare some half-dozen of them, glens of marble that lead you into theheart of the mountains, valleys without shade, full of a brutalcoldness, an intolerable heat, a dazzling light, a darkness that may befelt. Torano, that little town you come upon at the very threshold ofthe quarries, is like a town of the Middle Age, full of stones andrefuse and narrow ways that end in a blind nothingness, and low houseswithout glass in the windows, and dogs and cats and animals of allsorts, goats and chickens and pigs, among which the people live. Thusbusy with the frightful labour among the stones in the heart of themountains, where no green thing has ever grown or even a bird built hernest, where in summer the sun looks down like some enormous moloch, andin winter the frost and the cold scourge them to their labour in thehorrid ghostly twilight, the people work. The roads are mere tracksamong the blocks and hills of broken marble, yellow, black, and whitestones, that are hauled on enormous trolleys by a line of bullocks inwhich you may often find a horse or a pony. Staggering along this way oftorture, sweating, groaning, rebelling, under the whips and curses andkicks of the labourers, who either sit cursing on the wagon among themarble, or, armed with great whips, slash and cut at the poor capering, patient brutes, the oxen drag these immense wagons over the sharpboulders and dazzling rocks, grinding them in pieces, cutting themselveswith sharp stones, pulling as though to break their hearts under thetyranny of the stones, not less helpless and insensate than they. Hereand there you may see an armed sentry, as though in command of a gang ofconvicts, here and there an official of some society for the protectionof animals, but he is quite useless. Whether he be armed to quell arebellion or to put the injured animals out of their pain, I know not. In any case, he is a sign of the state of life in these valleys ofmarble. Out of this insensate hell come the impossible statues that grinabout our cities. Here, cut by the most hideous machinery with a noiselike the shrieking of iron on iron, the mantelpieces and washstands ofevery jerry-built house and obscene emporium of machine-made furnitureare sawn out of the rock. There is no joy in this labour, and thesavage, harsh yell of the machines drowns any song that of old mighthave lightened the toil. Blasted out of the mountains by slaves, some13, 000 of them, dragged by tortured and groaning animals, the marblethat might have built a Parthenon is sold to the manufacturer todecorate the houses of the middle classes, the studios of theincompetent, the streets of our trumpery cities. Do you wonder whyCarrara has never produced a sculptor? The answer is here in thequarries that, having dehumanised man, have themselves become obscene. The frightful leprous glare of crude whiteness that shines in everycemetery in Europe marks only the dead; the material has in somestrange way lost its beauty, and with the loss of beauty in the materialthe art of sculpture has been lost. These thousands of slaves who arehewing away the mountains are ludicrous and ridiculous in theirbrutality and absurdity. They have sacrificed their humanity for no end. The quarries are worked for money, not for art. The stone is cut notthat Rodin may make a splendid statue, but that some company may earn adividend. As you climb higher and higher, past quarry after quarry, itis a sense of slavery and death that you feel. Everywhere there isstruggle, rebellion, cruelty; everywhere you see men, bound by ropes, slung over the dazzling face of the cliffs, hacking at the mountainswith huge iron pikes, or straining to crash down a boulder for the oxwagons. As you get higher an anxious and disastrous silence surroundsyou, the violated spirit of the mountains that has yielded itself onlyto the love of Michelangelo seems to be about to overwhelm you in somefrightful tragedy. In the shadowless cool light of early morning, thesepallid valleys, horrid with noise of struggle and terror, the snortingof a horse, the bellow of a bullock in pain, seem like some fantasticdream of a new Inferno; but when at last the enormous sun has risen overthe mountains, and flooded the glens with furious heat, it is as thoughyou walked in some delirium, a shining world full of white fire dancingin agony around you. You stumble along, sometimes waiting till a wagonand twelve oxen have been beaten and thrust past you on the ascent, sometimes driven half mad by the booming of the dynamite, here threadingan icy tunnel, there on the edge of a precipice, almost fainting in theheat, listening madly to the sound of water far below. Then, as youreturn through the sinister town of Torano with its sickening sights andsmells, you come into the pandemonium of the workshops, where nothinghas a being but the shriek of the rusty saws drenched with water, drivenby machinery, cutting the marble into uniform slabs to line urinals orpave a closet. At last, in a sort of despair, overwhelmed with heat andnoise, you reach your inn, and though it be midday in July, you seizeyour small baggage and set out where the difficult road leads out ofthis spoiled valley to the olives and the sea. 

 * * * * *

It was midday when, in spite of the sun, I set out up the long hill thatleads to La Foce and Massa from Carrara. It is a road that turnscontinually on itself, climbing always, among the olive woods andchestnuts, where the girls sing as they herd the goats, and the pleasantmurmur of the summer, the song of the cicale, the wind of the hills, cleanse your heart of the horror of Carrara. Climbing thus at peace withyourself for a long hour, you come suddenly to La Foce, a sort of ridgeor pass between the loftier hills, whence you may see the long-hiddensea, and Montignoso, that old Lombard castle still fierce above theolive woods, and Massa itself, Massa Ducale, a lofty precipitous citycrowned by an old fortress. Who may describe the beauty of the way underthe far-away peaks of marble, splendid in their rugged gesture, theirimmortal perfection and indifference! And indeed, from La Foce all thenoise and cruelty of that life in the quarries at Carrara is forgotten. As you begin to descend by the beautiful road that winds along the sidesof the hills, the burden of those immense quarries, echoing with criesof distress inarticulate and pitiful, falls away from one. Here is Italyherself, fair as a goddess, delicate as a woman, forlorn upon themountains. Everywhere in the quiet afternoon songs come to you from theshady woods, from the hillsides and the streams. Something of thesimplicity and joy of a life we have only known in our hearts isexpressed in every fold of the mountains, olive clad and terraced withwalks and vines, where the husbandman labours till evening and the cornis ripe or reaping, and the sound of the flute dances like a fountain inthe shade. And so, when at evening you enter the noble city of Massa, among the women sitting at their doors sewing or knitting in the sunset, while the children, whole crowds of them, play in the narrow streets, their laughter echoing among the old houses as the sun dances in anarrow valley, or you pass among the girls who walk together in anosegay, arm in arm, or the young men who lounge together in a crowdagainst the houses watching them, there is joy in your heart, becausethis is life, simple and frank and full of hope, without an afterthoughtor a single hesitation of doubt or fear. 

There is little to be seen at Massa that is not just the natural beautyof the place, set like a flower among the woods, that climb up to themarble peaks. Not without a certain interest you come upon thePrefettura, which once was the summer castle of Elisa Baciocchi, Napoleon's sister, who as a gift from him held Lucca, and was muchbeloved, from 1805 to 1814. And joyful as the country is under thatimpartial sun, before that wide and ancient sea, among her quiet woodsand broken shrines, it is not without a kind of hesitation and shamealmost that you learn that the great fortress which crowns the city isnow a prison in which are many half-witted unhappy folk, who in thistransitory life have left the common way. It is strange that in so manylands the prison is so often in a place of the greatest beauty. AtTarragona, far away over the sea looking towards Italy, the hospital ofthose who have for one cause or another fallen by the way is set by thesea-shore, almost at the feet of the waves, so that in a storm themomentary foam from those restless, free waters must often be scatteredabout the courtyard, where those who have injured us, and whom in ourwisdom we have deprived of the world, are permitted to walk. It is muchthe same in Tangier, where the horrid gaol, always full of groans andthe torture of the bastinado, is in the dip of the Kasbah, where itjoins the European city with nothing really between it and the Atlantic. In Massa these prisoners and captives can see the sea and the greatmountains, and must often hear the piping of those who wander freely inthe woods. Even in Italy, it seems, where the criminal is beginning tobe understood as a sick person, they have not yet contrived to banishthe older method of treatment: as who should say, you are ill andfainting with anaemia, come let me bleed you. 

It is at Massa that on your way south you come again into the highroadfrom Genoa to Pisa, for while, having left it at Spezia, you found itagain at Sarzana, it was a by-road that led you to Carrara and again toMassa Ducale. Now, though the way you seek be the highway of thepilgrims, it is none the better as a road for that. For the wagonsbringing marble to the cities by the way have spoiled it altogether, sothat you find it ground with ruts six inches deep and smothered in dust;therefore, if you come by carriage, and still more if you be _enautomobile_, it is necessary to go warily. On foot nothing matters butthe dust, and if you start early from Massa that will not annoy you, forin the early morning, for some reason of the gods, the dust lies on thehighway undisturbed, while by ten o'clock the air is full of it. It is abad road then all the way to Pietrasanta, but most wonderful and lovelynevertheless. For the most part the sea is hidden from you, for you arein truth on the sea-shore, though far enough from the waves, a land offields and cucumbers coming between road and water. Swinging along inthe dawn, you soon pass that old castle of Montignoso, crumbling on itshigh rock, built by the Lombard Agilulf to hold the road to Italy. Thennot without surprise you pass quite under an old Albergo which crossesthe way, where certainly of old the people of Massa took toll of theTuscans, and the Tuscans taxed all who came into their country. Then theroad winds through a gorge beside a river, and at last between deliciouswoods of olives full of silver and golden shade most pleasant in theheat, past Seravezza in the hills, you come to the little pink and whitetown of Pietrasanta under the woods, at noon. 

Pietrasanta is set at the foot of the Hills of Paradise, littered withmarble, planted with figs and oleanders, full of the sun. For hours youmay climb among the olives on the hills, terraced for vines, shimmeringin the heat; and resting there, watch the sleepy sea lost in a silvermist, the mysterious blue hills, listening to the songs of the maidensin the gardens. Thus watching the summer pass by, caught by her beauty, lying on an old wall beautiful with lichen and the colours of manyautumns, suddenly you may be startled by the stealthy, unconcernedapproach of a great snake three feet long at least, winding along thegully by the roadside. Half fascinated and altogether fearful, you watchher pass by till she disappears bit by bit in an incredibly smallfissure in the vineyard wall, leaving you breathless. Or all day longyou will lie under the olives waiting for the coolness of evening, listening to the sound of everlasting summer, the piping of a shepherd, the little lovely song of a girl, the lament of the cicale. Thenreturning to Pietrasanta, you will sit in the evening perhaps in thePiazza there, quite surrounded by the old walls, with its mediaeval air, its lovely Municipio and fine old Gothic churches. Here you may watchall the city, the man and his wife and children, the young girlslaughing together, conscious of the shy admiration of the youth of theplace; and you will be struck by the beauty of these people, peasantsand workmen, their open, frank faces, their grace and strength, theirunconcerned delight in themselves, their air of distinction too, comingto them from a long line of ancestors who have lived with the earth, themountains, and the sea. 

Then in the early morning, perhaps, you will enter S. Martino and hearthe early Mass, where there are still so many worshippers, and then, lingering after the service, you will admire the pulpit, carved reallyby one of those youths whose frankness and grace surprised you in thePiazza on the night before--Stagio Stagi, a native of this place, a fineartist whose work continually meets you in Pietrasanta. Indeed, in thechoir of the church there are some candelabra by him, and an altar, built, as it is said, out of two confessional boxes. In the Baptisteryclose by are some bronzes, said to be the work of Donatello, and someexcellent sculptures by Stagio; while, as though to bear out the hiddenpaganism, some dim memory of the old gods, that certainly haunts thisshrine, the font is an old Roman _tazza_, carved with Tritons andNeptune among the waves; but over it now stands another supposed work ofDonatello, S. Giovanni Battista, reconciled, as we may hope, with thosewhose worship he has usurped. 

The façade of S. Martino is of the fourteenth century, as is that of S. Agostino, its neighbour, where you may find another altar by Stagio. 

Then it may be at evening you seek the sea-shore, that mysterious, forlorn coast where the waves break almost with a caress. It was here, or not far away, somewhere between this little wonderful city andViareggio, then certainly a mere village, that Shelley's body wasburned, as Trelawney records. [15] "The lovely and grand scenery thatsurrounded us, " he says, "so exactly harmonised with Shelley's genius, that I could imagine his spirit soaring over us.... Not a human dwellingwas in sight.... I got a furnace made at Leghorn of iron bars and strongsheet-iron supported on a stand, and laid in a stock of fuel and suchthings as were said to be used by Shelley's much-loved Hellenes on theirfuneral pyres.... At ten on the following morning, Captain S. Andmyself, accompanied by several officers of the town, proceeded in ourboat down the small river which runs through Via Reggio (and forms itsharbour for coasting vessels) to the sea. [16] Keeping along the beachtowards Massa, we landed at about a mile from Via Reggio, at the foot ofthe grave; the place was noted by three wand-like reeds stuck in thesand in a parallel line from high to low-water mark. Doubting theauthenticity of such pyramids, we moved the sand in the line indicated, but without success. I then got five or six men with spades to digtransverse lines. In the meanwhile Lord Byron's carriage with Mr. LeighHunt arrived, accompanied by a party of dragoons and the chief officersof the town. In about an hour, and when almost in despair, I wasparalysed with the sharp and thrilling noise a spade made in coming indirect contact with the skull. We now carefully removed the sand. Thisgrave was even nearer the sea than the other [Williams's], and althoughnot more than two feet deep, a quantity of the salt water oozed in. 

"... We have built a much larger pile to-day, having previously beendeceived as to the immense quantity of wood necessary to consume a bodyin the unconfined atmosphere. " Mr. Shelley had been reading the poems of"Lamia" and "Isabella" by Keats, as the volume was found turned backopen in his pocket; so sudden was the squall. The fragments being nowcollected and placed in the furnace here fired, and the flames ascendedto the height of the lofty pines near us. We again gathered round, andrepeated, as far as we could remember, the ancient rites and ceremoniesused on similar occasions. Lord B. Wished to have preserved the skull, which was strikingly beautiful in its form. It was very small and verythin, and fell to pieces on attempting to remove it. 

"Notwithstanding the enormous fire, we had ample time e'er it wasconsumed to contemplate the singular beauty and romantic wildness of thescenery and objects around us. Via Reggio, the only seaport of the Duchyof Lucca, built and encompassed by an almost boundless expanse of deep, dark sand, is situated in the centre of a broad belt of firs, cedars, pines, and evergreen oaks, which covers a considerable extent ofcountry, extending along the shore from Pisa to Massa. The bay of Speziawas on our right, and Leghorn on our left, at almost equal distances, with their headlands projecting far into the sea, and forming this wholespace of interval into a deep and dangerous gulf. A current setting instrong, with a N. W. Gale, a vessel embayed here was in a most periloussituation; and consequently wrecks were numerous: the water is likewisevery shoal, and the breakers extend a long way from the shore. In thecentre of this bay my friends were wrecked, and their bodies tossedabout--Captain Williams seven, and Mr. Shelley nine days, e'er they werefound. Before us was a most extensive view of the Mediterranean, withthe isles of Gorgona, Caprera, Elba, and Corsica in sight. All aroundus was a wilderness of barren soil with stunted trees, moulded intogrotesque and fantastic forms by the cutting S. W. Gales. At short andequal distances along the coast stood high, square, antique-lookingtowers, with flagstaff's on the turrets, used to keep a look-out at seaand enforce the quarantine laws. In the background was the long line ofthe Italian Alps. 

"... After the fire was kindled ... More wine was poured over Shelley'sdead body than he had consumed during his life. This, with the oil andsalt, made the yellow flames glisten and quiver.... The only portionsthat were not consumed were some fragments of bones, the jaw and theskull; but what surprised us all was that the heart remained entire. Insnatching this relic from the fiery furnace my hand was severely burnt;and had anyone seen me do the act I should have been put in quarantine. "Shelley's ashes were taken to Rome, and buried in the English cemeterythere, a place he loved, that is perhaps the most beautiful of thebeautiful graveyards of Italy. 

Of Viareggio itself there is little to be said. It is a town by theseaside, full in summer of holiday-making Tuscans from Florence and thecities round about. A pretty place enough, it possesses an uniquemarket-place covered in by ancient twisted plane trees, where the oldwomen chaffer with the cooks and contadine. But nothing, as it seems tome, and certainly not so modern a place as Viareggio, will keep you longfrom Pisa. Even on the dusty way from Pietrasanta, at every turn of theroad one has half expected to see the leaning tower and the Duomo. Andit is really with an indescribable impatience you spend the night inViareggio. Starting at dawn, still without a glimpse of Pisa, you enterthe Pineta before the sun, that lovely, green, cool forest full ofsilver shadows, with every here and there a little farm for the pinecones, about which they are heaped in great banks. Coming out of thiswood on the dusty road in the golden heat, between fields of cucumbers, you meet market carts and contadini returning from the city. Then youcross the Serchio in the early light, still and mysterious as a riverout of Malory. And at last, suddenly, like a mirage, the towers of Pisarise before you, faint and beautiful as in a dream. As you turn to lookbehind you at the world you are leaving, you find that the mountains, those marvellous Apuan Alps with their fragile peaks, have been lost inthe distance and the sky; and so, with half a regret, full of expectancyand excitement nevertheless, you quicken your pace, and even in the heatset out quickly for the white city before you, --Pisa, once lord of thesea, the first great city of Tuscany. 

FOOTNOTES:

[15] I no longer believe it is possible to be certain of the place. Atany rate, all the guide-books, Baedeker, Murray, and Hare, are wrong, though not so far out as that gentleman who, having assured us thatBoccaccio was a "little priest, " and that Petrarch, Poliziano, Lorenzo, and Pulci were of no account as poets, remarks that Shelley's body wasfound at Lerici, and that he was burned close by. 

[16] See Carmichael, _The Old Road_, etc. , pp. 183-202. 

VI. PISA

I

To enter Pisa by the Porta Nuova, coming at once into the Piazza delDuomo, is as though at midday, on the highway, one had turned aside intoa secret meadow full of a strange silence and dazzling light, where havebeen abandoned among the wild flowers the statues of the gods. For thePiazza is just that--a meadow scattered with daisies, among which, asthough forgotten, stand unbroken a Cathedral, a Baptistery, a Tower, anda Cemetery, all of marble, separate and yet one in the consummate beautyof their grouping. And as though weary of the silence and the light, thetower has leaned towards the flowers, which may fade and pass away. Soamid the desolation of the Acropolis must the statues of the Parthenonhave looked from the hills and the sea, with something of this abandonedsplendour, this dazzling solitude, this mysterious calm silence, satisfied and serene. 

Wherever you may be in Pisa, you cannot escape from the mysteriousinfluence of those marvellous ghosts that haunt the verge of the city, that corner apart where the wind is white on the grass, and the shadowssteal slowly through the day. The life of the world is far away on theother side of the city; here is only beauty and peace. 

If you come into the Piazza, as most travellers do, from the Lung' Arno, as you turn into the Via S. Maria or out of the Borgo into the beautifulPiazza dei Cavalieri, gradually as you pass on your way life hesitatesand at last deserts you. In the Via S. Maria, for instance, that windslike a stream from the Duomo towards Arno, at first all is gay with thememory and noise of the river, the dance of the sun and the wind. Thenyou pass a church; some shadow seems to glide across the way, and it isalmost in dismay you glance up at the silent palaces, the colour ofpearl, barred and empty; and then looking down see the great paved waywhere your footsteps make an echo; while there amid the great slabs ofgranite the grass is peeping. It is generally out of such a shadowystreet as this that one comes into the dazzling Piazza del Duomo. Butindeed, all Pisa is like that. You pass from church to church, from onedeserted Piazza to another, and everywhere you disturb some shadow, somesilence is broken, some secret seems to be hid. The presence of thosemarvellous abandoned things in the far corner of the city is felt inevery byway, in every alley, in every forgotten court. "Amid thedesolation of a city" this splendour is immortal, this glory is notdead. 

II

"Varie sono le opinioni degli Scrittori circa l'edificazione di Pisa, "says Tronci in his _Annali Pisani_, published at Livorno in theseventeenth century. "Various are the opinions of writers as to thebuilding of Pisa, but all agree that it was founded by the Greeks. Catoin his _Fragment_, and Dionysius Halicarnassus in the first book of his_History_, affirm that the founders were the Pisi Alfei Pelasgi, who hadfor their captain the King Pelops, as Pliny says in his _NaturalHistory_ (lib. 5), and Solinus too, as though it were indubitable: whodoes not know that Pisa was from Pelops?" Certainly Pisa is very old, and whether or no King Pelops, as Pliny thought, founded the city, theRomans thought her as old as Troy. In 225 B. C. She was an Etruscan city, and the friend of Rome; in Strabo's day she was but two miles fromthe sea; Caesar's time she became a Roman military station; while in 4A. D. We read that the disturbances at the elections were so serious thatshe was left without magistrates. That fact in itself seems to bring thecity before our eyes: it is so strangely characteristic of her laterhistory. 

[Illustration: PISA

_Alinari_]

But in spite of her enormous antiquity, there are very few left of herEtruscan and Roman days, the remains of some Roman Thermae, Bagni diNerone near the Porta Lucca being, indeed, all that we may claim, savethe urns and sarcophagi scattered in the Campo Santo, from the greatdays of Rome. The glory of Pisa is the end of the Middle Age and theearly dawn of the Renaissance. There, amid all the hurly-burly andterror of invasion and civil wars, she shines like a beacon beside thesea, proud, brave, and full of hope, almost the only city not altogetherenslaved in a country in the grip of the barbarian, almost overwhelmedby the Lombards. And indeed, she was one of the first cities of Italy tofling off the Lombard yoke. Favoured by her position on the shores ofthe Tyrrhenian Sea, yet not so near the coast as to invite piracy, shewaged incessant war on Greek and Saracen. Lombardy, heavy with conquest, fearful for her prize, which was Italy, was compelled to encourage thegrowth of the naval cities. It was on the sea that the future of Pisalay, like the glory of the sun that in its splendour and pride passesaway too soon. 

Already in the ninth century we hear of her prowess at Salerno, while inthe tenth, having possessed herself of her own government under consuls, she sent a fleet to help the Emperor Otho II in Sicily. Fighting withoutrespite or rest, continually victorious, never downhearted, she hadopened the weary story of the civil strife of Italy with a war againstLucca, in the year 1004. [17] It was the first outburst of that hatredin her heart which in the end was to destroy her for she died of apoverty of love. 

In 1005, still with her fleet engaged in Sicilian waters, the Arabpirates fell upon her, and, forcing the harbour, sacked a whole quarterof the city. For the time Pisa could do little against the foes ofEurope, but in 1016 she allied herself with that city which proved atlast to be her deadliest foe, Genoa the Proud, and the united fleetsswept down on Sardinia for vengeance. It was this victorious expeditionthat aroused the hatred of the Pisans for Genoa, a jealousy that wasonly extinguished when at last Pisa was crushed at Meloria. 

Many were the attempts of the Arabs to regain Sardinia, but Pisa was notto be deceived. Coasting along the African shore, her fleet took Bonaand threatened Carthage. Yet in 1050 the Arabs of Morocco and Spainstole the island from her, only Cagliari holding out under the noblesfor the mother city. There was more than the loss of Sardinia at stake, for with the victory of the Arabs the highway of the sea was no longersecure, the existence of Pisa, and not of Pisa only, was threatened. Sowe find Genoa once more standing beside Pisa in the fight of Europe. Thefleets again were combined, this time under the command of a Pisan, oneGualduccio, a plebeian. He sailed for Cagliari, landed his men, andengaged the enemy on the beach. The Arabs were led by the King Mogahid, Rè Musetto, as the Italians called him. He was over eighty years old atthe time, and though still full of cunning valour, attacked by thefleets in front and the garrison in the rear, his army was defeated andput to flight. He himself, fleeing on horseback, was wounded in twoplaces, and falling was captured; and they took him in chains to Pisa, where he died. Thus Sardinia once more fell into the hands of Europe, and the island, divided in fiefs under the rule of Pisa, [18] was heldand governed by her. 

But Pisa was not yet done with the Arab. She stood for Europe. In 1063she fought at Palermo, returning laden with booty. It was then, aftermuch discussion in the Senate, [19] sending an embassy to the Pope andanother to "Rè Henrico di Germania, " that she decided to employ thisspoil in building the Duomo, in the place where the old Church of S. Reparata stood, and more anciently the Baths of Hadrian, the Emperor. The temple, Tronci tells us, [20] was dedicated to the Magnificent Queenof the Universe, Mary, ever Virgin, most worthy Mother of God, Advocateof sinners. It was begun in 1064, and many years, as Tronci says, wereconsumed in the building of it. [21] The pillars--and there aremany--were brought by the Pisans from Africa, from Egypt, fromJerusalem, from Sardinia, and other far lands. 

At this time Pisa was divided into four parts, called _Quartieri_. Thefirst was called _Ponte_, the ensign of which was a rosy Gonfalon; thesecond, _di Mezzo_, which had a standard with seven yellow stripes on ared field; the third, _Foriporta_, which had a white gate in a rosyfield; and the fourth, _Chinsica_ with a white cross in a red field. [22]

Nor was the Duomo the only building that the Pisans undertook about thistime. Eight years later, the Church of S. Pietro in Vincoli, calledto-day S. Pierino, was built on a spot where of old "there was a templeof the Gentiles" dedicated to Apollo; that, when the Pisans receivedthe faith of Jesus Christ, they gave to St. Peter, the Prince of theApostles. This church appears to have been consecrated by the greatArchbishop Peter on 30th August 1119. 

These two churches, and especially the Duomo, still perhaps the mostwonderful church in Italy, prove the greatness of the civilisation ofPisa at this time. She was then a self-governed city, owing allegiance, it is true, to the Marquisate of Tuscany, but with consuls of her own. Since she was so warlike, the nobles naturally had a large part in heraffairs. In the Crusade of 1099 the Pisans were late, as the Genoesenever ceased to remind them, --to come late, in Genoa, being spoken of as"_Come l'ajuto di Pisa_"; and, indeed, like the Genoese, the Pisansthought as much of their own commercial advantage in these Holy Wars asof the Tomb of Jesus. In 1100 they returned from Jerusalem, theirmerchants having gained, _una loggia, una contrada, un fondaco e unachiesa_ for their nation in Constantinople, with many other fiscalbenefits. Nor were they forgetful of their Duomo, for they came homewith much spoil, bringing the bodies of the Saints Nicodemus the Princeof the Pharisees, Gamaliel the master of St. Paul, and Abibone, one ofthe seventy-two disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ. [23]

Encouraged by their success, not long afterwards, they, in theirinvincible confidence and force, decided to undertake anotherenterprise. Urged thereto by their Archbishop Peter, they set out, partly for glory, partly in the hope of spoil to free the thousands ofChristians held captive by the Arabs in the Balearic islands. The fleetsailed on the 6th August 1114, the Feast of S. Sisto, the anniversary ofother victories. There were, it seems, some three hundred ships ofdiverse strength; and every sort of person, old and young, took part inthis adventure. Going astray, they first landed in Catalonia and didmuch damage; then, "acknowledging their unfortunate mistake, " they foundthe island, where, under Archbishop Peter and the Pope's gonfalone, they were entirely successful. They released the captives, and, amid theimmense spoil, they brought away the son of the Moorish king, whom laterthey baptized in Pisa and sent back to the Moors. The Pisan dead were, however, very many. At first they thought to load a ship with the slainand bring them home again; but this was not found possible. Sailing atlast for Marseilles, they buried them there in the Badia di S. Vittore, later bringing the monks to Pisa. 

Now, while the glory of Pisa shone thus upon the waters far away, theLucchesi thought to seize Pisa herself, deprived of her manhood. But theFlorentines, who at this time were friends with Pisa, since theircommerce depended upon the Porto Pisano, sent a company to guard thecity, encamping some two miles off; for since so much loot lay to hand, to wit, Pisa herself, the Florentine captains feared lest they might notbe able to hold their men. And, indeed, one of their number entered thecity intent on the spoil, but was taken, and they judged him worthy onlyof death. But the Pisans, not to be outdone in honour, refused to allowhim to be executed in their territory; then the Florentines bought aplot of ground near the camp, and killed him there. When the fleetreturned and heard this, they determined to send Florence a present toshow their gratitude. Now, among the spoil were some bronze gates andtwo rosy pillars of porphyry, very precious. Then they besought theFlorentines to choose one of these, the gates or the pillars, as a gift. And Florence chose the pillars, which stand to-day beside the easterngate of the Baptistery in that city. But on the way to Florence theyencountered the Mugnone in flood, and were thrown down and broken there. Hence the Florentines, that scornful and suspicious folk, swore that thePisans had cracked their gifts themselves with fire before sending them, that Florence might not possess things so fair. 

Other jealousies, too, arose out of the success of Pisa, thoughindirectly. For the Genoese, never content that she should have theoverlordship of Sardinia, were still more disturbed when Pope GelasiusII. , that Pisan, gave Corsica to Pisa, so that about 1125[24] they madewar on her. The war lasted many years, till Innocent II, being Pope andcome to Pisa, made peace, giving the Genoese certain rights in Corsica. About this time S. Bernard was in Pisa, where in 1134 Innocent II held aGeneral Council; not for long, however, for in the same year he set outfor Milan to reconcile that Church with Rome. 

Her quarrel with Genoa was scarcely finished when Pisa found herself atwar with the Normans in Southern Italy, defending heroically the city ofNaples and utterly destroying Amalfi, the wonderful republic of theSouth. [25] Certainly the might of Pisa was great; her supremacy wasunquestionable from Lerici to Piombino, but behind her hills Lucca wason watch, not far away Florence her friend as yet, held the valley ofthe Arno, while Genoa on the sea dogged her steps between thecontinents. Thus Pisa stood in the middle of the twelfth century thestrongest and most warlike city in Tuscany, full of ambition and thelove of beauty and glory. For it was now in 1152 that she began to buildthe Baptistery, and in 1174 the famous Campanile, a group of buildingswith the Duomo unrivalled in the world. 

Meanwhile the Great Countess of Tuscany had died in 1115; more and moreItaly became divided against itself, and by the end of the centuryGuelph and Ghibelline, commune and noble, were tearing her in pieces. Tuscany, really little more than a group of communes devoted to trade, with the great feudatories ever in the offing, without any real unity, slowly became the stronghold of the Guelphs. Only Pisa, [26] glorying inthe strength of the sea and the splendour of war, was Ghibelline, withSiena on her sunny hills. Now, having won Sardinia for herself, hernobles there established were, as was their manner everywhere, continually at feud. The Church, thinking to make Pisan sovereignty lesssecure, supported the weaker. Already Innocent III had, following thisplan, called on the Pisans to withdraw their claim to the island. And itwas a Pisan noble, Visconti, who, marrying into one of the islandfamilies related to Gregory IX, recognised the Papal suzerainty. Thusthis family in Pisa became Guelph. But the other nobles, among whom wasthe Gherardesca family, threw their weight on the other side, and soPisa, who had ever leaned that way, became staunchly Ghibelline. [27]

The quarrel with Florence was certain sooner or later, for Florence wasgrowing in strength and riches; she would not for ever be content to letPisa hold her sea-gate, taking toll of all that passed in and out. Itwas in 1222 that the first war broke out with the White Lily. Any excusewas good enough; the bone of contention appears to have been a lap-dogbelonging to one of the Ambassadors[28]. Pisa was beaten. In 1259, nevertheless, she turned on the Genoese and drove them down the seas. But the death of Frederic in 1250 was the true end of the Ghibellinecause in Italy. 

What then did Pisa look like in these the days of her great power andprosperity? She was a city, we may think, of narrow shadowy streets likethe Via delle Belle Torri, full of refuse and garbage too, for then, asnow in the remoter places, the household slops were simply hurled out ofthe windows with a mere _guarda_! called from an upper window. And tothe horror of less fortunate cities, these streets were full of "Pagans, Turks, Libyans, Parthians, and foul Chaldeans, with their incense, pearls, and jewels. " Yet though so good a Guelph as Donizo, thebiographer of the great Countess, can express his horror of these"Gentiles, " Genoa, too, must have been in much the same case; but thenGenoa was Guelph, and Pisa Ghibelline. Yet then, as to-day in that quietfar corner of the city, in a meadow sprinkled with daisies, the greatwhite Duomo stood a silent witness to the splendour of the noblestrepublic in Tuscany. 

But her day was too soon over. In 1254, Florence and Lucca met anddefeated her. The Guelphs had won. In Pisa we find the governmentreformed, elders appointed, a senate, a great council, and Podestà, aCaptain of the People. It seemed as though Pisa herself was about tobecome Guelph, or at any rate to fling out her nobles. But in many adistant colony the nobles ruled, undisturbed by the disaster at home. And then, almost before she had set her house in order, the splendidvictory of Monteaperto threw the Guelphs into confusion, and the bannersof Pisa once more flew wide and far. But the fatal cause of the Empirewas doomed; Manfred fell at Benevento, and Corradino was defeated atTagliacozzo by Charles of Anjou, who, not content with victory, expelledthe Pisan merchants from his ports. There was left to her the sea. 

Now Ugolino della Gherardesca, of the great family which had beenespecially enraged by the conduct of Visconti, married his sister to oneof that family reigning at Gallura in Sardinia. This man, the judge ofGallura, as he was called, had come to live in Pisa. The Pisans lookedwith much suspicion on this alliance, and exiled first the Visconti andlater Ugolino himself, with all the other Guelphs. Ugolino went toLucca, and with her help in 1276 overcame his native city and forced herto receive again the exiles. Then the merchandise of Florence passedfreely through her port, Lucca regained her fortresses, and Pisa herselffell into the possession of Ugolino. 

Nevertheless, without a thought of fear, looking ever seaward, sheawaited the Genoese attack, certain that it would come, since she wasdivided within her gates. It was to be a fight to the death. During theyear 1282 the Genoese were driven back from the mouth of the Arno, thePisans were driven from Genoa, and scattered and spoiled by a storm. These were but skirmishes; the fight was yet to come. In Genoa theybuilt a hundred and fifty ships of war; the Pisans, too, were strainingevery nerve. Then came a running fight off Sardinia, in which the Pisanshad the worse of it, losing eight galleys and fifteen hundred men. Yetthey were not disheartened. They made Alberto Morosini, a Venetian, their Podestà, and with him as Admirals were Count Ugolino dellaGherardesca and Andreotto Saracini. When the treasury was empty thenobles gave their fortunes for the public cause. We hear of one familygiving eleven ships of war, others gave six, others less, as they wereable. At midsummer 1284 more than a hundred galleys sailed to Genoa, andin scorn shot arrows of silver into the great harbour. But the Genoesewere not yet prepared. They were ready a few days later, however, whenthe watchers by Arno "descried a hundred and seven sail" making for thePorto. Then Pisa thrust forth her ships. With songs and withthanksgiving the Archbishop Ubaldino, at the head of all the clergy ofthe city, flung the Pisan standard out on the wind. It was night whenthe fleet was lost to sight in the offing. In that night there came tothe Genoese thirty ships by way of reinforcement unknown to the Pisans. These they hid behind the island of Meloria. At dawn the battle broke. In many squadrons the ships flung themselves on one another, and forlong the victory hung in the balance. The Pisans had already grappledfor boarding, the battle was yet to win, when the Genoese reinforcementssailed out from the island straight for the Pisan Admirals. The battlewas over. Flight--it was all that was left for Pisa. Ugolino himself wassaid to have given the signal. 

There fell that day five thousand Pisans, with eleven thousand captured, and twenty-eight galleys lost to Genoa. There was no family in Pisa butmourned its dead: for six months on every side nothing was heard butlamentations and mourning. If you would see Pisa, it was said, you mustgo to Genoa. 

Pisa had lost the sea. In Tuscany she stood with Arezzo facing theGuelph League. She elected Ugolino her Captain-General. [29] A man of thegreatest force and ability, he was ambitious rather for himself than forPisa. Having many Guelph friends, his business was to beat Genoa and theGuelph League. He succeeded in part. He bribed Florence with certainstrongholds to leave the League, and he expelled the Ghibellines fromPisa. Then he offered Genoa Castro in Sardinia as ransom for the Pisanprisoners; but they sent word to the Council that they would not accepttheir freedom at the price of the humiliation of their city. Such werethe Pisans. And, indeed, they threatened that if at such a price theywere set free, they would return only to punish those who had thoughtsuch treason. Ugolino for his part cared not. [30] He proceeded to bribeLucca with other strongholds. In the city all was confusion. Ugolino wasturned out of the Dictatorship, he became Captain of the People. Not forlong, however, for soon he contrived to make himself tyrant again. 

Now the Genoese, seeing they were like to get nothing out of theirprisoners by this, were anxious for a money ransom. But Ugolino, fearingthose brave men, broke the truce with Genoa, urging certain pirates ofSardinia to attack the Genoese; and, in order to make sure of this, while he himself went to his castle in the country, he arranged withRuggieri dei Ubaldini, the Archbishop, to expel the Guelphs, among themhis own nephew, from Pisa. The plot succeeded; but Pisa desired that theArchbishop should for the future divide the power with Ugolino. To thisUgolino would not agree, and in a rage he slew the nephew of theArchbishop. Meanwhile, Ugolino's nephew, Nino Visconti, was plottingwith him to return. This came to the ears of Ruggieri, who called theGhibellines to arms, and at last succeeded in capturing Ugolino and hisfamily, after days of fighting. Well had Marco Lombardo, that "wise andvaliant man of affairs, " told him, "The wrath of God is the only thinglacking to you. "

"Of a truth, " says Villani, the old Florentine Chronicler, --"of a truththe wrath of God soon came upon him, as it pleased God, because of histreacheries and crimes; for when the Archbishop of Pisa and hisfollowers had succeeded in driving out Nino and his party, by thecounsel and treachery of Count Ugolino the forces of the Guelphs werediminished; and then the Archbishop took counsel how to betray CountUgolino; and in a sudden uproar of the people he was attacked andassaulted at the palace, the Archbishop giving the people to understandthat he had betrayed Pisa, and given up their fortresses to theFlorentines and the Lucchesi; and, being without any defence, the peoplehaving turned against him, he surrendered himself prisoner; and at thesaid assault one of his bastard sons and one of his grandsons wereslain, and Count Ugolino was taken and two of his sons and threegrandsons, his son's children, and they were put in prison; and hishousehold and followers, the Visconti and Ubizinghi, Guatini and all theother Guelph houses, were driven out of Pisa. Thus was the traitorbetrayed by the traitor.... In the said year 1288, in the said month ofMarch ... The Pisans chose for their captain Count Guido of Montefeltro, giving him wide jurisdiction and lordship; and he passed the boundariesof Piedmont, within which he was confined by his terms of surrender tothe Church, and came to Pisa; for which thing he and his sons and familyand all the commonwealth of Pisa were excommunicated by the Church ofRome, as rebels and enemies against Holy Church. And when the said Countwas come to Pisa ... The Pisans, which had put in prison Count Ugolinoand his two sons, and two sons of Count Guelpho his son ... In the toweron the Piazza degli Anziani, caused the door of the said tower to belocked and the keys thrown into Arno, and refused to the said prisonersany food, which in a few days died there of hunger. And albeit first thesaid Count demanded with cries to be shriven; yet did they not grant hima friar or a priest to confess him. And when all the five dead bodieswere taken out of the tower, they were buried without honour; andthenceforward the said prison was called the Tower of Hunger, and willbe always[31]. "

Enough of Ugolino. Count Guido, that mystical, fierce soul from Urbino, seeing danger everywhere, called the whole city to the army. Florencehad allied herself with Lucca and Genoa[32]. Count Guido's business wasto beat them. He did it[33]; so that by the Assumption of Our Lady in1292 he had won back again nearly all the lost fortresses, and wrungpeace from the Guelph League. Nevertheless, Pisa was compelled tosacrifice her captain, and to see Genoa established in Corsica and inpart of Sardinia; also she had to pay 160, 000 lire to Genoa for thePisan captives, and in Elba to admit Genoese trade free of tax. 

Some idea of the glory of Pisa even when she had suffered so much may behad, perhaps, from Tronci's account of that Festival of the Assumptionof the Blessed Virgin as it was kept in August 1293, when the peace hadbeen signed. 

The Anziani, Tronci tells us[34], "were used, for a month before theFesta, to publish it in the following manner. Twenty horses covered allwith scarlet, went out of the city bearing twenty youths dressed infanciful and rich costumes. The first two carried two banners, one ofthe Comunità, the other of the Popolo. Two others carried two lances ofsilver washed with gold, on which were the Imperial eagles. Two othersbore on their fists two living eagles crowned with gold. The restfollowed in a company, dressed in rich liveries. There came after, thetrumpeters of the Comunità with the silver trumpets, and others withfifes and wind instruments of divers loudness, and they proclaimed the_Palii_ which were to be won on land and water. 

"On land, the first prize was of red velvet lined with fur, with a greateagle of silver. This he received who first reached the goal. To thesecond was given a silken stuff of the value of thirty gold florins, tothe third in jest was offered a pair of geese and a bunch of garlic. Onthe water the race was rowed in little galleys and brigantini. He whocame in first won a Bull covered with scarlet, and fifty _scudi_; thesecond a piece of silken stuff with thirty gold florins, the third gotonly geese and garlic. 

"On the first day of August were placed on the towers of the city, certainly some 16, 000 in number, three banners on each of them; one withthe Imperial eagle, another of the Commune, and the third of the People. In like manner, on the cupola, façade, and corners of the Duomo, on S. Giovanni, on the Campo Santo and the Campanile, these banners flew notonly on the top, but at all the angles of the columns. The same wereseen on all the churches of the city, and on all the palaces, thePalazzo Pubblico, the Palace of the Podestà, the Palazzo del Capitanodel Conservatore, the Corte del Consulato di Mare, on the palaces of theMercati and of the seven Arti. The Contado followed the example of thecity; and thus it continued all the month of August. And the wholepeople of every sort made great rejoicing and feasting, to whichforeigners were particularly invited. 

"At the first Vespers of the Festa, the Anziani went to the Duomo instate: and before them walked the maidens dressed in new costumes; andafter came the trumpeters, and the Captain with his company, and all theother lesser magistrates. When they were come to the Cathedral, theArchbishop, vested _a Pontificale_, began solemn Vespers. This ended, ayouth mounted into the pulpit and chanted a prayer in praise of theAssumption of the Most Glorious Virgin. Then Matins was sung; and thatfinished, the procession made its way round about the church, and wasjoined by all the Companies and the Regulars, carrying each man a candleof wax of half a pound weight, alight in his hands. The Clergy followedwith the Canons and the Archbishop with lighted candles of greaterweight; and last came the Anziani, the Podestà, the Captain and otherMagistrates, the Representatives of the Arti, and all the People withlights of wax in their hands. And the procession being over, all went tosee the illuminations, the bonfires, and the festa, through the city. 

"On the morning of the Festa, the _ceri_ were placed on the _trabacche_, that were more than sixty in number, carried, by boys dressed inliveries, with much pomp. Immediately after followed the Anziani, thePodestà, and the Captain of the People with all the other Magistratesand Officials and the people, with the Company of Horse richly dressedand with the Companies of Foot; and a little after came all the _arti_, carrying each one his great _cero_ all painted, and accompanied by allthe wind instruments. It was a thing sweet to hear and beautiful to see. The offering made, they went out to bring the silver girdle[35] bornewith great pomp on a _carretta_; and there assisted all the clergy inprocession with exquisite music both of voices and of instruments. Theusual ceremonies being over, they encircled the Cathedral, and hung thegirdle to the irons that were set round about. Yes, it was this girdleof a great value and very beautiful that was spoken of through the wholeworld, so that from many a city of Italy people came in haste to see it;but to-day there is nothing of it left save a small particle[36]. "

Misfortune certainly had not broken the spirit of Pisa. And so it is notsurprising that, though she dared scarcely fly her flag on the seas, onland she thought to hold her own. No doubt this hope was strengthened bythe advent in 1312 of Henry VII of Luxembourg. With him on her side shedreamed of the domination of Tuscany. But it was not to be. She foundmoney and arms in his cause and her own. She opened a new war with theGuelph League; she suspended her own Government and made him lord ofPisa. He remained with her two months, and then in 1313 he died atBuonconvento. They buried him sadly in the Duomo. The two millionflorins she had expended were lost for ever. Frederick of Sicily, Henry's ally, though he came to Pisa, refused the proferred lordship, asdid Henry of Savoy; and at last Pisa placed herself under the ImperialVicar of Genoa, for that city also had been delivered by her nobles intothe hands of Henry VII. 

Uguccione della Faggiuola, the Imperial Vicar of Genoa, remained, asImperial legate, Podestà, Captain of the People, and Elector, bringingwith him one thousand German horse. The rest of the army of Henryreturned over the Alps. Pisa thought herself on the verge of ruin; shemust make terms with her foes. This being done, there appeared to be nofurther need for Uguccione, whose German troops were expensive, andwhose presence did but anger the Guelphs. Uguccione was a man ofenormous strength, brave, too, and resolute, swift to decide an issue, wise in council, but a barbarian. What had he to do with peace. Hisbusiness was war, as he very soon let the Pisans know. Nor were theyslow to take him at his word. Pisa was never beaten. Uguccione marchedthrough the streets with the living eagles of the Empire borne beforehim. Before long he had deprived the Guelphs of power, and waspractically tyrant of Pisa. Everything now seemed to depend on victory. Lucca scarcely ten miles away, Guelph by tradition and hatred of Pisa, was in an uproar. Uguccione saw his chance and took it; he flung himselfon the city and delivered it up to its own factions while the Pisanssacked it. Nor did they spare the place. The spoil was enormous; amongthe rest, a large sum belonging to the Pope fell into their hands. Florence and her allies sprang to arms. Uguccione took up the challenge, burnt the lands of Pistoja and San Miniato al Tedesco, ravaged thevineyards of Volterra, seized the fortresses of Val di Nievole, and atlast besieged Montecatini. 

It was now that the Ghibellines of Lucca with Castruccio Castracanijoined Uguccione. They met the army of Florence at Montecatini. Machiavelli states that Uguccione fell ill, and had no part in thebattle, which was won by Castruccio. Villari, however, gives the gloryto Uguccione. 

It might seem that Uguccione, whether ill or not on the day of battle, was jealous, and perhaps afraid, of Castruccio. Certainly he plottedagainst him, sending his son Nerli to Lucca with orders to trapCastruccio and imprison him; which was done. Nerli, however, wantedresolution to kill him; and his father hearing this, set out from Pisawith four hundred horse to take the matter in hand. The Pisans, who wereby this time completely enslaved by Uguccione, seized the opportunity torise. Macchiavelli tells us "they cut his Deputies' throats, and slewall his Family. Now, that he might be sure they were in earnest, theychose the Conte de Gherardesca, and made him their Governor. " WhenUguccione got to Lucca he found the city in an uproar, and the peopledemanding the release of Castruccio. This he was compelled to allow. With Castruccio at liberty, Lucca was too hot for him, and he fled intoLombardy to the Lords of Scala, where no long time after, he died. 

After the great victory of Montecatini, Gherardesca and Castruccio sooncame to terms with the Guelphs; and all that Pisa really seems to havegained by the war was that she was compelled to build a hospital andchapel for the repose of the souls of the dead at Montecatini. Thischapel, hidden away in the Casa dei Trovatelli at the top of Via S. Maria in Pisa, became a glorious monument of the victory of Pisa overFlorence. 

But the freedom of Pisa was gone for ever; others, lords and tyrants, arose, Castruccio Castracani and the rest, yet she was still at bay. Onthe 2nd October 1325 she again defeated Florence at Altopascio, and evenexcluded her from the port, and, in 1341, when Florence had bought Luccafrom Mastino della Scala for 250, 000 florins, she besieged it to preventthe entry of the Florentine army then aided by Milan, Mantova, andPadova, In 1342, the Florentines having failed to relieve Lucca, thePisans entered the city. The possession of Lucca seemed to put Pisa, where centuries ago Luitprand had placed her, at the head of theprovince of Tuscany. This view, which certainly she herself was not slowto take, was confirmed when Volterra and Pistoja placed themselves underher protection; yet, as ever, her greatest danger was the discord withinher walls. The Republic was weak, nearly a million and a half of florinshad been spent on the war, and many tyrants were her allies; moreover, she had lent troops to Milan. [37] It was this moment of reaction afterso great an effort that Visconti d'Oleggio chose for a conspiracyagainst Gherardesca the Captain-General. It is true the plot wasdiscovered, the traitors exiled, and Visconti banished; but the mischiefwas done. When Lucchino Visconti heard of it in Milan, he imprisoned thePisan troops in that city and sent Visconti d'Oleggio back with twothousand men to seize Pisa. Thus the war dragged on; and though theseMilanese were destroyed for the most part by malaria in the Maremma, still Pisa had no rest. After Visconti came famine, and after the faminethe Black Death. Seventy in every hundred of the population died, Troncitells us, [38] while during the famine, bread, such as it was, had to bedistributed every day at the taverns. Then followed a revolution in thecity. Count Raniero of the Gherardesca house had succeeded to theCaptain-Generalship of Pisa as though it were his right by birth. Thisbrought him many enemies; and, indeed, the city was in uproar for someyears: for, while he was so young, Dino della Rocca acted for him. Amongthe more powerful enemies of della Rocca was Andrea Gambacorti, whosefamily was soon to enslave the city. Now the one party was called_Bergolini_, for they had named Raniero Bergo for hate, and of theseGambacorti was chief. The other party which was at this time in power, as I have said, was named _Raspanti_, which is to say graspers, and ofthem Dino della Rocca was head. In the midst of this disputing Ranierodied, and the Raspanti were accused of having murdered him, among othersby Gambacorti. Every sort of device to heal these wounds was resortedto; marriages and oaths all alike failed. The city blazed with theirarson every night, till at last the people rose and expelling theRaspanti, chose Andrea Gambacorti for captain. This happened in 1348. Seven years later, Charles IV, on his way to Rome to be crowned, came tothe city. Now the Conte di Montescudaio was known to Charles, who yearsbefore had ruled in Lucca; therefore the Raspanti, of when Montescudaiowas one, took heart, and at the moment when Charles was in the Duomoreceiving the homage of the city, they roused the people assembled inthe Piazza, shouting for the Emperor and Liberty; but Charles heededthem not. Nevertheless Gambacorti, to save himself, thought fit to giveCharles the lordship of the city; but the people, angered at this, demanded their liberty, so that the magistrates, fearing for peace, reconciled the two factions, who then together demanded of Charles hisnew lordship. And he gave it them with as good a grace as he could, forhis men were few. Then again he heard from Lucca. There, too, theydemanded liberty, and especially from the dominion of Pisa, and, it issaid, the Lucchesi in France gave him 20, 000 florins for this. But Pisaheard of it. When Charles sent his troops to occupy Lucca, the Raspantisaw their opportunity and rose. They put themselves at the head of thepeople, who slew one hundred and fifty of Charles's Germans, and heldCharles himself a prisoner in the Duomo, where he lodged since thePalazzo Comunale had been fired. Montescudaio, however, secretly joinedCharles with his men; he burnt the houses of the Gambacorti anddispersed the mob. Apparently Lucca was free. But Charles had reckonedwithout the Pisan garrison in the subject city. They fired theirbeacons, and Pisa saw the blaze. It was enough, their dominion was indanger; there were no longer any factions; Raspanti and Bergolini alikestood together for Pisa. They streamed out of the great Porta a Lucca tothe relief of their own people, and though six thousand armed peasantsopposed them, they won to Lucca and took it, the Pisani still holdingthe gates. Then they fired the city, and when the flames closed in roundS. Michele the Lucchesi surrendered. Thus they served their enemies. ButCharles had his revenge. He seized the Gambacorti, and appointing ajudge, having given instructions to find them guilty, tried them andbeheaded seven of them in Piazza degli Anziani, in spite of the rage ofPisa. Then, with a large amount of treasure, of which he had spoiled thePisans, he fled back with his barbarians to his Germany. And as soon ashe was gone the city took Montescudaio and sent him into exile[39], withthe remaining Gambacorti also. So Charles left Pisa more Ghibelline thanhe found her. 

It was at this time that Pisa really began to see perhaps her truedanger from Florence. Certainly she did everything to prick her intowar. But Florence was already victorious. Her answer was more disastrousthan any battle; she took her trade from the port of Pisa to the Sieneseport Talamone. Then Florence purchased Volterra, over the head of Pisaas it were; and at last, careless whether it pleased the Pisans or no, she permitted the Gambacorti to make raid upon Pisan territory, andallowed Giovanni di Sano, who had lately been in her service, to seize afortress in the territory of Lucca. The peace was broken. On the brinkof ruin, ravaged by plague, Pisa turned to confront her hard, mercilessfoe. For months Florence ravaged her territory, while she, too weak tostrike a blow in her own honour, could but hold her gates. Then theplague left her, and she rose. 

Bernabò Visconti was sending her help for 150, 000 florins. [40] TheEnglish were on the way; already over the mountains, Hawkwood and hisWhite Company were coming to save her; meantime she tried to strike forherself. Pietro Farnese of the Florentines laid her low, taking onehundred and fifty prisoners and her general. The English tarried, but anew ally was already by her side. The Black Death which had brought downher pride, now fell upon the enemy, both in camp and in their city ofthe Lily: and then--the English were come. On the 1st of February 1364, Hawkwood, with a thousand horse and two thousand foot, drove theFlorentines through the Val di Nievole; he harried them above Vinci andchased them through Serravalle, crushed them at Castel di Montale, andscattered them in the valley of Arno. They found their city at last, asfoxes find their holes, and went to earth. There Pisa halted. Before thegates of Pisa the Florentines for years had struck money: so the Pisansdid before Florence. Nor was this all. Halting there three days, saysthe chronicle, [41] "they caused three palii to be run well-nigh to thegates of Florence. One was on horseback, another was on foot, and thethird was run by loose women (_le feminine mundane_); and they causednewly-made priests to sing Mass there, and they coined money of diverskinds of gold and of silver; and on one side thereof was Our Lady, withHer Son in Her arms; on the other side was the Eagle, with the Lionbeneath its feet.... Thereafter for further dispite they set up a pairof gallows over against the gate of Florence, and hanged thereon threeasses. "

Florence refused to submit. Other Free Companies such as Hawkwood'sjoined in the war. The Florentines hired that of the Star. But Hawkwoodwas not to be denied. He marched up Arno, devastating the country, andat last deigned to return to Pisa by Cortona and Siena. 

Then Florence did what might have been expected. She bribed Baumgarten, who with his Germans had fought since the rout with Hawkwood. They metat the Borgo di Cascina on 28th July. Hawkwood was caught napping, andPisa in her turn was humbled. The Florentines returned with two thousandprisoners, having slain a thousand men. They took with them "forty-twowagons full of prisoners, all packed together 'like melons, ' with a deadeagle tied by the neck and dragging along the ground. "[42] Such was warin Italy in the fourteenth century. 

Then followed the Doge Agnello: the greatness of Pisa was past. 

It had ever been the plan of Milan to weaken Florence by aiding Pisa, and to weaken Pisa by this continual war, for it was the Visconti'sdream to carry their dominion into Tuscany. Now at this time, amid allthese disasters, the Pisan ambassador at Milan was a certain Giovannidell' Agnello, a merchant, ambitious but without honour. This plebeianreadily lent himself to the Visconti to betray the city, if thereby hemight win power; and this Visconti promised him, for, said he, "if I winPisa, you shall be my lieutenant, and all the world will take you evenfor my ally. "

Agnello went back to Pisa full of this dream:[43] and at the firstopportunity suggested that Visconti would be flattered if a Lord wereto be elected in Pisa, if only for a year at a time; and in his subtiltyhe proposed Pietro d' Albizzo da Vico, a very much respected (_di granstima_) citizen, as Lord. But Messer Pietro replied by asking to be sentwith other citizens to Pescia to arrange the peace with Florence. Then acertain Vanni Botticella applied for the post; and Agnello praised himfor his patriotism, but asked him whether he had money enough to beLord. Certainly Pisa had fallen. By this Agnello was suspected, andindeed one night certain citizens got leave to search his house, forthey believed him to be a traitor[44]. But he had warning, and alreadyHawkwood had sold himself, for it was his business. So, when thosecitizens had returned disappointed, for they found Agnello abed, hearose and joined his bandits. With Hawkwood he went to the Palazzo deiAnziani, bound the guard and had the Elders summoned, and told them atale of how the Blessed Virgin had bidden him assume the lordship of thecity. Well, he had his way, his bandits saw to that; so the Anzianiagreed and swore obedience. Next day Pisa acclaimed her Doge. 

Agnello remained Doge, or Lord as he preferred to be called, for fouryears. Then Charles IV marched back over the Alps into Italy. Bought offand thwarted in Lombardy, he came towards Lucca, which the Lucchesiexiles again offered to buy from him. Agnello was terrified. In haste hesent to Charles offering to give him Lucca if he were made sure in Pisa. Outside the walls of Lucca, Charles knighted this astute tradesman. Agnello ran back to Pisa and conferred knighthood on his nephews. Thenhe built a platform and awaited the Emperor. His end was in keeping withhis life. As he stood on the insecure "hustings" which he had built, that in sight of all the people Charles might declare him Imperial Vicarof Pisa, the platform collapsed and Agnello's leg was broken. Now, whether the comic spirit, so helpful to justice, be strong in our Pisansstill, I know not, but on learning of the misfortune of their Lord, theyrose, and, without noticing their Imperial Vicar, appointed Anziani torule by the old laws. 

Then the burghers and nobles--"Cittadini amatori della Patria, " Troncicalls them--formed the Campagnia di S. Michele, for it bore on itsgonfalon St. Michael Archangel, and the black eagle of the Empire. Itwas the business of this company to restore peace and unity to the city. The leaders resolved to recall the exiles, among them Pietro Gambacorti. He came, and the city greeted him, and he swore to serve the Republicand to forgive his enemies. A riot followed; the Bergolini armedthemselves and burnt the Gambacorti palaces. But Pietro Gambacorticalled to the city, which had risen to defend itself and to makereprisals, saying, "I have pardoned them--I, whose parents they slew. Bywhat right do you refuse to do what I have done?"[45] The Bergolini tookthe government, and there was peace. Then the Campagnia di S. Michelebroke up. 

Not for long, however, could there be peace in Pisa. The Raspanti stillheld one of the gates; and thinking to better themselves, they sent anembassy to Charles, who was in Lucca, asking his help. He imprisoned theembassy, and at once sent his Germans to seize the city. But the Pisansheard of it. They rang the great bells in the Campanile, and barricadedthe gates with the benches and stalls in the Duomo, on the Baptisterythey set their bowmen, and on the Campanile the slingers. Then they toreup the streets, and waited to give death for death. The Germans, however, were easily beaten and bought off, and Pisa again returned toher internal quarrels. 

Out of these sprang, in 1385, Pietro Gambacorti, as Captain of thepeople. It was the beginning of the last twenty years of Pisa's life asan independent city. She now stood between Visconti in the north andFlorence close at hand. Florence was her friend against Visconti forher own sake: she meant to have Pisa herself. Gambacorti did his best. With infinite tact he kept friends with both cities. Under him Pisaseemed to regain something of her old confidence and prosperity. A manof fine courage, simplicity, and passing honest, he was incapable ofsuspecting a tried friend whom he had benefited. Yet it was by the handof such an one he fell. 

Jacopo d'Appiano's father had been exiled with Gambacorti in 1348. Likemany another Pisan house which had risen from nothing, Appiano was atfeud with certain of his fellow-citizens, among them the Lanfranchifamily. For this cause he kept a guard about him. Now Gambacorti, whoremembered his father's exile, made Appiano permanent "Chancellor of theRepublic": and hoping to reconcile the Lanfranchi with the newchancellor, he sent for Lanfranchi, but the bandits of Appiano murderedhim as he went thither, and then joined Appiano in his house. Gambacortiordered his chancellor to deliver them up, but he refused. Then theBergolini offered Gambacorti their assistance, but he refused it, trusting to justice. Appiano, however, at the head of the Raspanti, marched to the palace of Gambacorti. The city was in arms, and they hadto fight their way. Arrived before the palace, Gambacorti ordering hismen not to shoot his friend, agreed to confer with Appiano. So he wentout of his house, and as Appiano stretched out his hand, in token, as itwere, of friendship, his bandits fell upon him and slew him. A fightfollowed, in which the Bergolini were beaten; then Appiano becameCaptain of the People. In truth, it was only a device of Visconti forseizing the city. Appiano admitted the Milanese, and what Agnello hadfailed to do, he did, for he ruled as the creature of Gian Galeazzo. Butthere is no honour among thieves. Soon Visconti, hoping to win Pisa allfor himself, plotted against Appiano. The quarrel went on, Appianofearing to make treaty with Florence lest he should fall, and fearing, too, to decide with Visconti lest he should be murdered, till he died, and his son became Captain, only to sell Pisa to Visconti for 200, 000florins, with Elba also, and many castles. [46] Then Gian Galeazzo diedin 1404. 

Now Florence knew that in the confusion which followed the death of thegreat Visconti, Pisa was weak and almost without defence, so withouthesitation she sent an army to seize the city: but Pisa, always at herbest in danger, worked night and day, nor was any man idle in buildingfortifications. In Genoa the Frenchman Boucicault, who had held thatcity, came to her assistance, for the last thing Genoa or Milan desiredwas to see Pisa and her port in the hands of Florence. Boucicaultimprisoned all the Florentines in Genoa, and seized Livorno, nor wouldhe agree to release his prisoners till Florence had signed a four years'peace. But Pisa soon wearied of this. In the grip of Genoa, fearingVisconti, unable to save herself, she revolted, and Boucicault sold herto Florence, for he had to defend himself in Genoa. It was in August1405 that Pisa was given up to Florence, but although for a momentFlorence then held the city, she was to fight for it in earnest beforeshe could hold it for good. As yet she only possessed the citadel, andby a ruse the Pisans managed to win that from her: then they sent toFlorence to negotiate. They offered to buy their freedom, but Florencewas obdurate. She was determined to possess herself of Pisa; her armieswere ordered to advance. 

Pisa was ready. At that moment all feuds were forgotten; a united cityopposed the Florentines: there was but one way to take it--by famine. And it was thus at last, on 9th October 1406, Pisa fell. Preferring todie rather than to surrender, it would have been into a city of the deadthat the armies of Florence would have marched, but for the brutaltreachery of Giovanni Gambacorti. As it was, it was only a city of thedying that Florence occupied. After every kind of heroic effort, Giovanni Gambacorti sold Pisa when she was too weak to fight, saveagainst a declared enemy, for 50, 000 florins, the citizenship ofFlorence and Borgo to rule. He opened the gates, and Florence streamedin. There was scarcely a crust left in the city which was at lastbecome the vassal of Florence. 

Here, truly, the chronicles of Pisa end--in the horrid cruelty, scorn, and disdain so characteristic of the Florentine. Certainly with theMedici a more humane government was adopted, so that in 1472 we read ofLorenzo Magnifico restoring the University to something of its oldsplendour, but nothing he could do was able to extinguish the undyinghatred of Pisa for those who had stolen away her liberty. In 1494 thatcarnival army of Charles VIII, winding through the valleys and over themountains, seemed to offer them a hope of freedom. They welcomed himwith every sort of joy, and hurled the Marzocco and the Gonfalon ofFlorence into Arno, all to no purpose. And truly without hope, from 1479to 1505, they bore heroically three sieges and flung back threedifferent armies of Florence. Soderini and Macchiavelli urged on thewar. In 1509, Macchiavelli, that mysterious great man, besieged her onthree sides, and at last, forced by hunger and famine, Pisa admitted himon the 8th June. It was her last fight for liberty. But she had won forherself the respect of her enemies. A more humane and moderate policywas adopted in dealing with her. Nevertheless, as in 1406, so now, hercitizens fled away, so that there was scarcely left a Pisan in Pisa forthe victor to rule. 

Grand Duke Cosimo seems to have loved her. It was there he founded hisOrder of the Knights of St. Stephen to harry the pirates in theMediterranean. Still she was a power on the sea, though in the serviceof another. And though dead, she yet lived, for she is of those whocannot die. The ever-glorious name of Galileo Galilei crowns herimmortality. Born within her walls, he taught at her University, and hisfirst experiments in the knowledge of the law of gravity were made fromher bell-tower, while, as it is said, the great lamp of her Duomo taughthim the secret of the pendulum. 

Looking on her to-day, remembering her immortal story, one thinks onlyof the beauty that is from of old secure in silence on that meadow amongthe daisies just within her walls. 

III

It is with a peculiar charm and sweetness that Pisa offers herself tothe stranger, who maybe between two trains has not much time to giveher. And indeed to him she knows she has not much to offer, just a fewthings passing strange or beautiful, that are spread out for him as at afair, on the grass of a meadow in the dust and the sun. But to such anone Pisa can never be more than a vision, vanished as soon as seen, inthe heat of midday or the shadow of evening. 

But for me, of all the cities that grow among the flowers in Tuscany, itis Pisa that I love best. She is full of the sun; she has the gift ofsilence. Her story is splendid, unfortunate, and bitter, and moves tothe song of the sea: still she keeps her old ways about her, the life ofto-day has not troubled her at all. In her palaces the great mirrors arestill filled with the ghosts of the eighteenth century; on her Lung'Arno you may almost see Byron drive by to mount his horse at the gate, while in the Pineta, not far away, Shelley lies at noonday writingverses to Miranda. 

It is on the Lung' Arno, curved like a bow, so much more lovely than anyFlorentine way, that what little world is left to Pisa lingers yet. Before one is the Ponte di Mezzo, the most ancient bridge of the city, built in 1660, but really the representative of its forerunners thathere bound north and south together: _En moles olim lapidea vix aetatemferrus nunc mormorea pulchrior et firmior stat simulato Marte virtutisverae specimen saepe datura_, you read on one of the pillars at thenorthern end. For indeed the first bridge seems to have been of wood, partly rebuilt of stone after the great victory off the coast of Sicily, and finished in 1046[47]. This bridge, called the Ponte Vecchio, tookten years to build, and any doubt we might have as to whether it was ofwood or stone is set at rest by Tronci, [48] who tells us that in 1382, "Pietro Gambacorta, together with the Elders and the Consiglio deiCittadini, determined to rebuild in stone the bridge of wood whichpassed over Arno from the mouth of the Strada del Borgo to that of S. Egidio, for the greater ornament of the city, chiefly because there weremany shops on the bridge that impeded the view of the beautiful Lung'Arno. " One sees the bridge that was thus built, the foundations havingbeen laid with much ceremony, a procession and a sung mass, in aseventeenth-century print in the Museo Civico. [49] There is a buttress aquarter of the way from each end, on which houses were still standing. Then in 1635 this bridge was carried away by a flood. A new bridge wasimmediately built, only to be destroyed in the same way on 1st January1644. In 1660 the present Ponte di Mezzo was finished by Francesco Naveof Rome. 

It was on these bridges that the great Pisan game the _Giuoco del Ponte_was played, [50] a model of which may be found in the Museo. This newbridge, at any rate, does not shut out the view of the beautiful Lung'Arno, _il bello di Pisa_, as one writer calls it. Standing there you maysee the yellow river, curved like a bow, pass through the beautifulcity, between the palaces of marble, their wrinkled image reflected inthe stream, till it is lost in the green fields on its way to the sea;while on the other side, looking eastward, on either side the river arethe palaces of Byron and Shelley, just before the hideous iron bridge, where Arno turns suddenly into the city from the plain and the hills. Tothe south of the bridge is the Loggia dei Banchi, and farther to thewest, on the Lung' Arno, the great palace of the Gambacorti rises, nowthe Palazzo del Comune, and farther still, the Madonna della Spina, alittle Gothic church of marble; while if you pass a little way westward, the Torre Guelfa comes into sight at the bend of the river among theruins of the old arsenal. 

It is of course to the wonderful group of buildings to the north of thecity, just within the walls, that every traveller will first make hisway. Passing from Ponte di Mezzo down the Lung' Arno Regio, past thePalazzo Agostini, beautiful in its red brick past Palazzo Lanfreducciwith its little chain and enigmatic motto, "Alla Giornata, " past theGrand Ducal Palace, you turn at last into the Via S. Maria, a beautifuland lovely street that winds like a stream full of shadows to the Piazzadel Duomo. On your right is the Church of S. Niccolò, founded about theyear 1000 by Ugo, Marquis of Tuscany. It seems that with Otho III therecame into Italy the Marquis Hugh. "I take it, " says Villani, [51] "thismust have been the Marquis of Brandenburg, inasmuch as there is no othermarquisate in Germany. " His sojourn in Italy, and especially in our cityof Florence, liked him so well that he caused his wife to come thither, and took up his abode in Florence as Vicar of Otho the Emperor. It cameto pass as it pleased God, that when he was riding to the chase in thecountry of Bonsollazzo, he lost sight of all his followers in a wood, and came out, as he supposed, at a workshop where iron was wont to bewrought. Here he found men black and deformed, who in place of ironseemed to be tormenting men with fire and with hammer, and he asked themwhat this might be: and they answered and said that these were damnedsouls, and that to similar pains was condemned the soul of the MarquisHugh by reason of his worldly life, unless he should repent. With greatfear he commended himself to the Virgin Mary, and when the vision wasended he remained so pricked in spirit, that after his return toFlorence he sold all his patrimony in Germany and commanded that sevenmonasteries should be founded. The first was the Badia of Florence, tothe honour of St. Mary; the second, that of Bonsollazzo, where he beheldthe vision; the third was founded at Arezzo, the fourth at Poggibonizzi, the fifth at the Verruca of Pisa, the sixth at the city of Castello, thelast was the one at Settimo; and all these abbeys he richly endowed, and lived afterwards with his wife in holy life, and had no son, anddied in the city of Florence on St. Thomas's Day in the year of Christ1006, and was buried with great honour in the Badia of Florence. Tronci[52] says, that beside the Badia di S. Michele di Verruca outsidePisa, "this most pious Marquis" founded also the Church of S. Niccolò, for the use of the Monks of S. Michele Fuori. The Church of S. Niccolòhas been altogether restored. The Campanile, however, the oldest towerleft in the city, is strange and lovely. It has been given to NiccolòPisano, but is certainly older than his day, and, resembling as it doesthe tower of the Badia at Florence and of the Badia at Settimo, seems tobe of the same date as the church. There is a gallery joining the churchwith the palace of the Grand Dukes, to which it served as chapel. 

Coming as one does out from this narrow deserted street of S. Maria intothe space and breadth of the Piazza del Duomo, one is almost blinded bythe sudden light and glory of the sun on those buildings, that seem tobe made of old ivory intricately carved and infinitely noble. Standingthere as though left stranded upon some shore that life has longdeserted, they are an everlasting witness to the Latin genius, symbolsas it were of what has had to be given up so that we may follow life atthe heels of the barbarian Teuton. 

It was in 1063, [53] after the great victory at Palermo, that the shipsof the Republic returning full of spoil, "after much discourse made inthe Senate, "[54] it was decided at last to build "a most magnificenttemple" to S. Maria Assunta, for it was about the time of her Festa, that is to say, the 15th August, that the victory had been won. Thishaving been decided on, the Republic sent ambassadors to Rome to thePope and to King Henry of Germany, and the Pope sent the church manyprivileges, and the King a royal dowry. So they began to build thetemple where stood the old Church of S. Reparata, and more anciently theBaths of the Emperor Hadrian; and they brought marble from Africa, Egypt, Jerusalem, Sardinia, and other far places to adorn the church. In1065 we read that the Pope received under his protection the Chapter andCanons of Pisa. The Cathedral was finished in about thirty years, andwas consecrated by Pope Gelasius II in 1118. The architects, two dimnames still to be read on the façade ever kissed by the setting sun, were Rainaldus and Busketus. They built in that Pisan style which, assome of us may think, was never equalled till Bramante and his disciplesdreamed of St. Peter's and built the little church at Todi, and S. Pietro in Montorio. However this may be, the Duomo of Pisa, the firstmodern cathedral of Italy, was to be the pattern of many a church builtlater in the contado, and even in Lucca and Pistoja and the countryround about. It was a style at once splendid and devout, not forgetfulof the Roman Empire, yet with new thoughts concerning it, so that wherea Roman building had once really stood, now a Latin Church should stand, white with marble and glistening with precious stones. It is strange tofind in this far-away piazza the great buildings of the city; andstranger still, when we remember that S. Reparata, the church that wasdestroyed to make room for the Duomo, was called S. Reparata in Palude, in the swamp. It may be that Pisa was less open to attack on this side, or that this being the highest spot near the city, a flood was less tobe feared. But there were other foes beside the flood and the enemy, forthe church was damaged by fire in 1595, and was restored in 1604. 

The Duomo is a basilica with nave and double aisles[55], with atransept flanked with aisles, covered by a dome over the crossing. Builtall of white marble, that has faded to the tone of old ivory, it isornamented with black and coloured bands, and stands on a beautifulmarble platform in the grass of a meadow. It is, however, the façadethat is the most splendid and beautiful part of the church. It consistsof seven round arches; in the centre and in each alternate arch is adoor of bronze made by Giovanni da Bologna in 1602. Above these archesis the first tier of columns, eighteen in number, of various colouredmarbles, supporting the round arches of the first storey; above, theroof of the aisles slopes gradually inwards, and is supported again by atier of pillars of various marbles, while above rise two other tierssupporting the roof of the nave. On the corners of the church and on thecorners of the nave are figures of saints, while above all, on the cuspof the façade, stands Madonna with Her Son in Her arms. The door in thesouth transept is by Bonannus, whose great doors were destroyed in 1595. 

Within, the church is solemn and full of light. Sixty-eight antiquecolumns, the spoil of war, uphold the church, while above is a cofferedRenaissance ceiling, of the seventeenth century. There is but little tosee beside the church itself, a few altar-pieces, one by Andrea delSarto; a few tombs; the bronze lamp of Battista Lorenzi, which is saidto have suggested the pendulum to Galileo, and that is all in the nave. The choir screens, work of the Renaissance, are very lovely, while abovethem are the _ambones_, from which on a Festa the Epistle and Gospel aresung. The stalls are of the end of the fifteenth century, and the altar, a dreadful over-decorated work, of the year 1825. Matteo Civitali ofLucca made the wooden lectern behind the high altar, and Giovanni daBologna forged the crucifix, while Andrea del Sarto, not at his best, painted the Saints Margaret and Catherine, Peter and John, to the rightand left of the altar. The capital of the porphyry column here is byStagio Stagi of Pietrasanta, while the porphyry vase is a prize from acrusade. The mosaics in the apsis are much restored, but they are theonly known work of Cimabue, [56] and are consequently, even in theirpresent condition, valuable and interesting. The most beautiful and themost interesting work of art in the Duomo is the Madonna, carved inivory in 1300 by Giovanni Pisano, in the sacristy. This Madonna is amost important link in the history of Italian art; it seems to suggestthe way in which French influence in sculpture came into Italy. Suchwork as this, by some French master, probably came not infrequently intoItalian hands; nor was its advent without significance; you may find itsinfluence in all Giovanni's work, and in how much of that which camelater. [57]

It is but a step across that green meadow to the Baptistery, that like acasket of ivory and silver stands to the west of the Duomo. It was begunin 1153 by Diotisalvi, but the work went very slowly forward. In 1164, out of 34, 000 families in Pisa subject to taxes, each gave a gold sequinfor the continuation of the work, but it was not finished altogethertill the fourteenth century. There are four doors; above them on theeast and north are sculptures of the thirteenth century. [58]

Truly, one might as well try to describe the face of one's angel asthese holy places of Pisa, which are catalogued in every guide-book everwritten. At least I will withhold my hand from desecrating further thatwhich is still so lovely. Only, if you would hear the heavenly choirsbefore death has his triumph over you, go by night into the Baptistery, having bribed some choir-boy to sing for you, and you shall hear fromthat marvellous roof a thousand angels singing round the feet of SanRaniero. 

Perhaps the loveliest thing here is the great octagonal font of variousmarbles, in which every Pisan child has been christened since 1157; butit is the pulpit of Niccolò Pisano that everyone praises. 

Niccolò Pisano appears to have been born in Apulia, and to have come toPisa about the middle of the thirteenth century. We know scarcelyanything of his life. The earliest record in which we find his name isthe contract of 1265, in which he binds himself to make a pulpit for theDuomo of Siena. [59] There he is called _Magister Niccolus lapidum deparoccia ecclesie Sancti Blasii de Ponte, de Pisis quondam Petri_. Another document of later date describes him as _Magister Nichola Pietride Apulia_. Coming thus to Pisa from Apulia, possibly after manywanderings, in about 1250, his childhood had been passed not among theTuscan hills, but in Southern Italy among the relics of the Roman world. It is not any sudden revelation of Roman splendour he receives in theCampo Santo of Pisa, but just a reminder, as it were, of the things ofhis childhood, the broken statues of Rome that littered the country ofhis birth. Thus in a moment this Southerner transforms the rude art ofhis time here in Tuscany, the work of Bonannus, for instance, thecarvings of Biduinus, and the bas-reliefs at San Cassiano, [60] with thefaint memory of Rome that lingered like a ghost in the minds of men, that already had risen in the laws and government of the cities, in thedesire of men here in Pisa, for instance, for liberty, and that was soonto recreate the world. If the Roman law still lived as tradition andcustom in the hearts of men, the statues of the gods were but hiding fora little time in Latin earth. It was Niccolò Pisano who first broughtthem forth. 

The pulpit which he made for Pisa--perhaps his earliest work--is in theform of a hexagon resting upon nine columns; the central pillar is seton a strange group, a man, a griffin, and animals; three others arepoised on the backs of lions; while three are set on simple pediments onthe ground; and three again support the steps. A "trefoil arch" connectsthe six chief pillars, on each of which stands a statue of a Virtue. Itis here that we came for the first time upon a figure not of theChristian world, for Fortitude is represented as Hercules with a lion'scub on his shoulder. In the spandrels of the trefoils are the fourEvangelists and six Prophets. Above the Virtues rise pillars clusteredin threes, framing the five bas-reliefs and supporting the parapet ofthe pulpit; and it is here, by these the most beautiful andextraordinary works of that age in Italy, that Niccolò Pisano will befor ever remembered. 

Poor in composition though they be, they are full of marvellous energy, a Roman dignity and weight. It is antiquity flowering again in aChristian soil, with a certain new radiance and sweetness about it, anaïveté almost ascetic, that was certainly impossible from any Romanhand. 

On the far side you may see the Birth of Our Lord, where Mary sits inthe midst, enthroned, unmoved, with all the serenity of a goddess, whilein another part the angel brings her the message with the gesture of anorator. Consider, then, those horses' heads in the Adoration of theMagi, or the high priest in the Presentation, and then compare them withthe rude work of Bonannus on the south transept door of the Duomo; noPisan, certainly no Tuscan, could have carved them thus in high reliefwith the very splendour of old Rome in every line. And in theCrucifixion you see Christ really for the first time as a God reigningfrom the cross; while Madonna, fallen at last, is not the weeping Maryof the Christians, but the mother of the Gracchi who has lost her elderson. In the Last Judgment it is a splendid God you see among a crowd ofmen with heads like the busts in a Roman gallery, with all the aloofnessand dignity of those weary emperors. There is almost nothing here of anynatural life observed for the first time, and but little of theChristian asceticism so marvellously lovely in the French work of thisage; Niccolò has in some way discovered classic art, and has beencontent with that, as the humanists of the Renaissance were to becontent with the discovery of ancient literature later: he has imitatedthe statues and the bas-reliefs of the sarcophagi, as they copiedCicero. 

To pass from the Baptistery into the Campo Santo, where among Christiangraves the cypresses are dying in the earth of Calvary, and the urns andsarcophagi of pagan days hold Christian dust, is perhaps to make easierthe explanation we need of the art of Niccolò. Here, it is said, heoften wandered "among the many spoils of marbles brought by thearmaments of Pisa to this city. " Among these ancient sarcophagi there isone where you may find the Chase of Meleager and the Calydonian boar;this was placed by the Pisans in the façade of the Duomo opposite S. Rocco, and was used as a tomb for the Contessa Beatrice, the mother ofthe great Contessa Matilda. Was it while wandering here, in looking sooften on that tomb on his way to Mass, that he was moved by its beautytill his heart remembered its childhood in a whole world of such things?It must have been so, for here all things meet together and arereconciled in death. 

Out of the dust and heat of the Piazza one comes into a cool cloisterthat surrounds a quadrangle open to the sky, in which a cypress stilllives. The sun fills the garden with a golden beauty, in which thebutterflies flit from flower to flower over the dead. I do not know aplace more silent or more beautiful. One lingers in the cool shadow ofthe cloisters before many an old marble, --a vase carved withBacchanalian women, the head of Achilles, or the bust of Isotta ofRimini. But it is before the fresco of the Triumph of Death that onestays longest, trying to understand the dainty treatment of so horriblea subject. Those fair ladies riding on horseback with so brave a show ofcavaliers, even they too must come at last to be just dust, is it, orlike that swollen body, which seems to taint even the summer sunshine, lying there by the wayside, and come upon so unexpectedly? Whatlove-song was that troubadour, fluttering with ribbons, singing to thatlittle company under the orange-trees, cavaliers and ladies returnedfrom the chase, or whiling away a summer afternoon playing with theirfalcons and their dogs? The servants have spread rich carpets for theirfeet, and into the picture trips a singing girl, who has surely calledthe very loves from Paradise or from the apple-trees covered withblossom, where they make their temporary abode. What love song were theysinging, ere the music was frozen on their lips by a falling leaf orchance flutter of bird life calling them to turn, and lo, Death is here?

It is in such a place as this that any meditation upon death loses bothits sentimental and its ascetic aspect, and becomes wholly aesthetic, sothat it can never be before this fresco that such a contemplation shouldbe, as it were, "a lifelong following of one's own funeral. " And indeed, it is not any gross fear of death that comes to one at all here in themysterious sunshine, but a new delight in life. Those joyful pleasantpaintings of Benozzo Gozzoli, a third-rate master, but one who is alwaysfull of joy and sunshine, with a certain understanding and love, too, ofthe hills and the trees, seem to confirm us in our delight at the sunand the sea wind, here in Italy, in Italy at last. For, indeed, in whatother land than this could a cemetery be so beautiful, and where else inthe world do frescoes like these stain the walls out of doors amid alitter of antique statues, graves, and flowers over the heroic or holydead? Here you may see life at its sanest and most splendid moments. Inthe long hot days of the vintage, for instance, when the young men treadthe wine-press, the girls bear the grapes in great baskets, and boy andgirl together pluck the purple fruit. Call it, if you will, theDrunkenness of Noah, you will forget the subject altogether in yourdelight in the sun and the joy of the vintage itself, where the girlsdance among the vines under the burden of the grapes, and the littlechildren play with the dogs, and the goodman tastes the wine. Or again, in the fresco of the Tower of Babel: think if you can of all the merehorror of the confusion, and the terror of death, but in a moment youwill forget it, remembering only that heroic Republic which amid herenemies built her splendid city, her beautiful Duomo, her Tower like thehorn of an unicorn, and this Campo Santo too, where the hours pass sosoftly, and the hottest days are cool and full of delight. The Victoryof Abraham is a battle gay with the banners of Pisa, when the Gonfalonsof Florence lay low in the dust. The Curse of Ham, with its multitude ofchildren, is just the departure of some prodigal for the Sardinian warson a summer evening beyond the city gate. Thus alone in this place ofdeath Pisa lives, ah! not in the desolate streets of the modern city, but fading on the walls of her Campo Santo, a ghost among ghosts, immortalised by an alien hand. 

Coming last of all to the greatest wonder of the Piazza, it is reallywith surprise you find the Campanile so beautiful, perhaps the mostbeautiful tower of Italy. It is like a lily leaning in the wind, it islike the slanting horn of an unicorn, it is like an ivory Madonna thatthe artist has not had the heart to carve since the ivory was so fair. Begun in 1174, it was designed by Bonannus. He made it all of whitemarble, which has faded now to the colour of old ivory. Far away at thetop of the tower live the great bells, and especially LaPasquareccia, [61] founded in 1262, stamped with a relief of theAnnunciation, for it used to ring the Ave. I think there can be noreasonable doubt that the lean of the Tower is due to some terribleaccident which befell it after the third gallery had been built, for thefourth gallery, added in 1204 by Benenabo, begins to rectify thesinking; the rest, built in 1260, continues to throw the weight from thelower to the higher side. As we know, the whole Piazza was a marsh, andjust as the foundations of the Tower of S. Niccolò have given a little, so these sank much earlier, offering an unique opportunity to abarbarian architect. There is, as has been often very rightly said, nosuch thing as a freak in Italian art: its aim was beauty, very simpleand direct; nowhere in all its history will you find a grotesque such asthis. It is strange that a northerner, William of Innspruck, finishedthe Tower the fifth storey in 1260; and it may well be that this Teutonbrought to the work something of a natural delight in such a thing asthis, and contrived to finish it, instead of beginning again. It seemsnecessary to add that the tower would be more beautiful if it wereperfectly upright. 

The Piazza del Duomo is full of interest. Almost opposite the Campanile, at the corner of the Via S. Maria, is the Casa dei Trovatelli. It washere, as I suppose, [62] that the Pisans built that hospital and chapelto S. Giorgio after the great day of Montecatini. [63] Not far away, behind the Via Torelli in Via Arcevescovado, is the archbishop's palace, with a fine courtyard. If we follow the Via Torelli a little, we pass, on the right, the Oratory of S. Ranieri, the patron saint of Pisa, wherethere is a crucifix by Giunta Pisano which used to hang in the kitchenof the Convent of S. Anna, [64] not far away, where Emilia Viviani was"incarcerated, " as Shelley says. Close by are the few remains of theBaths of Hadrian. At the corner we pass into Via S. Anna, and then, taking the first turning to the left, we come into the great Piazza diS. Caterina, before the church of that name. Built in the thirteenthcentury, it has a fine Pisan façade, but the church is now closed andthe convent has become a boys' school. Passing through the shady Piazzaunder the plane-trees, we come into the Via S. Lorenzo, and then, turning to the right into Vicolo del Ruschi, we come into a Piazza outof which opens the Piazza di S. Francesco. S. Francesco fell on evildays, and was altogether desecrated, but is now in the hands of theFranciscans again. This is well, for the whole church, founded in 1211, and not the Campanile only, is said to be by Niccolò Pisano. [65] Behindit, in the old convent, is the Museo. 

As you come into this desecrated and ruined cloister littered withrubbish, among which here and there you may see some quaint or charmingthing, it is difficult to remember S. Francis. Yet, indeed, the placewas founded by two of his followers, the blessed Agnolo and the blessedAlberto, and still holds in a locked room one of the most extraordinaryof his portraits. In the old Chapter-house are some fragments of thepulpit from the Duomo by Giovanni Pisano, destroyed in the fire of 1595. Here we may see very easily the difference between father and son. It isno longer the influence of the antique that gives life to Italiansculpture, but certainly French work, something of that passionaterestless energy that, whether we like it or not, puts certain statues atChartres, for instance, without shame beside the best Greek work. Thesubjects of these panels are the same as those of Niccolò's pulpit inthe Baptistery; one could not wish for a better opportunity of comparingthe work of the two men who stand at the source of the Renaissance. 

Passing through the cloister, we enter the convent through a great roomon the first floor, hung with the banners of the Giuoco del Ponte, andbright with service books. In a little room on the left (Sala I) we comeinto the gallery proper. Here, among all sorts of stained parchments, isthe precious remnant of the Cintola del Duomo, that girdle of MariaAssunta which used to be bound round the Duomo. [66] It took some threehundred yards of the fabric, crusted with precious stones, painted withminiatures, sewn with gold and silver, to gird the Duomo. I know notwhen first it was made, nor who first conceived the proud thought, [67]nor what particular victory put it into his heart. Only the tyrant andthief who stole it I know, Gambacorti, whom Pisa brought back fromexile. 

In the chamber next to this are some strangely beautiful crucifixes byGiunta Pisano, and a little marvellous portrait of S. Francesco oncopper with a bright red book in his hand. 

Of the pictures which follow, but two ever made any impression upon me. One, a Madonna and Child by Gentile da Fabriano, is full of a mysteriousloveliness that did not survive him; the other is an altar-piece from S. Caterina by Simone Martini of Siena, where a Magdalen holds the delicatecasket of precious ointment, and, as though fainting with the sweetnessof her weeping, leans a little, her sleepy, languorous eyes droopingunder her heavy hair, which a jewelled ribbon hardly holds up. Somethingin this "primitive" art has been lost when we come to Angelico, somealmost morbid loveliness that you may find even yet in the air aboutPerugia and Siena, in the delicate flowers there, the honeysuckle whichthe country people call _le manine della Madonnina_--the little hands ofthe Virgin, and even in the people sometimes, in their soft gestures anddreamy looks. And for these I pass by the pictures by Benozzo Gozzoli, by Sodoma, and the rest, for they are as nothing. 

It is, however, not a work of art at all that is perhaps the mostinteresting thing in the Museo; but a model of the _Giuoco del Ponte_, with certain banners, flags, bucklers, and such, once used by the Pisansin their national game. [68] This _Giuoco_ was played on the Ponte diMezzo, by the people who lived on the north bank of the river and thoseon the south, nor were the country folk excluded; and Mr. Heywood tellsus that it was no uncommon sight a quarter of a century ago "to seehanging above the doorway of a contadino's house the _targone_ [orshield] with which his sires played at Ponte. "[69] The city andcountryside being thus divided into two camps, as it were, each chose anarmy, that was divided into six _squadre_ of from thirty to sixty_soldati_. The _squadre_ of the north were, Santa Maria with a banner ofblue and white; San Michele, whose colours were white and red; theCalci, white and green and gold; Calcesana, yellow and black; theMattaccini, white, blue, and peach-blossom; the Satiri, red and black. The southern _squadre_ were called S. Antonio, whose banner was offlame colour, on which was a pig; S. Martino, with a banner of white, black, and red; San Marco, with a banner of white and yellow with awinged lion, and under its feet was the gospel, on which was written_Pax tibi Marce_; the Leoni, with a banner of black and white; theDragoni, with a banner of green and white; the Delfini, with a banner ofblue and yellow. All these banners were of silk, and very large. [70]

Originally the game was played on St. Anthony's day, the 17th ofJanuary; later, this first game came to be a sort of trial match, inwhich the players were chosen for the _Battaglia generale_, which tookplace on some later date agreed upon by both parties. Thus, I suppose, if any noble visited Pisa, the _Battaglia generale_ would be fought inhis honour. 

The challenge of the side defeated at the last contest having beenreceived, a council of war was held in both camps, and permission beinggiven by the authorities, on that evening, the city was illuminated. Thegreat procession (the _squadre_ in each camp, in the order in which Ihave named them) took place on the day of battle, each army keeping toits own side of Arno. Then the Piazza del Ponte for the northern army, the Piazza de' Bianchi for the southern, were enclosed with palisades toform the camps, and the battle began. 

In order to save the _soldato_ from hurt, his head was covered with a_falzata_ of cotton, and guarded by an iron casque with a barredvizor. [71] The body was also swathed in cotton or a doublet of leather, over which iron armour was worn. The arms, too, were covered withquilted leather and the hands in gauntlets, and the legs were protectedwith gaiters, while round the neck a quilted collar was tied to save thecollar bone. The only weapon allowed was the _targone_, a shield of woodcurved at the top, and almost but not quite pointed at the foot. At theback of this were two handles, which were gripped by both hands, andthe blow delivered with the smaller end of the shield. When the press ofthe fight was not very great, no doubt this shield was used as a club. These _targoni_ were decorated with mottoes or a device, as we may seefrom these now in the Museo; they were evidently even heirlooms in thefamily which had the honour to see one of its members chosen for the_Battaglia_. 

Four _comandanti_ or captains on each side entered the battle itself. Two of these on each side stood on the parapet of the bridge directingtheir men. The two northerners wore a scarlet uniform with whitefacings, the two southerners a green uniform with white facings. Twoother _comandanti_ in each army stood on the ground. The two first wereunarmed, and were not allowed to interfere with the fight, but the twoon the ground, who were allowed two adjutants, could scarcely have beenprevented from giving or receiving blows. 

Before the fight began, the banner of Pisa, a silver cross on a redground, floated from a staff in the middle of the bridge. This waslowered across the bridge to divide the two armies; and at the close ofthe fight it was so lowered again, and, according as either side was inthe enemy's territory, so the victory went. 

When the battle was over, the victorious side made procession throughthe city. If the north had won, all Pisa north of Arno was alight withbonfires, the houses were decorated, everyone was in the streets; whilesouth of Arno the city was in darkness, the people in their houses, nota dog lurked without. Then followed, after a few days, the great trionfoof the victors. 

"The procession was headed, " says Mr. Heywood, "by two trumpeters onhorseback, followed by a band of horsemen clad in military costumes, andby war-cars full of arms and banners of the vanquished. Thereafter camecertain soldiers on foot with their hands bound, to represent prisonerstaken in the battle; then more trumpeters and drummers; and then thetriumphal chariot, drawn by four or six horses richly draped and adornedwith emblems and mottoes. It was accompanied and escorted by knightsand gentlemen on horseback. The noble ladies of the city followed intheir carriages, and behind them thronged an infinite people (_infinitopopolo_) scattering broadcast various poetical compositions, and singingwith sweet melodies in the previously appointed places, the glories ofthe victory won, making procession through the city until night. " Afterdark, bonfires were lighted. On high above the triumphal car was setsome allegorical figure, such as Valour, Victory, or Fame. [72]

The last _Giuoco del Ponte_ was fought in 1807. "Certain pastimes, " saysSignor Tribolati, "are intimately connected with certain institutionsand beliefs; and when the latter cease to exist, the former also perishwith them. The _Giuoco del Ponte_ was a relic of popular chivalry, oneof the innumerable knightly games which adorned the simple, artistic, warlike life of the hundred Republics of Italy.... What have we to dowith the arms and banners of the tourneys? At most we may rub thecobwebs away and shake off the dust and lay them aside in a museum. "[73]

To come out of the Museo, that graveyard of dead beauty, of forgottenenthusiasms, into the quiet, deserted Piazza di S. Francesco, where thesummer sleeps ever in the sun and no footstep save a foreigner's everseems to pass, is to fall from one dream into another, not lessmysterious and full of beauty. How quiet now is this old city that oncerang with the shouts of the victors home from some sea fight, orreturned from the Giuoco. Only, as you pass along Via S. Francesco andturn into Piazza di S. Paolo, the children gather about you, remindingyou that in Italy even the oldest places--S. Paolo al Orto, forinstance, with its beautiful old tower that is now a dwelling--are putto some use, and are really living still like the gods who have takenservice with us, perhaps in irony, to console themselves for ourtreachery in watching our sadness without them. 

It is certainly with some such thought as this in his heart theunforgetful traveller will enter S. Pierino, not far from S. Paolo alOrto, at the corner of Via Cavour and Via delle belle Torri. Coming intothis old church suddenly out of the sunshine, how dark a place it seems, full of a mysterious melancholy too, a sort of remembrance of change anddeath, as though some treachery asleep in our hearts had awakened on thethreshold and accused us. The crypt has long been used as a charnelhouse, the guide-book tells you, but maybe it is not any memory of theunremembered and countless dead that has stirred in your heart, but somestranger impulse urging you to a dislike of the darkness, that dimmysterious light that is part of the north and has nothing to do withItaly. How full of twilight it is, yet once in this place a temple toApollo stood, full of the sun, almost within sound of the sea, when, weknow not how, [74] the Pisans received news of Jesus Christ, and, forgetting Apollo, gave his temple to St. Peter. Then in 1072 theypulled down that old "house of idols, "[75] and built this church, calling it S. Pietro in Vincoli, perhaps because of the presence of theold gods, perhaps because it was so dark--who knows; and on the 30th ofAugust 1119, Archbishop Pietro, he who brought the cross of silver fromRome and put in it the banner of the city and led Pisa to victory inMajorca, solemnly consecrated it. 

I was thinking somewhat in this fashion, resting on a bench in that cooltwilight place, where the sounds of life come from very far off, whenout of the darkness an old man crept toward me; he seemed as old as thechurch itself. "The Signore would see the church, " he asked; "who canthe Signore wish for better than myself?--it is my own church, I am itsguardian. " Truly he was very old: if he were Apollo, long and evil hadbeen his days; if he were St. Peter, indeed he was very like. 

It was a long story of buried treasure, buried or lost I know not which, that he tried to tell me, while he pointed to the beautiful pavement, orcaressed the old fading pillars, leading me up the broken steps into thegreater darkness of the nave, where he showed me one of the most ancientpictures in Pisa, a great, mournful, and grievous crucifix, a colossalChrist, His feet nailed separately to the cross, His body tortured andemaciated, a hideous mask of death;--here in the temple of Apollo. "Itis here, " said he, smiling, "that Paganism and Christianity weremarried; and in the temple lie the dead, and in the church the livingpray, as you see, Signore, beside these old pillars that were not builtfor any Christian house. Such is the splendour and antiquity of ourcity. For, as you know, doubtless, the Duomo itself is built on thefoundations of Nero's Palace, [76] S. Andrea (not far away) was once atemple of Venus, in S. Niccola we besought Ceres, and in S. Michelecalled on Mars; such, Signore, is the splendour and glory of ourcity.... "

Evening had come when I found myself again on the Lung' Arno, in a worldneither Pagan nor Christian, in which I am a stranger. 

 * * * * *

Leaving behind you Ponte di Mezzo and the Lung' Arno, _quasi a modo d'unarcho di balestro_, [77] you come into the Borgo, under the low arches ofthe old houses that make a covered way. This is perhaps the oldest partof Pisa. Almost at once on your right you pass S. Michele in Borgo, built probably just before his death by Fra Guglielmo, that disciple ofNiccolò Pisano. Fra Guglielmo died in the convent of S. Caterina, for hehad been fifty-seven years in the Dominican Order. Tronci tells usthat, being one day in Bologna, where he had gone with Niccolò hismaster to make a tomb for S. Domenico, when the old tomb was opened hesecretly took a bone and hid it, and without saying anything presentlyset out for Pisa. Arrived there, he placed the relic under the table ofthe altar of S. Maria Maddalena, and was seen often by the brethrenpraying there, --they knew not why. But at his death he revealed hispious theft, and showed the bone in its place, and it was guarded andshown to the people. 

But S. Michele in Borgo is older than Fra Guglielmo, who died about theyear 1313. Certainly the crypt is ancient as are the pillars. A certain_Buono_ is said to have built a church here in 990; but little, however, now remaining can be of that date, the church as a whole being of about1312, and, as I have said, probably the last work of Fra Guglielmo. 

Passing up the Borgo, here and there we may see signs of ancient Pisa inthe sunken pillars, for instance, before a house in a street on theleft, Via del Monte, following which we come into the most beautifulPiazza in Pisa, perhaps in Italy, Piazza dei Cavalieri, once the Piazzadei Anziani. 

On the right is the Church of the Knights of St. Stephen, Santo Stefanodei Cavalieri; next to it is the beautiful palace of the Anziani, laterthe Palazzo Conventuale dei Cavalieri, rebuilt by Vasari. Almostopposite this is a palace under which the road passes, built to theshape of the Piazza; it marks the spot where the Tower of Hunger oncestood, where the eagles of the Republic were housed, and where ConteUgolino della Gherardesca with his sons and nephews was starved to deathby Archbishop Ruggieri degli Ubaldini. Opposite to this is the marblePalazzo del Consiglio, also belonging to the Order of St. Stephen. 

The Knights of St. Stephen, to whom, indeed, the whole Piazza seems tobe devoted, were a religious and military Order founded by Cosimo I, Grand Duke of Tuscany, who sits on horseback in front of the beautifulsteps of the _Conventuale_. The object of the Order was to harry theMoorish pirates of the Mediterranean, to redeem their captives, and toconvert these Moors to Christianity; nor were they wanting in war, forthey fought at Lepanto. Cosimo placed the Order under the protection ofSt. Stephen, because he had gained his greatest victory on that saint'sday. The Knights seem to have been of two kinds: the religious, who tookthree major vows and lived in the Conventuale under the rule of St. Benedict, and served the Church of S. Stefano; and the military, whomight not only hold property but marry. Their cross is very like thecross of Pisa, but red, while that is white. 

In S. Stefano there is little to see, a few old banners, a series of badfrescoes, and a bust of S. Lussorius by Donatello, perhaps, --at least, that sculptor was working for eighteen months in the city. Before thesixteenth century this Piazza must have been very different from what itis to-day. Where S. Stefano stands now S. Sebastiano stood, that churchwhere the Anziani met so often to decide peace or war. [78] Close by wasthe palace of the Podestà, while beyond the Palazzo Anziani rose theTorre delle Sette Vie, Torre Gualandi, Torre della Fame, for it bore allthree names; only, the last came to it after the hideous crime ofRuggiero. If we cross the Piazza opposite the Palazzo Conventuale, andpass into Via S. Sisto, we come to the church of that saint, where alsothe Grand Council used to meet. It was founded to commemorate the greatvictories that came to Pisa on that day. Those antique columns are thespoil of war, as Tronci tells us. [79] Returning to the Piazza, andleaving it by Via S. Frediano, we soon come to the church of that saint, with its lovely and spacious nave and antique columns. A little fartheron is the University, La Sapienza, founded by Conte Fazio dellaGherardesca in 1338. In that year Conte Fazio enlarged the Piazza degliAnziani, so that _la nobilità_ should be able to walk there morereadily; and to render the city more honourable, with the consent of the_Anziani_ and all the Senate, he founded a university, to lead thegreatest doctors to lecture there; and to establish the Theatre of theSchools he sent ambassadors in the name of the Republic to Pope Benedictfor his authorisation. Needless to say, this was given and in 1340 wefind Messer Bartolo da Sassoferrato and Messer Guido da Prato, Doctor ofPhysics, lecturing on "Chirugia. "[80] In 1589, Galileo was Professor ofMathematics here. The present building dates from 1493. Close by, between the University and the Lung' Arno, are the remains of an oldgate of the city, Porta Aurea, and some remnants of towers. 

Crossing Arno by Ponte Solferino, and turning along the Lung' ArnoGambacorti to the left, we come suddenly upon a great Piazza in which anold and splendid church is hidden away. And just as the Duomo, the greatchurch of the northern part of the city, is set just within the wallsfar away from the Borgo, so here, in the southern part of Pisa, S. Paoloa Ripa d'Arno is abandoned by the riverside on the verge of the country, for the fields are at its threshold. And indeed, this desolate church isreally older than the Duomo, for, as some say, it served as the GreatChurch of Pisa while the Cathedral was building. Founded, as the Pisansassert, by Charlemagne in 805, it was rather the model of the Duomo, ifthis be true, than, as is generally supposed, a copy of it. Bare for themost part and empty, its original beauty and simplicity still remain toit; nor should any who find it omit to pass into the priest's house, tosee the old Baptistery now in the hands of Benedictine nuns. 

On our way back to Pisa by the Lung' Arno Gambacorti, we may look alwayswith new joy at the Torre Guelfa, almost all that is left of the greatarsenal built in 1200. And then you will not pass without entering, itmay be, S. Maria della Spina, where of old the huntsmen used to hearMass at dawn before going about their occasions. 

And many another church in Pisa is devout and beautiful. S. Sepolcro, which Diotisalvi made, he who built the Baptistery, a church of theKnights Templars below the level of the way; S. Martino too, both inChinseca, that part of the city named after her who gave the alarmnearly a thousand years ago when the Saracen sails hove in sight. --Ah, do not be in a hurry to leave Pisa for any other city. Let us think ofold things for a little, and be quiet. It may be we shall never see thatline of hills again--Monti Pisani; it were better to look at them alittle carefully. A little while before to-day the most precious of ourdreams was not so lovely as that spur of the Apennines. 

FOOTNOTES:

[17] Muratori, _Annali ad ann. _: He quotes from _Annali Pisani_ (seetom. Vi. , Rer. Ital. Scrip): "Fecerunt bellum Pisani cum Lucensibus inAqua longa, et vicerunt illos. " See Arch. St. It. VI. Ii. P. 4. Cron. Pis. Ad annum. 

[18] Muratori, _Annali ad ann. 1050_: "et Pisa fuit firmata de totaSardinia a Romana sede. "--_Ann. Pis. _, R. I. S. , tom. Vi. 

[19] Tronci, _Annali Pisani_, Livorno, 1682, p. 21. 

[20] Ibid. P. 22. 

[21] Muratori (_Annali ad ann. _) says Pope Alexander visited in thisyear S. Martino the Duomo of Lucca. Ad ann. 1118 he suggests 1092 forthe foundation of the Duomo of Pisa. 

[22] Thus Tronci; but Volpe, _Studi sulle Istituzioni Comunali a Pisa_, p. 6, tells us that these quarters did not exist till much later, --tillafter 1164, when the system of division by _porte e base_ was abandonedfor division by _quartieri_. Tronci, later, says that the city wasunwalled (p. 38). But even in the eleventh century Pisa was a walledcity; the first walls included only the Quartiere di Mezzo; and in thosedays the city proper, the walled part, was called "Populus Pisanus, "while the suburbs were called Cinthicanus, Foriportensis, and de Burgis. Cf. _Arch. St. It. _ iii. Vol. VIII. P. 5. Muratori, _Dissertazioni_, 30, "De Mercat. " says that in the tenth century a part of the city wascalled Kinzic; cf. Fanucci, _St. Dei Tre celebri Popoli Maritt. _ I. 96. Kinzic is Arabic, and means _magazzinaggi_. 

[23] Tronci, _op. Cit. _ p. 38. 

[24] Tronci, _op. Cit. _ p. 60. 

[25] It was from Amalfi that they brought home the Pandects. 

[26] The first Podestà of the city was Conte Tedicis della Gherardesca. 

[27] Pisa was perhaps influenced, too, in her choice of the Ghibellineside by the interference of the Papacy against her in Corsica. While, ifPisa was Ghibelline, Lucca, of course, was Guelph. 

[28] Cf. G. Villani, _op. Cit. _ lib. Vii. Cap. Ii. , "La cagione perchèsi comincio la guerra da' Fiorentini a' Pisani, " and Villari, _Historyof Florence_ (Eng. Ed. 1902), p. 176. 

[29] This seems to give the lie to the accusation of treachery, whichsaid that he gave the signal for flight at Meloria; but in fact it doesnot, for Pisa elected Ugolino for reasons, in the hope of conciliatingFlorence; cf. Villari, _op. Cit. _ p. 284. 

[30] He knew them to be Ghibellines. 

[31] It was also called _la muda_. It seems hardly necessary to referthe reader to Dante, _Inferno_, xxxiii. 1-90. This tower (now to becalled the Tower of Hunger) was the mew of the eagles. For even as theRomans kept wolves on the Capitol, so the Pisans kept eagles, theFlorentines lions, the Sienese a wolf. See Villani, bk. Vii. 128. Heywood, _Palio and Ponte_, p. 13, note 2. 

[32] Florence here means the League, to wit, Prato, Pistoja, Siena even, and all the allies, including the Guelphs of Romagna, who were fightingArezzo under Archb. Uberti, and Pisa under Archb. Ruggieri. 

[33] Yet in 1290 Genoa seized Porto Pisano: "Furono allora disfatte letorri ... Il fanale e tutte. "

[34] Tronci, _op. Cit. _ 269-271. For the _Palio_, --the name of the raceand the prize of victory, a piece of silk not too much unlike thebanners given at a modern battle of Flowers, --see Heywood, _Palio andPonte_, 1904, p. 12. 

[35] The girdle was made of silver and jewels and silk to represent thegirdle of the B. V. M. It encircled the Duomo--a most splendid and uniquething, only possible, I think, in Pisa. No parsimonious Florentine couldhave imagined it. 

[36] Now in the Museo, room 1. See page 119. 

[37] Tronci, _op. Cit. _ 366. 

[38] See Tronci, _op. Cit. _ 304. 

[39] They imprisoned him in Lucca. 

[40] Tronci, _op. Cit. _ p. 404. 

[41] Cronaca Sanese in _Muratori_, xv. 177. 

[42] Heywood, _Palio and Ponte_, p. 22. 

[43] Tronci, _op. Cit. _ 412. 

[44] A pleasing story of how these citizens found Agnello's house indarkness and all sleeping within, of his awakened maid-servant andfrightened wife, is told in Marangoni, _Cron. Di Pisa_. See _Sismondi_, ed. Boulting (1906), p. 401. 

[45] _See_ Sismondi, _op. Cit. _ p. 403. 

[46] Cf. Sismondi, _op. Cit. _ p. 557. 

[47] Tronci, _op. Cit. _ p. 18. 

[48] Tronci, _op. Cit. _ p. 453. 

[49] The print is dated 1634. 

[50] For all things concerning this game and the Palio, see Heywood, _Palio and Ponte_. 

[51] Villani, _op. Cit. _ Bk. Iv. 2. The Badia, like that of Firenze, seems rather to have been founded by Ugo's mother, Countess Willa. 

[52] Tronci, _op. Cit. _ p. 9. 

[53] It may be as well to explain here that the Pisan Calendar differednot only from our own but from that of other cities of Tuscany. ThePisans reckoned from the Incarnation. The year began, therefore, on 25thMarch: so did the Florentine and the Sienese year, but they reckonedfrom a year after the Incarnation. The Aretines, Pistoiese, andCortonese followed the Pisans. 

[54] Tronci, _op. Cit. _ p. 21. 

[55] 104 yards long by 35-1/2 yards wide. 

[56] Crowe and Cavalcaselle, _History of Painting in Italy_, newedition, 1903, vol. I. Pp. 185, 186. 

[57] There is a miracle picture, S. Maria sotto gli Orcagni in theDuomo. Mr. Carmichael, in his book, _In Tuscany_, gives a full accountof this picture. See also my _Italy and the Italians_, pp. 117-120. 

[58] Crowe and Cavalcaselle, _op. Cit. _ vol. I. P. 103. 

[59] Crowe and Cavalcaselle, _op. Cit. _ vol. I. P. 109. 

[60] See below, p. 134. 

[61] See _On the Old Road through France to Florence_ (Murray, 1904), inwhich Mr. Carmichael wrote the Italian part. He has much pleasantinformation about the bells of Pisa, p. 223. 

[62] Was it here, or in the Ospedale dei Trovatelli close to S. Michelein Borgo? cf. Tronci, p. 179. 

[63] See p. 95. 

[64] Crowe and Cavalcaselle, _op. Cit_, vol. I. P. 146, note. 

[65] See _Pisa_. Da I. B. Supino, 1905, p. 43. 

[66] See p. 91. 

[67] Mr. Carmichael (_On the Old Road through France to Florence_, p. 224) says it must have been worth £30, 000 of our money. 

[68] Let me refer the reader again to Mr. William Heywood's exhaustivework on Italian mediaeval games, _Palio and Ponte_, Methuen, 1904. 

[69] See also F. Tribolati, _Il Gioco del Ponte_, Firenze, 1877, p. 5. 

[70] Many of these banners are hung in the great Salone--the first roomyou enter on the first floor of the Museo. 

[71] All the coverings and armour are illustrated in the _OplomachiaPisana_ of Camillo Borghi. (Lucca, 1713. )

[72] There is a rich literature of poems and _Relazioni_, etc. , on the_Gioco del Ponte_. 

[73] F. Tribolati, _Il Gioco del Ponte_, Firenze, 1877. See alsoHeywood, _op. Cit. _ p. 136. 

[74] Yet it is said that St. Peter himself came to Pisa from Antioch, and founded the Church of S. Pietro in Grado, and consecrated Pierinofirst bishop of Pisa; cf. Tronci, _op. Cit. _ p. 3. 

[75] Tronci, _op. Cit. _ p. 23. 

[76] He said palace, and palace it may be, for the baths are a quarterof a mile away. 

[77] So a nineteenth-century writer calls it. Leopardi, too, cannot findwords enough to express its beauty: "Questo Lung' Arno è uno spetaccolocosì bello così ampio così magnifico, " etc. 

[78] It was in S. Sebastiano that Ruggiero condemned Count Ugolino andhis sons. 

[79] Tronci, _op. Cit. _ p. 30. 

[80] Tronci, op. Cit. P. 343. 

VII. LIVORNO[81]

It was only after many days spent in the Pineta, those pinewoods that godown to the sea at Gombo, where the silent, deserted shore, strewn withsea-shells and whispering with grass, stretches far away to the Carrarahills, that very early one morning I set out for Livorno, that portwhich has taken the place of the old Porto Pisano, [82] so famous throughthe world of old. Leaving Pisa by the Porta a Mare, I soon came to S. Pietro a Grado, a lonely church among the marshes, that once, as Isuppose, stood on the seashore. It was here St. Peter, swept out of hiscourse by a storm on his way from Antioch, came ashore before settingout again for Naples, entering Italy first, then, on the shores ofEtruria. So the tale goes; but the present church seems to be a buildingof the twelfth century. Its simple beauty, which the seawind and the sunhave kissed for seven hundred years, seems to give character to thewhole plain, so ample and green, beyond the wont of Italy; but, indeed, here we are on the threshold of the Maremma, that beautiful, wild, deserted country that man has not yet reclaimed from Death, where thesummer is still and treacherous in its loveliness, where in winter for alittle while the herdsmen come down with their cattle from theGarfagnana, and the hills musical with love songs. On the threshold ofthat treacherous summer, as it were, this lonely church stands on guard. Within, she is beautiful, in the old manner, splendid with antiquepillars caught about now with iron; but it is perhaps the frescoes, thathave faded on the walls till they are scarcely more than the shadows ofa thousand forgotten sunsets, that you will care for most. They are thework of Giunta Pisano, or if, indeed, they are not his they are of hisschool, --a school already decadent, splendid with the beauty that haslooked on death and can never be quite sane again. No one, I think, canever deny the beauty of Giunta's work; it is full of a strange subtiltythat is ready to deny life over and over again. He is concerned not withlife, but chiefly with religion, and with certain bitter yet altogetherlovely colours which evoke for him, and for us too, if we will lendourselves to their influence, all the misery and pessimism of the end ofthe Middle Age, its restlessness and ennui, that find consolation onlyin the memory of the grotesque frailty of the body which one day Jesuswill raise up. All the anarchy and discontent of our own time seems tome to be expressed in such work as this, in which ugliness, as we mightsay, has as much right as beauty. It is, I think, the mistake of muchpopular criticism in our time to assert that these "primitive" painterswere beginners, and could not achieve what they wished. They were notbeginners, rather they were the most subtle artists of a convention--andall art is a convention--that was about to die. If one can see theirwork aright, it is beautiful; but it has lost touch with life, or is amere satirical comment upon it, that Giotto, with his simplicity, hiseager delight in natural things and in man, will supersede and banish. In him, Europe seems to shake off the art and fatality of the East, under whose shadow Christianity had grown up, to be altogethertransformed and humanised by Rome, when she at the head really ofhumanism and art should once more give to the world the thoughts andlife of another people full of joy and temperance--things so hard forthe Christian to understand. And it is really with such a painter asGiunta Pisano that Christian art pure and simple comes to end. Somedivinity altogether different has touched those who came after: Giotto, who is enamoured of life which the Christian must deny; Angelico, whoseworld is full of a music that is about to become pagan; Botticelli, whohas mingled the tears of Mary with the salt of the sea, and has seen anew star in heaven, and proclaimed the birth not of the Nazarene, butthe Cyprian. 

But it is not such thoughts as these you will find in Livorno, one ofthe busiest towns in Italy, full of modern business life; material inthe manner of the Latin people that by reason of some inherent purity ofheart never becomes sordid in our fashion. 

"There is absolutely nothing to see in Leghorn, " says Mr. Hare. Well, but that depends on what you seek, does it not? If you would see aTuscan city that is absolutely free from the tourist, I think you mustgo to Livorno. It is true, works of art are not many there; but thestatue of Grand Duke Ferdinand, with four Moors in bronze chained to hisfeet, a work of Piero Jacopo Tacca, made in 1617-1625, is something;though I confess those chained robbers at the feet of a petty tyrant whowas as great a robber, he and his forebears, as any among them, are inthis age of sentimental liberalism, from which who can escape, a littledisconcerting. Ferdinand has his best monument in the city itself, whichhe founded to take the place of Porto Pisano, that in the course ofcenturies had silted up. In order to populate the new port, heproclaimed there a religious liberty he denied to his Duchy at large. His policy was splendidly successful. Every sort of outcast made Livornohis home--especially the Jews, for whom Ferdinando had a great respect;but there were there Greeks also, and _nuovi christiani_, Moorsconverted to Christianity. These last, I think, indeed, must have beenworth seeing; for no doubt Ferdinand's politic grant of religiousliberty did not include Moors who had not been "converted toChristianity. "

But the great days of Livorno are over; though who may say if a newprosperity does not await her in the near future, she is so busy aplace. Livorno la cara, they call her, and no doubt of old she endearedherself to her outcasts. To-day, however, it is to the Italian summervisitor that she is dear. There he comes for sea-bathing, and it isdifficult to imagine a more delightful seaside. For you may live on thehills and yet have the sea. Beyond Livorno rises the first high groundof the Maremma, Montenero, holy long ago with its marvellous picture ofthe Madonna, which, as I know, still works wonders. Here Byron lived, and not far away Shelley wrote the principal part of _The Cenci_. 

Passing out by tramway by the Porta Maremmana, you come to Byron'svilla, almost at the foot of the hills, on a sloping ground on yourright. Entering by the great iron gates of what looks like a neglectedpark, you climb by a stony road up to the great villa itself, among thebroken statues and the stone pines, where is one of the most beautifulviews of the Pisan country and seashore, with the islands of Gorgona, Capraja, Elba, and Corsica in the distance. Villa Dupoy, as it wascalled in Byron's day, is now in the summer months used as a girls'school: and, indeed, it would be easy to house a regiment in its vastrooms, where here and there a seventeenth century fresco is stillgorgeous on the walls, and the mirrors are dim with age. From here thewalk up to Our Lady of Montenero is delightful; and once there, on thehills above the church, the rolling downs towards Maremma lie before youwithout a single habitation, almost without a road, a country of heathand fierce rock, desolate and silent, splendid with the wind and thesun. 

The Church of Madonna lies just under the crest of the hill, and is evento-day a place of many pilgrimages: for the whole place is strewn andhung with thank-offerings, silver hearts, shoes, crutches, and I knownot what else, among the pathetic pictures of her kindly works. Thepicture itself, loaded now with jewellery, is apparently a work of thethirteenth century; but it is said to have been miraculously broughthither from Negroponte. It was found at Ardenza close by, by a shepherd, who carried it to Montenero, where, as I suppose, he lived; but justbefore he won the top of the hill it grew so heavy he had to set itdown. So the peasants built a shrine for it; and the affair gettingknown, the Church inquired into it, with the result that certainly bythe fifteenth century the shrine was in charge of a Religious Order;to-day the monks of the Vallombrosan Benedictines serve the church. 

One returns always, I think, with regret from Montenero to Livorno; yet, after all, not with more sadness than that which always accompanies usin returning from the country to any city, howsoever fair and lovely. God made the country; man made the town; and though in Italy both Godand man have laboured with joy and done better here than anywhere elsein the world, who would not leave the loveliest picture to look oncemore on the sky, or neglect the sweetest music if he might always hearthe sea, or give up praising a statue, if he might always look on hisbeloved? So it is in Italy, where all the cities are fair; flowers theyare among the flowers; yet any Tuscan rose is fairer far than ever Pisawas, and the lilies of Madonna in the gardens of Settignano are morelovely than the City of Flowers: come, then, let us leave the city forthe wayside, for the sun and the dust and the hills, the flowers besidethe river, the villages among the flowers. For if you love Italy youwill follow the road. 

FOOTNOTES:

[81] Livorno, in the barbarian dialect of the Genovesi, Ligorno; andhence our word Leghorn. It is excusable that we should have taken St. George from Genoa, but not that we should have stolen her dialect also. 

[82] Perhaps, but Bocca d'Arno, that delicious place, is far and farto-day from Livorno. 

VIII. TO SAN MINIATO AL TEDESCO

The road from Pisa to Florence, out of the Porta Fiorentina, to-day thegreatest gate of the city, passes at first across the Pisan plain, beside Arno though not following it in its wayward and winding course, to Cascina at the foot of those hills behind which Lucca is hidden away:Monti Pisani

 "Perche i Pisani veder Lucca non ponno. "

And unlike the way through the Pineta to the sea, the road, so oftentrodden by the victorious armies of Florence, is desolate and sombre, while beside the way to-day a disused tramway leads to Calci in thehills. On either side of this road, so deep in dust, are meadows linedwith bulrushes, while there lies a village, here a lonely church. It isindeed a rather sombre world of half-reclaimed marshland that Pisa thusbroods over, in which the only landmarks are the far-away hills, thesmoke of a village not so far away, or the tower of a church risingamong these fields so strangely green. For Pisa herself is soon lost inthe vagueness of a world thus delicately touched by sun and cloud, andseemingly so full of ruinous or deserted things like the beautiful greatChurch of Settimo, whose tower you may see far away in the golden summerweather standing quite alone in a curve of the river; so that you leavethe highway and following a little by-road come upon Pieve di S. Cassiano, a basilica in the ancient Pisan manner set among the trees ina shady place, and over the three doors of the façade you find thebeautiful work of Biduino da Pisa, as it is said, sculptures in reliefof the resurrection of Lazarus, the entry of Christ into Jerusalem, afight of dragons, and certain subjects from the Bestiaries. 

Another lonely church, set, not at the end of a byway by the river, buton the highroad itself, greets you as you enter Cascina. It is theChiesa della Madonna dell' Acqua, rebuilt in the eighteenth century. Inthis wide plain there are many churches, some of them of a greatantiquity, as S. Jacopo at Zambra and S. Lorenzo alle Corti, and in thehills you may find a place so wonderful as the Certosa di Calci, amonastery founded in 1366, but altered and spoiled in the seventeenthcentury, and the marvellous Church of S. Giovanni there. Cascina itselfis as it were the image of this wide flat country between the hills andthe Maremma, where the sun has so much influence and the shadows of theclouds drift over the fields all day long, and the mist shrouds theevening in blue and silver. Desolate and sober enough on a day of rain, when the sun shines this gaunt outpost of Pisa, for it is little more, is as gay as a flower by the wayside. The road runs through it, givingit its one long and almost straight street, while behind the poor housesthat have so little to boast of, lies a beautiful old Piazza, with agreat palace seemingly deserted on one side and an old tower and achurch with a beautiful façade on another. Always a prize of the enemy, Cascina in the Pisan wars fell to Lucca, to the Guelph League, and toFlorence. Its old walls, battered long ago, still remain to it, so thatfrom afar, from the Pisan hills, for instance, it looks more picturesquethan in fact it proves to be. 

The high road, Via Pisana, as it is still called, though, indeed, it wasmore often the way of the Florentines, sometimes almost deserted, sometimes noisy with peasants returning from market, finds the riveragain at Cascina only to lose it, however, till after a walk of somefive miles you come to Pontedera, a wild and miserable place, full ofpoor and rebellious people, who eye you with suspicion and a sort ofenvy. Yet in spite of the proclamation of their wretchedness, I think ofthem now in London, as fortunate. At least upon them the sun willsurely shine in the morning, the unsullied infinite night will fall;while for us there is no sun, and in the night the many are too unhappyto remember even that. There in Pontedera they preach their socialism, and none is too miserable to listen; these poor folk have been told theyare unhappy, and, indeed, Pontedera is not beautiful. Yet on a marketday you may see the whole place transformed. It has an aspect of joythat lights up the dreary street. All day on Friday you may watch themat their little stalls, which litter Via Pisana and make it impassable. You might think you were at a fair, but that a fair in England, at anyrate, is not so gay. All along the highway that runs through the town infront of the shops and the inn you see the stalls of the crockerymerchants, of the dealers in lace and stuffs, of those who sell macaroniand pasti, and of those who sell mighty umbrellas. And it is then, Ithink, that Pontedera is at her best; life which ever contrives in Italyto keep something of a gay sanity, disposing for that day at least ofthe surliness of this people, who are very poor, and far from any greatcity. 

As for me, I left Pontedera with all speed, being intent on Vico Pisano, a fortress built by Filippo Brunellesco for the Republic of Florence, after the fall of the old Pisan Rocca of Verruca, on the hill-top. There, too, if we may believe Villani, [83] the Marchese Ugo founded amonastery. To-day on Monte della Verruca there is nothing remaining ofthe Rocca, and the monastery is a heap of stones; but in Vico Pisano thefortifications and towers of Brunellesco still stand, battered thoughthey be, --gaunt and bitter towers, their battlements broken, the wallsthat the engines of old time have battered, hung now with ivy, overwhich, all silver in the wind, the ancient olive leans. 

Here, where the creeping ivy has hidden the old wounds, and theoleanders speak of the living, and the lilies remind us of the dead, letus, too, make peace in our hearts and suffer no more bitterness for thefallen, nor think hardly of the victor. Florence, too, in her turnsuffered slavery and oblivion; and from the same cause as her ownvictims, because she would not be at peace. If Pisa fell, it was justand right; for that she was Ghibelline, and would not make one with hersisters. For this Siena was lopped like a lily on her hills, and Luccapruned like her own olive trees, and Pistoia gathered in the plain. ThisFlorence stood for the Guelph cause and for the future, yet she too inher turn failed in love, and great though she was, she too was not greatenough. One of her sons, seeing her power, dreamed of the unity ofItaly, and for this cause followed Cesare Borgia; but she could notcompass it, and so fell at last as Pisa fell, as Siena fell, as all mustfall who will not be at one. How beautiful these old towers of VicoPisano look now among the flowers, yet once they were cruel enough: mendefended them and thought nothing of their beauty, and time has spoiledthem of defence and left only their beauty to be remembered. For theancients of Pisa have met for the last time; the signory of Florenceplots no more; no more will any Emperor with the pride of a barbarian, the mien of a beggar or a thief, cross the Alps, or such an one asHawkwood was sell his prowess for a bag of silver; and if the ships ofwar shall ever put out from Genoa, they will be the ships of Italy. Forshe who slept so long has awakened at last, and around her as she standson the Capitol, there cluster full of the ancient Latin beauty that cannever die, the beautiful cities of the sea, the plain, and the mountain, who have lost life for her sake, to find it in her. 

It is a long road of some fifteen miles from Pontedera to S. Miniato alTedesco: a hot road not without beauty passing through Rotta, own sisterto Pontedera, through Castel del Bosco, only a dusty village now, forthe castello is gone which guarded the confines of the Republic of Pisa, divided from the Republic of Florence by the Chiecinella, a torrent bedalmost without water in the summer heat, while not far away on thesouthern hills Montopoli thrusts its tower into the sky, keeping yet itsancient Rocca, once in the power of the Bishops of Lucca, but later inthe hands of Florence, an answer, as it were, to Castel del Bosco ofPisa in the land where both Pisa and Florence were on guard. There isbut little to see at Montopoli, just two old churches and a picture byCigoli; indeed the place looks its best from afar; and then, since theday is hot, you may spend a pleasanter hour in S. Romano in the oldFranciscan church there, which is worth a visit in spite of its moderndecorations, and is full of coolness and quiet. It was afternoon when Ileft S. Romano and caught sight of Castelfranco far away to the north, and presently crossed Evola at Pontevola, and already sunset when I sawthe beautiful cypresses of Villa Sonnino and the tower of S. Miniatocame in sight. Slowly in front of me as I left Pinocchio a great oxwagon toiled up the hill winding at last under a splendid Piazza frontedwith flowers; and it was with surprise and joy that, just as the angelusrang from the Duomo, I came into a beautiful city that, like someforgotten citadel of the Middle Age, lay on the hills curved like theletter S, smiling in the silence while the sun set to the sound of herbells. 

And indeed you may go far in Tuscany, covered as it is to-day by thetrail of the tourist, before you will find anything so fair as S. Miniato. Some distance from the railway, five miles from Empoli, half-way between Pisa and Florence, it alone seems to have escapedaltogether the curiosity of the traveller, for even the few who sowisely rest at Empoli come not so far into the country places. 

Lying on the hills under the old tower of the Rocca, of which nothingelse remains, S. Miniato is itself, as it were, a weather-beatenfortress, that was, perhaps, never so beautiful as now, when no onekeeps watch or ward. You may wander into the Duomo and out again intothe cloistered, narrow streets, and climbing uphill, pass down into thegreat gaunt church like a fortress, S. Domenico, with its scrupulousfrescoes, and though you will see many wonderful and some delightfulthings, it will be always with new joy you will return to S. Miniatoherself, who seems to await you like some virgin of the centuries offaith, that age has not been able to wither, fresh and rosy as when shefirst stood on her beautiful hills. Yet unspoiled as she is, Otto I hasdwelt with her, she was a stronghold of the Emperors, the fortress ofthe Germans; Federigo Barbarossa knew her well, and Federigo II hasloved her and hated her, for here he spoke with poets and made a fewsongs, and here he blinded and imprisoned Messer Piero della Vigna, thatfamous poet and wise man, accusing him of treason. [84] Was it that heenvied him his verses or feared his wisdom, or did he indeed think heplotted with the Pope? Piero della Vigna was from Capua, in the Kingdom;very eloquent, full of the knowledge of law, the Emperor made him hischancellor, and indeed gave him all his confidence, so that hisinfluence was very great with a man who must have been easily influencedby his friends. Seeing his power, others about the Emperor, rememberingPiero's low condition, no doubt sought to ruin him; and, as it seems, atlast in this they were successful, forging letters to prove that thechancellor trafficked with the Pope. It was a time of danger forFrederick; he was easily persuaded of Piero's guilt, and having put outhis eyes, he imprisoned him. Driven to despair at the loss of that fairworld, Piero dashed his head against the walls of his prison, and sodied. Dante meets him among the suicides in the seventh circle of theInferno. 

But the Rocca of S. Miniato, as it is said, having brought death to apoet and housed many Emperors, gave birth at last to the greatestsoldier of the fifteenth century, Francesco Sforza himself, he who madehimself Duke of Milan and whose statue Leonardo set himself to make, onwhich the poets carved _Ecce Deus_. A mere fort, perhaps, in its origin, in the days of Federigo II the Rocca must have been of considerablestrength, size, and luxury, dominating as it did the road to Florenceand the way to Rome: and then even in its early days it was astronghold of the German foreigner from which he dominated the Latinsround about, and not least the people of S. Miniato. Like all theTuscans, they could not bear the yoke, and they fled into the valley toS. Genesio: soon to return, however, for the people of the plain likedthem as little as he of the tower. This exodus is, as it were, commemorated in the dedication of the Duomo to S. Maria e a S. Genesio. The church is not very interesting; some fragments of the old pulpit or_ambone_, where you may see in relief the Annunciation and a coat ofarms with a boar and an inscription, are of the thirteenth century. Itis, however, in S. Domenico, not far away, that what remains to S. Miniato of her art treasures will be found. Everyone seems to call thechurch S. Domenico, but in truth it belongs to S. Jacopo and S. Lucia. As in many another Tuscan city, it guards one side of S. Miniato, whileS. Francesco watches on the other, as though to befriend all who maypass by. S. Domenico was founded in 1330, but it has suffered much sincethen. The chapels, built by the greatest families of the place, in partremain beautiful with the fourteenth-century work of the school of Gaddiand of some pupil of Angelico; but it is a work of the fifteenth centuryby some master of the Florentine school that chiefly delights us. Forthere you may see Madonna, her sweet, ambiguous face neither happy norsad, with the Prince of Life in her lap, while on the one side stand S. Sebastian and St. John Baptist, and on the other perhaps S. Jacopo andS. Roch. Below the donors kneel a man and his wife and little daughter, while in the predella you see our Lord's birth, baptism, andcondemnation. Altogether lovely, in that eager yet dry manner, a littleuncertain of its own dainty humanism, this picture alone is worth thejourney to S. Miniato. Yet how much else remains--a tomb attributed toDonatello in this very chapel, a lovely terra-cotta of the Annunciationgiven to Giovanni della Robbia, and indeed, not to speak of S. Francescowith its spaciousness and delicate light, and the Palazzo Comunale, withits frescoed Sala del Consiglio, there is S. Miniato itself, full offlowers and the wind. Like a city of a dream, at dawn she rises out ofthe mists of the valley pure and beautiful upon her winding hills thatlook both north and south; cool at midday and very still, hushed fromall sounds, she sleeps in the sun, while her old tower tells the slow, languorous hours; golden at evening, the sunset ebbs through her streetsto the far-away sea, till she sinks like some rosy lily into the nightthat for her is full of familiar silences peopled by splendid dreams. Then there come to her shadows innumerable--Otto I, Federigo Barbarossa, Federigo II, poor blinded Piero della Vigna, singing his songs, andthose that we have forgotten. The ruined dream of Germany, the HolyRoman Empire, the resurrection of the Latin race--she has seen them allrise, and two of them she helped to shatter for ever. It is not only inher golden book that she may read of splendour and victory, but in thesleeping valley and the whisper of her olives, the simple song of thehusbandman among the corn, the Italian voices in the vineyard at dawn:let her sleep after the old hatred, hushed by this homely music. 

FOOTNOTES:

[83] See p. 107. 

[84] "Io son colui che tenni ambo le chiavi Del cuor di Federigo e che le volsi Serrando e disserando sì soavi Che dal segreto suo quasi ogni uom tolsi. "

IX. EMPOLI, MONTELUPO, LASTRA, SIGNA

It is but four miles down the hillside and through the valley along ViaPisana to Empoli in the plain. And in truth that way, difficult truly atmidday--for the dusty road is full of wagons and oxen--is free enough atdawn, though every step thereon takes you farther from the hills of S. Miniato. Empoli, which you come to not without preparation, is like adeserted market-place, a deserted market-place that has been found, andput once more to its old use. Set as it is in the midst of the plainbeside Arno on the way to Florence, on the way to Siena, amid thevillages and the cornfields, it was the Granary of the Republic ofFlorence, its very name, may be, being derived from the word Emporium, which in fact it was. Not less important perhaps to-day than of old, itsnew villas, its strangely busy streets, its cosy look of importance andcomfort there in the waste of plain, serve to hide any historicalimportance it may have, so that those who come here are content for themost part to go no farther than the railway station, where on the wayfrom Pisa or from Florence they must change carriages for Siena. Andindeed, for her history, it differs but little from that of other Tuscantowns within reach of a great city. Yet for Empoli, as her Saint willed, there waited a destiny. For after the rout of the Guelphs, andespecially of Florence, the head and front of that cause at Montaperti, when in all Tuscany only Lucca remained free, and the Florentinerefugees built the loggia in front of S. Friano, there the Ghibellinesof Tuscany proposed to destroy utterly and for ever the City of theLily, and for this cause Conte Giordano and the rest caused a council tobe held at Empoli; and so it happened. Now Conte Giordano, Villani tellsus, was sent for by King Manfred to Apulia, and there was proclaimed ashis vicar and captain, Conte Guido Novello of the Conti Guidi ofCasentino, who had forsaken the rest of the family, which stood for theGuelph cause. This man was eager to fling every Guelph out of Tuscany. There were assembled at that council all the cities round about, and theConti Guidi and the Conti Alberti, and those of Santafiora and theUbaldini; and these were all agreed that for the sake of the Ghibellinecause Florence must be destroyed, "and reduced to open villages, so thatthere might remain to her no renown or fame or power. " It was then thatFarinata degli Uberti, though a Ghibelline and an exile, rose to opposethis design, saying that if there remained no other, whilst he lived hewould defend the city, even with his sword. Then, says Villani, "ConteGiordano, seeing what manner of man he was, and of how great authority, and how the Ghibelline party might be broken up and come to blows, abandoned the design and took new counsel, so that by one good man andcitizen our city of Florence was saved from so great fury, destruction, and ruin. " But Florence was ever forgetful of her greatest sons, andFarinata's praise was not found in her mouth, but in that of hergreatest exile, who, finding him in his fiery tomb, wishes him rest. 

 "Deh se riposi mai vostra semenza Prega io lui. "

To-day, however, in Empoli the long days are unbroken by the whisperingsfrom any council; and as though to mark the fact that all are friends atlast, if you come to her at all, you will sleep at the Aquila Nera inthe street of the Lily; Guelph and Ghibelline hate no more. And asthough to prove to man, ever more mindful of war than peace, that it isonly the works of love after all that abide for ever, in Empoli at leastscarcely anything remains from the old beloved days save the churches, and, best of all, the pictures that were painted for them. 

You pass the Church of S. Maria a Ripa just before you enter the city bythe beautiful Porta Pisana, but though you may find some delightfulworks of della Robbia ware there, especially a S. Lucia, it is in theCollegiata di S. Andrea in the lovely Piazza Farinata degli Uberti, thatmost of the works have been gathered in some of the rooms of the oldcollege. The church itself is very interesting, with its beautifulfaçade in the manner of the Badia at Fiesole, where you may see carvedon either side of the great door the head of S. Andrea and of St. JohnBaptist. 

In the Baptistery, however, comes your first surprise, a beautifulfresco, a Pietà attributed to Masolino da Panicale, where Christ is laidin the tomb by Madonna and St. John, while behind rises the Cross, onwhich hangs a scourge of knotted chords. And then in the second chapelon the right is a lovely Sienese Madonna, and a strange fresco on theleft wall of men taming bulls. 

In the gallery itself a few lovely things have been gathered together, of which certainly the finest are the angels of Botticini, two childrenwinged and crowned with roses, dressed in the manner of the fifteenthcentury, with purfled skirts and slashed sleeves powdered with flowers, who bow before the S. Sebastian of Rossellino. Two other worksattributed to Botticini, certainly not less lovely, are to be foundhere: an Annunciation in the manner of his master Verrocchio, where Marysits, a delicate white girl, under a portico into which Gabriele hasstolen at sunset and found her at prayer; far away the tall cypressesare black against the gold of the sky, and in the silence it almostseems as though we might overhear the first Angelus and the very messagefrom the angel's lips. And if this is the Annunciation as it happenedlong ago in Tuscany, in heaven the angels danced for sure, thinking ofour happiness, as Botticini knew; and so he has painted those sevenangels playing various instruments, while about their feet he has strewna song of songs. A S. Andrea and St. John Baptist in a greatfifteenth-century altar are also given to him, while below you may seeS. Andrea's crucifixion, the Last Supper, and Salome bringing the headof St. John Baptist to Herodias at her supper with Herod. Some finedella Robbia fragments and a beautiful relief of the Madonna and Childby Mino da Fiesole are among the rest of the treasures of theCollegiata, where you may find much that is merely old or curious. Otherchurches there are in Empoli, S. Stefano, for instance, with a Madonnaand two angels, given to Masolino, and the marvellously lovelyAnnunciation by Bernardo Rossellino; and S. Maria di Fuori, with itsbeautiful loggia, but they will not hold you long. The long white roadcalls you; already far away you seem to see the belfries of Florencethere, where they look into Arno, for the very water at your feet hasheld in its bosom the fairest tower in the world, whiter than a lily, rosier than the roses of the hills. With this dream, dream orremembrance, in your heart, it is not Empoli with its brown country facethat will entice you from the way. And so, a little weary at last forthe shadows of the great city, it was with a sort of impatience Itrudged the dusty highway, eager for every turn of the road that mightbring the tall towers, far and far away though they were, into sight. Somewhat in this mood, still early in the morning, I passed throughPontormo, the birthplace of the sixteenth-century painter JacopoCarrucci, who has his name from this little town. Two or three picturesthat he painted, a lovely font of the fourteenth century in the Churchof S. Michele Arcangiolo, called for no more than a halt, for there, still far away before me, were the hills, the hills that hid Florenceherself. 

It was already midday when I came to the little city of Montelupo at thefoot of these hills, and, in front of a beautiful avenue of plane trees, to the trattoria, a humble place enough, and full at that hour ofdrivers and countrymen, but quite sufficient for my needs, for I foundthere food, a good wine, and courtesy. Later, in the afternoon, climbingthe stony street across Pesa, I came to the Church of S. GiovanniEvangelista, and there in the sweet country silence was Madonna with herSon and four Saints, by some pupil of Sandro Botticelli. 

It is not any new vision of Madonna you will see in that quiet countrychurch, full of afternoon sunshine and wayside flowers, but the samehalf-weary maiden of whom Botticelli has told us so often, whose honouris too great for her, whose destiny is more than she can bear. Alreadyshe has been overwhelmed by our praise and petitions; she has closed hereyes, she has turned away her head, and while the Jesus Parvulus liftshis tiny hands in blessing, she is indifferent, holding Him languidly, as though but half attentive to those priceless words which St. John, with the last light of a smile still lingering round his eyes, notes socarefully in his book. Something of the same eagerness, graver, and moreyouthful, you may see in the figure of St. Sebastian, who, holding threearrows daintily in his hand, has suddenly looked up at the sound of thatDivine childish voice. Two other figures, S. Lorenzo and perhaps S. Roch, listen with a sort of intent sadness there under that splendidportico, where Mary sits on a throne, she who was the carpenter's wife, with so little joy or even surprise. Below, in the predella, you may seecertain saints' heads, S. Lorenzo giving alms, the death of S. Lorenzo, the risen Christ. 

[Illustration: BADIA AL SETTIMO]

But though Montelupo possesses such a treasure as this picture, for meat least the fairest thing within her keeping is the old fortress, ruined now, on her high hill, and the view one may have thence. For, following that stony way which brought me to S. Giovanni, I came at lastto the walls of an old fortress, that now houses a few peasants, andturning there saw all the Val d'Arno, from S. Miniato far and far awayto the west, to little Vinci on the north, where, as Vasari says, Leonardo was born; while below me, beside Arno, rose the beautiful VillaAmbrogiana, with its four towers at the corners; and then on a hillbefore me, not far away, a little town nestling round another fortress, maybe less dilapidated than Montelupo, Capraja, that goat whichcaused Montelupo to be built. For in the days when Florence disputed Vald'Arno and the plains of Empoli with many nobles, the Conti di Caprajalorded it here, and, as the Florentines said:

 "Per distrugger questa Capra non ci vuol altro che un Lupo. "

To-day Montelupo is but a village; yet once it was of importance notonly as a fortress, for that she ceased to be almost when the Counts ofCapraja were broken, and certainly by 1203, when Villani tells us thatthe Florentines destroyed the place because it would not obey thecommonwealth; but as a city of art, or at any rate of a beautifulhandicraft. Even to-day the people devote themselves to pottery, but ofold it was not merely a matter of commerce, but of beauty andcraftsmanship. 

It was through a noisy gay crowd of these folk, the young men loungingagainst the houses, the girls talking, talking together, arm in arm, asthey went to and fro before them, with a wonderful sweet air ofindifference to those who eyed them so keenly and yet shyly too, andwithout anything of the brutal humour of a northern village, that in thelater afternoon I again sought the highway. And before I had gone a mileupon my road the whole character of the way was changed; no longer was Icrossing a great plain, but winding among the hills, while Arno, noisierthan before, fled past me in an ever narrower bed among the rocks andbuttresses of what soon became little more than a defile between thehills. Though the road was deep in dust, there was shadow under thecypresses beside the way, there was a whisper of wind among the reedsbeside the river, and the song of the cicale grew fainter and the hillswere touched with light; evening was coming. 

And indeed, when at last I had left the splendid villa of Antinori farbehind, evening came as I entered Lastra, and by chance taking the wrongroad, passing under a most splendid ilex, huge as a temple, I climbedthe hill to S. Martino a Gangalandi. Standing there in the pure calmlight just after sunset, the whole valley of Florence lay before me. Tothe left stood Signa, piled on her hill like some fortress of the MiddleAge; then Arno, like a road of silver, led past the Villa delle Selve tothe great mountain Monte Morello, and there under her last spurs layFlorence herself, clear and splendid like some dream city, her towersand pinnacles, her domes and churches shining in the pure evening lightlike some delectable city seen in a vision far away, but a reality, andseen at last. Very far off she seemed in that clear light, thatpresently fading fled away across the mountains before the advance ofnight, that filled the whole plain with its vague and beautiful shadow. 

And so, when morning was come, I went again to S. Martino a Gangalandi, but Florence was hidden in light. In my heart I knew I must seek her atonce, that even the fairest things were not fair, since she was hiddenaway. Not without a sort of reluctance I heard Mass in S. Martino, spenta moment before the beautiful Madonna of that place, a picture of thefifteenth century, and looked upon the fortifications of Brunellesco. Everywhere the women sitting in their doorways were plaiting straw, andpresently I came upon a whole factory of this craft, the great courtyardstrewn with hats of all shapes, sizes, and colours, drying in the sun. Signa, too, across the river as I passed, seemed to be given up to thisbusiness. Then taking the road, hot and dusty, I set out--not by ViaPisana, but by the byways, which seemed shorter--for Florence. For longI went between the vines, in the misty morning, all of silver and gold, till I was weary. And at last houses began to strew the way, herds ofgoats led by an old man in velveteen and a lad in tatters, one herdafter another covered me with dust, or, standing in front of the houses, were milked at the doorways, where still the women, their brown legsnaked in the sun, plaited the straw. Then at a turning of the way, asthough to confirm me in any fears I might have of the destruction of thecity I had come so far to see, a light railway turned into the highwaybetween the houses, where already there was not room for two carts topass. How may I tell my anger and misery as I passed through thatendless suburb, the great hooting engine of the train venting itsstench, and smoke, and noise into the very windows of the houses, chasing me down the narrow way, round intricate corners, over tinypiazzas, from the very doors of churches. Yet, utterly weary at last, covered with dust, it was in this brutal contrivance that I soughtrefuge, and after an hour of agony was set down before the Porta alPrato. The bells were ringing the Angelus of midday when I came intoFlorence. 

X. FLORENCE

Florence is like a lily in the midst of a garden gay with wild-flowers;a broken lily that we have tied up and watered and nursed into asemblance of life, an image of ancient beauty--as it were the _mementomori_ of that Latin spirit which contrived the Renaissance of mankind. As of old, so to-day, she stands in the plain at the foot of theApennines, that in their sweetness and strength lend her still somethingof their nobility. Around her are the hills covered with olive gardenswhere the corn and the wine and the oil grow together between the irisand the rose; and everywhere on those beautiful hills there are villasamong the flowers, real villas such as Alberti describes for us, full ofcoolness and rest, where a fountain splashes in an old courtyard, andthe grapes hang from the pergolas, and the corn is spread in July andbeaten with the flail. And since the vista of every street in Florenceends in the country, it is to these hills you find your way very oftenif your stay be long, fleeing from the city herself, perhaps to hideyour disappointment, in the simple joy of country life. More and more asyou live in Florence that country life becomes your consolation and yourdelight: for there abide the old ways and the ancient songs, which youwill not find in the city. And indeed the great treasure of Florence isthis bright and smiling country in which she lies: the old road toFiesole, the ways that lead from Settignano to Compiobbi, the paththrough the woods from S. Martino a Mensola, that smiling church by thewayside, to Vincigliata, to Castel di Poggio, the pilgrimage from Bagnoa Ripoli to the Incontro. There, on all those beautiful gay roads, youwill pass numberless villas whispering with summer, laughing withflowers; you will see the _contadini_ at work in the _poderi_, you willhear the _rispetti_ and _stornelli_ of the fourteenth and fifteenthcenturies sung perhaps by some love-sick peasant girl among the olivesfrom sunrise till evening falls. And the ancient ways are not forgottenthere, for they still reap with the sickle and sing to the beat of theflail; while the land itself, those places "full of nimble air, in alaughing country of sweet and lovely views, where there is always freshwater, and everything is healthy and pure, " of which Leon Alberti tellsus, are still held and cultivated in the old way under the old laws bythe _contadino_ and his _padrone_. This ancient order, quietness, andbeauty, which you may find everywhere in the country round aboutFlorence, is the true Tuscany. The vulgarity of the city, for even inItaly the city life has become insincere, blatant, and for the most parta life of the middle class, seldom reaches an hundred yards beyond the_barriera_: and this is a charm in Florence, for you may so easily lookon her from afar. And so, if one comes to her from the country, orreturns to her from her own hills, it is ever with a sense of loss, ofsadness, of regret: she has lost her soul for the sake of the stranger, she has forgotten the splendid past for an ignoble present, a strangelywearying dream of the future. 

Yet for all her modern ways, her German beer-houses, her Englishtea-shops, her noisy trams on Lung' Arno, her air as of a museum, hereagerness to show her contempt for the stranger while she sells him hervery soul for money, Florence remains one of the most delightful citiesof Italy to visit, to live with, to return to again and again. Yet I forone would never live within her walls if I could help it, nor herd withthose barbarian, exclamatory souls who in guttural German or cockneyEnglish snort or neigh at the beauties industriously pointed out by aloud-voiced cicerone, quoting in American all the appropriatequotations, Browning before Filippo Lippi, Ruskin in S. Croce, Mrs. Browning at the door of S. Felice, Goethe everywhere. 

No, I will live a little way out of the city on the hillside, perhapstowards Settignano, not too far from the pine woods, nor too near thegate. And my garden there shall be a vineyard, bordered with iris, andamong the vines shall be a garden of olives, and under the olives thereshall be the corn. And the yellow roses will litter the courtyard, andthe fountain will be full of their petals, and the red roses will strewthe paths, and the white roses will fall upon the threshold; and all daylong the bees will linger in the passion-flowers by the window when themulberry trees have been stripped of leaves, and the lilies of Madonna, before the vines, are tall and like ghosts in the night, the night thatis blue and gold, where a few fire-flies linger yet, sailing faintlyover the stream, and the song of the cicale is the burden of endlesssummer. 

Then very early in the morning I will rise from my bed under the holybranch of olive, I will walk in my garden before the sun is high, I willlook on my beloved city. Yes, I shall look over the near olives acrossthe valley to the hill of cypresses, to the poplars beside Arno thattremble with joy; and first I shall see Torre del Gallo and then S. Miniato, that strange and beautiful place, and at last my eyes will reston the city herself, beautiful in the mist of morning: first the towerof S. Croce, like a tufted spear; then the tower of Liberty, and thatwas built for pride; and at last, like a mysterious rose lifted abovethe city, I shall see the dome, the rosy dome of Brunellesco, besidewhich, like a slim lily, pale, immaculate as a pure virgin, rises theinviolate Tower of the Lowly, that Giotto built for God. Yes, often Ishall thus await the Angelus that the bells of all the villages willanswer, and I shall greet the sun and be thankful. Then I shall walkunder the olives, I shall weigh the promised grapes, I shall bend theears of corn here and there, that I may feel their beauty, and I shallbury my face in the roses, I shall watch the lilies turn their heads, Ishall pluck the lemons one by one. And the maidens will greet me ontheir way to the olive gardens, the newly-married, hand in hand withher husband, will smile upon me, she who is heavy with child will giveme her blessing, and the children will laugh and peep at me from behindthe new-mown hay; and I shall give them greeting. And I shall talk withhim who is busy in the vineyard, I shall watch him bare-foot among thegrapes, I shall see his wise hands tenderly unfold a leaf or gather up astraying branch, and when I leave him I shall hear him say, "May yourbread be blessed to you. " Under the myrtles, on a table of stone spreadwith coarse white linen, such we see in Tuscany, I shall break my fast, and I shall spill a little milk on the ground for thankfulness, and thecrumbs I shall scatter too, and a little honey that the bees have givenI shall leave for them again. 

So I shall go into the city, and one will say to me, "The Signore musthave a care, for the sun will be hot, in returning it will be necessaryto come under the olives. " And I shall laugh in my heart, and say, "Haveno fear, then, for the sun will not touch me. " And how should I but beglad that the sun will be hot, and how should I but be thankful that Ishall come under the olives?

And I shall come into the city by Porta alla Croce for love, because Iam but newly returned, and presently through the newer ways I shall cometo the oldest of all, Borgo degli Albizzi, where the roofs of thebeautiful palaces almost touch, and the way is cool and full of shadow. There, amid all the hurry and bustle of the narrow, splendid street, Ishall think only of old things for a time, I shall remember the greatmen who founded and established the city, I shall recall the greatfamilies of Florence. Here in this Borgo the Albizzi built their towerswhen they came from Arezzo, giving the city more than an hundredofficers, Priori and Gonfalonieri, till Cosimo de' Medici thrust themout with the help of Eugenius IV. The grim, scornful figure of Rinaldoseems to haunt the old palace still. How often in those September daysmust he have passed to and fro between his palace and the Bargello closeby, the Palace of the Podestà: but the people, fearing they knew notwhat, barricaded the place so that Rinaldo was persuaded to consultwith the Pope in S. Maria Novella. At dawn he dismissed his army, andremained alone. Then the friends of Cosimo in exile went to the Pope andthanked him, thus, as some have thought, surprising him into anabandonment of Rinaldo. However that may be, Rinaldo was expelled, leaving the city with these words, "He is a blind man without a guide, who trusts the word of a Pope. " And what figure haunts Palazzo Altovite, the home of that fierce Ghibelline house loved by Frederick II, if notthat hero who expelled the Duke of Athens. Palazzo Pazzi and PalazzoNonfinito at the Canto de' Pazzi where the Borgo degli Albizzi meets Viadel Proconsolo, brings back to me that madman who first set the Crossupon the walls of Jerusalem in 1099, and who for this cause was givensome stones from Christ's sepulchre by Godfrey de Bouillon, which hebrought to Florence and presented to the Republic. They were placed inS. Reparata, which stood where the Duomo now is, and, as it is said, the"new fire" was struck from them every Holy Saturday, and the clergy, inprocession, brought that sacred flame to the other churches of the city. And the Pazzi, because of their gift, gave the guard of honour in thisprocession: and this they celebrated with much pomp among themselves;till at last they obtained permission to build a _carro_, which shouldbe lighted at the door of S. Reparata by some machine of theirinvention, and drawn by four white oxen to their houses. And even tothis day you may see this thing, and to this day the car is borne totheir canto. But above all I see before that "unfinished" palace theruined hopes of those who plotted to murder Lorenzo de' Medici with hisbrother at the Easter Mass in the Duomo. Even now, amid the noise of thestreet, I seem to hear the shouting of the people, _Vive le Palle, Morteai Pazzi_. 

So I shall come into the Proconsolo beside the Bargello, where so manygreat and splendid people are remembered, and she, too, who is sobeautiful that for her sake we forget everything else, Vanna degliAlbizzi, who married Lorenzo de' Tornabuoni, whom Verrocchio carved andGhirlandajo painted. Then I shall follow the Via del Corso past S. Margherita, close to Dante's mythical home, into Via Calzaioli, thebusiest street of the city, and I shall think of the strange differencebetween these three great ways, Via del Proconsolo, Via Calzaioli, andVia Tornabuoni, which mark and divide the most ancient city. I shallturn toward Or San Michele, where on St. John's Day the banners of theguilds are displayed above the statues, and for a little time I shalllook again on Verrocchio's Christ and St. Thomas. Then in thispilgrimage of remembrance I shall pass up Via Calzaioli, past the gaycool caffè of Gilli, into the Piazza del Duomo. And again, I shall fearlest the tower may fall like a lopped lily, and I shall wish that Giottohad made it ever so little bigger at the base. Then I shall pass to theright past the Misericordia, where for sure I shall meet some of the_confraternità_, past the great gazing statue of Brunellesco, till, atthe top of Via del Proconsolo, I shall turn to look at the Duomo, which, seen from there, seems like a great Greek cross under a dome, that mightcover the world. And so I shall pass round the apse of the Cathedraltill I come to the door of the Cintola, where Nanni di Banco hasmarvellously carved Madonna in an almond-shaped glory: and this is oneof the fairest things in Florence. And I shall go on my way, past theGate of Paradise to the open door of the Baptistery, and returning findthe tomb of Baldassare Cossa, soldier and antipope, carved by Donatello:and here, in the most ancient church of Florence, I shall thank St. Johnfor my return. 

Out in the Piazza once more, I shall turn into Borgo S. Lorenzo, andfollow it till I come to Piazza di S. Lorenzo, with its bookstalls whereBrowning found that book, "small quarto size, part print, partmanuscript, " which told him the story of "The Ring and the Book. " ThereI shall look once more on the ragged, rugged front of S. Lorenzo, andentering, find the tomb of Piero de' Medici, made by Verrocchio, andthinking awhile of those other tombs where Michelangelo hard by carvedhis Night and Day, Twilight and Dawn, I shall find my way again into thePiazza del Duomo, and, following Via Cerretani, that busy street, Ishall come at last into Piazza S. Maria Novella, and there on the northI shall see again the bride of Michelangelo, S. Maria Novella of theDominicans. 

Perhaps I shall rest there a little before Duccio's Madonna on her highaltar, [85] and linger under the grave, serene work of Ghirlandajo; butit may be the sky will be too fair for any church to hold me, so thatpassing down the way of the Beautiful Ladies, and taking Via dei Serpion my left, I shall come into Via Tornabuoni, that smiling, lovely wayjust above the beautiful Palazzo Antinori, whence I may see PalazzoStrozzi, but without the great lamp at the corner where the flowers areheaped and there are always so many loungers. Indeed, the whole streetis full of flowers and sunshine and cool shadow, and in some way, I knownot what, it remains the most beautiful gay street in Florence, wherepast and present have met and are friends. And then I know if I followthis way I shall come to Lung' Arno, --I may catch a glimpse of it evenfrom the corner of Via Porta Rossa over the cabs, past the Column of S. Trinità. 

[Illustration: PONTE VECCHIO]

Presently, in the afternoon, I shall follow Via Porta Rossa, with itsold palaces of the Torrigiani (now, Hotel Porta Rossa), and theDavanzati into Mercato Nuovo, where, because it is Thursday, the wholeplace will be smothered with flowers and children, little laughingrascals as impudent as Lippo Lippi's Angiolini, who play about the Taccaand splash themselves with water. And so I shall pass at last intoPiazza della Signoria, before the marvellous palace of the people withits fierce, proud tower, and I shall stand on the spot before thefountains where Humanism avenged itself on Puritanism, where Savonarola, that Ferrarese who burned the pictures and would have burned the city, was himself burned in the fire he had invoked. And I shall look oncemore on the Loggia de' Lanzi, and see Cellini's young _contadino_masquerading as Perseus, and in my heart I shall remember the little waxfigure he made for a model, now in Bargello, which is so much morebeautiful than this young giant. So, under the cool cloisters of Palazzodegli Uffizi I shall come at last on to Lung' Arno, where it is veryquiet, and no horses may pass, and the trams are a long way off. And Ishall lift up my eyes and behold once more the hill of gardens acrossArno, with the Belvedere just within the old walls, and S. Miniato, likea white and fragile ghost in the sunshine, and La Bella Villanellacouched like a brown bird under the cypresses above the grey olives inthe wind and the sun. And something in the gracious sweep of the hills, in the gentle nobility of that holy mountain which Michelangelo hasloved and defended, which Dante Alighieri has spoken of, which GianozzoManetti has so often climbed, will bring the tears to my eyes, and Ishall turn away towards Ponte Vecchio, the oldest and most beautiful ofthe bridges, where the houses lead one over the river, and the littleshops of the jewellers still sparkle and smile with trinkets. And in themidst of the bridge I shall wait awhile and look on Arno. Then I shallcross the bridge and wander upstream towards Porta S. Niccolò, thatgaunt and naked gate in the midst of the way, and there I shall climbthrough the gardens up the steep hill

 "... Per salire al monte Dove siede la chiesa.... "

to the great Piazzale, and so to the old worn platform before S. Miniatoitself, under the strange glowing mosaics of the façade: and, standingon the graves of dead Florentines, I shall look down on the beautifulcity. 

Marvellously fair she is on a summer evening as seen from that hill ofgardens, Arno like a river of gold before her, leading over the plainlost in the farthest hills. Behind her the mountains rise in greatamphitheatres, --Fiesole on the one side, like a sentinel on her hill; onthe other, the Apennines, whose gesture, so noble, precise, andsplendid, seems to point ever towards some universal sovereignty, someperfect domination, as though this place had been ordained for theresurrection of man. Under this mighty symbol of annunciation lies thecity, clear and perfect in the lucid light, her towers shining under theserene evening sky. Meditating there alone for a long time in theprofound silence of that hour, the whole history of this city thatwitnessed the birth of the modern world, the resurrection of the gods, will come to me. 

Out of innumerable discords, desolations, hopes unfilled, everlastinghatred and despair, I shall see the city rise four square within herrosy walls between the river and the hills; I shall see that lonely, beautiful, and heroic figure, Matilda the great Countess; I shall sufferthe dream that consumes her, and watch Germany humble in the snow. Andthe Latin cause will tower a red lily beside Arno; one by one the greatnobles will go by with cruel alien faces, prisoners, to serve the Lilyor to die. Out of their hatred will spring that mongrel cause of Guelphand Ghibelline, and I shall see the Amidei slay BuondelmonteBuondelmonti. Through the year of victories I shall rejoice, whenPistoja falls, when Siena falls, when Volterra is taken, and Pisa forcedto make peace. Then in tears I shall see the flight at Monteaperti, Ishall hear the thunder of the horses, and with hate in my heart I shallsearch for Bocca degli Abati, the traitor, among the ten thousand dead. And in the council I shall be by when they plot the destruction of thecity, and I shall be afraid: then I shall hear the heroic, scornfulwords of Farinata degli Uberti, when in his pride he spared Florence forthe sake of his birth. And I shall watch the banners at Campaldino, Ishall hear the intoxicating words of Corso Donati, I shall look into hisvery face and read the truth. 

And at dawn I shall walk with Dante, and I shall know by the softness ofhis voice when Beatrice passeth, but I shall not dare to lift my eyes. Ishall walk with him through the city, I shall hear Giotto speak to himof St. Francis, and Arnolfo will tell us of his dreams. And at eveningPetrarch will lead me into the shadow of S. Giovanni and tell me ofMadonna Laura. But it will be a morning of spring when I meetBoccaccio, ah, in S. Maria Novella, and as we come into the sunshine Ishall laugh and say, "Tell me a story. " And Charles of Valois will passby, who sent Dante on that long journey; and Henry VII, for whom he hadprayed; and I shall hear the trumpets of Montecatini, and I shallunderstand the hate Uguccione had for Castracani. And I shall watch theentry of the Duke of Athens, and I shall see his cheek flush at thethought of a new tyranny. Then for the first time I shall hear thesinister, fortunate name Medici. Under the banners of the Arti I shallhear the rumour of their names, Silvestro who urged on the Ciompi, Vieriwho once made peace; nor will the death of Gian Galeazzo of Milan, northe tragedy of Pisa, hinder their advent, for I shall see Giovanni diBicci de' Medici proclaimed Gonfaloniere of the city. Then they willtroop by more splendid than princes, the universal bankers, lords ofFlorence: Cosimo the hard old man, Pater Patriae, the greatest of hisrace; Piero, the weakling; Lorenzo il Magnifico, tyrant and artist; andover his shoulder I shall see the devilish, sensual face of Savonarola. And there will go by Giuliano, the lover of Simonetta; Piero the exile;Giovanni the mighty pope, Leo X; Giulio the son of Guiliano, ClementVII; Ippolito the Cardinal, Alessandro the cruel, Lorenzino hisassassin, Cosimo l'Invitto, Grand Duke of Tuscany, bred in a convent andmourned for ever. 

So they pass by, and their descendants follow after them, even to poor, unhappy, learned Gian Gastone, the last of his race. 

And around them throng the artists; yes, I shall see them all. Angelicowill lead me into his cell and show me the meaning of the Resurrection. With Lippo Lippi I shall play with the children, and talk with LucreziaButi at the convent gate; Ghirlandajo will take me where Madonna Vannais, and with Baldovinetti I shall watch the dawn. And Botticelli willlead me into a grove apart: I shall see the beauty of those three womenwho pass, who pass like a season, and are neither glad nor sorry; andwith him I shall understand the joy of Venus, whose son was love, andthe tears of Madonna, whose Son was Love also. And I shall hear thevoice of Leonardo; and he will play upon his lyre of silver, that lyrein the shape of a horse's head which he made for Sforza of Milan; and Ishall see him touch the hands of Monna Lisa. And I shall see the statueof snow that Buonarotti made; I shall find him under S. Miniato, and Ishall weep with him. 

So I shall dream in the sunset. The Angelus will be ringing from all thetowers, I shall have celebrated my return to the city that I have loved. The splendour of the dying day will lie upon her; in that enduring andmarvellous hour, when in the sound of every bell you may find the namesthat are in your heart, I shall pass again through the gardens, I shallcome into the city when the little lights before Madonna will be shiningat the street corners, and the streets will be full of the evening, where the river, stained with fading gold, steals into the night to thesea. And under the first stars I shall find my way to my hillside. Onthat white country road the dust of the day will have covered the vinesby the way, the cypresses will be white half-way to their tops, in thewhispering olives the cicale will still be singing; as I pass everythreshold some dog will rouse, some horse will stamp in the stable, oran ox stop munching in his stall. In the far sky, marvellous withinfinite stars, the moon will sail like a little platter of silver, likea piece of money new from the mint, like a golden rose in a mirror ofsilver. Long and long ago the sun will have set, but when I come to thegate I shall go under the olives; though I shall be weary I shall go bythe longest way, I shall pass by the winding path, I shall listen forthe whisper of the corn. And I shall beat at my gate, and one will say_Chi è_, and I shall make answer. So I shall come into my house, and thetriple lights will be lighted in the garden, and the table will bespread. And there will be one singing in the vineyard, and I shall hear, and there will be one walking in the garden, and I shall know. 

FOOTNOTES:

[85] Alas, this too has now become as nothing and its place knows it nomore. --E. H. 

XI. FLORENCE

PIAZZA DELLA SIGNORIA AND PALAZZO VECCHIO

In every ancient city of the world, cities that in themselves for themost part have been nations, one may find some spot holy or splendidthat instantly evokes an image of that of which it is a symbol, --whichsums up, as it were, in itself all the sanctity, beauty, and splendourof her fame, in whose name there lives even yet something of the glorythat is dead. It is so no longer; in what confused street or shapelesssquare shall I find hidden the soul of London, or in what name thenshall I sum up the lucid restless life of Paris? But if I name theAcropolis, all the pale beauty of Athens will stir in my heart; and whenI speak the word Capitolium, I seem to hear the thunder of the legions, to see the very face of Caesar, to understand the dominion and majestyof Rome. 

Something of this power of evocation may still be found in the Piazzadella Signoria of Florence: all the love that founded the city, thebeauty that has given her fame, the immense confusion that is herhistory, the hatred that has destroyed her, lingers yet in that strangeand lovely place where Palazzo Vecchio stands like a violated fortress, where the Duke of Athens was expelled the city, where the Ciompi roseagainst the Ghibellines, where Jesus Christ was proclaimed King of theFlorentines, where Savonarola, was burned, and Alessandro de' Medicimade himself Duke. 

It is not any great and regular space you come upon in the Piazza dellaSignoria, such as the huge empty Place de la Concorde of Paris, but onethat is large enough for beauty, and full of the sweet variety of thecity; it is the symbol of Florence--a beautiful symbol. 

In the morning the whole Piazza is full of sunlight, and swarming withpeople: there, is a stall for newspapers; here, a lemonade merchantdispenses his sweet drinks. Everyone is talking; at the corner of ViaCalzaioli a crowd has assembled, a crowd that moves and seems about todissolve, that constantly re-forms itself without ever breaking up. Onthe benches of the loggia men lie asleep in the shadow, and childrenchase one another among the statues. Everywhere and from all directionscabs pass with much cracking of whips and hallooing. There stand twoCarabinieri in their splendid uniforms, surveying this noisy world; anofficer passes with his wife, leading his son by the hand; you may seehim lift his sword as he steps on the pavement. A group of tourists goby, urged on by a gesticulating guide; he is about to show them thestatues in the loggia; they halt under the Perseus. He begins to speakof it, while the children look up at him as though to catch what he issaying in that foreign tongue. 

And surely the Piazza, which has seen so many strange and splendidthings, may well tolerate this also; it is so gay, so full of life. Veryfair she seems under the sunlight, picturesque too, with her buildingsso different and yet so harmonious. On the right the gracious beauty ofthe Loggia de' Lanzi; then before you the lofty, fierce old PalazzoVecchio; and beside it the fountains play in the farther Piazza. CosimoI rides by as though into Siena, while behind him rises the palace ofthe Uguccioni, which Folfi made; and beside you the Calzaioli ebbs andflows with its noisy life, as of old the busiest street of the city. 

The Palazza Vecchio, peaceful enough now, but still with the fiercegesture of war stands on one side, facing the Piazza, a fortress of hugestones four storeys high--the last, thrust out from the wall andsupported by arches on brackets of stone, as though crowning thepalace itself. It stands almost four-square, and above rises thebeautiful tower, the highest tower in the city, with a gallery similarto the last storey of the palace, and above a loggia borne by fourpillars, from which spring the great arches of the canopy that supportsthe spire; and whereas the battlements of the palazzo are square andGuelph, those of the tower are Ghibelline in the shape of the tail ofthe swallow. Set, not in the centre of the square, nor made to close it, but on one side, it was thus placed, it is said, in order to avoid theburned houses of the Uberti, who had been expelled the city. Howeverthis may be, and its position is so fortunate that it is not likely tobe due to any such chance, Arnolfo di Cambio began it in February 1299, taking as his model, so some have thought, the Rocca of the Conti Guidiof the Casentino, which Lapo his father had built. Under the arches ofthe fourth storey are painted the coats of the city and its gonfaloni. And there you may see the most ancient device of Florence, the lilyargent on a field gules; the united coats gules and argent of Florenceand Fiesole in 1010; the coat of Guelph Florence, a lily gules on afield argent; and, among the rest, the coat of Charles of Anjou, thelilies or on a field azure. 

[Illustration: LOGGIA DE' LANZI]

On the platform or ringhiera before the great door, the priori watchedthe greater festas, and made their proclamations, before the Loggia de'Lanzi was built in 1387; and here in 1532 the last Signoria of theRepublic proclaimed Alessandro de' Medici first Duke of Florence, infront of the Judith and Holofernes of Donatello, whose warning wentunheeded. And indeed, that group, part of the plunder that the peoplefound in Palazzo Riccardi, in the time of Piero de' Medici, who soughtto make himself tyrant, once stood beside the great gate of PalazzoVecchio, whence it was removed at the command of Alessandro, who placedthere instead Bandinelli's feeble Hercules and Cacus. Opposite to itMichelangelo's David once stood, till it was removed in our own time tothe Accademia, where it looks like a cast. 

Over the great door where of old was set the monogram of Christ, youmay read still REX REGUM ET DOMINUS DOMINANTIUM, and within the gate isa court most splendid and lovely, built after the design of Arnolfo, andonce supported by his pillars of stone, but now the columns ofMichelozzo, made in 1450, and covered with stucco decoration in thesixteenth century, form the cortile in which, over the fountain ofVasari, Verrocchio's lovely Boy Playing with the Dolphin ever half turnsin his play. Altogether lovely in its naturalism, its humorous grace, Verrocchio made it for Lorenzo Magnifico, who placed it in his gardensat Careggi, whence it was brought here by Cosimo I. 

Passing through that old palace, up the great staircase into the Salonedel Cinquecento, where Savonarola was tried, with the Cappella di S. Bernardo, where he made his last communion, and at last up the staircaseinto the tower, where he was tortured and imprisoned, it is ever of thatmad pathetic figure, self-condemned and self-murdered, that you think, till at last, coming out of the Palazzo, you seek the spot of his awfuldeath in the Piazza. Fanatic puritan as he was, vainer than any Medici, it is difficult to understand how he persuaded the Florentines to listento his eloquence, spoiled as it must have been for them by the Ferraresedialect. How could a people who were the founders of the modern world, the creators of modern culture, allow themselves to be baffled by afanatic friar prophesying judgment? Yet something of a peculiar charm, aforce that we miss in the sensual and almost devilish face we see in hisportrait, he must have possessed, for it is said that Lorenzo desiredhis company; and even though we are able to persuade ourselves that itwas for other reasons than to enjoy his friendship, we have yet toexplain the influence he exercised over Sandro Botticelli and Pico dellaMirandola, whose lives he changed altogether. In the midst of a peoplewithout a moral sense he appears like the spirit of denial. He waskicking against the pricks, he was guilty of the sin against the light, and whether his aim was political or religious, or maybe both, hefailed. It is said he denied Lorenzo absolution, that he left himwithout a word at the brink of the grave but when he himself came todie by the horrible, barbaric means he had invoked in a boast, he didnot show the fortitude of the Magnificent. Full of every sort ofrebellion and violence, he made anarchy in Florence, and scoffed at theHoly See, while he was a guest of the one and the officer of the other. His bonfires of "vanities, " as he called them, were possibly asdisastrous for Florence as the work of the Puritan was for England; forwhile he burned the pictures, they sold them to the Jews. He is dead, and has become one of the bores of history; and while Americans leavetheir cards on the stone that marks the place of his burning, theFlorentines appear to have forgotten him. Peace to his ashes!

As you enter the Loggia de' Lanzi, gay with children now, once thelounge of the Swiss Guard, whose barracks were not far away, you wonderwho can have built so gay, so happy a place beside the fortress of theSignoria. Yet, in truth, it was for the Priori themselves that loggiawas built, though not by Orcagna as it is said, to provide, perhaps, alounge in summer for the fathers of the city, and for a place ofproclamation that all Florence might hear the laws they had made. Yes, and to-day, too, do they not proclaim the tombola where once theyannounced a victory? Even now, in spite of forgotten greatness, it isstill a garden of statues. Looking ever over the Piazza stands thePerseus of Cellini, with the head of Medusa held up to the multitude, the sword still gripped in his hand. It is the masterpiece of one who, like all the greatest artists of the Renaissance--Giotto, Orcagna, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael--did not confine himself to one art, butpractised many. And though it would be unjust to compare such a man asCellini with the greatest of all, yet he was great not only as asculptor and a goldsmith, but as a man of letters and as a man of theworld. His Perseus, a little less than a demigod, is indeed not solovely as the wax model he made for it, which is now in the Bargello;but in the gesture with which he holds out the severed head from him, inthe look of secret delight that is already half remorseful for all thatdead beauty, in the heroic grace with which he stands there after themurder, the dead body marvellously fallen at his feet, Cellini hasproved himself the greatest sculptor of his time. That statue cost himdear enough, as he tells you in his Memoirs, but, as Gautier said, it isworth all it cost. 

On the pedestal you may see the deliverance of Andromeda; but the finestof these reliefs has been taken to the Bargello. The only other bronzehere is the work of Donatello--a Judith and Holofernes, under the archtowards the Uffizi. It is Donatello's only large bronze group, and wasprobably designed for the centre piece of a fountain, the mattress onwhich Holofernes has fallen having little spouts for water. Judithstands over her victim, who is already dead, her sword lifted to strikeagain; and you may see by her face that she will strike if it benecessary. Beneath you read--"Exemplum salut. Publ. Cives posuere, MCCCCXV. " Poor as the statue appears in its present position, the threebronze reliefs of the base gain here what they must lose in the midst ofa fountain, yet even they too are unfortunate. Indeed, very few statuesof this sort were made by the sculptors of the Renaissance; for the mostpart they confined themselves to single figures and to groups in relief:even Michelangelo but rarely attempted the "freestanding group. " It is, however, to such a work we come in the splendidly composed Rape of theSabines by Giovanni da Bologna in the Loggia itself. Spoiled a little byits too laboured detail, its chief fault lies in the fact that it istop-heavy, the sculptor having placed the mass of the group so high thatthe base seems unsubstantial and unbalanced. Bologna's other group here, Hercules and Nessus, which once stood at the foot of the Ponte Vecchio, is dramatic and well composed, but the forms are feeble and eveninsignificant. The antique group of Ajax dragging the body of Patrocles, is not a very important copy of some great work, and it is muchrestored: it was found in a vineyard near Rome. 

The great fountain which plays beside the Palazzo, where of old thehouses of the Uberti stood, is rich and grandiose perhaps, but in someunaccountable way adds much to the beauty of the Piazza. How gay andfull of life it is even yet, that splendid and bitter place, that in itsbeauty and various, everlasting life seems to stand as the symbol ofthis city, so scornful even in the midst of the overwhelming foreignerwho has turned her into a museum, a vast cemetery of art. Only here youmay catch something of the old life that is not altogether passed away. Still, in spite of your eyes, you must believe there are Florentinessomewhere in the city, that they are still as in Dante's day proud andwise and easily angry, scornful too, a little turbulent, not readilycurbed, but full of ambition--great nobles, great merchants, greatbankers. Does such an one never come to weep over dead Florence in thisthe centre of her fame, the last refuge of her greatness, in the night, perhaps, when none may see his tears, when all is hushed that none maymark his sorrow?

[Illustration: WAX MODEL FOR THE PERSEUS IN THE BARGELLO

_Benvenuto Cellini_

_Alinari_]

It was past midnight when once more I came out of the narrow ways, almost empty at that hour, when every footfall resounds between the oldhouses, into the old Piazza to learn this secret. Far away in the skythe moon swung like a censer, filling the place with a fragile andlovely light. Standing there in the Piazza, quite deserted now save forsome cloaked figure who hurried away up the Calzaioli, and twoCarabinieri who stood for a moment at the Uffizi corner and then turnedunder the arches, I seemed to understand something of the spirit thatbuilt that marvellous fortress, that thrust that fierce tower into thesky;--yes, surely at this hour some long dead Florentine must venturehere to console the living, who, for sure, must be gay so sadly and withso much regret. 

In the Loggia de' Lanzi the moonlight fell among the statues, and inthat fairy light I seemed to see in those ghostly still figures ofmarble and bronze some strange fantastic parable, the inscrutableprophecy of the scornful past. Gian Bologna's Sabine woman, was she notFlorence struggling in the grip of the modern vandal; Cellini's Perseuswith Medusa's head, has it not in truth turned the city to stone?

The silence was broken; something had awakened in the Piazza: perhaps abird fluttered from the battlements of the Palazzo, perhaps it was thecity that turned in her sleep. No, there it was again. It was a humanvoice close beside me: it seemed to be weeping. 

I looked around: all was quiet. I saw nothing, only there at the cornera little light flickered before a shrine; and yes, something was movingthere, someone who was weeping. Softly, softly over the stones I made myway to that little shrine of Madonna at the street corner, and I found, ah! no proud and scornful noble mourning over dead Florence, but an oldwoman, ragged and alone, prostrate under some unimaginable sorrow, someunappeasable regret. 

Did she hear as of old--that Virgin with narrow half-open eyes and thesidelong look? God, I know not if she heard or no. Perhaps I alone haveheard in all the world. 

XII. FLORENCE

THE BAPTISTERY--THE DUOMO--THE CAMPANILE--THE OPERA DEL DUOMO

On coming into the Piazza del Duomo, perhaps from the light and space ofthe Lung' Arno or from the largeness of the Piazza della Signoria, oneis apt to think of it as too small for the buildings which it holds, aswanting in a certain spaciousness such as the Piazza of St. Peter atRome certainly possesses, or in the light of the meadow of Pisa; and yetthis very smallness, only smallness when we consider the great buildingsset there so precisely, gives it an element of beauty lacking in thegreat Piazza of Rome and in Pisa too--a certain delicate colour andshadow and a sense of nearness, of homeliness almost; for the shadow ofthe dome falls right across the city itself every morning and evening. And indeed the Piazza del Duomo of Florence is still the centre of thelife of the city, and though to some this may be matter for regret, Ihave found in just that a sort of consolation for the cabs which Ruskinhated so, for the trams which he never saw; for just these two necessaryunfortunate things bring one so often there that of all the cathedralsof Italy that of Florence must be best known to the greatest number ofpeople at all hours of the day. And this fact, evil and good workingtogether for life's sake, makes the Duomo a real power in the city, sothat everyone is interested, often passionately interested, in it: ithas a real influence on the lives of the citizens, so that nothing inthe past or even to-day has ever been attempted with regard to itwithout winning the people's leave. Yet it is not the Duomo alone thatthus lives in the hearts of the Florentines, but the whole Piazza. Therethey have established their trophies, and set up their gifts, andlavished their treasure. It was built for all, and it belongs to all; itis the centre of the city. 

This enduring vitality of a place so old, so splendid, and so beloved, is, I think, particularly manifest in the Church of S. GiovanniBattista, the Baptistery. It is the oldest building in Florence, builtprobably with the stones from the Temple of Mars about which Villanitells us, and almost certainly in its place; every Florentine child, fortunate at least in this, is still brought there for baptism, andreceives its name in the place where Dante was christened, whereIppolito Buondelmonti first saw Dianora de' Bardi, where Donatello haslaboured, which Michelangelo has loved. 

Built probably in the sixth or seventh century, it was Arnolfo di Cambiowho covered it with marble in 1288, building also three new doorwayswhere before there had been but one, that on the west side, which wasthen closed. The mere form, those octagonal walls which, so it is said, the Lombards brought into Italy, go to show that the church was used asa Baptistery from the first, though Villani speaks of it as the Duomo;and indeed till 1550 it had the aspect of such a church as the Pantheonin Rome, in that it was open to the sky, so that the rain and thesunlight have fallen on the very floor trodden by so many generations. Humble and simple enough as we see it to-day before the gay splendour ofthe new façade of the Duomo, it has yet those great treasures which theDuomo cannot boast, the bronze doors of Andrea Pisano and of Ghiberti. 

[Illustration: PIAZZA DEL DUOMO]

Over the south doorway there was placed in the end of the sixteenthcentury a group by Vincenzo Danti, said to be his best work, theBeheading of St. John Baptist; and under are the gates of Andrea Pisanocarved in twenty bronze panels with the story of St. John and certainvirtues: and around the gate Ghiberti has twined an exquisite pattern ofleaves and fruits and birds, it is strange to find Ghiberti's workthus completing that of Andrea Pisano, who, as it is said, had Giotto tohelp him, till we understand that originally these southern gates stoodwhere now are the "Gates of Paradise" before the Duomo. Standing thereas they used to do before Ghiberti moved them, they won for Andrea notonly the admiration of the people, but the freedom of the city. To-daywe come to them with the praise of Ghiberti ringing in our ears, so thatin our hurry to see everything we almost pass them by; but in theirsimpler, and, as some may think, more sincere way, they are as lovely asanything Ghiberti ever did, and in comparing them with the great gatesthat supplanted them, it may be well to remind ourselves that each hasits merit in its own fashion. If the doors of Andrea won the praise ofthe whole city, it was with an ever-growing excitement that Florenceproclaimed a public competition, open to all the sculptors of Italy, forthe work that remained, those two doors on the north and east. Ghiberti, at that time in Rimini at the court of Carlo Malatesta, at the entreatyof his father returned to Florence, and was one of the two artists outof the thirty-four who competed, to be chosen for the task: the otherwas Filippo Brunellesco. You may see the two panels they made in theBargello side by side on the wall. The subject is the Sacrifice ofIsaac, and Ghiberti, with the real instinct of the sculptor, hasaltogether outstripped Brunellesco, not only in the harmony of hiscomposition, but in the simplicity of his intention. Brunellesco seemsto have understood this, and, perhaps liking the lad who was buttwenty-two years old, withdrew from the contest. However this may be, Ghiberti began the work at once, and finished the door on the north sideof the Baptistery in ten years. There, amid a framework of exquisitefoliage, leaves, birds, and all kinds of life, he has set the gospelstory in twenty panels, beginning with the Annunciation and ending withthe Pentecost; and around the gate he has set the four Evangelists andthe doctors of the Church and the prophets. Above you may see the groupof a pupil of Verrocchio, the Preaching of St. John. 

In looking on these beautiful and serene works, we may already noticean advance on the work of Andrea Pisano in a certain ease and harmony, arichness and variety, that were beyond the older master. Ghiberti hasalready begun to change with his genius the form that has come down tohim, to expand it, to break down its limitations so that he may expresshimself, may show us the very visions he has seen. And the success ofthese gates with the people certainly confirmed him in the way he wasgoing. In the third door, that facing the Duomo, which Michelangelo hassaid was worthy to be the gate of Paradise, it is really a new art wecome upon, the subtle rhythms and perspectives of a sort of pictorialsculpture, that allows him to carve here in such low relief that it isscarcely more than painting, there in the old manner, the old manner butchanged, full of a sort of exuberance which here at any rate is beauty. The ten panels which Ghiberti thus made in his own way are subjects fromthe Old Testament: the Creation of Adam and Eve, the story of Cain andAbel, of Noah, of Abraham and Isaac, of Jacob and Esau, of Joseph, ofMoses on Sinai, of Joshua before Jericho, of David and Goliath, ofSolomon and the Queen of Sheba. At his death in 1455 they wereunfinished, and a host of sculptors, including Brunellesco and PaoloUccello, are said to have handled the work, Antonio del Pollajuolo beingcredited with the quail in the lower frame. Over the door stands thebeautiful work of Sansovino, the Baptism of Christ. 

It is with a certain sense of curiosity that one steps down into the oldchurch; for in spite of every sort of witness it has the air of someancient temple: nor do the beautiful antique columns which support thetriforium undeceive us. For long enough now the mosaics of the vaulthave been hidden by the scaffolding of the restorers; but the beautifulthirteenth-century floor of white and black marble, in the midst ofwhich the font once stood, is still undamaged. The font, which ispossibly a work of the Pisani, is on one side, set there, as it is said, because of old the roof of the church was open, and many a winterchristening spoiled by rain. [86] It was not, however, till 1571 thatthe old font, surrounded by its small basins, one of which Dante brokein saving a man from drowning there, was removed from the church byFrancesco I, Grand Duke of Tuscany, for the christening of his son. 

Certain vestiges of the oldest church remain: you may see a sarcophagus, one of those which, before Arnolfo covered the church with marble, stoodwithout and held the ashes of some of the greater families. But the mostbeautiful thing here is the tomb that Donatello made for BaldassareCossa, pirate, condottiere, and anti-pope, who, deposed by the Councilof Constance (1414), came to Florence, and, as ever, was kindly receivedby the people. It stands beside the north door. On a marble couchsupported by lions, the gilt bronze statue of this prince ofadventurers, who grasped the very chair of St. Peter as booty, lies, hisbrow still troubled, his mouth set firm as though plotting new conquestseven in the grave. Below, on the tomb itself, two winged _angiolini_hold the great scroll on which we read the name of the dead man, Johannes Quondam Papa XXIII: to which inscription Martin V, Cossa'ssuccessful rival at Constance, is said to have taken exception; but theMedici who had built the tomb answered in Pilate's words to thePharisees, "What I have written, I have written. " The three marblefigures in niches at the base may be by Michelozzo, who worked withDonatello, or possibly by Pagano di Lapo, as the Madonna above the tombalmost certainly is. 

Coming up once more into the Piazza from that mysterious dim church, dimwith the centuries of the history of the city, you come upon twoporphyry columns beside the eastern door. They are the gift of Pisa[87]when her ships returned from the Balearic Islands to Florence, who haddefended their city from the Lucchesi. The column with the branch ofolive in bronze upon it to the north of the Baptistery reminds us of themiracle performed by the body of S. Zenobio in 490. Borne to burial inS. Reparata, the bier is said to have touched a dead olive tree standingon this spot, which immediately put forth leaves: the columncommemorates this miracle. So in Florence they remind us of the gods. 

In turning now to the Duomo we come to one of the great buildings of theworld. Standing on the site of the old church of S. Salvatore, of S. Reparata, it is a building of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, begun in 1298 from the designs of Arnolfo; and it is dedicated to S. Maria del Fiore. Coming to us without the wonderful romantic interest, the mysticism and exaltation of such a church as Notre Dame d'Amiens, without the more resolute and heroic appeal of such a stronghold as theCathedral of Durham, it is more human than either, the work of a manwho, as it were, would thank God that he was alive and glad in theworld. And it will never bring us delight if we ask of it all theconsummate mystery, awe, and magic of the great Gothic churches of theNorth. The Tuscans certainly have never understood the Christianreligion as we have contrived to do in Northern Europe. It came to themreally as a sort of divine explanation of a paganism which entranced butbewildered them. Behind it lay the Roman Empire; and its temples becametheir churches, its halls of justice their cathedrals, its tongue theonly language understood of the gods. It is unthinkable that a peoplewho were already in the twelfth century the possessors of a marvellousdecadent art in the painting of the Byzantine school, who, finding againthe statues of the gods, created in the thirteenth century a new art ofpainting, a Christian art that was the child of imperial Rome as well asof the Christian Church, who re-established sculpture and produced theonly sculptor of the first rank in the modern world, should have failedaltogether in architecture. Yet everywhere we may hear it said that theItalian churches, spoken of with scorn by those who remember thestrange, subtle exaltation of Amiens, the extraordinary intricatesplendour of such a church as the Cathedral of Toledo, are mere barns. But it is not so. As Italian painting is a profound and naturaldevelopment from Greek and Roman art, certainly influenced by life, butin no doubt of its parentage; so are the Italian churches a verybeautiful and subtle development of pagan architecture, influenced bylife not less profoundly than painting has been, but certainly as sureof their parentage, and, as we shall see, not less assured of theirintention. Just as painting, as soon as may be, becomes human, becomespagan in Signorelli and Botticelli, and yet contrives to remain true toits new gods, so architecture as soon as it is sure of itself moves withjoy, with endless delight and thanksgiving, towards that goal of the oldbuilders: in such a church as S. Maria della Consolazione outside Todi, for instance, --in such a church as S. Pietro might have been, --and thatit is not so, we may remind ourselves, is the fault of that return tobarbarism and superstition which Luther led in the North. 

What then, we may ask ourselves, were the aim and desire of the Italianbuilders, which it seems have escaped us for so long? If we turn to thebuilders of antiquity and seek for their intention in what remains to usof their work, we shall find, I think, that their first aim was beforeall things to make the best building they could for a particularpurpose, and to build that once for all. And out of these two intentionsthe third must follow; for if a temple, for instance, were both fit andstrong it would be beautiful because the purpose for which it was neededwas noble and beautiful. Now the first necessity of the basilica, forinstance, was space; and the intention of the builder would be to buildso that that space should appear as splendid as possible, and to do thisand to enjoy it would necessitate, above all things, light, --a problemnot so difficult after all in a land like Italy, where the sun is sofaithful and so divine. Taking the necessity, then, of the Italian to bemuch the same as that of the Roman builder when he was designing abasilica, --that is to say, the accommodation of a crowd of people whoare to take part in a common solemnity, --we shall find that theintention of the Italian in building his churches is exactly that of theRoman in building his basilica: he desires above all things space andlight, partly because they seem to him necessary for the purpose of thechurch, and partly because he thinks them the two most splendid andmajestic things in the world. 

Well, he has altogether carried out his intention in half a hundredchurches up and down Italy: consider here in Florence S. Croce, S. MariaNovella, S. Spirito, and above all the Duomo. Remember his aim was notthe aim of the Gothic builder. He did not wish to impress you with theawfulness of God, like the builder of Barcelona; or with the mystery ofthe Crucifixion, like the builders of Chartres: he wished to provide foryou in his practical Latin way a temple where you might pray, where thewhole city might hear Mass or applaud a preacher. He did this in his ownnoble and splendid fashion as well as it could be done. He has neverbelieved, save when driven mad by the barbarians, in the mysteriousawfulness of our far-away God. He prays as a man should pray, withoutself-consciousness and not without self-respect. He is withoutsentiment; he believes in largeness, grandeur, splendour, and sincerity;and he has known the gods for three thousand years. 

What, then, we are to look for in entering such a church as S. Maria delFiore is, above all, a noble spaciousness and the beauty of justthat. [88]

The splendour and nobility of S. Maria del Fiore from without areevident, it might seem, to even the most prejudiced observer; butwithin, I think, the beauty is perhaps less easily perceived. 

One comes through the west doors out of the sunshine of the Piazza intoan immense nave, and the light is that of an olive garden, --yes, justthat sparkling, golden, dancing shadow of a day of spring in an oldolive grove not far from the sea. In this delicate and fragile light thebeauty and spaciousness of the church are softened and simplified. Youdo not reason any longer, you accept it at once as a thing complete andperfect. Complete and perfect--yet surely spoiled a little by thegallery that dwarfs the arches and seems to introduce a useless detailinto what till then must have been so simple. One soon forgets so smalla thing in the immensity and solemnity of the whole, that seems to cometo one with the assurance of the sky or of the hills, really without anafterthought. And indeed I find there much of the strange simplicity ofnatural things that move us we know not why: the autumn fields of whichAlberti speaks, the far hills at evening, the valleys that in an hourwill make us both glad and sorry, as the sun shines or the clouds gatheror the wind sings on the hills. Not a church to think in as St. Peter'sis, but a place where one may pray, said Pius IX when he first saw S. Maria del Fiore: and certainly it has that in common with the earth, that you may be glad in it as well as sorry. It is not a museum of thearts; it is not a pantheon like Westminster Abbey or S. Croce; it is thebeautiful house where God and man may meet and walk in the shadow. 

Yet little though there be to interest the curious, Giovanni Acuto, thatEnglishman Sir John Hawkwood of the White Company, one of the first ofthe Condottieri, the deliverer of Pisa, "the first real general ofmodern times, " is buried here. You may see his equestrian portrait byPaolo Uccello over the north-west doorway in his habit as he lived. Having fought against the Republic and died in its service, he wasburied here with public honours in 1394. And then in the north aisle youmay see the statue called a portrait of Poggio Bracciolini[89] byDonatello. Donatello carved a number of statues, of which nine have beenidentified, for the Opera del Duomo, three of these are now in theCathedral: the Poggio, the so-called Joshua in the south aisle, whichhas been said to be a portrait of Gianozzo Manetti; and the St. Johnthe Evangelist in the eastern part of the nave. The Poggio certainlybelongs to the series: it would be delightful if the cryptic writing onthe borders of the garment were to prove it to be the Job. The St. JohnEvangelist is an earlier work than the Poggio; it was begun whenDonatello was twenty-two years old, and, as Lord Balcarres says, "itchallenges comparison with one worthy rival, the Moses of Michelangelo. "It was to have stood on one side of the central door. Something of thewonder of this work in its own time may be understood if we compare it, not with the later work of Michelangelo, but with the statues of St. Mark by Niccolò d'Arezzo, the St. Luke of Nanni di Banco, and the St. Matthew of Bernardo Ciuffagni, which were to stand beside it and are nowplaced in a good light in the nave, while the work of Donatello isalmost invisible in this dark apsidal chapel. Of the other works whichDonatello made for the Opera del Duomo, the David is in the Bargello, while the Jeremiah, and Habbakuk, the so-called Zuccone, the Abraham, and St. John Baptist are still on the Campanile. 

The octagonal choir screens carved in relief by Baccio Bandinelli, whomCellini hated so scornfully because he spoke lightly of Michelangelo, will not keep you long; but there behind the high altar is an unfinishedPietà by Michelangelo himself. It is a late work, but in that fallenDivine Figure just caught in Madonna's arms you may see perhaps the mostbeautiful thing in the church, less splendid but more pitiful than theSt. John of Donatello, but certainly not less moving than that severe, indomitable son of thunder. Above, the dome soars into heaven; thatmighty dome, higher than St. Peter's, the despair of Michelangelo, oneof the beauties of the world. One wanders about the church looking atthe bronze doors of the Sagrestia Nuova, or the terra-cottas of Lucadella Robbia, always to return to that miracle of Brunellesco's. Not faraway in the south aisle you come upon his monument with his portrait inmarble by Buggiano. The indomitable persistence of the face! Is it anywonder that, impossible as his dream appeared, he had his way withFlorence at last--yes, and with himself too? As you stand at the cornerof Via del Proconsolo, and, looking upward, see that immense domesoaring into the sky over that church of marble, something of the joyand confidence and beauty that were immortal in him come to you too fromhis work. Like Columbus, he conquered a New World. His schemes, whichthe best architects in Europe laughed at, were treated with scorn by theConsiglio, yet he persuaded them at last. In 1418 he made his designs, and the people, as now, were called upon to vote. Two years went by, andnothing was done; then in 1420 he was elected by the Opera to the postof Provveditore della Cupola, but not alone, for Lorenzo Ghiberti andBattista d'Antonio were elected with him. Still he persisted, and, asthe Florentines say, by pretending sickness and leaving the work toGhiberti, who knew nothing about it and could do nothing without him, in1421 he won over the Consiglio. He began at once. What his agonies mayhave been, what profound difficulties he discovered and conquered, we donot know, but by 1434, when Eugenius IV was in Florence and the Duomowas consecrated, his dome was finished, wanting only the lantern and theball. These he began in 1437, but died too soon to see, for the lanternwas not finished till 1458, and it was only in 1471 that Verrocchio castthe bronze ball. [90]

Wandering round to the façade, finished in 1886, it is a carefulimitation of fifteenth-century work we see, saved from the mere routineof just that, in its design at any rate, by the vote of the people, who, against the opinion of all the artists in Florence at that time, insisted on the cornice following the basilical form of the tower, refusing to endorse the pointed "tricuspidal" design. It is not, however, in such merely competent work as this that we shall findourselves interested, but rather in the beautiful door on the northjust before the transept, over which, in an almond-shaped glory, Madonnagives her girdle to St. Thomas. Given now to Nanni di Banco, a sculptorof the end of the fourteenth century, whom Vasari tells us was the pupilof Donatello, it long passed as the work of Jacopo della Quercia. Certainly one of the loveliest works of the early Renaissance, it is sofull of life and gracious movement, so natural and so noble, thateverything else in the Cathedral, save the work of Donatello, isforgotten beside it. Madonna enthroned among the Cherubim in her ovalmandorla, upheld by four puissant fair angels, turns with a gesture mostnatural and lovely to St. Thomas, who kneels to her, his drapery inbeautiful folds about him, lifting his hands in prayer. Above, threeangels play on pipes and reeds; while in a corner a great bear gnaws atthe bark of an oak in full leaf. 

In turning now to the Campanile, which Giotto began in 1334, on the siteof a chapel of S. Zenobio, we come to the last building of the greatgroup. Fair and slim as a lily, as light as that, as airy and full ofgrace, to my mind at least it lacks a certain stability, so that lookingon it I always fear in my heart lest it should fall. It seems to lackroots, as it were, yet by no means to want confidence or force. Can itbe that, after all, it would have seemed more secure, more firm andestablished, if the spire Giotto designed for it had in truth beenbuilt? The consummate and supreme artist, architect, sculptor, andpainter was not content to design so fair, so undreamed-of a flower asthis, but set himself to make the statues and the reliefs that werenecessary also. And then has he not built as only a painter could havedone, in white and rose and green? He died too soon to see the fairestof his dreams, and it is really to two other artists--Taddeo Gaddi andFrancesco Talenti--that the actual work, after the first fivestoreys--those windows, for instance, that add so much to the beauty ofthe tower--is owing. [91]

[Illustration: THE MADONNA DELLA CINTOLA

_By Nanni di Banco. Duomo, Florence_

_Alinari_]

The reliefs that, set some five-and-twenty feet from the ground, areso difficult to see, are the work of Andrea Pisano, the sculptor of thesouth gate of the Baptistery. Born at Pontedera, the pupil of GiovanniPisano, this great and lovable artist has been robbed of much thatbelongs to him. Vasari tells us--and for long we believed him--thatGiotto helped him to design the gate of the Baptistery; and again, thatGiotto designed these reliefs for Andrea to carve and found. It mightseem impossible to believe that the greatest sculptor then living, freshfrom a great triumph, would have consented to use the design of apainter, even though he were Giotto. However this may be, the reliefsreally speak for themselves: those on the south side--early Sabianism, house-building, pottery, training horses, weaving, lawgiving, andexploration--are certainly by Andrea; while among the rest the Jubal, the Creation of Man, the Creation of Woman, seem to be his own among thework of his pupils. It is to quite another hand, however, to Luca dellaRobbia, that the Grammar, Poetry, Philosophy, Astrology, and Music mustbe given. The genius of Andrea Pisano, at its best in those Baptisterygates, in the panel of the Baptism of our Lord, for instance, or inthose marvellous works on the façade of the Duomo at Orvieto, so full offorce, vitality, and charm, is, as I think, less fortunate in itsexpression when he is concerned with such work as these statues of theprophets in the niches on the south wall of the Campanile, --if indeedthey be his. Seen as these figures are, beside the large, splendid, realistic work of Donatello, so wonderfully ugly in the Zuccone, sopitiless in the Habakkuk, they are quickly forgotten; but indeedDonatello's work seems to stand alone in the history of sculpture tillthe advent of Michelangelo. 

I speak of Donatello elsewhere in this book, [92] but you will find oneof his best works among much curious, interesting litter from the Duomoin the Opera del Duomo, the Cathedral Museum in the old FalconieriPalace just behind the apse of the Cathedral. A bust of Cosimo Primostands over the entrance, and within you find a beautiful head ofBrunellesco by Buggiano. It is, however, in a room on the first floorthat you will find the great organ lofts, one by Donatello and the otherby Luca della Robbia, which I suppose are among the best known works ofart in the world. Made for the Cathedral, these galleries for singersseem to be imprisoned in a museum. 

The beautiful youths of Luca, the children of Donatello, for all theirseeming vigour and joy, sing and dance no more; they are in as evil acase as the Madonnas of the Uffizi, who, in their golden frames behindthe glass, under the vulgar, indifferent eyes of the multitude, envyMadonna of the street-corner the love of the lowly. So it is with thebeautiful Cantorie made for God's praise by Donatello and Luca dellaRobbia. Before the weary eyes of the sight-seer, the cold eyes of thescientific critic, in the horrid silence of a museum, amid so much thatis dead, here the headless trunk of some saint, there the batteredfragments of what was once a statue, some shadow has fallen upon them, and though they keep still the gesture of joy, they are really dead orsleeping. Is it only sleep? Do they perhaps at night, when all the doorsof their prisons are barred and their gaolers are gone, praise God inHis Holiness, even in such a hell as this? Who knows? They were made fora world so different, for a time that out of the love of God had seenarise the very beauty of the world, and were glad therefor. Ah, of howmany beautiful things have we robbed God in our beggary! We haveimprisoned the praise of the artists in the museums that Science maypass by and sneer; we have arranged the saints in order, and Madonna wehave carefully hidden under the glass, because now we never dream of Godor speak with Him at all. Art is dying, Beauty is become a burden, Nature a thing for science and not for love. They are become tooprecious, the old immortal things; we must hide them away lest they fadeand God take them from us: and because we have hidden them away, andthey are become too precious for life, and we have killed them becausewe loved them, we seldom pass by where they are save to satisfy thesame curiosity that leads us to any other charnel-house where the deadare exposed. 

[Illustration: SINGING BOYS FROM THE CANTORIA OF LUCA DELLA ROBBIA

_In Opera del Duomo, Florence_

_Alinari_]

Thus they have stolen away the silver altar of the Baptistery, thatmiracle of the fourteenth-century silversmiths, Betto di Geri, Leonardodi Ser Giovanni, and the rest, that it may be a cause of wonder in amuseum. So a flower looks between the cold pages of a botanist's album, so a bird sings in his case: for life is to do that for which we werecreated, and if that be the praise of God in His sanctuary, to standimpotently by under the gaze of innumerable unbelievers in a museum isto die. And truly this is a shame in Italy that so many fair and lovelythings have been torn out of their places to be catalogued in a gallery. It were a thousand times better that they were allowed to fade quietlyon the walls of the church where they were born. It is a vandalism onlypossible to the modern world in which the machines have ground out everyhuman feeling and left us nothing but a bestial superstition which wecall science, and which threatens to become the worst tyranny of all, that we should thus herd together, catalogue, describe, arrange, andgape at every work of art and nature we can lay our hands on. No doubtit brings in, directly and indirectly, an immense revenue to the countrywhich can show the most of such death chambers. Often by chance ormistake one has wandered into a museum--though I confess I neverunderstood in what relation it stood to the Muses--where your scientisthas collected his scraps and refuse of Nature, things that werewonderful or beautiful once--birds, butterflies, the marvellous life ofthe foetus, and such--but that in his hands have died in order that hemay set them out and number them one by one. Here you will find a legthat once stood firm enough, there an arm that once for sure heldsomeone in its embrace: now it is exposed to the horror and curiosity ofmankind. Well, it is the same with the Pictures and the statues. Why, men have prayed before them, they have heard voices, tears have fallenwhere they stood, and they have whispered to us of the beauty and thelove of God. To-day, herded in thousands, chained to the walls of theirhuge dungeons, they are just specimens like the dead butterflies whichwe pay to see, which some scientific critic without any care for beautywill measure and describe in the inarticulate and bestial syllables ofsome degenerate dialect he thinks is language. Our unfortunate gods! Howmuch more fortunate were they of the older world: Zeus, whose statue ofivory and gold mysteriously was stolen away; Aphrodite of Cnidus, whichsomeone hid for love; and you, O Victory of Samothrace, that beingheadless you cannot see the curious, peeping, indifferent multitude. Wasit for this the Greeks blinded their statues, lest the gods being inexile, they might be shamed by the indifference of men? And now that ourgods too are exiled, who will destroy their images and their picturescrowded in the museums, that the foolish may not speak of them we haveloved, nor the scientist say, such and such they were, in stature ofsuch a splendour, carved by such a man, the friend of the friend of afool? But our gods are dead. 

FOOTNOTES:

[86] I give this story for what it is worth. So far as I know, however, the font was placed in its present position in 1658, more than a hundredyears after the church was roofed in. It may, however, have occupiedanother position before that. 

[87] See p. 82. 

[88] To compare an Italian church with a French cathedral would be tocompare two altogether different things, a fault in logic, and incriticism the unforgivable sin; for a work of art must be judged in itsown category, and praised only for its own qualities, and blamed onlyfor its own defects. 

[89] Cf. _Donatello_, by Lord Balcarres: Duckworth, 1903, p. 12. 

[90] Not the ball we see now, which was struck by lightning and hurledinto the street in 1492. Verrocchio's was rather smaller than thepresent ball. 

[91] See Crowe and Cavalcaselle, _History of Painting in Italy_: London, 1903, p. 116, note 4. 

[92] See pp. 283-289. 

XIII. FLORENCE

OR SAN MICHELE

Or San Michele, S. Michele in Orto, was till the middle of thethirteenth century a little church belonging, as it is said, to theCistercians, who certainly claimed the patronage of it. About 1260, however, the Commune of Florence began to dispute this right with theOrder, and at last pulled down the church, building there, thirty yearslater, a loggia of brick, after a design by Arnolfo di Cambio, accordingto Vasari, who tells us that it was covered with a simple roof and thatthe piers were of brick. This loggia was the corn-market of the city, ashelter, too, for the contadini who came to show their samples and totalk, gossip, and chaffer, as they do everywhere in Italy even to-day. And, as was the custom, they made a shrine of Madonna there, hanging onone of the brick pillars a picture (_tavola_) of Madonna that, as it issaid, was the work of Ugolino da Siena. This shrine soon became famousfor the miracles Madonna wrought there. "On July 3rd, " says GiovanniVillani, writing of the year 1292, "great and manifest miracles began tobe shown forth in the city of Florence by a figure of Saint Mary whichwas painted on a pilaster of the loggia of S. Michele d'Orto, where thecorn was sold: the sick were healed, the deformed were made straight, and those who were possessed of devils were delivered from them innumbers. " In the previous year the Compagnia di Or San Michele, calledthe Laudesi, had been established, and this Company, putting the fame ofthe miracles to good use, grew rich, much to the disgust of the FriarsMinor and the Dominicans. "The Preaching Friars and the Friars Minorlikewise, " says Villani, "through envy or some other cause, would put nofaith in that image, whereby they fell into great infamy with thepeople. But so greatly grew the fame of these miracles and the merits ofOur Lady, that pilgrims flocked thither from all Tuscany for her festas, bringing divers waxen images because of the wonders, so that a greatpart of the loggia in front of and around Madonna was filled. "Cavalcanti, too, speaks of Madonna di Or San Michele, likening her tohis Lady, in a sonnet which scandalised Guido Orlandi--

 "Guido an image of my Lady dwells At S. Michele in Orto, consecrate And duly worshipped. Fair in holy state She listens to the tale each sinner tells: And among them that come to her, who ails The most, on him the most doth blessing wait. She bids the fiend men's bodies abdicate; Over the curse of blindness she prevails, And heals sick languors in the public squares. A multitude adores her reverently: Before her face two burning tapers are; Her voice is uttered upon paths afar. Yet through the Lesser Brethren's jealousy She is named idol; not being one of theirs. "[93]

The feuds of Neri and Bianchi at this time distracted Florence; at thehead of the Blacks, though somewhat their enemy, was Corso Donati; atthe head of the Whites were the Cerchi and the Cavalcanti. After thehorrid disaster of May Day, when the Carraja bridge, crowded with folkcome to see that strange carnival of the other world, fell and drownedso many, there had been much fighting in the city, in which Corso Donatistood neutral, for he was ill with gout, and angered with the Blackparty. Robbed thus of their great leader, the Neri were beaten day andnight by the Cerchi, who with the aid of the Cavalcanti and Gherardinirode through the city as far as the Mercato Vecchio and Or SanMichele, and from there to S. Giovanni, and certainly they would havetaken the city with the help of the Ghibellines, who were come to theiraid, if one Ser Neri Abati, clerk and prior of S. Piero Scheraggio, adissolute and worldly man, and a rebel and enemy against his friends, had not set fire to the houses of his family in Or San Michele, and tothe Florentine Calimala near to the entrance of Mercato Vecchio. Thisfire did enormous damage, as Villani tells us, destroying not only thehouses of the Abati, the Macci, the Amieri, the Toschi, the Cipriani, Lamberti, Bachini, Buiamonti, Cavalcanti, and all Calimala, togetherwith all the street of Porta S. Maria, as far as Ponte Vecchio and thegreat towers and houses there, but also Or San Michele itself. In thisdisaster who knows what became of the miracle picture of Madonna? Foryears the loggia lay in ruins, till peace being established in 1336, theCommune decided to rebuild it, giving the work into the hands of theGuild of Silk, which, according to Vasari, employed Taddeo Gaddi asarchitect. The first stone of the new building was laid on July 29, 1337, the old brick piers, according to Villani, being removed, andpillars of stone set up in their stead. [94] In 1339 the Guild of Silkwon leave from the Commune to build in each of these stone piers aniche, which later should hold a statue; while above the loggia wasbuilt a great storehouse for corn, as well as an official residence forthe officers of the market. 

[Illustration: OR SAN MICHELE]

Nine years later there followed the great plague, of which Boccaccio hasleft us so terrible an impression. In this dreadful calamity, whichswept away nearly two-thirds of the population, the Compagnia di Or SanMichele grew very wealthy, many citizens leaving it all theirpossessions. No doubt very much was distributed in charity, for theCompany had become the greatest charitable society in the city, but by1347, so great was its wealth, that it resolved to build the mostsplendid shrine in Italy for the Madonna di Or San Michele. The loggiawas not yet finished, and after the desolation of the plague the Communewas probably too embarrassed to think of completing it immediately. Sometrouble certainly seems to have arisen between the Guild of Silk, whohad charge of the fabric, and the Company, who were only concerned fortheir shrine, the latter, in spite of their wealth, refusing in any wayto assist in finishing the building. Whether from this cause or another, a certain suspicion of the Company began to rise in Florence, and MatteoVillani roundly accuses the Capitani della Compagnia of peculation andcorruption. However this may be, by 1355 Andrea Orcagna had been chosento build the shrine of Madonna, which is still to-day one of the wondersof the city. It seems to have been in a sort of recognition of thesplendour and beauty of Orcagna's work that the Signoria, between 1355and 1359, removed the corn-market elsewhere, and thus gave up the wholeloggia to the shrine of Madonna. Thus the loggia became a church, thegreat popular church of Florence, built by the people for their own use, in what had once been the corn-market of the city. The architect of thisstrange and secular building, more like a palace than a church, isunknown. Vasari, as I have said, speaks of Taddeo Gaddi; others againhave thought it the work of Orcagna himself; while Francesco Talenti andhis son Simone are said to have worked on it. The question is to a largeextent a matter of indifference. What is important here is the fact thatit is to the greater Guilds and to the Parte Guelfa that we owe thechurch itself--that is to say, to the merchants and trades of thecity--while the beautiful shrine within is due to a secular Companyconsisting of some of the greatest citizens, and to a large extentopposed to the regular Orders of St. Dominic and St. Francis. It is, then, as the great church of the _popolo_ that we have to consider OrSan Michele. Here, because their greatest and most splendid deed, theexpulsion of the Duke of Athens, had been achieved on St. Anne's Day, July 26, 1343, they built a chapel to St. Anne, and around the churchon every anniversary, above the fourteen niches which hold the statuespresented by the seven greater arts, by six of the fourteen lesser arts, and by the Magistrato della Mercanzia, that magistracy which governedall the guilds, [95] their banners are set up even to this day. 

The great Guild of Wool was already responsible for the Duomo, and itwas for this reason, it might seem, that to the Guild of Silk was giventhe care of Or San Michele; not altogether without jealousy, it mightseem, for when they had asked leave to place the image of their saint inone of the niches there, all the other guilds had demanded a likefavour, thus in an especial manner marking the place as the Church ofthe Merchants, the true _popolo_; the great popular shrine of Florence, therefore, since Florence was a city of merchants. 

It is on the south side, in the niche nearest to Via Calzaioli, that theGuild of Silk set its statue of St. John the Evangelist by Baccio daMontelupo; next to it is an empty niche belonging to the Guild ofApothecaries and Doctors. Here a Madonna and Child by Simone Ferruccionce stood, but, owing to a rumour current in the seventeenth century, that Madonna sometimes moved her eyes, the statue was placed inside thechurch, so that the crowd which always collected to see this miraclemight no longer stop the way. In the next niche the Furriers placed astatue of St. James by Nanni di Banco, and beyond, the Guild of Linenset up a statue of St. Mark by Donatello. On the west, in the firstniche, is S. Lo, the patron of the Furriers, carved by Nanni di Banco, and beyond, St. Stephen, set there by the Guild of Wool and carved byGhiberti; while next to him stands St. Matthew, set there by the Bankersand carved by Ghiberti, and cast in 1422 by Michelozzo. On the north, Donatello's statue of St. George used to fill the first niche, somewhatshallower than the rest owing to a staircase inside the church, but itwas removed to the Bargello for fear of the weather: the beautifulrelief, also by Donatello, below the copy, is still in its place, underthe St. George of the Armourers. The four statues in the next niche wereplaced there by the Guilds of Sculptors, Masons, Smiths, andBricklayers; they are the work of Nanni di Banco. Further, is the St. Philip of the Shoemakers, again by Nanni di Banco, and the St. Peter ofthe Butchers, by Donatello. On the east stands St. Luke, placed there bythe Notaries, and carved by Giovanni da Bologna; the great bronze groupof Christ and St. Thomas, the gift of the Magistrato della Mercanzia, the governor of all the guilds; and the St. John Baptist, the gift ofthe Calimala, and the work of Ghiberti: this last was the first statueplaced here--in 1414. 

Nanni di Banco, that delightful sculptor of the Madonna della Cintola ofthe Duomo, has thus four works here at Or San Michele--the S. Lo, thegroup on the north side, the St. Philip, and the St. James. The St. Philip, and the group which represents the four masons who, beingChristians, refused to build a Pagan temple, and were martyred long andlong ago, have little merit; and though the S. Lo has a certain force, and the relief below it a wonderful simplicity, they lack altogether thecharm of the Madonna della Cintola. 

Ghiberti has three works here--the St. Stephen, the St. Matthew, and theSt. John Baptist, the only sculptures of the kind he ever produced. Fullof energy though the St. Stephen may be, it has about it a sort ofdivine modesty that lends it a charm altogether beyond anything we mayfind in the St. John Baptist, a figure full of character, nevertheless. It is, however, in the St. Matthew that we see Ghiberti at his bestperhaps, in a figure for once full of strength, and altogether splendid. 

Donatello, too, had three figures here beside the relief beneath the St. George. The St. Peter on the north side is probably the earliest workdone for Or San Michele, and is certainly the poorest. The St. Mark onthe south side is, however, a fine example of his earlier manner, witha certain largeness, strength, and liberty about it a frankness, too, inexpression so that he has made us believe in the goodness of theApostle, which, as Michelangelo is reported to have said must havevouched for the truth of what he taught. 

The masterpiece, certainly, of these Tuscan sculptures is the bronzegroup of Christ and St. Thomas by Verrocchio, which I have so loved. Allthe work of this master is full of eagerness and force: something ofthat strangeness without which there is no excellent beauty, that laterwas so characteristic of the work of his pupil Leonardo, you will findin this work also, a subtlety sometimes a little elaborate, that, as Ithink is but a sort of over-eagerness to express all he has thought tosay. Donatello prepared this niche for him at the end of his life it wasalmost his last work; and Verrocchio, after many years of labour, hadthought to place here really his masterpiece, in the church that, morethan any other, belonged to the people of the city, that middle class, as we might say, from which he sprang. How perfectly, and yet notaltogether without affectation, he has composed that difficult scene, sothat St. Thomas stands a little out of the setting, and places hisfinger--yes, almost as a child might do--in the wounded side of Jesus, who stands majestically fair before him. It is true the drapery iscomplicated, a little heavy even, but with what care he has rememberedeverything! Consider the grace of those beautiful folds, the beauty ofthe hair, the loveliness of the hands: and then, as Burckhardt remindsus, as a piece of work founded and cast in bronze, it is almostinimitable. 

 * * * * *

Within, the church is strange and splendid. It is as though one stood ina loggia in deep shadow, at the end of the day in the last gold of thesunset; and there, amid the ancient fading glory of the frescoes, is thewonderful shrine that Orcagna made for the picture of Madonna, who hadturned the Granary of S. Michele into the Church of the People. Finishedin 1359, this tabernacle is the loveliest work of the kind in Italy, anunique masterpiece, and perhaps the most beautiful example of theItalian Gothic manner in existence. Orcagna seems to have been at workon it for some ten years, covering it with decoration and carving thosereliefs of the Life of the Virgin in that grand style which he had foundin Giotto and learned perhaps from Andrea Pisano. To describe the shrineitself would be impossible and useless. It is like some miniature andmagic church, a casquet made splendid not with jewels but with beauty, where the miracle picture of Madonna--not that ancient and wonderfulpicture by Ugolino da Siena, but a work, it is said, of BernardoDaddi--glows under the lamps. On the west side, in front of the altar, Orcagna has carved the Marriage of the Virgin and the Annunciation; onthe south, the Nativity of Our Lord and the Adoration of the Magi; onthe north, the Presentation of the Virgin and her Birth; and on theeast, the Purification and the Annunciation of her Death. And abovethese last, in a panel of great beauty, he has carved the Death of theVirgin, where, among the Apostles crowding round her bed, while St. Thomas--or is it St. John?--passionately kisses her feet, Jesus Himselfstands with her soul in His arms, that little Child which had firstentered the kingdom of heaven. Above this sorrowful scene you may seethe Glory and Assumption of Our Lady in a mandorla glory, upheld by sixangels, while St. Thomas kneels below, stretching out his arms, assuredat last. It is, as it were, the prototype of the Madonna della Cintola, that exquisite and lovely relief which Nanni di Banco carved later forthe north gate of the Duomo, only here all the sweetness that Nanni hasseen and expressed seems to be lost in a sort of solemnity and strength. 

Between these panels Orcagna has set the virtues Theological andCardinal, little figures of much force and beauty; and at the corners hehas carved angels bearing palms and lilies. Some who have seen thisshrine so loaded with ornament, so like some difficult and complicatedcanticle, have gone away disappointed. Remembering the strength andsignificance of Orcagna's work in fresco, they have perhaps looked forsome more simple thing, and indeed for a less rhetorical praise. Yet Ithink it is rather the fault of Or San Michele than of the shrineitself, that it does not certainly vanquish any possible objection andassure us at once of its perfection and beauty. If it could be seen inthe beautiful spacious transept of S. Croce, or even in Santo Spiritoacross Arno, that sense as of something elaborate and complicated wouldperhaps not be felt; but here in Or San Michele one seems to have comeupon a priceless treasure in a cave. 

FOOTNOTES:

[93] Rossetti's translation of Guido Cavalcanti's Sonnet written inexile. 

[94] Franceschini, however, in his record (_L'Oratorio di S. Michele inOrto in Firenze_: P. Franceschini: Firenze, 1892), says that theTabernacle of Orcagna was built round the old brick pillars. It may wellbe that the pillar on which the Madonna was painted or was hung (for itis not clear whether the painting was a panel or a wall painting) wassaved while the rest was destroyed. 

[95] The Parte Guelfa originally set up their statue of St. Louis ofToulouse, carved by Donatello, in the place where now stands the statueof Magistrates, the group of Christ and St. Thomas made by Verrocchio. Eight of the fourteen lesser arts are not represented--namely, theBakers, the Carpenters, the Leatherworkers, the Saddlers, theInnkeepers, the Vintners, and the Cheesemongers. 

XIV. FLORENCE

PALAZZO RICCARDI, AND THE RISE OF THE MEDICI

It is in the Ciompi rising of 1278, that social revolution in which allFlorence seems for once to have been interested, that we catch reallyfor the first time the name of Medici. In 1352, Salvestro de'Medici--_non già Salvestro ma Salvator mundi_, Franco Sacchetti callshim--had led the Florentines against the Archbishop of Milan, and in1370 he had been chosen Gonfaloniere of Justice. He was filling thisoffice against the wishes of the Parte Guelfa, when, not without hisconnivance, the Ciompi riot broke out against the magnates, whose powerhe had sought to break by means of the Ordinances of Justice. 

The result of that bloody struggle was really a victory for the ArtiMaggiori, the Arti Minori being bribed with promises and thus separatedfrom the populace, who had sided with the Parte Guelfa, which was beatenfor ever. The oligarchy was saved, but the struggle between rich andpoor was by no means over. Soon the older Guilds seem to lose grip, andwe see instead great trusts arising, associations of wealth, and aboveall, Banking Companies. What was wanting in Florence, as elsewhere inItaly, was some legitimate authority that might have guided the peoplein their desire for power. As it was, the city became divided intoclasses, each anxious to gain power at the expense of others, the resultbeing an oligarchy, continually a prey to schism, merely waiting for adespot to declare himself. 

Seemingly in the hands of a group of families without any legitimateright, the government was really in the power of one among them, andthus of one man, the head of it, Maso degli Albizzi. Brilliant, clever, and fascinating, Maso ruled with a certain strength and generosity; butFlorence was a city of merchants, and between the Scylla of oligarchyand the Charybdis of despotism, was really driven into the latter by hereconomic position. The Duke Gian Galeazzo of Milan closed the traderoutes, and Florence was compelled to fight for her life. Pisa, too, hadto be overcome, again for economic reasons, and in 1414 a long war withKing Ladislaus brought Cortona into the power of the Republic; but allthese wars cost money, and the taxes pressed on the poor, who obtainedno advantage from them. Maso's son Rinaldo, who succeeded him before thewars were over, had less ability than his father, and was certainly lessbeloved; he seems, however, to have been upright and incorruptible. Hewas, nevertheless, capable of mistakes, and, while engaged in war withMilan, attempted to seize Lucca. At length, when the grumbling of thepoor had already gone too far, he readjusted the taxes, and thusalienated the rich also. His own party was divided, he himself headingthe more conservative party, which refused to listen to the clamour ofthe wealthier families for a part in the government, while NiccolòUzzano, with the more liberal party, would have admitted them. Amongthese wealthy families excluded from the government was the Medici. 

The Medici had been banished after the Ciompi riots, but a branch of thefamily had returned, and was already established in the affections ofthe people. To the head of this branch, Giovanni de' Medici, all theenemies of Rinaldo looked with hope. This extraordinary man, whocertainly was the founder of the greatness of his house, had long sinceunderstood that in such an oligarchy as that of Florence, the wealthiestmust win. He had busied himself to establish his name and crediteverywhere in Europe. He refused to take any open and active part inthe fight that he foresaw must, with patience decide in his favour, buton his death, Cosimo, his elder son, no longer put off the crisis. Heopposed Rinaldo for the control of the Signoria, and was beaten, inspite of every sort of bribery and corruption. It fell out that BernardoGuadagni, whom Rinaldo had made his creature, was chosen Gonfalonierefor the months of September and October 1433. Rinaldo at once went tohim and persuaded him that the greatest danger to the State was thewealth of Cosimo, who had inherited vast riches, including some sixteenbanks in various European cities, from his father. He encouraged him toarrest Cosimo, and to have no fear, for his friends would be ready tohelp him, if necessary, with arms. Cosimo was cited to appear before theBalia, which, much against the wishes of his friends, he did. "Many, "says Machiavelli, "would have him banished many executed, and many weresilent, either out of compassion for him or apprehension of otherpeople, so that nothing was concluded. " Cosimo, however, was in themeantime a prisoner in the Palazzo Vecchio in the Alberghettinotower[96] in the custody of Federigo Malavolti. He could hear all thatwas said, and the clatter of arms and the tumult made him fear for hislife, and especially he was afraid of assassination or poison, so thatfor four days he ate nothing. This was told to Federigo, who, accordingto Machiavelli, addressed him in these words: "You are afraid of beingpoisoned, and you kill yourself with hunger. You have but small esteemof me to believe I would have a hand in any such wickedness; I do notthink your life is in danger, your friends are too numerous, both withinthe Palace and without; if there be any such designs, assure yourselfthey must take new measures, I will never be their instrument, norimbrue my hands in the blood of any man, much less of yours, since youhave never offended me. Courage, then, feed as you did formerly, andkeep yourself alive for the good of your country and friends, andthat you may eat with more confidence, I myself will be your taster. "

[Illustration: THE FLOWER MARKET, FLORENCE]

Now Malavolti one night brought home with him to supper a servant of theGonfaloniere's called Fargannaccio, a pleasant man and very goodcompany. Supper over, Cosimo, who knew Fargannaccio of old, made a signto Malavolti that he should leave them together. When they were alone, Cosimo gave him an order to the master of the Ospedale di S. Maria Nuovafor 1100 ducats, a thousand for the Gonfaloniere and the odd hundred forhimself. On receipt of this sum Bernardo became more moderate, andCosimo was exiled to Padua. "Wherever he passed, " says Machiavelli, "hewas honourably received, visited publicly by the Venetians, and treatedby them more like a sovereign than a prisoner. " Truly the oligarchy hadat last produced a despot. 

The reception of Cosimo abroad seems to have frightened the Florentines, for within a year a Balia was chosen friendly disposed towards him. Uponthis Rinaldo and his friends took arms and proceeded to the PalazzoVecchio, the Senate ordering the gates to be closed against them;protesting at the same time that they had no thought of recallingCosimo. At this time Eugenius IV, hunted out of Rome by the populace, was living at the convent of S. Maria Novella. Perhaps fearing thetumult, perhaps bribed or persuaded by Cosimo's friends, he sentGiovanni Vitelleschi to desire Rinaldo to speak with him. Rinaldoagreed, and marched with all his company to S. Maria Novella. Theyappear to have remained in conference all night, and at dawn Rinaldodismissed his men. What passed between them no man knows, but early inOctober 1434 the recall of Cosimo was decreed and Rinaldo with his sonwent into exile. Cosimo was received, Machiavelli tells us, "with noless ostentation and triumph than if he had obtained some extraordinaryvictory; so great was the concourse of people, and so high thedemonstration of their joy, that by an unanimous and universalconcurrence he was saluted as the Benefactor of the people and theFather of his country. " Thus the Medici established themselves inFlorence. Practically Prince of the Commune, though never so in name, Cosimo set himself to consolidate his power by a judicious munificenceand every political contrivance known to him. Thus, while he enrichedthe city with such buildings as his palace in Via Larga, the Convent ofS. Marco, the Church of S. Lorenzo, he helped Francesco Sforza toestablish himself as tyrant of Milan, and in the affairs of Florencealways preferred war to peace, because he knew that, beggared, theFlorentines must come to him. Yet it was in his day that Florence becamethe artistic and intellectual capital of Italy. Under his patronage andenthusiasm the Renaissance for the first time seems to have become sureof itself. The humanists, the architects, the sculptors, the paintersare, as it were, seized with a fury of creation; they discover newforms, and express themselves completely, with beauty and truth. For amoment realism and beauty have kissed one another: for reality is notenough, as Alberti will find some day, it is necessary to find and toexpress the beauty there also. It was an age that was learning to enjoyitself. The world and the beauty of the world laid bare, partly by thestudy of the ancients, partly by observation, really almost a newfaculty, were enough; that conscious paganism which later, but for thegreat disaster, might have emancipated the world, had not yet discovereditself; in Cosimo's day art was still an expression of joy, impetuous, unsophisticated, simple. In this world of brief sunshine Cosimo appearsto us very delightfully as the protector of the arts, the sincere loverof learning, the companion of scholars. To him in some sort the worldowes the revival of the Platonic Philosophy, for the Greek Argyropolislived in his house, and taught Piero his son and Lorenzo his grandsonthe language of the Gods. When Gemisthus Pletho came to Florence, Cosimomade one of his audience, and was so moved by his eloquence that hedetermined to establish a Greek academy in the city on the firstopportunity. He was the dear friend of Marsilio Ficino, and he foundedthe Libraries of S. Marco and of the Badia at Fiesole. The greathumanists of his time, Leonardo Bruni, Carlo Marsuppini, Poggio andNiccolò de' Niccoli were his companions, and in his palace in Via Larga, and in his villas at Careggi and Poggio a Caiano, he gathered the mostprecious treasures, rare manuscripts, and books, not a few antiquemarbles and jewels, coins and medals and statues, while he filled thecourts and rooms, built and decorated by the greatest artists of histime, with the statues of Donatello, the pictures of Paolo Uccello, Andrea del Castagno, Fra Filippo Lippo, and Benozzo Gozzoli. Cosimo, says Gibbon, "was the father of a line of princes whose name and age arealmost synonymous with the restoration of learning; his credit wasennobled with fame; his riches were dedicated to the service of mankind;he corresponded at once with Cairo and London, and a cargo of Indianspices and Greek books were often imported in the same vessel. " WhileBurckhardt, the most discerning critic of the civilisation of theRenaissance, tells us that "to him belongs the special glory ofrecognising in the Platonic philosophy the fairest flower of the ancientworld of thought, and of inspiring his friends with the same belief. "

Among those who had loved Cosimo so well as to go with him into exile, had been Michelozzo Michelozzi, the architect and sculptor, the pupil ofDonatello. Already, Vasari tells us in 1430, Cosimo had causedMichelozzo to prepare a model for a palace at the corner of Via Largabeside S. Giovannino, for one already made by Brunellesco appeared tohim too sumptuous and magnificent, and quite as likely to awaken envyamong his fellow-citizens as to contribute to the grandeur and ornamentof the city, and to his own convenience. The palace which we see to-dayat the corner of Via Cavour and Via Gori and call Palazzo Riccardi, wasperhaps not begun till 1444, and is certainly somewhat changed andenlarged since Michelozzo built it for Cosimo Vecchio. The windows onthe ground floor, for instance, were added by Michelangelo and theRiccardi family, whose name it now bears, and who bought it in 1695 fromFerdinando II, enlarged it in 1715. 

In 1417, Cosimo, after his marriage with Contessina de' Bardi, hadbought and Michelozzo had rebuilt for him the Villa Careggi, where, inthe Albizzi conspiracy, he had retired, he said, "to escape from thecontests and divisions in the city. " It was here that he lay dying whenhe wrote to Marsilio Ficino to come to him. "Come to us, Marsilio, assoon as you are able. Bring with you your translation of Plato _De SummoBono_, for I desire nothing so much as to learn the road to the greatesthappiness": and there too Lorenzo his grandson turned his face to thewall, when Savonarola came to him in his last hours and bade him giveback liberty to Florence. 

It is, however, the palace in the Via Larga that recalls to us mostvividly the lives and times of these first Medici, Cosimo Vecchio, Pierothe gouty, Lorenzo il Magnifico. Michelozzo, Vasari tells us, deservesinfinite credit for this building, since it was the first palace builtin Florence after modern rules in which the rooms were arranged with aview to convenience and beauty. "The cellars are excavated, " heexplains, "to more than half their depth under the ground, having fourbraccia beneath the earth, that is with three above, on account of thelights. There are, besides buttresses, store-rooms, etc. , on the samelevel. In the first or ground floor are two court-yards with magnificentloggia, on which open various saloons, bed-chambers, ante-rooms, writing-rooms, offices, baths, kitchens, and reservoirs, with staircasesboth for private and public use, all most conveniently arranged. In theupper floors are dwellings and apartments for a family, with all thoseconveniences proper, not only to that of a private citizen, as Cosimothen was, but sufficient also for the most powerful and magnificientsovereign. Accordingly, in our time, kings, emperors, popes, andwhatever of most illustrious Europe can boast in the way of princes, have been most commodiously lodged in this palace, to the infinitecredit of the magnificent Cosimo, as well as that of Michelozzo'seminent skill in architecture. "

It is not, however, the splendour of the palace, fine as it is, or thememory of Cosimo even, that brings us to that beautiful house to-day, but the work of Donatello in the courtyard, those marble medallionscopied from eight antique gems, and the little chapel on the secondfloor, almost an afterthought you might think, since in a place full ofsplendidly proportioned rooms, it is so cramped and cornered under thestaircase, where Benozzo Gozzoli has painted in fresco quite round thewalls, the Journey of the Three Kings, in which Cosimo himself, Pierohis son, and Lorenzo his grandson, then a golden-haired youth, rideamong the rest, in a procession that never finds the manger atBethlehem, is indeed not concerned with it, but is altogether occupiedwith its own light-hearted splendour, and the beauty of the fair morningamong the Tuscan hills. Is it the pilgrimage of the Magi to the lowlycot of Jesus that we find in that tiny dark chapel, or the journey ofman, awake now on the first morning of spring in quest of beauty? Overthe grass scattered with flowers, that gay company passes at dawn bylittle white towns and grey towers, through woods where for a moment isheard the song of some marvellous bird, past running streams, betweenhedges of pomegranates and clusters of roses; and by the wayside risethe stone-pine and the cypress, while over all is the far blue sky, fullof the sun, full of the wind, which is so soft that not a leaf hastrembled in the woods, nor the waters stirred in a single ripple. Trulythey are come to Tuscany where Beauty is, and are far from Bethlehem, where Love lies sleeping. There on a mule, a black slave beside hisstirrup, rides Cosimo Pater Patriae, and beside him comes Piero his son, attended too, and before them on a white horse stepping proudly, withjewels in his cap, rides the golden-haired Lorenzo, the youngest of thethree kings, already magnificent, the darling of this world of hills andstreams, which one day he will sing better than anyone of his time. Notthus came the Magi of the East across the deserts to stony Judaea, andthough the Emperor of the East be of them, and the Patriarch ofConstantinople another, we know it is to the knowledge of Plato theywould lead us, and not to the Sedes Sapientiae. And so it is before anempty shrine that those clouds of angels sing; Madonna has fled away, and the children are singing a new song, surely the Trionfo of Lorenzo, it is the first time, perhaps, that we hear it--

 Quant' e' bella giovinezza. 

Ah, if they had but known how tragically that day would close. 

As Cosimo lay dying at Careggi, often closing his eyes, "to use them toit, " as he told his wife, who wondered why he lay thus without sleeping, it was perhaps some vision of that conflict which he saw and would fainhave dismissed from his mind, already divided a little in itsallegiance--who knows--between the love of Plato and the love of Jesus. Piero, his son, gouty and altogether without energy, was content toconfirm his political position and to overwhelm the Pitti conspiracy. Itis only with the advent of Lorenzo and Giuliano, the first buttwenty-one when Piero died, that the spirit of the Renaissance, free forthe first time, seems to dance through every byway of the city, and, confronted at last by the fanatic hatred of Savonarola, to laugh in hisface and to flee away through Italy into the world. 

Born in 1448, Lorenzo always believed that he owed almost everythingthat was valuable in his life to his mother Lucrezia, of the nobleFlorentine house of Tornabuoni, which had abandoned its nobility inorder to qualify for public office. A poetess herself, and the patron ofpoets, she remained the best counsellor her son ever had. In his earlyyouth she had watched over his religious education, and in hisgrandfather's house he had met not only statesmen and bankers, butartists and men of letters. His first tutor had been Gentile Becchi ofUrbino, afterwards Bishop of Arezzo; from him he learned Latin, butArgyropolus and Ficino and Landino taught him Greek, and read Plato andAristotle with him. Nor was this all, for we read of his eagerness forevery sort of exercise. He could play calcio and pallone, and his ownpoems witness his love of hunting and of country life, and he ran ahorse often enough in the palii of Siena. He was more than common tall, with broad shoulders, and very active. In colour dark, though he was nothandsome, his face had a sort of dignity that compelled respect, but hewas shortsighted too, and his nose was rather broad and flat. If helacked the comeliness of outward form, he loved all beauteous things, and was in many ways the most extraordinary man of his age; his verse, for instance, has just that touch of genius which seems to be wanting inthe work of contemporary poets. His love for Lucrezia Donati, in whosehonour the tournament of 1467 was popularly supposed to be held, thoughin reality it was given to celebrate his betrothal with Clarice Orsini, seems to have been merely an affectation in the manner of Petrarch, sofashionable at that time. Certainly the Florentines, for that day atleast, wished to substitute a lady of their city for the Roman beauty, and Lorenzo seems to have agreed with them. Like the tournament thatGiuliano held later in honour of Simonetta Vespucci, which Poliziano hasimmortalised, and for which Botticelli painted a banner, this pageant ofLorenzo's, for it was rather a pageant than a fight, was sung, too, byLuca Pulci, and was held in Piazza S. Croce. A rumour of the splendourof the dresses, the beauty and enthusiasm of the scene, has come down tous, together with Lorenzo's own account of the day, and Clarice'scharming letter to him concerning it. "To follow the custom, " he writesunenthusiastically in his Memoir--"to follow the custom and do as othersdo, I gave a tournament in Piazza S. Croce at a great cost, and with aconsiderable magnificence; it seems about 10, 000 ducats were spent. Although I was not a great fighter, nor even a very strong hitter, I wonthe prize, a helmet of inlaid silver, with a figure of Mars as a crest. ""I have received your letter, in which you tell me of the tournamentwhere you won the prize, " writes Clarice, "and it has given me muchpleasure. I am glad you are fortunate in what pleases you and that myprayers are heard, for I have no other wish but to see you happy. Givemy respects to my father Piero and my mother Lucrezia, and all who arenear to you, and I send, too, my respect to you. I have nothing else tosay. --Yours, Clarice de Orsinis. " Poor little Clarice, she was marriedto Lorenzo on June 4, in the following year. "I, Lorenzo, took to wifeClarice, daughter of Signor Jacopo, or rather she was given to me. " Hewrites more coldly, certainly, than he was used to do. The marriagefesta was celebrated in Palazzo Riccardi with great magnificence. Clarice, who was tall, slender, and shapely, with long delicate handsand auburn hair, but without great beauty of feature, dressed in whiteand gold, was borne on horseback through the garlanded way, in aprocession of girls and matrons, trumpeters and pipers, all Florencefollowing after to the Palace. There in the loggia above the garden shedined with the newly-married ladies of the city. In the courtyard, roundthe David of Donatello, some seventy of the greatest among the citizenssat together, while the stewards were all sons of the _grandi_. Pierode' Medici entertained each day some thousand guests, while for theirentertainment mimic battles were fought, and in the manner of the timewooden forts were built, defended, and taken by assault, and at nightthere were dances and songs. Almost immediately after the marriageLorenzo set out for Milan to visit the new Duke, and stand godfather tohis heir. All his way through Prato, Pistoja, Lucca, PietrasantaSarzana, Pontremoli to Milan was a triumphal progress. He came home tofind his father ailing, and on 2nd December 1469, Piero de' Medici died. He was buried in S. Lorenzo, in a tomb made by Verrocchio. 

It was to a great extent owing to the prompt action of Tommaso Soderinithat the power of the Medici did not pass away at Piero's death, as thatof many another family had done in Florence. The tried friend of thathouse, Soderini gathered some six hundred of the leading citizens in theconvent of S. Antonio, and, as it seems, with the help of the relativesof Luca Pitti, persuaded them that the fortunes of Florence were wrappedup in the Medici. "The second day after my father's death, " writesLorenzo in his Memoir, "although I, Lorenzo, was very young, in factonly in my twenty-first year, the leading men of the city and of theruling party came to our house to express their sorrow for ourmisfortune, and to persuade me to take upon myself the charge of thegovernment of the city as my grandfather and father had already done. This proposal being contrary to the instincts of my age, and entailinggreat labour and danger, I accepted against my will, and only for thesake of protecting my friends and our own fortunes, for in Florence onecan ill live in the possession of wealth without control of thegovernment. " Thus Lorenzo came to be tyrant of Florence. It was a ruleillegitimate in its essence, purchased with gold, and without anyoutward sign of office. That it would come to be disputed might haveseemed certain. 

FOOTNOTES:

[96] The Alberghettino was the prison in the great tower. 

XV. FLORENCE

SAN MARCO AND SAVONAROLA

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

[Illustration: CHIOSTRO DI S. MARCO]

Cosimo de' Medici had a villa near the convent of S. Domenico atFiesole, where, as it is said, he would often go when Careggi was toofar, and the summer had turned the city into a furnace. Here, as we maythink, he may well have talked with Fra Angelico, for he would oftenwalk in the cloisters in the evening with the friars, and must have seenand praised the frescoes there. These Dominicans at Fiesole had alreadysent a colony to Florence, for in June 1435 they had obtained fromPope Eugenius iv, who was then at S. Maria Novella the little church ofS. Giorgio across Arno. Seeing the order and comeliness of that conventat Fiesole, Cosimo, on behalf of the magistrates of Florence, presenteda petition to the Pope about this time, praying that since he wasengaged on a reform of the Religious Orders, which, partly owing to theschism and partly to the plague, were much relaxed, he would suppressthe Sylvestrians who dwelt in the old convent of S. Marco, and give itto the Dominicans of Fiesole, who in exchange would give up theirconvent of S. Giorgio, for in the centre of the city numerous andzealous ministers were needed. Eugenius very gladly agreed to this, andin a Bull of January 1436, S. Marco was given to the DominicanFriars. [97] So they came down from Fiesole in procession, and wentthrough the city accompanied by three bishops, all the clergy, and animmense concourse of people, and Fra Cipriano took possession of S. Marco "in the name of his congregation. " The convent at this time wouldseem to have been in a deplorable state: in the previous year a fire haddestroyed much of it, and the church even was without a roof, so thatthe friars were obliged to build themselves wooden cells to live in, andto roof the church with timber. When Cosimo heard this he prepared atonce to rebuild the convent, and sent Michelozzo to see what could bedone. Michelozzo first pulled down the old cloister, leaving only thechurch and the refectory; and in 1437 began to build the beautifulconvent we see to-day, completing it in 1443, at a cost of 36, 000ducats. The church which was then restored has suffered many violationssince, and is very different to-day from what it was at the end of thefifteenth century. It was consecrated in 1442, on the feast of theEpiphany, by Pope Eugenius in the presence of his Cardinals. Thelibrary, Vasari tells us, was built later. It was vaulted above andbelow, and had sixty-four bookcases of cypress wood filled with mostvaluable books, among them later the famous collection of NiccolòNiccoli, whose debts Cosimo paid on condition that he might disposefreely of his books, which were arranged here by Thomas of Sarzana, afterwards Nicholas v. The convent thus completed is "believed to be, "says Vasari, "the most perfectly arranged, the most beautiful and mostconvenient building of its kind that can be found in Italy, thanks tothe skill and industry of Michelozzo. "

Fra Angelico was nearly fifty years old when his Order took possessionof S. Marco. Already he had painted three choir books, which Cosimo soloved that he wished nothing else to be used in the convent, for, asVasari tells us, their beauty was such that no words can do justice toit. Born in 1387, he had entered the Order of S. Dominic in 1408 atFiesole. The convent into which he had come had only been founded in1406, and as with S. Marco later, so with S. Domenico, many disputes asto the property had to be encountered, so that he had early been atraveller, going with the brethren to Foligno and later to Cortona, returning to Fiesole in 1418. Who amid these misfortunes could have beenhis master? It might seem that in the silence of the sunny cloister inthe long summer days of Umbria some angel passing up the long valleysstayed for a moment beside him, so that for ever after he could notforget that vision. And then, who knows what awaits even us too, in thatvalley where Blessed Angela heard Christ say, "I love thee more than anyother woman in the valley of Spoleto"? It is certainly some divinitythat we find in those clouds of saints and angels, those marvellouslysweet Madonnas, those majestic and touching crucifixions, that with asimplicity and sincerity beyond praise, Angelico has left up and downItaly, and not least in the convent of S. Marco. 

Yes, it is a divine world he has dreamed of, peopled by saints andmartyrs, where the flowers are quickly woven into crowns and the lightstreams from the gates of Paradise, and every breeze whispers the sweetsibilant name of Jesus, and there, on the bare but beautiful roads, Christ meets His disciples, or at the convent gate welcomes atraveller, and if He be not there He has but just passed by, and if Hehas not just passed by He is to come. It is for Him the sun is darkened;to lighten His footsteps the moon shall rise; because His love haslightened the world men go happily, and because He is here the world isa garden. In all that convent of S. Marco you cannot turn a corner butChrist is awaiting you, or enter a room but His smile changes yourheart, or linger on the threshold but He bids you enter in, or eat atmidday but you see Him on the Cross, and hear, "Take, eat; this is MyBody, which was given for you. "

You enter the cloister, and the first word is Silence; St. Peter Martyr, with finger on lip, seems to utter the first indispensable word of theheavenly life. The second you see over the door of the chapter-house, Discipline and the denial of the body; St. Dominic with a scourge ofnine cords is about to give you the difficult book of heavenly wisdom. The third is spoken by Christ Himself; Faith, for He points to the woundin His side. And the fourth Christ speaks too, for none other may utterit; Love, for as a pilgrim He is welcomed by two pilgrims, two Dominicanbrothers, to their home. Pass into the Refectory and He is there; gointo the Capitolo and He is there also, the Prince of life between twomalefactors, hanging on a cross for love of the world, and in His faceall the beauty and sweetness of the earth have been gathered and purgedof their dross, and between His arms is the kingdom of Heaven. In thatroom the name of Jesus continually vibrates with an intense andpassionate life, more wonderful, more beautiful, and more terrible thanthe tremor of all the sea. And it has brought together in adoration notthe world, which cannot hear its music, but those who above the tumultof their hearts have caught some faint far echo of that supernal concordwhich has bound together this whispering universe: for there beneath theCross of Jesus are none but saints, Madonna and the two SS. Maries, St. John the Baptist and St. John the Divine, and beside them kneel thefounders of the Religious Orders St. Dominic, the founder of thepreaching friars, St. Jerome the father of monasticism, St. Francis thelittle poor man, St. Bernard who spoke with Madonna, S. GiovanniGualberto the founder of Vallombrosa, St. Peter Martyr who was woundedfor Christ's sake. Above him stands St. Thomas Aquinas the angelicdoctor, St. Romuald the founder of Camaldoli St. Benedict who overthrewthe temples, St. Augustine who has spoken of the City of God, S. Albertodi Vercelli the founder of the Carmelites. And on the other side, besideSt. John Baptist, St. Mark the patron of the convent kneels with hisopen Gospel, St. Laurence stands with his gridiron, and behind him comethe two other Medici saints, S. Cosmo and S. Damiano. 

Pass into the dormitories, and in every cell you enter Jesus is therebefore you; on the threshold the angel announces His advent, and littleby little, scene by scene, you are involved in the beauty and thetragedy of His life. You see Him transfigured (No. 6), you see Himbuffeted (No. 7), you see Him rise from the tomb (No. 8), and you seeHim in glory crowning Madonna (No. 9), or as a youth presented in theTemple (No. 11). Many times you come upon Him crucified (15-23), onceJohn baptizes Him in Jordan (24), or Madonna and St. John the Divineweep over Him dead (26). Here He bears His Cross (28), there descendsinto Hades (31), preaches to the people (32), is betrayed by Judas (33), agonises in the Garden (34), gives us His Body to eat, His Blood todrink (35), is nailed to the Cross (36); crucified (37), and againadored as a Child by the Magi (38), speaks with Mary in the garden (1), is buried (2); the angel announces His birth (3), He is crucified (4), and born in Bethlehem (5). It is the rosary of Jesus that we tell, consisting of the glorious and sorrowful mysteries of His life anddeath. It is the spirit of Christianity that we see here, blossomingeverywhere, haphazard like the wild flowers that are the armies ofspring. As Benozzo Gozzoli has expressed with an immense good fortune, the very spirit of the Renaissance at its birth almost, the spirit andthe joy of youth, so Angelico with as simple an eagerness and a moresure sincerity has expressed here the very spirit of Christianity, --Hethat loseth his life shall gain it: take no thought for your life. 

[Illustration: THE CRUCIFIXION

_By Fra Angelica. S. Marco, Florence_

_Alinari_]

It was here, then, amid all this mystical and heavenly beauty, thatfirst S. Antonino and later Savonarola sought to oppose the "newreligion of love and beauty" which had already filled Florence with anew joy. At first, certainly, that new joy seemed not unfriendly to themysterious and heavenly beauty of the Christian ideal. It is not tilllater, when both have been a little spoiled by love, that there seems tohave been any antagonism between them. It is true that it was only withreluctance that S. Antonino accepted the Arch-bishopric of Florence, butthis seems rather to have been owing to humility, the most beautifulcharacteristic of a beautiful nature, than to any perception that hemight have to oppose that new spirit fostered so carefully, and indeedso unwittingly, by Cosimo de' Medici, his benefactor. Born of Florentineparents in 1389, the son of a notary, Antonino, at the age of sixteen, had entered the convent of S. Domenico at Fiesole, not without a severetest of his steadfastness, for Fra Domenico made him learn the whole ofGratian's decree by heart before he would admit him to the Order. Later, he became priest, wrote his _Summa Theologicae_, and was called byEugenius, who loved him, to the General Council in Florence in 1439;while there he was made Prior of the Convent of S. Marco. Having set hisCongregation in order, and, as such a man was bound to do, endearedhimself to the Florentines, he set out for other convents, not inTuscany only, but in Naples, which needed his presence. He was absentfor two years. During that time the See of Florence became vacant, andEugenius, to the great joy of the city, appointed Antonino Archbishop. Surprised and troubled that he should have been thought of for such adignity, he set out to hide himself in Sardinia, but, being prevented, came at last to Siena, whence he wrote to the Pope begging him to changehis mind, saying that he was old, sick and unworthy. How little he knewEugenius, the on altogether inflexible will in all that time, so full oftrouble for the Church! The Pope sent him to S. Domenico at Fiesole andtold the Florentines their Archbishop was at their gates. So, withCosimo de' Medici at their head, they went out to meet him, but herefused to enter the city till Eugenius threatened him withexcommunication. He was consecrated Archbishop of Florence in March 1446borne in procession from S. Piero down Borgo degli Albizzi to theDuomo. [98] As a boy, it is said, he would pray before the Madonna of OrSan Michele, and, indeed, in his Chronicle he defends his Order againstthe charges of scepticism as to the miracles worked there, with acertain eloquence. Many are the stories told of him, and Poccetti haspainted the story of his life round the first cloister of S. Marco, where he was buried in May 1459. S. Antonino was a saint and atheologian, not a politician or an historian. Certainly he did notforesee the tragedy that was already opening, and that was to end, notin the lenten fires of Piazza Signoria, nor even in the death ofSavonarola, but in the siege of Florence, the establishment of the Houseof Medici, the tombs of S. Lorenzo. How often in those days Cosimo wouldwalk with him and Fra Angelico in the cloisters on a summer night, afterlistening may be to Marsilio Ficino or to the vague and wonderfulpromises of Argyropolis. "To serve God is to reign, " Antonino told him, not without a certain understanding of those restless ambitions which atthat time seemed to promise the city nothing but good. And then, was itnot Cosimo who had rebuilt the convent, was it not Cosimo who had builtS. Lorenzo and S. Spirito too, by the hand of Michelozzo?

Antonino was not a politician; the _Chronicon Domini AntoniniArchipraesulis Florentini_ is the work rather of a theologian than of anhistorian: the friend of Leonardo Bruni, or at least well acquaintedwith his work, he cared rather for charity than for learning; and it wasas the father of the poor that Florence loved him. He lived by love. Anin those days of uncertain fortune, amid the swift political changes ofthe time, there were many whom, doubtless, he saved from degradation orsuicide. I poveri vergognosi--the poor who are ashamed, it was these hefirst took under his protection. We read of him sending for twelve menof all classes and various crafts, and, laying the case before them, refounded a charity--_Provveditori dei poveri vergognosi_, which soonbecame in the mouth of Florence _I Buonomini di S. Martino_, the goodmen of S. Martin, for the society had its headquarters in the Church S. Martino; and, was not S. Martino himself, as it were, the first of thiscompany?

Born in Ferrara in 1452, the grandson of a famous doctor of Padua, Girolamo Savonarola had entered the Dominican Order at Bologna when hewas twenty-two years old, finding the world but a wretched place, andthe wickedness of men more than he could bear. Something of this strangeand almost passionate pessimism remained with him his whole life long. In 1481 he had been sent to the convent of S. Marco, in Florence, whenLorenzo de' Medici had been at the head of affairs for some twelveyears. The Pazzi conspiracy, in which Giuliano de' Medici lost his life, had come in 1478, and Lorenzo was fixed more firmly than ever in theaffections of the people. Simonetta had been borne like a dead goddessthrough the streets of the city to burial; Lorenzo was already busy withthose carnival songs which, as some thought, were written to corrupt thepeople: the Renaissance had come. "Gladius Domini super terram cite etvelociter, " thought Savonarola, unable to understand that life fromwhich he had fled into the cloister. It was the first voice that hadbeen raised against the resurrection of the Gods, but at that momentMartin Luther was lying in his mother's arms, while his father worked inthe mines at Eisleben: the Reaction was already born. 

On a Latin city such as Florence was, Savonarola at first made little orno impression; too often the friars had prophesied evil for no cause, wandering through every little city in Italy denouncing the Signori. Itwas in San Gemignano, even to-day the most medieval of Tuscan cities, aplace of towers and winding narrow ways, that Savonarola first won ahearing; and so it was not till nine years after his first coming to herthat Florence seems to have listened to his prophecy, when, in August1490, in S. Marco he began to preach on the Revelation of St. John theDivine. It was a programme half political, half spiritual, that hesuggested to those who heard him, the reformation of the Church and thefear of a God who had been forgotten but who would not forget. In thespring of the year following, so great were the crowds who flocked tohear his half-political discourses that he had to preach in the Duomo. There unmistakably we are face to face with a political agitator. "Godintends to punish Lorenzo Magnifico, --yes, and his friends too"; andwhen, a little later, he was made prior of S. Marco, he refused toreceive Lorenzo in the house his grandfather had built. In the followingyear Lorenzo died; Savonarola, as the tale goes, refusing him absolutionunless he would restore liberty to the people of Florence. Consider theposition. How could Lorenzo restore that which he had never stolen away, that which had, in truth, never had any real existence? He was withoutoffice, without any technical right to government, merely the firstamong the citizens of what, in name at least, was a Republic. If he wasa tyrant, he ruled by the will of the people, not by divine right, athing unknown among the Signori of Italy, nor by the will of the Pope, nor by the will of the Emperor, but by the will of Florence. YetSavonarola, the Ferrarese, whether or no he refused him absolution, didnot hesitate to denounce him, with a wild flood of eloquence and fanaticprophecy worthy of the eleventh century. "Leave the future alone, "Lorenzo had counselled him kindly enough: it was just that he could notdo, since for him the present was too disastrous. And the future?--thefuture was big with Charles VIII and his carnival army, gay withprostitutes, bright with favours, and behind him loomed the fires ofPiazza della Signoria. 

The peace of Italy is dead, the Pope told his Cardinals, when in thespring of 1492 Lorenzo passed away at Careggi It was true. In September1494, Charles VIII, on his way to Naples, came into Italy, was receivedby Ludovico of Milan at Asti, while his Switzers sacked Rapallo. Wasthis, then, the saviour of Savonarola's dreams? "It is the Lord who isleading those armies, " was the friar's announcement. Amid all the horrorthat followed, it is not Savonarola that we see to-day as the hero of asituation he had himself helped to create, but Piero Capponi, who, Pierode' Medici having surrendered Pietrasanta and Sarzana, stood for theRepublic. On 9th November Piero and Giuliano his brother fled out ofPorta di S. Gallo, while Savonarola with other ambassadors went to meetthe King. A few days later, on 17th November 1494, at about four o'clockin the afternoon, Pisa in the meantime having revolted, Charles enteredFlorence[99] with Cardinal della Rovere, the soldier and future Pope, and in his train came the splendour and chivalry of France, the Scotchbowmen, the Gascons, and the Swiss. "Viva la Francia!" cried the people, and Charles entered the Duomo at six o'clock in the evening, down a laneof torches to the high altar. And coming out he was conducted to thehouse of Piero de' Medici, the people crying still all the time "Viva laFrancia!" The days passed in feasting and splendour, Charles began totalk of restoring the Medici, nor were riots infrequent in BorgoOgnissanti; in Borgo S. Frediano the Switzers and French pillaged andmassacred, and were slain too in return. Florence, always ready forstreet fighting, was, as we may think, too much for the barbarians. On24th November the treaty was signed, an indemnity being paid by thecity, but the rioting did not cease. Landucci gives a very vivid accountof it. Even the King himself was not slow to pillage: he wasdiscontented with the indemnity offered, and threatened to loot thecity. "_Io farò dare nelle trombe_, " said he; Piero Capponi was not slowto answer, "_E noi faremo dare nello campane_"--and we will sound ourbells. The King gave in, and Florence was saved. On 26th November heheard Mass for the last time in S. Maria del Fiore, and on the 28th hedeparted--_si partì el Re di Firenze dopo desinare, e andò albergo allaCertosa e tutta sua gente gli andò dietro e innanzi, che poche ce nerimase_, says Landucci thankfully. 

Then the city, free from this rascal, who carried off what he could ofthe treasures of Cosimo and Lorenzo, turned not to Piero Capponi but toanother foreigner, Girolamo Savonarola. The political eagerness of thisfriar now came to the point of action. He set up a Greater Council, which in its turn elected a Council of Eighty; he refused to call aparliament, since he told them that "parliament had ever stolen thesovereignty from the people. " Then, on the 1st of April, he said thatthe Virgin Mary had revealed to him that the city would be moreglorious, rich, and powerful than ever before, and, as Landucci says, "_La maggiore parte del popolo gli credeva. "_ He also said that theGreater Council was the creation of God, and that whoever should attemptto change it would be eternally damned. Nor was this all. If it wereright and splendid for Florence to be free, free as she always had beenfrom the domination of any other city, so it was for revolted Pisa. Yetthis fanatic Ferrarese told the people that he had had a vision in whichthe Blessed Virgin had told him that Florence should make treaty withFrance, and thus regain Pisa. This was on the return of the King fromNaples with Piero de' Medici in his train. However, he met the King atPoggibonsi, told him Florence was his friend, that God desired him tospare it, and with other tales succeeded in keeping Charles out of thecity. This, as it seems to me, is the one good deed Savonarola did forFlorence. 

But the people still believed in him, though he turned the whole life ofthe city into a sort of religious carnival. Now, if Lorenzo had kept thepeople quiet with songs, Savonarola was equally successful with hymns. "Viva Cristo e la Vergine Maria, nostra regina, " shouted thepeople, --merchants, friars, women, and children dancing before thecrucifix with olive boughs in their hands. "On 27th March 1496, whichwas Palm Sunday, Fra Girolamo made a procession of children with olivebranches in their hands and crowns of olive on their heads and allbore, too, a red cross. There were some five thousand boys, and a greatnumber of girls all dressed in white, then after came all the Ufici, andall the guilds, and then all the men, and after all the women of thecity. There never was so great a procession, " says Landucci. Indeed, there was not a man nor a woman who did not join the company. "It was aholy time, but it was short, " says Landucci again, whose own childrenwere among "these holy and blessed companies. "

Short indeed! The Italian League had been formed against France; onlyFlorence and Ferrara remained outside. If it were politics that hadtaken Savonarola so high, it was to them he owed his fall. He denouncedall Italy, and not least Alexander VI, the vicious but very capablePope. When he began to denounce Rome he signed his own death; her hourwas not yet come. "I announce to you, Italy and Rome, the Lord will comeout of His place.... I tell you, Italy and Rome, the Lord will tread youdown. I have commanded penance, yet you are worse and worse.... Soon allpriests, friars, bishops, cardinals, and great masters shall be trampleddown. " It was a brave denunciation, and if it were unjust, what wasjustice to one who had made Jesus King of Florence and establishedhimself as His Vicegerent. 

The Pope excommunicated him: the factions in Florence--the Arrabbiati, the Compagnacci, the Palleschi--rejoiced; yet the people he had led solong seemed inclined to support him. Then came the plague, and then thediscovery of a plot to bring back Piero. Well, Savonarola began topreach again; but he was beaten. Many would not go to hear him, of whomLanducci was one, because of the excommunication. [100] And at lastSavonarola himself seems to have seen the end. "If I am deceived, ChristThou hast deceived me, " he says and at last he challenged the fire toprove it. It was too much for the Signoria; they agreed. It was theFranciscans he had to meet; whether or no they meant to persist with the"trial by fire" we shall never know, but when, on 7th April 1498, thefire was lighted in Piazza della Signoria, it was Savonarola whorefused. A few minutes later, amid the uproar, a deluge of rain put outthe flames. Savonarola's last chance was gone. The people hounded himback to S. Marco, and but for the Guards of the Signoria he would havebeen torn in pieces. On 8th April, which was Palm Sunday, in theevening, the attack that had been threatening all day began: through thechurch, through the cloisters the fight raged, while the whole city wasin the streets. At last Savonarola and Fra Domenico, his friend, gavethemselves up to the guard, really for protection, and were lodged inPalazzo Vecchio. There the Signoria tortured them, with another friar, Silvestro, and at last from Savonarola even they seem to have draggedsome sort of admission. What such a confession was worth, drawn from thepoor mangled body of a broken man, one can well imagine; but thatmattered nothing to the wild beasts he had taught to roar, who now hadhim at their mercy. The effect of this on the city seems to have beenvery great. "We had thought him to be a prophet, " writes Luca Landuccisimply, "and he confessed he was not a prophet, that he had not from Godthe things he preached.... And I was by when this was read, and I wasastonished, bewildered, amazed.... Ah, I expected Florence to be, as itwere, a New Jerusalem, ... And I heard the very contrary. "

The Signoria which tortured Savonarola was presently replaced byanother; and though, like its predecessor, it too refused to send him toRome, it went about to compass his death. Again they tortured him; thenon the 23rd May, the gallows having been built over night in the Piazza, they killed him with his companions, afterwards burning their bodies. "They wish to crucify them, "[101] cried one in the crowd; and indeed, the scaffold seems to have resembled a cross. Was it Florence herselfperhaps who hung there?

FOOTNOTES:

[97] Not without protest, for the Sylvestrians appealed to theschismatic counsel at Basle, but got no good by it; and a whole seriesof lawsuits followed. 

[98] See p. 256. 

[99] Cf. L. Landucci, _Diario Fiorentino_ (Sansoni, 1883), p. 80. 

[100] It would be wrong to conclude that Savonarola attacked the faithof the Catholic Church. He never did. He protested himself a faithfulCatholic to the last. He was a puritan and a politician, and it was onthese two counts that he fought the Papacy. 

[101] Landucci, _op. Cit. P_. 176. 

XVI. FLORENCE

S. MARIA NOVELLA

If Florence built the Baptistery, the Duomo, and the Campanile for theglory of the whole city, that there might be one place, in spite of allthe factions, where without difference all might enter the kingdom ofheaven, one temple in which all the city might wait till Jesus passedby, one tower which should announce the universal Angelus, she builtother churches too, more particular in their usefulness, less splendidin their beauty, but not less necessary in their hold on the life of thecity, or their appeal to us to-day. You may traverse the city from eastto west without forsaking the old streets, and a little fantastically, perhaps, find some hint in the buildings you pass of that old far-awaylife, so restless and so fragile, so wanting in unity, and yet, as itseems to us, with but one really profound intention in all its work, theresurrection of life among men. In the desolate but beautiful Piazza ofS. Maria Novella, at the gates of the old city, you find a Dominicanconvent, and before it the great church of that Order, S. Maria Novellaherself, the bride of Michelangelo. Then, following Via dei Fossi, youenter the old city at the foot of the Carraja bridge, following Via diParione past an old Medici palace into Via Porta Rossa and so into ViaCalzaioli, where you came upon that strange and beautiful church so likea palace, Or San Michele, built by the merchants, the Church of theGuilds of the city. Passing thence into Piazza Signoria, and so into Viade' Gondi, in the Proconsolo you find the Church of the great monasticOrder the Badia of the Benedictines, having passed on your way PalazzaVecchio, the Palace of the Republic, afterwards of the Medici; and theBargello, the Palace of the Podestà, afterwards a prison; coming laterthrough Borgo de' Greci to the Church of S. Croce, the convent of theFranciscans. Thus, while beyond the old west gate of the city therestood the house of the Dominicans, the Franciscans built their conventon the east, just without the city; and between them in the heart ofFlorence dwelt the oldest Order of all, the Benedictines, busy withmanuscripts. Again, if the tower of authority throws its shadow over theBargello, it is the tower of liberty that rises over Palazzo Vecchio, and the whole tragedy of the beautiful city seems to be expressed for usin the fact that while the one became a prison the other came to housethe gaoler. 

So this city of warm brick, with its churches of marble, its old ways, its palaces of stone, its convents at the gates, comes to hold for us, as it were, the very dream of Italy, the dream that was too good tolast, that was so soon to be shattered by the barbarian. Yet in thatlittle walk through the narrow winding ways from the west to the east ofthe city, all the eloquence and renown, the strength and beauty of Italyseem to be gathered for you, as in a nosegay you may find all the beautyof a garden. And of all the broken blossoms that you may find by theway, not one is more fragrant and fair than the sweet bride ofMichelangelo, S. Maria Novella. 

Standing in a beautiful Piazza, itself the loveliest thing therein, dressed in the old black and white habit, it dreams of the past: it isfull of memories too, for here Boccaccio one Tuesday morning, just afterMass in 1348, amid the desolation of the city, found the seven belovedladies of the _Decamerone_ talking of death; here Martin V, and EugeniusIV, fugitives from the Eternal City, found a refuge; here Beata Villanaconfessed her sins; here Vanna Tornabuoni prayed and the Strozzi madetheir tombs. Full of memories--and of what else, then, but the pastcan she dream? For her there is no future. Her convent is suppressed, the great cloister has become a military gymnasium. What has she, then, in common with the modern world, with the buildings of Piazza VittorioEmmanuele, for instance?--the past is all that we have left her. 

[Illustration: S. MARIA NOVELLA]

Begun in 1278, as some say, from the design of Fra Ristoro and FraSisto, the façade, one of the most beautiful in the world, is really thefifteenth-century work of Leon Alberti working to the order of GiovanniRucellai--you may see their blown sail everywhere--with that profoundand unifying genius which involved everything he touched in a sort ofreconciliation, thus prophesying to us of Leonardo da Vinci. For Albertihas here very fortunately made the pointed work of the Middle Agefriends with Antiquity, Antiquity seen with the eyes of the Renaissance, full of a new sort of eagerness and of many little refinements. In thefagade of his masterpiece, the Tempio Malatestiano at Rimini, thatbeautiful unfinished temple where the gods of Greece seem for once tohave come to the cradle of Jesus with something of the wonder of theshepherds who left their flocks to worship Him, Leon Alberti has takenas his model the arch of Augustus, that still, though broken, stands onthe verge of the city in the Flaminian Way; but as though aware at lastof the danger of any mere imitation of antiquity such as that, he hashere contrived to express the beauty of Roman things, just what hehimself had really felt concerning them, and has combined that veryhappily with the work of the age that was just then passing away; thus, as it were, creating for us one of the most perfect buildings of thefifteenth century, very characteristic too, in its strange beauty, as ofthe dead new risen. And then how subtly he has composed this beautifulfaçade, so that somehow it really adds to the beauty of the Campanile, with its rosy spire, in the background. 

Within, the church is full of a sort of twilight, in which certainlymuch of its spaciousness is lost; those chapels in the nave, forinstance, added by Vasari in the sixteenth century have certainlyspoiled it of much of its beauty. Built in the shape of a tau cross--aLatin cross that is almost tau, in old days it was divided, where stillthere is a step across the nave into two parts, one of which wasreserved for the friars, while the other was given to the people. Thereis not much of interest in this part of the church: a crucifix over thegreat door, attributed to Giotto; a fresco of the Holy Trinity, withMadonna and St. John, by Masaccio, that rare strong master; the altar, the fourth in the right aisle, dedicated to St. Thomas ofCanterbury, --almost nothing beside. It is in the south transept, where aflight of steps leads to the Rucellai Chapel, that we came upon one ofthe most beautiful and mysterious things in the city, the Madonna, solong given to Cimabue, but now claimed for Duccio of Siena. [102]

Vasari describes for us very delightfully the triumph of this picture, when, so great was the admiration of the people for it that "it wascarried in solemn procession, with the sound of trumpets and otherfestal demonstrations, from the house of Cimabue to the church, --hehimself being highly rewarded and honoured for it"; while, as he goes onto tell us, when Cimabue was painting it, in a garden as it happenednear the gate of S. Pietro, King Charles of Sicily, brother of St. Louis, saw the picture, and praising it, "all the men and women ofFlorence hastened in great crowds to admire it, making all possibledemonstrations of delight. The inhabitants of the neighbourhood, rejoicing in this occurrence, ever after called that place BorgoAllegri, "--the name it bears to this day. However reluctant we may be tofind Vasari, that divine gossip, at fault, it might seem that Cimabue'sTriumph is a fable, or if, indeed, it happened, was stolen, for theRucellai Madonna is apparently the work of Duccio the Sienese. [103] Ofthe works of Cimabue not one remains to us; we do not know, we havecertainly no means of knowing, whether he was, as Ghiberti tells us, apainter in the old Greek manner, or whether, as Vasari suggests, he wasthe true master of Giotto, in that to him was owing the impulse of lifewhich we find so moving in Giotto's work. And then Vasari, it seems, iswrong in his account of Borgo Allegri, for that place was named notafter happiness, the happiness of that part of the city in their greatneighbour, but from a family who in those days lived thereabout and borethat name. 

It is, however, of comparatively little importance who painted thepicture. The controversy, which is not yet finished, serves for the mostpart merely to obscure the essential fact that here is the picture stillin its own place, and that it is beautiful. Very lovely, indeed, she is, Madonna of Happiness, and still at her feet the poor may pray, and stillon her dim throne she may see day come and evening fall. Far up in theobscure height she holds Christ on her knees. Perhaps you may catch thefaint dim loveliness of her face in the early dawn amid the beauty ofthe angels kneeling round her throne when the light steals through theshadowy windows across the hills; or perhaps at evening in the splendourof some summer sunset you may see just for a moment the whiteness of herdelicate hands; but she is secret and very far away, she has withdrawnherself to hear the prayers of the poor in spirit who come when thegreat church is empty, when the tourists have departed, when the workmenhave returned to their homes. And beside her in that strange, mysteriousplace Beata Villana sleeps, where the angels draw back the curtain, in atomb by Desiderio da Settignano. She was not of the great company whosenames we falter at our altars and whisper for love over and over againin the quietness of the night; but of those who are weary. Born to awealthy Florentine merchant, Andrea di Messer Lapo by name, little Vannawent her ways with the children, yet with a sort of naïve sincerityafter all, so that when she heard Saint Catherine praised or SaintFrancis, she believed it and wished to be of that company; but theworld, full of glamour and laughter in those days, and now too, caughther by the waist and bore her away, in the person of a noble youth ofthe Benintendi, who loved her well enough; yet it was love she lovedrather than her husband; and life calling sweetly enough down the longnarrow streets, she followed, yes, till she was a little weary. So shewould question her beauty, and, looking in her glass, see not herselfbut the demon love that possessed her; and again in another mirror shefound a devil, she said, like a faun prick-eared and with goat's feet, peering at her with frightening eyes. So she stripped off her fair gaydresses, and took instead the rough hair-shirt, and came at eveningacross the Piazza to confess in S. Maria Novella; and gave herself tothe poor, and forgot the sun till weary she fled away. Her grandson, asit is said, built this tomb to her memory, and they wrote above, BeataVillana. 

It is always with reluctance, I think, that one leaves that dim chapelof the Rucellai, and yet how many wonderful things await us in thechurch. In the second chapel of the transept, the Chapel of FilippoStrozzi, who is buried behind the altar, Filippino Lippi, the son of FraLippo, the pupil of Botticelli, has painted certain frescoes, --a littlebewildering in their crowded beauty, it is true, but how good after allin their liveliness, their light and shadow, the pleasant, eager facesof the women--where St. John raises Drusiana from the grave, or St. Philip drives out the Dragon of Hierapolis; while above St. John ismartyred, and St. Philip too. But it is in the choir behind the highaltar, where for so long the scaffolding has prevented our sight, thatwe come upon the simple serious work of Domencio Ghirlandajo, whom allthe critics have scorned. Born in 1449, the pupil of AlessioBaldovinetti, Ghirlandajo is not a great painter perhaps, but rather acraftsman, a craftsman with a wonderful power of observation, of notingtruly the life of his time. He seems to have asked of art rather truththan beauty. Almost wholly, perhaps, without the temperament of anartist, his success lies in his gift for expressing not beauty but thelife of his time, the fifteenth century in Florence, which lives stillin all his work. Consider, then, the bright facile mediocre work ofBenozzo Gozzoli, not at its best, in the Campo Santo of Pisa, rememberhow in the dark chapel of the Medici palace he lights up the placealmost as with a smile, in the gay cavalcade that winds among the hills. There is much fancy there, much observation too; here a portrait, therea gallant fair head, and the flowers by the wayside. Well, it is in muchthe same way that Ghirlandajo has painted here in the choir of S. MariaNovella. He has seen the fashions, he has noted the pretty faces of thewomen, he has watched the naïve homely life of the Medici ladies, forinstance, and has painted not his dreams about Madonna, but his dreamsof Vanna Tornabuoni, of Clarice de' Medici, and the rest. And he wasright; almost without exception his frescoes are the most interestingand living work left in Florence. He has understood or divined that onecannot represent exactly that which no longer exists; and it is torepresent something with exactitude that he is at work. So he contentshimself very happily with painting the very soul of his century. It is atrue and sincere art this realistic, unimpassioned, impersonal work ofGhirlandajo's, and in its result, for us at any rate, it has a certainlargeness and splendour. Consider this "Birth of the Virgin. " It is fullof life and homely observation. You see the tidy dusted room where St. Anne is lying on the bed, already, as in truth she was, past her youth, but another painter would have forgotten it. She is just a carefulFlorentine housewife, thrifty too, not flurried by her illness, for shehas placed by her bedside, all ready for her need, two pomegranates andsome water. Then, again, they are going to wash the little Mary. Shelies quite happily sucking her fingers in the arms of her nurse, thebasin is in the middle of the floor, a servant has just come in briskly, no doubt as St. Anne has always insisted, and pours the water quicklyinto the vessel. It is not difficult to find all sorts of faults, ofcourse, as the critics have not hesitated to do. That perspective, forinstance, how good it is: almost as good as Verrocchio's work, --andthose dancing _angiolini_; yes, Verrocchio might have thought of themhimself. But the lady in the foreground, how unmoved she seems; it is asthough the whole scene had been arranged for the sake of her portrait;and, indeed it is a portrait, for the richly dressed visitor is Ginevrade' Benci, who stands too in the fresco of the Birth of St. John. Againin the fresco of the angel appearing to Zacharias in the Temple, thereare some thirty portraits of famous Florentines, painted with muchpatience, and no doubt with an extraordinary truth of likeness. In theleft corner you may see Marsilio Ficino dressed as a priest; Gentile de'Becchi turns to him, while Cristoforo Landini in a red cloak stands by, and Angelo Poliziano lifts up his hands. 

Does one ever regret, I wonder, after looking at these realisticfifteenth-century works, that the frescoes of Orcagna--for he paintedthe whole choir--were destroyed in a storm, it is said, in 1358. Fragments of his work, however, we are told, remained for more than ahundred years, till, indeed, Ghirlandajo was employed to replace them. We find his work, however, sadly damaged it is true, and really hisperhaps only in outline, in the Strozzi chapel here, the lofty chapelof north transept, where he has painted on the wall facing the entrancethe Last Judgment, while to the left you may see Paradise, to the rightthe Inferno. The pupil of Giotto and of Andrea Pisano, Orcagna is themost important artist of his time, the one vital link in the chain thatunites Masolino with Giotto. He was a universal artist, practising as anarchitect and goldsmith no less than as a painter. In the Last Judgmentin this chapel he seems not only to have absorbed the whole art of histime, but to have advanced it; for to the grandeur and force of his workhe added a certain visionary loveliness that most surely alreadyforetells Beato Angelico. If in the Paradise and the Inferno we are lessmoved by the greatness of his achievement, we remind ourselves howterribly they have suffered from damp, from neglect, from the restorer. In the altar-piece itself we have perhaps the only "intact painting" ofhis remaining to us, and splendid as it is in colour and form, it lackssomething of the rhythm of the frescoes that like some slow and solemnchant fill the chapel with their sincere unforgetable music. 

As you pass, beckoned by a friar, into the half-ruined cloisters belowS. Maria Novella, you come on your right into a little alley of tombs, behind which, on the wall, you may find two bits of fresco by Giotto, the Meeting of S. Joachim and S. Anna at the Golden Gate, and the Birthof the Virgin. On your left you pass into the Chiostro Verde, wherePaolo Uccello has painted scenes from the Old Testament in a sort ofgreen monotone, for once without enthusiasm. Above you and around yourises the old convent and the great tower; there, in the far corner, perhaps a friar plays with a little cat, here a pigeon flutters underthe arches about the little ruined space of grass, the meagre grass ofthe south, where now and then the shadow of a white cloud passes overthe city, whither who knows. For a moment in that silent place youwonder why you have come, you feel half inclined to go back into thechurch, when shyly the friar comes towards you, and, leading you roundthe cloister, enters the Cappellina degli Spagnuoli. 

How much has been written in praise of the frescoes in the Spanishchapel of S. Maria Novella, where Eleonora of Toledo, the wife of GrandDuke Cosimo, used to hear Mass; yet how disappointing they are. In sosimple a building, some great artist, you might think, in listening toRuskin, had really expressed himself, his thoughts about Faith and thetriumph of the Church. But the work which we find there is the work ofmediocrities, poor craftsmen too, the pupils and imitators of theSienese and Florentine schools of their time, having nothing in commonwith the excellent work of Taddeo Gaddi, the beautiful work of SimoneMartini of Siena. These figures, so pretty and so ineffectual, whichhave been labelled here the Triumph of St. Thomas Aquinas, there theTriumph of the Church, have no existence for us as painting; they havepassed into literature, and in the pages of Ruskin have found a newbeauty that for the first time has given them some semblance of life. 

FOOTNOTES:

[102] Mysterious no longer. For in the autumn of 1907 the chapel wasdestroyed by fools and the Madonna--just an old panel picture afterall--set up in the cold daylight (1908). 

[103] Crowe and Cavalcaselle, _op. Cit. _ vol. I, 187. 

XVII. FLORENCE

S. CROCE

The Piazza di S. Croce, in which stands the great Franciscan church ofFlorence, is still almost as it was in the sixteenth century when thePalazzo del Borgo on the southern side was painted in fresco by thefacile brush of Passignano; but whatever charm so old and storied aplace might have had for us, for here Giuliano de' Medici fought in atournament under the eyes of La Bella Simonetta, and here, too, theGiuoco del Calcio was played, it is altogether spoiled and ruined, notonly by the dishonouring statue of Dante, which for some unexplainedreason has here found a resting-place, but by the crude and staringfaçade of the church itself, a pretentious work of modern Italy, whichlends to what was of old the gayest Piazza in the city, the very aspectof a cemetery. 

Not long before the end of the thirteenth century, a little shrine ofSt. Anthony stood where now we may see the great Church of S. Croce, inthe midst of the marshes, as it is said, that waste land which in theMiddle Age seems to have surrounded every city in Italy. It belonged, asdid the land round about, to a certain family called Altafronte, whoappear to have presented it to the friars of the neighbouring convent ofFranciscans just outside Porta S. Gallo. St. Francis being dead, and thestrictness of his rule relaxed, the first stone of the great Church ofS. Croce was laid on Holy Cross Day, 1297. Arnolfo, the architect of theDuomo, was the first builder here, till later Giotto was appointed. Thechurch itself is in the form of a tau cross, the eastern end on bothsides of the choir consisting of twelve chapels scarcely less deep thanthe choir and tiny apse, itself a chapel of St. Anthony. The wide andspacious nave, with two aisles, could doubtless hold half the city, asperhaps it did when Fra Francesco of Montepulciano preached here in theearly years of the sixteenth century just after the death of Savonarola. And indeed the very real beauty of the church consists in just thatsplendour of space and light which so few seem to have cared for, butwhich seems to me certainly in Italy the most precious thing in theworld. And then S. Croce is really the Pantheon, as it were, of thecity; the golden twilight of S. Maria Novella even would seem too gloomyfor the resting-place of heroes. Already before the sixteenth century ithad been here that Florence had set up the banners of those shedelighted to honour. And though Cosimo I destroyed them when he letVasari so unfortunately have his way with the church, some remembranceof the glory that of old hung about her seems to have lingered, for hereMichelangelo was buried, under a heavy monument by Vasari, and close byVittorio Alfieri lies in a tomb carved by Canova at the request of theDuchess of Albany. Not far away you come upon the grave of NiccolòMachiavelli, the statesman, and beside it the monument erected to hismemory in the eighteenth century. And then here too you find thebeautiful tomb of Leonardo Bruni, one of the first great scholars of themodern world, and secretary to the Republic, who died in 1443. It is themasterpiece of Bernardo Rossellino (1409-1464), achieved at the end ofthe early Renaissance, and forming the very style of such things forthose sculptors who came after him. It is true that the lunette ofMadonna is a little feeble and without life, though some have given itfalsely to Verrocchio, and the two angioloni bearing the arms havelittle force; but the tomb itself is a thing done once and for all, andthe figure of the dead poet is certainly the masterpiece of a man whowas perhaps the first sculptor in marble of his time. If we compare itfor a moment with the lovely Annunciation of Donatello (1386-1466) onthe other side of the gateway, where for once that strong and fearlessartist seems to have contented himself with beauty, we shall understandbetter the achievement of Rossellino; and though it were difficult toimagine a more lovely thing than that Annunciation set there by theCavalcanti, with the winged wreath of Victory beneath it to commemoratetheir part in the victory of Florence over Pisa in 1406, as a piece ofarchitecture Rossellino's work is as much better than this earlierdesign of Donatello's as in every other respect his work falls below it. Covered with all sorts of lovely ornament, the frame supports anelaborate and splendid cornice on which six children stand, threegrouped on either side, playing with garlands. And within the frame, asthough seen through some magic doorway, Madonna, about to leave herprayers, has been stopped by the message of the angel, who has not yetfallen on his knees. It is as though one had come upon the very sceneitself suddenly at sunset on some summer day. 

If the tomb of Leonardo Bruni is the masterpiece of Bernardo Rossellino, the tomb of Carlo Marsuppini, the humanist, Bruni's successor assecretary to the Republic, placed in the north aisle exactly opposite, is no less the masterpiece of another of Donatello's friends, Desiderioda Settignano (1428-1464). Standing as they were to do, face to faceacross the church, no doubt Desiderio was instructed to follow asclosely as might be the general design of Rossellino. On a rich bedMarsuppini lies, a figure full of sweetness and strength, while under isthe carved tomb, supported by the feet of lions, and borne by a wingedshell. On either side two children bear his arms, figures so naïve andlovely that, as it seems to me, Luca della Robbia in his happiest momentmight have thought of them almost in despair. Above, under a splendidcanopy of flowers and fruit, in a tondo, severe and simple, is Madonnawith Our Lord, and on either side an angel bows half-smiling, half-weeping, while without stand two youths of tender age, slender andfull of grace, but strong enough to bear the great garland of fruitswith lovely and splendid gestures of confidence and expectancy. Beforethe tomb in the pavement is a plaque of marble also from the hand ofDesiderio, and here Gregorio Marsuppini, Carlo's father, lies: othersimilar works of his you may find here and there in the church. 

Scattered through the two aisles and the nave are many modern monumentsand tablets to famous Italians, Dante who lies at Ravenna, Galileo, Alberti, Mazzini, Rossini, and the rest; they have but little interest. It is not only in the aisles, however, that we find the work of theFlorentine sculptors. Galileo Galilei, an ancestor of the greatastronomer, is buried in the nave at the west end, under a carvedtombstone enthusiastically praised by Ruskin. And then on the firstpillar on the right we find the work of Bernardo Rossellino's youngestbrother Antonio (1427-1478), who, under the influence of Desiderio daSettignano, has carved there a relief of Madonna and Child, surroundedby a garland of cherubim lovely and fair. Antonio Rossellino's work isscattered all over Tuscany, in Prato, in Empoli, in Pistoja, and weshall find it even in such far-away places as Naples and Forli. Hismasterpiece, however, the beautiful tomb of the Cardinal of Portugal, isin the Church of S. Miniato al Monte, of which I shall speak later. 

It was another and younger pupil of Desiderio's, Benedetto da Maiano(1442-1497), who made the beautiful pulpit to the order of that PietroMellini, whose bust, also from his hand, is now in the Bargello. It isthe most beautiful pulpit in all Italy, splendid alike in its decorationand its construction. It seems doubtful whether the pulpit itself is notearlier than the five reliefs of the life of St. Francis which surroundit--The Confirmation of the Order by the Pope, the Test by Fire beforethe Sultan, the Stigmata, the Death of St. Francis, and the Persecutionof the Order. These were carved in 1474, and for the life and charmwhich they possess are perhaps Benedetto's finest work. In the beautifulniches below he has set some delightful statuettes, representing Faith, Hope, Charity, Fortitude, and Justice. 

Passing now into the south transept, we come to the great chapel of theBlessed Sacrament, with its spoiled frescoes of the stories of St. JohnBaptist, St. John the Divine, St. Nicholas and St. Anthony; while here, too, is the tomb of the Duchess of Albany, who was the wife of the YoungPretender, and who loved Alfieri the poet, whose monument, as we haveseen, she caused Canova to make. 

The south transept ends in the Baroncelli Chapel, which "between theclose of December 1332 and the first days of August 1338, " Taddeo Gaddipainted in fresco. [104] Giotto died in 1337, and Taddeo, who had servedunder him, seems to have been content to carry on his practice withoutbringing any originality of his own to the work. What Taddeo couldassimilate of Giotto's manner he most patiently reproduced, so that hiswork, never anything but a sort of imitation, threatens to overwhelm inits own mediocrity much of the achievement of his master. The beautifuland sincere work of Giotto in him degenerates into a mannerism, amannerism that the people of his own day seem to have appreciated quiteas much as the living work of Giotto himself. Taddeo, trained by hismaster in the Giottesque manner, became its most patient champion, andpractising an art that was in his hands little better than a craft, hefinds himself understood, and when Giotto is not available verynaturally takes his place. Here in S. Croce, a church in which Giottohimself had worked, we find Taddeo's work everywhere: over the door ofthe Sacristy he painted Christ and the Doctors; in the Cappella di S. Andrea, the stories of St. Peter and St. Andrew; in the Bellaci chapel, too, and above all in this the chapel of the Baroncelli family. But whenGiotto, being long dead, other and newer painters arose, Taddeo's work, out of fashion at last, suffered the oblivion of whitewash, sharing thisfate with some of the best work in Italy: so that there is to-day butlittle left of it in S. Croce save these frescoes, where he has painted, not without a certain vigour and almost a gift for composition, thestory of the Blessed Virgin. 

Close by, without the chapel, is a very beautiful monument the schoolof Niccolò Pisano; passing this and entering the great door of theSacristy, we come into a corridor and thence into the Sacristy itself, which Vasari covered with whitewash. Built in the fourteenth century, itis divided into two parts by a grating of exquisitely wrought iron ofthe same period. Behind this grating is the Rinuccini chapel, painted infresco by a pupil of Taddeo Gaddi, Giovanni da Milano, in whose work wemay discern, in spite of the rigid convention of his master, somethingsincere, a lightness and grace and even perhaps a certain reliance onNature, which the authority of Giotto had spoiled for Taddeo himself. Itis the stories of the Blessed Virgin and of St. Mary Magdalen that hehas set himself to tell, with an infinite detail that a little confuseshis really fine and sincere work. Repainted though they be, something oftheir original beauty may still be found there, their simplicity andhomely realism. 

At the end of the corridor is the chapel which Cosimo de' Medici, PaterPatriae caused Michelozzo to build for his delight. Over the altar isone of the loveliest works of the della Robbia school, a Madonna andChild, between St. Anthony of Padua, St. Elizabeth of Hungary, St. JohnBaptist, St. Laurence, St. Louis of Toulouse, and St. Francis; while onthe wall is a later work of the same school, after a work by Verrocchio, where Madonna holds her Son in her arms; and opposite is another work bya Tuscan sculptor, a Tabernacle, by Mino da Fiesole (1431-1484), whocertainly has loved the gracious marbles of Desiderio da Settignano. Thepicture of the Coronation of the Virgin beside this Tabernacle, once thealtar-piece of the Baroncelli Chapel, a genuine work of Giotto's, as itis thought, is tender in feeling and magnificent in arrangement andcomposition. Full of a grave earnestness and full of ardent life, --markthe eagerness of those clouds of Saints, --it is worthy of the painter ofthe tribune of the Lower Church at Assisi. 

Returning now to the church itself, we begin our examination of thosetwelve chapels, which with the choir form the eastern end of S. Croce. The first three chapels have little interest, but the two nearest thechoir, Cappella Peruzzi and Cappella Bardi, were both painted in frescoby Giotto, his work there being among the best of his paintings. 

The Peruzzi Chapel was built by the powerful family that name, who hadalready done much for S. Croce, when about 1307 they employed Giotto todecorate these walls with frescoes of the story of St. John Baptist andSt. John the Divine. In 1714, the new Vasari tells us, [105] and, indeed, we may read as much on the floor of the chapel itself, Bartolommeo diSimone Peruzzi caused the place to be restored, and it was then, as wemay suppose, that the work of Giotto was covered with whitewash. It wasin 1841 that the Dance of Herodias was discovered, and the whitewash notvery carefully, perhaps, removed, and by 1863 the rest of the frescoeshere were brought to light. In their original brightness they formedprobably "the finest series of frescoes which Giotto ever produced"; butthe hand of the restorer has spoiled them utterly, so that only theshadow of their former beauty remains, amid much that is hard orunpleasing. 

On the left we see the story of St. John Baptist; above, the Angelannounces to Zacharias the birth of a son; and, with I know not whatmastery of his art, Giotto tells us of it with a simplicity andperfection beyond praise. If we consider the work merely as acomposition, it is difficult to imagine anything more lovely; and thenhow beautiful and full of life is the angel who has entered so softlyinto the Holy of Holies, not altogether without dismay to the highpriest, who, busy swinging his censer before the altar, has suddenlylooked up and seen a vision. Below, we see the Birth of St. JohnBaptist, where Elizabeth is a little troubled, it may be, about her dumbhusband, to whom the child has been brought. An old man with an eagerand noble gesture seems to argue with Zacharias, holding the child thewhile by the shoulder, and Zacharias writes the name on his knee. Belowthis again is the Dance of Herodias, the first of these frescoes to beuncovered and ruined in the process. But even yet, in the perfectgrouping of the figures, the splendour of the viol player, thefrightened gaze of the servants, we may still see the very hand ofGiotto. 

But it is in the frescoes on the right wall that Giotto is seen at hishighest: it is the story of St. John the Divine; above he dreams onPatmos, below he raises Drusiana at the Gate of Ephesus, and is himselfreceived into heaven. Damaged though they be, there is nothing in allItalian art more fundamental, more simple, or more living than thesefrescoes. It is true that the Dream of St. John is almost ruined, andwhat we see to-day is very far from being what Giotto painted, but inthe Raising of Drusiana and in the Ascension of St. John we find agrandeur and force that are absent from painting till Giotto's time, andfor very many years after his death. The restorer has done his best toobliterate all trace of Giotto's achievement, especially in the frescoof Drusiana, but in spite of him we may see here Giotto's very work, theessence of it at any rate, its intention and the variety of his powersof expressing himself. 

The chapel nearest the choir was built by Ridolfo de' Bardi, it is said, sometime after 1310, [106] and it was for him that Giotto painted therethe story of St. Francis; while on the ceiling he has painted the threeFranciscan virtues, Poverty, Chastity, and Obedience, and in the fourthspace has set St. Francis in Glory, as he had done in a different mannerat Assisi. 

After the enthusiastic pages of Ruskin, [107] to describe these frescoes, beautiful still, in spite of their universal restoration, would besuperfluous. It will be enough to refer the reader to his pages, and toadd the subjects of the series. Above, on the left wall, St. Francisrenounces his father, while below he appears to the brethren at Arles, and under this we see his death. On the left above, Pope Honorius giveshim his Rule, and below, he challenges the pagan priests to the test ofthe fire before the Sultan, and appears to Gregory IX, who had thoughtto deny that he received the Stigmata. Beside the window Giotto haspainted four great Franciscans, St. Louis of Toulouse, St. Clare, St. Louis of France, and St. Elizabeth of Hungary. All these frescoes in theBardi Chapel are much more damaged by restoration than those in CappellaPeruzzi. 

In the choir, behind the high altar, Agnolo Gaddi, one of the two sonsof Taddeo, has painted, with a charm and brightness of colour that hidethe poor design, the story of the Holy Cross. It was at the request ofJacopo degli Alberti that Agnolo painted these eight frescoes, where theangel gives a branch of the Tree of Life from Eden to Seth, whom Adam, feeling his death at hand, had sent on this errand. Seth returns, however, only to find Adam dead, and the branch is planted on his grave. Then in the course of ages that branch grows to a tree, is hewn down, and, as the Queen of Sheba passes on her way to King Solomon, thecarpenters are striving to cut this wood for the Temple, but they rejectit and throw it into the Pool of Bethesda. And this rejected tree was atlength hewn into the Cross of Our Lord. Then comes Queen Helena to seekthat blessed wood, and finding the three crosses, and in ignorance whichwas that of Our Lord, commands that the dead body of a youth which isborne by shall be touched with them all, one after another. So they findthe True Cross, for at its touch the dead rises from his bier. Then theybear the cross before the Queen: till presently it is lost to Chosroes, King of Persia, who took Jerusalem "in the year of Our Lord six hundredand fifteen, " and bare away with him that part of the Holy Cross whichSt. Helena had left there. So he made a tower of gold and of silver, crusted with precious stones, and set the Cross of Our Lord before him, and commanded that he should be called God. Then Heraclius, the Emperor, went out against him by the river of Danube, and they fought the onewith the other upon the bridge, and agreed together that the victorshould be prince of the whole Empire: and God gave the victory toHeraclius, who bore the Cross into Jerusalem. So Agnolo Gaddi haspainted the story in the choir of S. Croce. 

In the chapels on the north side of the choir there is but little ofinterest. And then one is a little weary of frescoes. If we return tothe south aisle and pass through the door between the Annunciation ofDonatello and the tomb of Leonardo Bruni, we shall come into thebeautiful cloisters of Arnolfo, where there will be sunshine and thesoft sky. Here, too, is the beautiful Cappellone that Brunellesco builtfor the Pazzi family, whose arms decorate the porch. Under a strange andbeautiful dome, which, as Burckhardt reminds us, Giuliano da Sangalloimitated in Madonna delle Carceri at Prato, Brunellesco has built achapel in the form almost of a Greek cross. And without, before it, hehas set, under a vaulted roof, a portico borne by columns, interruptedby a round arch. It is the earliest example, perhaps, of the newRenaissance architecture. Very fair and surprising it is with its friezeof angels' heads by Donatello, helped perhaps by Desiderio daSettignano. Within, too, you come upon Donatello's work again, in theFour Evangelists in the spandrels, and below them the Twelve Apostles. 

Walking in the cloisters, you find the great ancient refectory of theconvent itself, which has here been turned into a museum, while anotherpart of it is used as a barracks; and indeed the finest cloister of theEarly Renaissance, one of the loveliest works of Brunellesco, has alsobeen given up to the army of Italy. The museum contains much that, inits removal here or dilapidation, has lost nearly all its interest. Thebeautiful fresco of St. Eustace, said to be the work of Andrea Castagno, is yet full of delight, while here and there amid these old crucifixes, tabernacles, and frescoes, by pupils of Giotto long forgotten, somethingwill charm you by its sincerity or naïve beauty, so that you willforget, if only for a moment, the destruction that has befallen allaround you; the convent that once housed S. Bernardino of Siena, nownoisy with conscripts, the library housed in another convent, Dominicanonce, that like this has become a museum and public monument ofvandalism and rapacity. 

FOOTNOTES:

[104] Cf. Crowe and Gavalcaselle, _op. Cit. _ vol. Ii. P. 124. 

[105] Crowe and Cavalcaselle, _op. Cit. _ vol. Ii. P. 77. 

[106] Crowe and Cavalcaselle, _op. Cit. _ vol. Ii. P. 81. 

[107] _Mornings in Florence_, by John Ruskin. 

XVIII. FLORENCE

S. LORENZO

Something of the eager, restless desire for beauty, for antique beauty, so characteristic of the fifteenth century--for the security andstrength of just that, may be found in S. Lorenzo and S. Spirito, thosetwo churches which we owe to the genius of Brunellesco, and in them weseem to find the negation, as it were, of the puritan spirit, of allthat the Convent of S. Marco had come to mean: as though when, one dayat dawn, the peasants ploughing in some little valley in the hills, hadcome upon the gleaming white body of the witch Venus, in burning theprecious statue which had lain so long in the earth, they had not beenable altogether to destroy the spirit, free at last, which in the cooltwilight had escaped them to wander about the city. It is the spirit ofRome you come upon in S. Lorenzo, the old Rome of the Basilicas, thatwere but half Christian after all, and, still in ruin, seem to rememberthe Gods. 

A church has stood where S. Lorenzo stands certainly since pagan times, for at the beginning of the fourth century, one Giuliana, who had threedaughters but no son, vowed a church to St. Laurence if he would granther a son; and a son being born to her she founded S. Lorenzo, andcalled the child Laurence for praise. St. Ambrose is said to have comefrom Milan to consecrate the place, bringing with him certain relics, the bones of S. Agnola and S. Vitale, victims of the pagans which he hadfound in Bologna; while for sixty years, till 490, the body of S. Zenobio lay here. In those days, and until the last years of theeleventh century, S. Lorenzo stood without the walls, and when Cosimocame back to Florence, the old church, which had fallen into decay, wasalready being rebuilt, Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici, with others, havinggiven the work to Brunellesco. Filippo Brunellesco, however, had got nofarther, it seems, than the Sagrestia Vecchia when he died, whileAntonio Manetti, who succeeded him as architect, changed somewhat hisdesign. The church was consecrated at last in 1461, some three yearsbefore the death of Cosimo, who lies before the high altar. 

It is really as the resting-place of the Medici that we have come toconsider S. Lorenzo, for here lie not only Giovanni di Bicci andPiccarda, the parents of Cosimo Pater Patriae, and Cosimo himself, butPiero and Giovanni his sons, while in the new sacristy lie Giuliano andLorenzo il Magnifico his grandsons, and their namesakes Giuliano Duc deNemours and Lorenzo Due d'Urbino; and in the Cappella dei Principi, built in 1604 by Matteo Nigetti, lie the Grand Dukes from Cosimo I toCosimo III, the rulers of Florence and Tuscany from the sixteenth to thebeginning of the eighteenth centuries. 

The church itself is in the form of a Latin cross, consisting of naveand aisles and transepts, the nave being covered with a flat cofferedceiling, though the aisles are vaulted. Along the aisles are squarechapels, scarcely more than recesses, and above the great doors is achapel supported by pillars, a design of Michelangelo, who was to havebuilt the façade for Leo X, but, after infinite thought and work in themarble mountains, the Pope bade him abandon it in 1519. For many years asingle pillar, the only one that ever came to Florence of all those hewnfor the church in Pietrasanta, lay forlorn in the Piazza. 

Those chapels that flank the aisles have to-day but little interest forus, here and there a picture or a piece of sculpture, but nothing thatwill keep us for more than a moment from the chapels of the transept, the work of Desiderio da Settignano, of Verrocchio, and, above all, ofDonatello. It is all unaware to the tomb of this the greatest sculptor, and in many ways the most typical artist, Florence ever produced, thatwe come, when, standing in front of the high altar, we read theinscription on that simple slab of stone which marks the tomb of CosimoVecchio; for Donatello lies in the same vault with his great patron. Amodern monument in the Martelli Chapel, where the beautiful Annunciationby Lippo Lippi hangs under a crucifix by Cellini, in the left transept, commemorates him; but he needs no such reminder here, for about us ishis beautiful and unforgetable work: not perhaps the two ambones, whichhe only began on his return from Padua when he was sixty-seven yearsold, and which were finished by his pupils Bertoldo and Bellano, but thework in the old sacristy built in 1421 by Brunellesco. How rough is themodelling in the ambone reliefs, as though really, as Bandinelli hassaid, the sight of the old sculptor was failing; and yet, in spite ofage and the intervention of his pupils, how his genius asserts itself ina certain rhythm and design in these tragic panels, where, under afrieze of dancing _putti_, --loves or angels I know not, --of bulls andhorses, he has carved the Agony in the Garden, Christ before Pilate, andagain before Caiaphas, the Crucifixion, the Deposition, in the southernambone; while in the northern we find the Descent into Hades, where JohnBaptist welcomes our Lord, who draws forth Adam, and, as Dante records, Abel too, and Noah, Moses, Abraham, and David, Isaac and Jacob and hissons, not without Rachel, _E altri molti, e fecegli beati_, theResurrection and the Ascension, the Maries at the Tomb, the Pentecost. It is another and very different work you come upon in the Cantoria, which, lovely though it be, seems to be rather for a sermon than forsinging, so cold it is, and yet full enough of his perfect feeling forconstruction, for architecture. It has a rhythm of its own, but it isthe rhythm of prose, not of poetry. 

The old sacristy, which is full of him--for indeed all the decorativework seems to be his--is one of the first buildings of the Renaissance, the beautiful work of Filippo Brunelleschi. Covered by a polygonal dome, the altar itself stands under another dome, low and small; andeverywhere Donatello has added beauty to beauty, the two friends foronce combining to produce a masterpiece, though not, as it is said, without certain differences between them. "Donatello undertook todecorate the sacristy of S. Lorenzo in stucco for Cosimo de' Medici, "Vasari tells us. "In the angles of the ceiling he executed fourmedallions, the ornaments of which were partly painted in perspective, partly stories of the Evangelists[108] in basso-relievo. In the sameplace he made two doors of bronze in basso-relievo of most exquisiteworkmanship: on these doors he represented the apostles, martyrs, andconfessors, and above these are two shallow niches, in one of which areS. Lorenzo and S. Stefano; in the other, S. Cosimo and S. Damiano. " Thesacristy, according to Vasari, was the first work proceeded with in thechurch. Cosimo took so much pleasure in it that he was almost alwayshimself present, and such was his eagerness, that while Brunellescobuilt the sacristy, he made Donatello prepare the ornaments in stucco, "with the stone decorations of the small doors and the doors of bronze. "And it is in these bronze doors that, as it seems to me, you have Donatoat his best, full of energy and life, yet never allowing himself for amoment to forget that he was a sculptor, that his material was bronzeand had many and various beauties of its own, which it was his businessto express. There are two doors, one on each side of the altar, andthese doors are made in two parts, and each part is divided into fivepanels. With a loyalty and apprehension of the fitness of things reallybeyond praise, Donatello has here tried to do nothing that was outsidethe realm of sculpture. It was not for him to make the Gates ofParadise, but the gates of a sacristy in S. Lorenzo. His work is indirect descent from the work of the earliest Italian sculptors, alegitimate and very beautiful development of their work within theconfines of an art which was certainly sufficient to itself. Consider, then, the naturalism of that figure who opens his book on his knees sosuddenly and with such energy; or again, the exquisite reluctance of himwho in the topmost panel turns away from the preaching of the apostle. Certainly here you have work that is simple, sincere, full of life andenergy, and is beautiful just because it is perfectly fitting andwithout affectation. [109] In one of the two small rooms which are oneach side of the sacristy, having the altar between them, Brunellesco byCosimo's orders made a well. Here, Vasari tells us later, Donato placeda marble lavatory, on which Andrea Verrocchio also worked; but theLavabo we find there to-day seems very doubtfully Donatello's. 

In the centre of the sacristy itself, Vasari tells us, Cosimo caused thetomb of his father Giovanni to be made beneath a broad slab of marble, supported by four columns; and in the same place he made a sepulchre forhis family, wherein he separated the tombs of the men from those of thewomen. But again this work too seems, in spite of Vasari, to belongrather uncertainly to Donatello. It is very rare to find a detached tombin Italy, and rarer still to find it under a table, where it is verydifficult to see it properly, and the care and beauty that have beenspent upon it might seem to be wasted. It is perhaps rather Buggiano'shand than Donato's we see even in so beautiful a thing as this, whichDonatello may well have designed. The beautiful bust of S. Lorenzo overthe doorway is, however, the authentic work of Donato himself. Full ofeagerness, S. Lorenzo looks up as though to answer some request, and togrant it. 

The splendid porphyry sarcophagus set in bronze before a bronze screenof great beauty, by Verocchio, is certainly one of the finest thingshere. Every leaf and curl of the foliage seem instinct with somesplendid life, seem to tremble almost with the fierceness of theirvitality. There lie Giovanni and Piero de' Medici, the uncle and fatherof Lorenzo il Magnifico. Close by you may see a relief of CosimoVecchio, their father. 

The cloisters, where Lorenzo walked often enough, are beautiful, andthen from them one passes so easily into the Laurentian Library, foundedby Cosimo Vecchio, and treasured and added to by Piero and Lorenzo ilMagnifico, but scattered and partly destroyed by the vandalism andfutile stupidity of Savonarola and his puritans in 1494. Savonarola, however, was a cleverer demagogue than our Oliver (it is well toremember that he was a Dominican), for he persuaded the Signoria to lethim have such of the MSS. As he could find for the library of S. Marco. The honour of such a person is perhaps not worth discussing, but we mayremind ourselves what Cosimo had done for S. Marco, and how he had builtthe library there. In 1508 the friars turned these stolen goods intomoney, selling them back to Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici, who was soonto be Leo X, who carried them to Rome. Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, laterClement VII, presented Leo's collection to the Laurentian Library, whichhe had bidden Michelangelo to rebuild. This was interrupted by theunfortunate business of 1527, and it was not till Cosimo I came that thelibrary was finished. Perhaps the most precious thing here is thePandects of Justinian, taken by the Pisans from Amalfi in 1135, andseized by the Florentines when they took Pisa in 1406. Amalfi prizedthese above everything she possessed, Pisa was ready to defend them withher life, Florence spent hundreds of thousands of florins to possessherself of them--for in them was thought to lie the secret of the law ofRome. Who knows what Italy, under the heel of the barbarian, does notowe to these faded pages, and through Italy the world? They were, as itwere, the symbol of Latin civilisation in the midst of German barbarism. Here too is that most ancient Virgil which the French stole in 1804. Here is Petrarch's Horace and a Dante transcribed by Villani; and, bestof all, the only ancient codex in the world of what remains to us ofAeschylus, of what is left of Sophocles. It is in such a place that wemay best recognise the true greatness of the abused Medici. Tyrantsthey may have been, but when the mob was tyrant it satisfied itself withdestroying what they with infinite labour had gathered together for theadvancement of learning, the civilisation of the world. What, then, wasthat Savonarola whom all have conspired to praise, whose windyprophecies, whose blasphemous cursings men count as so precious? Intruth in his fashion he was but a tyrant too--a tyrant, and a poor one, and therefore the more dangerous, the more disastrous. To the Medici weowe much of what is most beautiful in Florence--the loveliest work ofBotticelli, of Brunellesco, of Donatello, of Lippo Lippi, ofMichelangelo, and the rest, to say nothing of such a pricelesscollection of books and MSS. As this. Is, then, the work of MarsilioFicino nothing, the labours of a thousand forgotten humanists? What dowe owe to Savonarola? He burnt the pictures which to his sensual mindsuggested its own obscenity; he stole the MSS. , and no doubt would havedestroyed them too, to write instead his own rhetorical andextraordinary denunciations of what he did not understand. Who can denythat when he proposed to give freedom to Florence he was dreaming of anew despotism, the despotism, if not of himself, of that Jesus whom hebelieved had inspired him, and on whom he turned in his rage? That hewas brave we know, but so was Cataline; that he believed in himself welike to believe, and so did Arius of Alexandria; that he carried thepeople with him is certain, and so did they who crucified Jesus; butthat he was a turbulent fellow, a puritan, a vandal, a boaster, awind-bag, a discredited prophet, and a superstitious failure, we alsoknow, as he doubtless did at last, when the wild beast he had roused hadhim by the throat, and burnt him in the fire he had invoked. Hispolitical ideas were beneath contempt; they were insincere, as heproved, and they were merely an excuse for riot. He bade, or is said tohave bidden, Lorenzo restore her liberty to Florence. When, then, hadFlorence possessed this liberty, of which all these English writers whosentimentalise over this unique and unfortunate Ferrarese traitor speakwith so much feeling and awe? Florence had never possessed politicalliberty of any sort whatever; she was ruled by the great families, bythe guilds, by an oligarchy, by a despot. She was never free till shelost herself in Italy in 1860. Socially she was freer under the Medicithan she was before or has been since. [110] In the production of uniquepersonalities a sort of social freedom is necessary, and Florence underthe earlier Medici might seem to have produced more of such men than anyother city or state in the history of the world, saving Athens in thetime of the despot Pericles. The happiest period in the history ofAthens was that in which he was master, even as the greatest and mostfortunate years in the history of the Florentine state were those inwhich Cosimo, Piero, and Lorenzo ruled in Florence. And when at lastLorenzo died, the Pope saw very clearly that on that day had passed away"the peace of Italy. " It is to the grave of this great and unique manyou come when leaving the cloisters of S. Lorenzo, and passing round thechurch into Piazza Madonna, you enter the Cappella Medicea, and, ascending the stairs on the left, find again on the left the newsacristy, built in 1519 by Michelangelo. Lorenzo lies with his murderedbrother Giuliano, who fell under the daggers of the Pazzi on that Eastermorning in the Duomo, between the two splendid and terrible tombs of hissuccessors, under an unfinished monument facing the altar; a beautifulMadonna and Child, an unfinished work by Michelangelo, and the twoMedici Saints, S. Damian by Raffaello da Montelupo, and S. Cosmas byMontorsoli. It is not, however, this humble and almost nameless gravethat draws us to-day to the Sagrestia Nuova, but the monument carved byMichelangelo for two lesser and later Medici: Giuliano, Duc de Nemours, who died in 1516, and Lorenzo, Duc d'Urbino, who died in 1519. WhenLorenzo il Magnifico died at Careggi in April 1492, he left sevenchildren: Giovanni, who became Leo X; Piero, who succeeded him and wentinto exile; Giuliano, who returned; Lucrezia, who married GiacomoSalviati, and was grandmother of Cosimo I; Contessina, who marriedPiero Ridolfi; Maddalena, who married Francesco Cibo; and Maria, whomMichelangelo is said to have loved. Lorenzo's successor, Piero, did notlong retain the power his father had left him; he was vain andimpetuous, and, trying to rule without the Signoria, placed Pisa andLivorno in the hands of Charles VIII of France, who was on his carnivalway to Naples. Savonarola chased him out, and sacked the treasures ofhis house. He died in exile. It was his brother Giuliano who returned, Savonarola being executed in 1512. Giuliano was a better ruler than hisbrother, but he behaved like a despot till his brother Giovanni becamePope, when he resigned the government of Florence to his nephew Lorenzo, the son of Piero, and while he became Gonfaloniere of Rome andArchbishop, Lorenzo became Duke of Urbino and father of Catherine de'Medici of France. It is this Giuliano and Lorenzo de Medici thatMichelangelo has immortalised with an everlasting gesture of sorrow andcontempt. On the right is the tomb of Giuliano, and over it he sits forever as a general of the Church; on the left is Lorenzo's dust, cofferedin imperishable marble, over which he sits plotting for ever. Thestatues that Michelangelo has carved there have been called Night andDay, Twilight and Dawn; but indeed these names, as I have said, are fartoo definite for them: they are just a gesture of despair, of despair ofa world which has come to nothing. They are in no real sense of the wordpolitical, but rather an expression, half realised after all, of someimmense sadness, some terrible regret, which has fallen upon the soul ofone who had believed in righteousness and freedom, and had found himselfdeceived. It is not the house of Medici that there sees its own image ofdespair, but rather Florence, which had been content that such thingsshould be. Some obscure and secret sorrow has for a moment overwhelmedthe soul of the great poet in thinking of Florence, of the world, of thehearts of men, and as though trying to explain to himself his ownmelancholy and indignation, he has carved these statues, to which menhave given the names of the most tremendous and the most sweet ofnatural things--Night and Day, Twilight and Dawn; and even as in theSistine Chapel Michelangelo has thought only of Life, --of the Creationof Man, of the Judgment of the World, which is really theResurrection, --so here he has thought only of Death, of the death of thebody, of the soul, and of the wistful life of the disembodied spiritthat wanders disconsolate, who knows where?--that sleeps uneasily, whoknows how long?

FOOTNOTES:

[108] Not of the Evangelists, but of St. John: the medallions are theFour Evangelists. 

[109] See _Donatello_, by Lord Balcarres, p. 136 (London, 1904), where along comparison is made of the doors of Donatello, Ghiberti, and Lucadella Robbia. 

[110] Even politically, too, as Guicciardini tells us. 

XIX. FLORENCE

CHURCHES NORTH OF ARNO: OGNISSANTI--S. TRINITÀ--SS. APOSTOLI--S. STEFANO--BADIA--S. PIERO--S. AMBROGIO--S. MARIA MADDALENA DE'PAZZI--ANNUNZIATA--OSPEDALE DEGLI INNOCENTI--LO SCALZO--S. APOLLONIA--S. ONOFRIO--S. SALVI

To pass through Florence for the most part by the old ways, from churchto church, is too often like visiting forgotten shrines in a museum. Something seems to have been lost in these quiet places; it is butrarely after all that they retain anything of the simplicity which oncemade them holy. To their undoing, they have been found in possession ofsome beautiful thing which may be shown for money, and so some of themhave ceased altogether to exist as churches or chapels or convents; youfind yourself walking through them as through a gallery, and if youshould so far forget yourself as to uncover your head, some officialwill eagerly nudge you and say, "It is not necessary for the signore tobare his head: here is no longer a church, but a public monument. " Apublic monument! But indeed, as we know, the Italian "public" is nolonger capable of building anything that is beautiful. If it is a bridgethey need, it is not such a one as the Trinità that will be built, butsome hideous structure of iron, as in Pisa, Venice, and Rome. If it is amonument they wish to carve, they will destroy numberless infinitelyprecious things, and express themselves as vulgarly as the Germans coulddo, as in the monument of Vittorio Emmanuele at Rome, which is foundedon the ruined palaces of nobles, the convents of the poor. If it is aPiazza they must make, they are no longer capable of building such placeas Piazza Signoria, but prefer a hideous and disgusting clearing, suchas Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele in Florence. How often have I sat at thelittle cafe there on the far side of the square, wondering why the houseof Savoy should have brought this vandalism from Switzerland. Nor isthis strange monarchy content with broken promises and stolen dowries;in its grasping barbarism it must rename the most famous and splendidways of Italy after itself: thus the Corso of Rome has become CorsoUmberto Primo, and we live in daily expectation that Piazza Signoria ofFlorence will become Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele II. If that has not yetbefallen, it is surely an oversight; the Government has been so busyrenaming Roman places--the Villa Borghese, for instance--that Florencehas so far nearly escaped. Not altogether, however: beyond the Carrajabridge, just before the Pescaia in the Piazza Manin, is the suppressedconvent (now a barracks) of the Humiliati, that democratic brotherhoodwhich improved the manufacture of wool almost throughout Italy. What hasthe Venetian Jew, Daniel Manin, to do with them? Yet he is remembered bymeans of a bad statue, while the Humiliati and the Franciscans areforgotten: yet for sure they did more for Florence than he. But no doubtit would be difficult to remind oneself tactfully of those one hasrobbed, and a Venetian Jew looks more in place before a desecratedconvent than S. Francis would do. Like the rest of Italy, Florence seemsalways to forget that she had a history before 1860; yet here at leastshe should have remembered one of her old heroes, for in the conventgarden Giano della Bella, who fought at Campaldino, and wasanti-clerical too and hateful to the Pope, the hero of the Ordinances ofJustice, used to walk with his friends. _Perisca innanzi la città_, sayI, _che tante opere rie si sostengano_. By this let even Venetian Jews, to say nothing of Switzer princes, know how they are like to beremembered when their little day is over. 

[Illustration: OGNISSANTI]

It was in 1256 that the Humiliati founded here in Borgo Ognissanti theChurch of S. Caterina, and carved their arms, a woolpack fastened withropes, over the door. Originally founded by certain Lombard exiles inNorthern Germany, the Humiliati were at first at any rate a laybrotherhood, which had learned in exile the craft of weaving wool. Suchwool as was to be had in Tuscany, a land of olives and vines, almostwithout pasture, was poor enough, and it seems to have been only afterthe advent of the Humiliati that the great Florentine industry began toassert itself, foreign wools being brought in a raw state to the cityand sold, dressed and woven into cloth, in all the cities of Europe andthe East. This brotherhood, however, in 1140 formed itself into aReligious Order under a Bull of Innocent III, and though from that timethe brethren seem no longer to have worked at their craft themselves, they directed the work of laymen whom they enrolled and employed, busying themselves for the most part with new inventions and themanagement of what soon became an immense business. Their fame wasspread all over Italy, for, as Villari tells us, [111] "wherever a houseof their Order was established, the wool-weaving craft immediately madeadvance, " so that in 1239 the Commune of Florence invited them toestablish a house near the city, as they did in S. Donato a Torri, whichwas given them by the Signoria. By 1250 we read that the Guild Masterswere already grumbling at their distance from the city, so that theyremoved to S. Lucia sul Prato, under promise of exemption from alltaxes; and in 1256 they founded a church and convent in BorgoOgnissanti. The Church of S. Lucia sul Prato still stands, but theHumiliati were robbed of it in 1547 by Cosimo I, who, strangely enough, had taken the old convent of S. Donato a Torri from the friars who hadacquired it, in order to build a fortification, and now wished to givethem the Church of S. Lucia sul Prato. It is said that the friars beganto build their convent, but four years later abandoned the work, removing to S. Jacopo on the other side Arno. However this may be, theFranciscans certainly succeeded the Humiliati in their convent in BorgoOgnissanti about this time, and in 1627 they rebuilt S. Caterina, renaming it S. Salvadore. To-day there is but little worth seeing inthis seventeenth-century church, --a St. Augustine by Botticelli, a St. Jerome and two large frescoes by Domenico Ghirlandajo, --but in the oldrefectory of the convent, which has now become a barracks, is DomenicoGhirlandajo's fresco of the Last Supper. 

Passing from Ognissanti down the Borgo to Piazza Ponte alla Carraja, youcome to the great palace built by Michelozzo for the Ricasoli family: itis now the Hotel New York. Thence you turn into Via di Parione behindthe palace, where at No. 7 you pass the Palazzo Corsini, coming at lastinto Via Tornabuoni, where at the corner is the Church of S. Trinitàfacing the Piazza. 

This beautiful and very ancient church stands on the site of an oratoryof S. Maria dello Spasimo, destroyed, as it is said, in the tenthcentury. It was built by the monks of Vallombrosa, and was therefore inthe hands of Benedictines. Here, in the Cappella Sassetti, DomenicoGhirlandajo has painted the Life of S. Francis; but it is not with hiscommonplace treatment, often irrelevant enough, of a subject whichGiotto had already used with genius, that we are concerned, but perhapswith the fresco above the altar, and certainly with the marvellousportraits of Sassetti and Nera Cosi his wife, on either side. Here inthis portrait for once Ghirlandajo seems to have escaped from thelimitations of his cleverness, and to have really expressed himself sothat his talent becomes something more than talent, is full of life andcharm, and only just fails to convince us of his genius. 

Many another delightful or surprising thing may be found in the oldchurch, which has more than once suffered from restoration. In a chapelin the right aisle Lorenzo Monaco has painted the Annunciation, while, close by, you may see a beautiful altar by Benedetto da Rovezzano. Overthe high altar is the crucifix which bowed to S. Giovanni Gualberto, who forbore to slay his brother's murderer; but the chief treasure ofthe church is the tomb in the left transept of Benozzo Federighi, Bishopof Fiesole, by Luca della Robbia. It was in the year 1450 that Lucafinished his most perfect work in marble--begun and finished, as it issaid, within the year--the tomb of Bishop Federighi. And here, as onemight almost expect, remembering his happy expressive art in many aterra-cotta up and down in Italy, he has thought of death almost withcheerfulness, not as oblivion, but as just sleep after labour. Amid aprofusion of natural things--fruits, garlands, grapes--the old man lieshalf turned towards us, at rest at last. Behind him Luca has carved aPietà, and beneath two angels unfold the name of the dead man. The tombwas removed hither from S. Francesco di Paolo. 

Passing now under the Column of the Trinità across the Piazza betweenthe two palaces, Bartolini Salimbeni and Buondelmonte on the left, andPalazzo Spini on the right, you come into Borgo Santi Apostoli, where, facing the Piazzetta del Limbo, is the little church de' Santi Apostoli, which, if we may believe the inscription on the façade, was founded byCharlemagne and consecrated by Turpin before Roland and Oliver. Howeverthat may be, it is, with the exception of the Baptistery, the oldestchurch on this side Arno, and already existed outside the first walls ofthe city. Within, the church is beautiful, and indeed Brunellesco isreported by Vasari to have taken it as a model for S. Lorenzo and S. Spirito. In the sacristy lies the stone which Mad Pazzi brought fromJerusalem, and from which the Easter fire is still struck in the Duomo;while in the chapel to the left of the high altar is a beautifulTabernacle by the della Robbia, and a monument to Otto Altoviti byBenedetto da Rovezzano. The Altoviti are buried here, and their palace, which Benedetto built for them, is just without to the south. 

This Borgo SS. Apostoli and the Via Lambertesca which continues it areindeed streets of old palaces and towers. Here the Buondelmonti lived, and the Torre de' Girolami, where S. Zanobi is said to have dwelt, still stands, while Via Lambertesca is full of remembrance of the lesserguilds. Borgo SS. Apostoli passes into Via Lambertesca at the corner ofPor S. Maria, where of old the great gate of St. Mary stood in the firstwalls, and the Amidei had their towers. It must have been just here theStatue of Mars was set, under the shadow of which Buondelmonte wasmurdered so brutally; and thus, as Bandello tells us, following Villani, began the Guelph and Ghibelline factions in Florence. 

Just out of Via Lambertesca, on the left, is the little Church of S. Stefano and S. Cecilia--S. Cecilia only since the end of the eighteenthcentury, when that church was destroyed in Piazza Signoria; but S. Stefano, _ad portam ferram_, since the thirteenth century at any rate. This church seems to have been confused by many with the little SantoStefano, still, I think, a parish church, though now incorporated withthe abbey buildings, of the Badia. You pass out of Via Lambertesca byVia de' Lanzi, coming thus into Piazza Signoria; then, passing PalazzoUguccione, you take Via Condotta to the right, and thus come into Viadel Proconsolo at the Abbey gate. 

Here in this quiet Benedictine house one seems really to be back in anolder world, to have left the noise and confusion of to-day far behind, and in order and in quiet to have found again the beautiful things thatare from of old. The Badia, dedicated to S. Maria Assunta, was foundedin 978 by Countess Willa, the mother of Ugo of Tuscany, [112] and wasrebuilt in 1285 by Arnolfo di Cambio. The present building is, however, almost entirely a work of the seventeenth century, though the beautifultower was built in 1328. Here still, however, in spite of rebuilding, you may see the tomb of the Great Marquis by Mino da Fiesole. "It waserected, " says Mr. Carmichael, "at the expense of the monks, not ofthe Signoria.... Ugo died in 1006, on the Feast of St. Thomas theApostle, December 21, and every year on that date a solemn requiem forthe repose of his soul is celebrated in the Abbey Church. His helmet andbreast-plate are always laid upon the catafalque. In times past--down to1859, I think--a young Florentine used on this occasion to deliver apanegyric on the Great Prince. I have heard ... That the mass is nolonger celebrated. That is not so; but since the city has ceased to careabout it, it takes place quietly at seven in the morning, instead ofwith some pomp at eleven. Then again, it is said that the monks haveallowed the panegyric to drop. That too is not the case; it was not theybut the Florentines who were pledged to this pious office, and it is thelaity alone who have allowed it to fall into desuetude. "

[Illustration: VIA POR. S. MARIA]

Even here we cannot, however, escape destruction and forgetfulness. Themonastery has been turned into communal schools and police courts; theabbot has become a parish priest, and his abbey has been taken from him;there are but four monks left. But in the steadfast, unforgetful eyes ofthat Church which has already outlived a thousand dynasties, and besidewhom every Government in the world is but a thing of yesterday, theAbbot of S. Maria is abbot still, and no parish priest at all. It isnot, however, such things as this that will astonish the English orAmerican stranger, whose pathetic faith in "progress" is the onetouching thing about him. He has come here not to think of deprivedBenedictines, or to stand by the tomb of Ugo, of whom he never heard, but to see the masterpiece of Filippino Lippi, the Madonna and St. Bernard, with which a thousand photographs have already made himfamiliar. Painted in 1480, when Filippino was still, as we may suppose, under the influence of Botticelli, it was given by Piero del Pugliese toa church outside Porta Romana, and was removed here in 1529 during thesiege. 

Passing down Via della Vigna Vecchia, you come at last to the littleChurch of S. Simone, which the monks of the Badia built about 1202, intheir vineyards then, and just within the second walls. At the beginningof the fourteenth century it became a parish church, but was only takenfrom them at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Within, there isan early picture of Madonna, which comes from the Church of S. PieroMaggiore, now destroyed. You may reach the Piazza di S. Piero (for itstill bears that name) if you turn into Via di Mercatino. Here thebishops of Florence were of old welcomed to the city and installed inthe See. Thither came all the clergy of the diocese to take part in astrange and beautiful ceremony. Attached to the church was a Benedictineconvent, whose abbess seems to have represented the diocese of Florence. There in S. Piero the Archbishop came to wed her, and thus became theguardian of the city. The church is destroyed now, and, as we have seen, all the monks and nuns have departed; the Government has stolen theirdowries and thrust them into the streets. Well might the child, passingS. Felice, cry before this came to pass, O bella Libertà! But S. Pierowas memorable for other reasons too beside this mystic marriage. Therelay Luca della Robbia, Lorenzo di Credi, Mariotto Albertinelli, Piero diCosimo: where is their dust to-day? As we look at their work in thegalleries and churches, who cares what has happened to them, or whethersuch graves as theirs are rifled or no? Yet not one of them but has donemore for Italy than Vittorio Emmanuele; not one of them, O Italia Nuova, but is to-day filling your pockets with gold, while he is nothing in thePantheon; yet their graves are rifled and forgotten, and him you haveplaced on the Capitol. 

It is to another Benedictine convent you come down Via Pietrapiana, pastBorgo Allegri, whence the Florentines say they bore Cimabue's Madonna intriumph to S. Maria Novella. It is a pity, truly, that it is not hispicture that is in the Rucellai Chapel to-day, and that the name of theBorgo does not come from that rejoicing, but from the Allegri family, who here had their towers. Yet here Cimabue lived, and Ghiberti andAntonio Rossellino. Who knows what beauty has here passed by?

The Benedictine Church and Convent at end of Via Pietrapiana isdedicated to S. Ambrogio. It was the first convent of nuns built inFlorence, and dates certainly from the eleventh century. Like the rest, it has been suppressed, and indeed destroyed. To-day it is nothing, having suffered restoration, beside the other violations. Within, Verrocchio was buried, and in the Cappella del Miracolo, where in thethirteenth century a priest found the chalice stained with Christ'sblood, is the beautiful altar by Mino da Fiesole. The church is full ofold frescoes by Cosimo Rosselli, Raffaellino del Garbo, and such, and isworth a visit, if only for the work of Mino and the S. Sebastian ofLeonardo del Tasso. 

It is to another desecrated Benedictine convent you come when, passingthrough Via dei Pilastrati and turning into Via Farina, you come at lastin Via della Colonna to S. Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi. This too is now abarracks and a school. It was not, however, the nuns who commissionedPerugino to paint for them his masterpiece, the Crucifixion, in therefectory, but some Cistercian monks who had acquired the convent in thethirteenth century. Perugino was painting there in 1496. More than ahundred years later, Pope Urban VIII, who had some nieces in theCarmelite Convent on the other side Arno, persuaded the monks toexchange their home for the Carmine. S. Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi, whowas born Lucrezia, had died in 1607, and later been canonised, so thatwhen the nuns moved here they renamed the place after her. The body ofS. Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi, however, no longer lies in this desecratedconvent, for the little nuns have carried it away to their new home inPiazza Savonarola. There in that place, always so full of children, certain Florentine ladies have nobly built a little church and quiethouse, where those who but for them might have been in the street maystill innocently pray to God. 

There, in 1496, as I have said, Perugino finished the fresco of theCrucifixion that he had begun some years before in the chapter-house ofthe old S. Maria Maddalena. In almost perfect preservation still, thisfresco on the wall of that quiet and empty room is perhaps the mostperfect expression of the art of Perugino--those dreams of the countryand of certain ideal people he has seen there; Jesus and His disciples, Madonna and Mary Magdalen, sweet, smiling, and tearful ghosts passing inthe sunshine, less real than the hills, all perhaps that the world wasable to bear by way of remembrance of those it had worshipped once, butwas beginning to forget. And here at last, in this fresco, the landscapehas really become of more importance than the people, who breathe thereso languidly. The Crucifixion has found something of the expressiveness, the unction of a Christian hymn, something of the quiet beauty of theMass that was composed to remind us of it; already it has passed awayfrom reality, is indeed merely a memory in which the artist has seensomething less and something more than the truth. 

Divided into three compartments, we see through the beautiful roundarches of some magic casement, as it were, the valleys and hills ofItaly, the delicate trees, the rivers and the sky of a country that isholy, which man has taken particularly to himself. And then, as thoughsummoned back from forgetfulness by the humanism of that landscape wherethe toil and endeavour of mankind is so visible in the little city faraway, the cultured garden of the world, a dream of the Crucifixion comesto us, a vision of all that man has suffered for man, summed up, as itwere, naturally enough by that supreme sacrifice of love; and we see notan agonised Christ or the brutality of the priests and the soldiers, butJesus, who loved us, hanging on the Cross, with Mary Magdalen kneelingat his feet, and on the one side Madonna and St. Bernard, and on theother St. John and St. Benedict. And though, in a sort of symbolism, Perugino has placed above the Cross the sun and the moon eclipsed, thewhole world is full of the serene and perfect light of late afternoon, and presently we know that vision of the Crucifixion will fade away, and there will be left to us only that which we really know, and haveheard and seen, the valleys and the hills, the earth from which we aresprung. 

There are but six figures in the whole picture, and it is just thisspaciousness, perhaps, earth and sky counting for so much, that makesthis work so delightful. For it is not from the figures at all that wereceive the profoundly religious impression that this picture makes uponall who look unhurriedly upon it; but from the earth and sky, where inthe infinite clear space God dwells, no longer hanging upon a Crosstortured by men who have unthinkably made so terrible a mistake, butjoyful in His heaven, moving in every living thing He has made; visibleonly in the invisible wind that passes over the streams suddenly atevening, or subtly makes musical the trees at dawn, walking as of old inHis garden, where one day maybe we shall meet Him face to face. 

Turning down Via di Pinti to the left, and then to the right along ViaAlfani, we pass another desecrated monastery in S. Maria degli Angioli, once a famous house of the monks of Camaldoli. This monastery hassuffered many violations, and is scarcely worth a visit, perhaps, unlessit be to see the fresco of Andrea del Castagno in the cloister, and toremind ourselves that here, in the fifteenth century, Don AmbrogioTraversari used to lecture in the humanities, a cynical remembranceenough to-day. 

If we take the second street to the right, Via de' Servi, we shall comeat once into the beautiful Piazza della Santissima Annunziata. Before usis the desecrated convent of the Servites, now turned into a school, andthe Church of SS. Annunziata itself, now the most fashionable church inFlorence. On the left and right are the beautiful arcades ofBrunellesco, decorated by the della Robbia; the building on the left isnow used for private houses, that on the right is the Ospedale degliInnocenti. The equestrian statue was made by Giovanni da Bologna, andrepresents Ferdinando I. 

The Order of Servites, whose church and convent are before us, wasoriginally founded by seven Florentines of the Laudesi, that Compagniadi S. Michele in Orto which built Madonna a shrine by the art of Orcagnain Or S. Michele, as we have seen. "I Servi di Maria" they were called, and, determined to quit a worldly life, they retired to a little housewhere now S. Croce stands; and later, finding that too near the city, went over the hills of Fiesole beyond Pratolino, founding a hermitage onMonte Senario. And I, who have heard their bells from afar at sunset, why should I be sorry that they are no longer in the city. Well, onMonte Senario, be sure, they lived hardly enough on the charity ofFlorence, so that at last they built a little rest-house just withoutthe city, where SS. Annunziata stands to-day. But in those days Florencewas full of splendour and life; it had no fear of the Orders, and evenloved them, giving alms. Presently the Servi di Maria were able to buildnot a rest-house only, but a church and a convent, and then they whoserved Madonna were not forgotten by her, for did she not give themmiraculously a picture of her Annunciation, so beautiful and full ofgrace that all the city flocked to see it? Thus it used to be. To-day, as I have said, SS. Annunziata is the fashionable church of Florence. The ladies go in to hear Mass; the gentlemen lounge in the cloister andawait them. It is not quite our way in England, but then the sun is notso kind to us. It is true that on any spring morning you may see thecloister filled with laughing lilies to be laid at Madonna's feet; butwho knows if she be not fled away with her Servi to Monte Senario?Certainly those bells were passing glad and very sweet, and they wereringing, too, the Angelus. 

However that may be, a committee, we are told, of which Queen Margheritais patron here, "renders a programme of sacred music, chiefly Massesfrom the ancient masters, admirably executed. " It is comforting to ourEnglish notions to know that "The subscribers have the right to aprivate seat in the choir, and the best society of Florence is to be metthere. "

And then, here are frescoes by Cosimo Rosselli, Andrea del Sarto, underglass too, a Nativity of Christ by Alessio Baldovinetti, not underglass, which seems unfair; and what if they be the finest work ofAndrea, since you cannot see them. Within, the church is spoiled andvery ugly. On the left is the shrine of Madonna, carved by Michelozzo, to the order of Piero de' Medici, decorated with all the spoils of theGrand Dukes. Ah no, be sure Madonna is fled away!

Passing out of the north transept, you come into the cloisters. Here is, I think, Andrea's best work, the Madonna del Sacco, and the tomb of aFrench knight slain at Campaldino. 

Passing out of the SS. Annunziata into S. Maria degli Innocenti, we cometo a beautiful picture by Domenico Ghirlandajo in the great altarpiece, the Adoration of the Magi, painted in 1488. Though scarcely so lovely asthe Adoration of the Shepherds in the Accademia, perhaps spoiled alittle by over cleaning and restoration, it is one of the most simpleand serene pictures in Florence. The predella to this picture is in theOspedale; it represents the Marriage of the Virgin, the Presentation inthe Temple, the Baptism and Entombment of Our Lord. There, too, is areplica of the Madonna of Lippo Lippi in the Uffizi. 

The Ospedale degli Innocenti was founded in 1421 by the Republic, urgedthereto by that Leonardo Bruni who is buried in S. Croce in the tomb byRossellino. It appears to have been already open in 1450, and wasapparently under the government of the Guild of Silk, for their arms arejust by the door. It is said to have been the first of its kind inEurope; originally meant for the reception of illegitimatechildren--Leonardo da Vinci, for instance--it is to-day ready to receiveany poor little soul who has come unwanted into the world; it cares formore than a thousand of such every year. 

Passing out of Piazza degli SS. Annunziata through Via di Sapienza intoPiazza di S. Marco, we pass the desecrated convent of the Dominicans, where Savonarola, Fra Antonino, and Fra Angelico lived, now a museum onthe right; and passing to the right into Via Cavour, come at No. 69 tothe Chiostro dello Scalzo. This is a cloister belonging to theBrotherhood of St. John, which was suppressed in the eighteenth century. The Brotherhood of St. John seems to have come about in this way. WhenFrate Elias, who succeeded S. Francesco as Minister of the FranciscanOrder, began to rule after his own fashion, the Order was divided intotwo parts, consisting of those who followed the Rule and those who didnot. The first were called Observants, the second Conventuals. TheOsservanti, or Observants, remained poor, and observed all the fasts;perhaps their greatest, certainly their most widely known Vicar-Generalwas S. Bernardino of Siena. In France the Osservanti were known as theRecollects, and the reform there having been introduced by John de laPuebla, a Spaniard, about 1484, these brethren were known as theBrotherhood of John, or Discalced Friars. In Italy they were calledRiformati. All this confusion is now at an end, for Leo XIII, in theConstitution "Felicitate quadam, " in 1897 joined all the Observants intoone family, giving them again the most ancient and beautiful of theirnames, the Friars Minor. 

Here, where these little poor men begged or prayed, Andrea del Sarto wasappointed to paint in grisaille scenes from the life of John theBaptist. They have been much injured by damp, and in fact are notaltogether Andrea's work. 

Returning down Via Cavour, if we turn into Via Ventisette Aprile we cometo two more desecrated convents, --that of S. Caterina, now the CommandoMilitare, and facing it, S. Appolonia, now a magazine for militarystores. 

Here, in the refectory of the latter convent, where Michelangelo is saidto have had a niece, and for this cause to have built the nuns a door, is the fresco of the Last Supper by Andrea del Castagno; while on thewalls are some portraits, brought here from the Bargello, of Farinatadegli Uberti, Niccolò Acciaiuoli, and others. 

In another suppressed convent, S. Onofrio in Via Faenza, not far away(turn to the left down Via di S. Reparata, and then to the right intoVia Guelfa), is another Last Supper, supposed to be the work of a pupilof Perugino, --Morelli says Giannicolo Manni, who painted the miraclepicture of Madonna in the Duomo of Perugia. 

Another picture of the Last Supper--this by Andrea del Sarto--may befound in another desecrated monastery, founded in 1048 by theVallombrosans, the second monastery of the congregation, S. Salvi, justwithout the Barriera towards Settignano. It was in front of thismonastery that Corso Donati was killed in 1307. He was buried by themonks in the church, and four years later his body was borne away toFlorence by his family. This monastery is now turned into houses, andthe refectory with the Andrea del Sarto is become a national monument. Like many another desecrated church, convent, or religious house, theGovernment, as at S. Marco, Chiostro dello Scalzo, and S. Onofrio, charges you twenty-five centesimi to see their stolen goods. 

FOOTNOTES:

[111] Villari, _History of Florence_, London, 1905: p. 318. 

[112] The best account of this abbey I ever read in English is containedin a book full of similar good things, good English, and good pictures, called _The Old Road through France to Florence_, written by H. W. Nevinson and Montgomery Carmichael, and illustrated by Hallam Murray(Murray, London, 1904). 

XX. FLORENCE

OLTR'ARNO

The Sesto Oltr'arno, the Quartiere di S. Spirito as it was called later, was never really part of the city proper, but rather a suburbsurrounded, as Florence itself was, by wall and river. The home for themost part of the poor, though by no means without the towers and palacesof the nobles, it seems always to have lent itself readily enough to thehatching of any plot against the Government of the day. Here in 1343 thenobles made their last stand, here the signal was given for the Ciompirising, and here Luca Pitti built his palace to outdo the Medici. If youcross Arno by the beautiful bridge of S. Trinità, the first street toyour left will be Borgo S. Jacopo, the first palace that of theFrescobaldi, whom the Duke of Athens brought into Florence after theirexile. This palace, as well as the Church of S. Jacopo close by, whereGiano della Bella's death was plotted, were given in 1529 to theFranciscans of S. Salvatore, whose convent had suffered in the siege. S. Jacopo, which still retains a fine romanesque arcade, was originally afoundation of the eleventh century. It seems to have been entirelyrebuilt for the friars and the palace turned into a convent in 1580, andagain to have suffered restoration in 1790. Close by is a group of oldtowers, still picturesque and splendid. Turning thence back into ViaMaggio, and passing along Via S. Spirito and Via S. Frediano, you comeat last on the left into Piazza del Carmine, before the great church ofthat name. The church of the Carmine and the monastery now suppressedof the Carmelites across Arno were originally built in 1268, with thehelp of the great families whose homes were in this part of thecity, --the Soderini, the Nerli, the Serragli; it remained unfinished formore than two centuries, and in 1771 it was unhappily almost whollydestroyed by fire, only the sacristy and the Brancacci Chapel escaping. Famous now because there Fra Lippo Lippi lived, and there Masolino andMasaccio painted, it is in itself one of the most meretricious andworthless buildings of the eighteenth century, full of every sort offlamboyant ornament and insincere, uncalled-for decoration; and yet, inspite of every vulgarity, how spacious it is, as though even in thatevil hour the Latin genius could not wholly forget its delight in spaceand light. It is then really only the Brancacci Chapel in the southtransept that has any interest for us, since there, better than anywhereelse, we may see the work of two of the greatest masters of the firstyears of the Quattrocento. 

[Illustration: PONTE VECCHIO]

Masolino, according to Mr. Berenson, was born in 1384, and died after1423, while his pupil Masaccio was born in 1401, and died, one of theyoungest of Florentine painters, in 1428. Here in the Brancacci Chapelit might seem difficult to decide what may be the work of Masolino andwhat of his pupil, and indeed Crowe and Cavalcaselle have denied thatMasolino worked here at all. Later criticism, however, interested inwork that marks a revolution in Tuscan painting, has made it plain thatcertain frescoes here are undoubtedly from his hand, and Mr. Berensongives him certainly the Fall of Adam, the Raising of Tabitha, and theMiracle at the Golden Gate, above on the right, as well as the Preachingof St. Peter, above to the left on the altar wall. Masaccio's work ismore numerous, consisting of the Expulsion from the Temple and thePayment of the Tribute, above on the right, part of the fresco below thelast; St. Peter Baptizing, above to the left on the altar wall, as wellas the two frescoes, St. Peter and St. John healing the Sick, and St. Peter and St. John giving Alms, below on either side of the altar. Therest of the frescoes, the St. Paul visiting St. Peter in Prison, belowon the left, part of the fresco next to it, the Liberation of St. Peteropposite, and the St. Peter and St. Paul before Nero, and theCrucifixion of St. Peter, below on the right, are the work of FilippinoLippi. 

Masolino da Panicale of Valdelsa was, according to Vasari, a pupil ofLorenzo Ghiberti, and had been in his younger days a very goodgoldsmith. He was the best among those who helped Ghiberti in thelabours of the doors of S. Giovanni, but when about nineteen years ofage he seems to have devoted himself to painting, forsaking the art ofthe goldsmith, and placing himself under Gherardo della Starnina, thefirst master of his day. He is said to have gone to Rome, and some worksof his in S. Clemente would seem to prove this story; but finding hishealth suffer from the air of the Eternal City, he returned to Florence, and began to paint here in the Church of S. Maria del Carmine, thefigure of S. Piero beside the "Chapel of the Crucifixion, " which wasdestroyed in the fire of 1771. This S. Piero, Vasari tells us, wasgreatly commended by the painters of the time, and brought Masolino thecommission for painting the Chapel of the Brancacci family in the samechurch. Among the rest mentioned by Vasari, he speaks of the FourEvangelists on the roof here, which have now been ruined byover-painting and restoration. A man of an admirable genius, his studyand fatigues, Vasari tells us, so weakened him that he was alwaysailing, till he died at the age of thirty-seven. Yet in looking on hiswork to-day, beside that of Masaccio, one thinks less, I fancy, of his"study and fatigues, " of his structure and technique, than of theadmirable beauty of his work. Consider then those splendid young men inthe Raising of Tabitha, who pass by almost unconcerned, though one hasturned his head to see; the sheer loveliness of Eve and Adam, really forthe first time born again here naked and unashamed; or the easy andbeautiful gesture of the angel, who bids them begone out of the gate ofParadise. In Masaccio's work you will find a more splendid style, thereal majesty of the creator, a strangely sure generalisation andexpression; but in Masolino's work there still lingers something of themere beauty of Gentile da Fabriano, the particular personal lovelinessof things which you may know he has touched with a caress or seen alwayswith joy. 

Masaccio was born at Castello S. Giovanni, on the way to Arezzo. He wasthe son of a notary, Ser Giovanni di Simone Guidi, called dellaScheggia, and his first labours in art, Vasari tells us, were begun atthe time when Masolino was working at this chapel in the Carmine. He hadevidently been much impressed by the work of Donato, and, indeed, something of the realism of sculpture has passed into his work, in theSt. Peter Baptizing, for instance, where he who stands by the side ofthe pool, awaiting his turn, has much of the reality of a statue. Andthen with a magical sincerity Masaccio has understood the merediscomfort of such a delay in the cool air, and a shiver seems about topass over that body, which is as real to us as any figure in the work ofMichelangelo. Or again, in the fresco of the Tribute Money, how real andfull of energy these people are, --the young man with his back to us, whohas been interrupted; Jesus Himself, who has just interposed; Peter, whois protesting. How full of a real majesty is this composition, admirablycomposed, too, and original even in that. Here, it might seem, we havethe end of merely decorative painting, the beginning of realism, of theeffect of reality, and it is therefore with surprise we see so facile amaster as Filippino Lippi set to finish work of such elemental andtremendous genius. How pretty his work seems beside these realities. 

Coming out into the Piazza again, and turning to the left down Via S. Frediano, you come almost at once, on the right, to the Church of S. Frediano in Castello. You may enter it from Lung' Arno, but it wouldscarcely be worth a visit, for it is a late seventeenth-centurybuilding, save that in the convent may still be found the cell of S. Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi; for it was this convent that the Carmelitenuns exchanged with the Cistercians for the house in Via di Pinti, called to-day S. Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi, where Perugino painted hisbeautiful fresco of the Crucifixion. 

Just across the way is the Mercato di S. Frediano and the suppressedmonastery of the Camaldolese, now a school; and by this way you come toPorta S. Frediano, by which Charles VIII of France entered Florence andRinaldo degli Albizzi left it. The whole of this quarter is given up tothe poor and to the Madonna of the street corner, for here her childrendwell, the outcasts and refuse of civilisation who work that we maylive. It is always with reluctance, in spite of the children that I comeby this way, so that if possible I always return by Lung' Arno, pastTorrino di S. Rosa and the barracks of S. Friano and the grain store ofCosimo III, past the houses of the Soderini to Ponte alla Carraia, whichfell on Mayday 1304, sending so many to that other world they had comeout to see, and so past the house of Piero Capponi, the hero of 1494 whokept the Medici at bay, and threatened Charles VIII in the council; thenturning down Via Coverelli one comes to Santo Spirito. 

It was the Augustinian Hermits who, coming to Florence about 1260, bought a vineyard close to where Via Maggio, an abbreviation of ViaMaggiore, now is, from the Vellati family. Here they built a monasteryand a church, and dedicated them to the Santo Spirito, so that when thecity was divided into quartieri this Sestiere d'Oltrarno becameQuartiere di S. Spirito. In 1397, as it is said, they determined torebuild the place on a bigger scale, and to this end appointedBrunellesco their architect. The church was begun in 1433, and wasburned down in 1471, during the Easter celebrations, which wereparticularly splendid in that year owing to the visit of Galeazzo MariaSforza. It was rebuilt, however, in the next twenty years from thedesigns of Brunellesco, and is to-day the most beautifulfifteenth-century church in Florence, full of light and sweetness, veryspacious, too, and with a certain fortunate colour about it that givesit an air of cheerfulness and serenity beyond anything of the kind to befound in the Duomo or S. Lorenzo. And then, the Florentines have beencontent to leave it alone, --at any rate, so far as the unfinished façadeis concerned. It is in the form of a Latin cross, and suggests even yetin some happy way the very genius of the Latin people in its temperanceand delight in the sun and the day. The convent, it is true, has beendesecrated, and is now a barracks; most of the altars have been robbedof their treasures; but the church itself remains to us a very preciouspossession from that fifteenth century, which in Italy certainly was sofortunate, so perfect a dawn of a day that was a little disappointing, and at evening so disastrous. 

Of the works of art remaining in the nave, that spacious nave where onecould wander all day long, only the copy of Michelangelo's Pietà in St. Peter's will, I think, detain us for more than a moment. What is left tous of that far-away flower-like beauty of fifteenth-century painting andsculpture will be found in the great transept, that makes of the churcha cross of light, a temple of the sun. Here, amid many works of thattime given to Fra Lippo Lippi, Botticelli, Ghirlandajo, Donatello, andothers, in the south transept there is a Madonna with the family of de'Nerli by Filippino Lippi, and in the Capponi Chapel a fine portrait ofNeri Capponi, while in the next chapel Perugino's Vision of St. Bernard, now in Berlin, used to stand. Here, too, is a Statue of St. Sebastian, nearly always invisible, said to be from the hand of Donatello; in thechoir is a Madonna enthroned by Lorenzo di Credi. The sacristy isbeautiful, built by Giovanni da Sangallo, and the cloisters now spoiledare the work of Ammanati. And then, here Niccolò Niccoli is buried, thatgreat book-collector and humanist; while the barbarians are represented, if only by the passing figure of Martin Luther, not then forsworn, whois said to have preached here on his way to Rome. It is strange to thinkthat these beautiful pillars have heard his rough eloquence, aneloquence that was so soon to destroy the spirit that had conceivedthem. 

Close by in Piazza S. Spirito is Palazzo Guadagni, built for Ranieri Deiat the end of the fifteenth century by Cronaca. It was not, however, till 1684 that the Guadagni family came into possession of it. BernardoGuadagni, it will be remembered, was Gonfaloniere of Justice when Cosimode' Medici was expelled the city in 1433. Passing this palace andturning to the right into Via Mazzetta, you pass at the corner theChurch of S. Felice, which has been so often a refuge, --for at first theSylvestrians had it, and held it till the fourteenth century, when itpassed to the Camaldolese, from whom it passed again to a congregationof Dominican nuns and became a sort of refuge for women who had fledaway from their husbands. Within, you may find a few old pictures, aGiottesque Crucifixion, and a Madonna and Saints, a fifteenth-centurywork. Then, turning into Via Romana, you come, past the gardens of S. Piero in Gattolino, to the Porta Romana, the great gate of the ViaRomana, the way to Rome, and before you is the Hill of Gardens, andbehind you is the garden of the Pitti Palace, Giardino di Boboli, andfarther still, across Via Romana, the Giardino Torrigiani. 

The Boboli Gardens, with their alley ways of ilex, their cypresses andbroken statues, their forgotten fountains, are full of sadness--

 "Tout en chantant sur le mode mineur, L'amour vainqueur et la vie opportune, Ils n'ont pas l'air de croire à leur bonheur, Et leur chanson se mêle au clair de lune, "Au calme clair de lune triste et beau, Qui fait rêver les oiseaux dans les arbres, Et sangloter d'extase les jets d'eau, Les grands jets d'eau sveltes parmi les marbres. "

But the gardens of the Viale are in spring, at any rate, full of the joyof roses, banks, hedges, cascades of roses, armsful of them, drowsy inthe heat and heavy with sweetness. 

 "I'mi trovai, fanciulle, un bel mattino Di mezzo maggio, in un verde giardino. "

[Illustration: THE BOBOLI]

And if it be not the very place of which Poliziano sang in the mostbeautiful verses he ever wrote, certainly to-day there is nothing morelovely in Florence in spring, and in autumn too, than this Hill ofGardens. In autumn too; for then the way that winds there about thehills is an alley of gold, strewn with the leaves of the plane-treesthat the winds have scattered in countless riches under your feet; thatwhisper still in golden beauty over your head. There, as you walk inspring, while the city unfolds herself before you, a garden of roses inwhich a lily has towered, or in the autumn afternoons when she is caughtin silver mist, a city of fragile and delicate beauty, that is soon lostin the twilight, you may see Florence as she remains in spite of everyviolation, Città dei Fiori, Firenze la Bella Bellissima, the sweetPrincess of Italy. And, like the way of life, this road among theflowers ends in a graveyard, the graveyard of S. Miniato al Monte, underwhich nestles S. Salvatore, that little brown bird among the cypresses, over the grey olives. 

The story of S. Miniato makes one of the more quiet chapters of Villani. "Our city of Florence, "[113] he tells you, returning from I know notwhat delightful digression, "was ruled long time under the governmentand lordship of the Emperors of Rome, and oft-times the Emperors came tosojourn in Florence, when they were journeying into Lombardy and intoGermany and into France to conquer provinces. And we find that Deciusthe Emperor, in the first year of his reign, which was in the year ofChrist 270, was in Florence, the treasure-house and chancelry of theempire, sojourning there for his pleasure; and the said Decius cruellypersecuted the Christians wheresoever he could hear of them or find themout, and he heard tell how the blessed S. Miniato was living as ahermit, near to Florence, with his disciples and companions, in a woodwhich was called Arisbotto di Firenze, behind the place where now standshis church, above the city of Florence. This blessed Miniato wasfirst-born son to the King of Armenia, and having left his kingdom forthe faith of Christ, to do penance and to be far away from his kingdom, he went over-seas to gain pardon at Rome, and then betook himself to thesaid wood, which was in those days wild and solitary, forasmuch as thecity of Florence did not extend, and was not settled beyond Arno but wasall on this side, --save only there was one bridge across Arno, not, however, where the bridges now are. And it is said by many that it wasthe ancient bridge of the Fiesolans which led from Girone to Candegghi, and this was the ancient and direct road and way from Rome to Fiesoleand to go into Lombardy and across the mountains. The said EmperorDecius caused the said blessed Miniato to be taken, as his storynarrates. Great gifts and rewards were offered him, as to a king's son, to the end he should deny Christ; and he, constant and firm in thefaith, would have none of his gifts, but endured divers martyrdoms. Inthe end the said Decius caused him to be beheaded, where now stands theChurch of S. Candida alla Croce at Gorgo; and many faithful followers ofChrist received martyrdom in this place. And when the head of theblessed Miniato had been cut off, by a miracle of Christ, with his handshe set it again upon his trunk, and on his feet passed over Arno, andwent up the hill where now stands his church, where at that time therewas a little oratory in the name of the blessed Peter the Apostle, wheremany bodies of holy martyrs were buried. And when S. Miniato was come tothat place, he gave up his soul to Christ, and his body was theresecretly buried by the Christians; the which place, by reason of themerits of the blessed S. Miniato, was devoutly venerated by theFlorentines after they were become Christians, and a little church wasbuilt there in his honour. But the great and noble church of marblewhich is there now in our times, we find to have been built later by thezeal of the venerable Father Alibrando, Bishop and citizen of Florencein the year of Christ 1013, begun on the 26th day of April, by thecommandment and authority of the Catholic and holy Emperor, Henry II ofBavaria, and of his wife, the holy Empress Gunegonda, which wasreigning in those times; and they presented and endowed the said churchwith many rich possessions in Florence and in the country, for the goodof their souls, and caused the said church to be repaired and rebuilt ofmarble, as it is now. And they caused the body of the blessed Miniato tobe translated to the altar, which is beneath the vaulting of the saidchurch, with much reverence and solemnity, by the said bishop and theclergy of Florence, with all the people, both men and women of the cityof Florence; but afterwards the said church was completed by thecommonwealth of Florence, and the stone steps were made which lead downby the hill; and the consuls of the Art of the Calimala were put incharge of the said work of S. Miniato, and were to protect it. "

Thus far Villani: to-day S. Miniato, the church, and the great palacebuilt in 1234 by Andrea Mozzi, Bishop of Florence, come to us withmemories, not of S. Miniato alone, that somewhat shadowy martyr of solong ago, but of S. Giovanni Gualberto also, of the Benedictines too, and of the Olivetans, of the siege of 1529, when Michelangelo fortifiedthe place in defence of Florence, saving the tower from destruction, asit is said, by swathing it in mattresses; of Cosimo I, who from hereheld the city in leash. It is the most beautiful of theTuscan-Romanesque churches left to us in Florence; built in 1013 in theform of a basilica, with a great nave and two aisles, the choir beingraised high above the rest of the church on twenty-eight beautiful redancient pillars, over a crypt where, under the altar, S. Miniato sleepsthrough the centuries. The fading frescoes of the aisles, the splendourand quiet of this great and beautiful church that has guarded Florencealmost from the beginning, that has seen Buondelmonte die at the foot ofthe Statue of Mars, that has heard the voice of Dante and watched theflight of Corso Donati, have a peculiar fascination, almost ghostly intheir strangeness, beyond anything else to be found in the city. And iffor the most part the church is so ancient as to rival the Baptisteryitself, the Renaissance has left there more than one beautiful thing. For between the two flights of steps that lead out of the nave into thechoir, Michelozzo built in 1448, for Piero de' Medici a chapel to holdthe crucifix, now in S. Trinità, which bowed to S. Giovanni Gualbertowhen he forgave his brother's murderer, [114] and in the left aisle isthe chapel, built in 1461 by Antonio Rossellino, where the youngCardinal Jacopo of Portugal lies in one of the loveliest of all Tuscantombs, and there Luca della Robbia has placed some of his most charmingterracottas, and Alessio Baldovinetti has painted in fresco. In allTuscany there is nothing more lovely than that tomb carved in 1467 byAntonio Rossellino for the body of the young Cardinal, but twenty-sixyears old when he died, "having lived in the flesh as though he werefreed from it, an Angel rather than a man. " Over the beautifulsarcophagus, on a bed beside which two boy angels wait, the youngCardinal sleeps, his delicate hands folded at rest at last. Above, twoangels kneel, about to give him the crown of glory which fadeth notaway, and Madonna, borne from heaven by the children, comes with her Sonto welcome him home. There, in the most characteristic work of thefifteenth century, you find man still thinking about death, not as atrance out of which we shall awaken to some terrible remembrance, but assleep, a sweet and fragile slumber, that has something of the droopingof the flowers about it, in a certain touching beauty and regret that isnever bitter, but, like the ending of a song or the close of a fair dayof spring, that rightly, though not without sadness, passes intosilence, into night, in which shine only the eternal stars. 

It is strange that of all the difficult hills of Italy, it is the steepway hither from Porto S. Niccola, of old, in truth Via Crucis, thatcomes into Dante's mind when, in the Twelfth Purgatorio, he sees theascent to the second cornice, where is purged the sin of envy. Somethingof the immense sadness of that terrible hill seems to linger to-dayabout the Monti alle Croci: it is truly a hill of the dead, over whichhovers, pointing the way, some angel

 "la creatura bella Bianco vestita, e nella faccia quale Per tremolando mattutina Stella. "

The Convent of S. Salvatore--S. Francesco al Monte, as it was called ofold--was built in 1480 after a design by Cronaca. Hesitating among thecypresses on the verge of the olives gardens, Michelangelo called it Labella Villanella, and truly in its warm simplicity and shy loveliness itis just that, a beautiful peasant girl among the vines in a garden ofolives. But she has been stripped of her treasures, her trinkets ofsilver, her pretty gold chains, her gown of taffetas, her kerchief ofsilk (do you not remember the verses of Lorenzo), and all these you willfind to-day, fading out of use in the Uffizi, where, in a palace thathas become a museum, they are most out of place: thus they have robbedthe peasants for the sake of the gold of the tourists, the sterileejaculations of the critics. 

It is well not to return to the city by the tramway, which rushesthrough the trees of the Viale Michelangelo like I know not what hideousand shrieking beast of prey, but to wander down towards the Piazzale, and then, just before you came to it, on your left, by S. Salvatore, togo down to Porta S. Miniato, that "gap in the wall, " and then to pass bythe old wall itself up the hill to Porta di S. Giorgio among the olivesbetween the towers under the Belvedere. It is the most beautiful of allthe gates of the city, little, too, and still keeps its fresco of thefourteenth century. 

FOOTNOTES:

[113] Villani, _Cronica_, l. I. C. 57, translated by R. E. Selfe. Constable, 1906. 

[114] See p. 363. 

XXI. FLORENCE

THE BARGELLO

If Arnolfo di Cambio is the architect not only of the Duomo but of thePalazzo Vecchio, and if Orcagna conceived the delicate beauty of theLoggia de' Lanzi, it is, if we may believe Vasari, partly to Arnolfo andpartly to Agnolo Gaddi that we owe Bargello, that palace so like afortress, at the corner of Via del Proconsolo and Via Ghibellina. Begunin the middle of the thirteenth century for the Capitano del Popolo, itlater became the Palace of the Podestà, passing at last, under the GrandDukes, to the Bargello, the Captain of Justice, who turned itbarbarously enough into a prison, dividing the great rooms, as it issaid, into cells for his prisoners. To-day it is become the NationalMuseum, where all that could be gathered of the work of the Tuscansculptors is housed and arranged in order. 

Often as I wander through those rooms or loiter in the shadow under thecloisters of the beautiful courtyard, perhaps the most lovely court inTuscany, the remembrance of that old fierce life which desired beauty sopassionately and was so eager for every superiority, comes to me, and Iask myself how the dream which that world pursued with so muchsimplicity and enthusiasm can have led us at last to the world ofto-day, with its orderly disorder, its trams and telegraphs andsteam-engines, its material comfort which, how strangely, we havemistaken for civilisation. In all London there is no palace so fine asthis old prison, nor a square so beautiful as Piazza della Signoria. Instead of Palazzo Pitti (so much more splendid is our civilisation thantheirs) we are content with Buckingham Palace, and instead of PalazzoRiccardi we have made the desolate cold ugliness of Devonshire House. Our craftsmen have become machine-minders, our people, on the verge ofstarvation, as we admit, without order, with restraint, without thediscipline of service, having lost the desire of beauty or splendour, have become serfs because they are ignorant and fear to die. And it iswe who have claimed half the world and thrust upon it an all butuniversal domination. In thus bringing mankind under our rule, it isever of our civilisation that we boast, that immense barbarism which inits brutality and materialism first tried to destroy the Latin Churchand then the Latin world, which alone could have saved us fromourselves. Before our forests were cleared here in Italy they carvedstatues, before our banks were founded here in Italy they made theimages of the gods, and in those days there was happiness, and men forjoy made beautiful things. And to-day, half dead with our own smoke, herded together like wild beasts, slaves of our own inventions, ah, blinded by our unthinkable folly, before the statues that they made, before the pictures that they painted, before the palaces that theybuilt, in the churches where they still pray, stupefied by our ownstupidity, brutalised by our own barbarism, we boast of a civilisationthat has already made us ridiculous, and of which we shall surely die. Here in the Bargello, the ancient palace of the Podestà of a Latin city, let us be silent and forget our madness before the statues of the Gods, the images of the great and beautiful people of old. 

Tuscan sculpture, that of all the arts, save architecture, was the firstto rise out of the destruction with which the barbarians of the Northhad overwhelmed the Latin world, came to its own really in the fifteenthcentury. After the beautiful convention of Byzantium had passed away, and Gruamone and Adeodatus had carved at Pistoja, Biduinus at S. Cassiano, Robertus at Lucca, Bonamicus and Bonannus at Pisa, and Guidoda Como again at Pistoja, in the work of Niccolò Pisano at Pisa we comeupon the first thought of the Renaissance, the reliefs of the pulpit inthe Baptistery, in which the Middle Age seems to have passed over thework of Antiquity almost like a caress. In these panels of the pulpit atPisa, where Madonna masquerades as Ariadne and the angel speaks with thegesture of Hermes, some sentiment of a new sweetness in the world seemsto lurk amid all the naïve classicism, finding expression at last insuch a thing, for instance, as the divine figure of Virtue in the pulpitof the Duomo of Siena, in which some have thought to find Frenchinfluence, the work of the artists of Chartres and Rheims, visibleenough, one might think, in the work of Niccolò's son Giovanni Pisano, whose ivory Statue of Madonna is to-day perhaps the greatest treasure ofthe sacristy of the Duomo at Pisa. 

Niccolò Pisano was from Apulia. He may well have seen the beautifulfragments of Greek and Roman art scattered over the South before he cameto Pisa, yet there may, too, be more truth in Vasari's tale than we aresometimes willing to admit, so that in the northern city beside Arno itmay well have been with a sort of delight he came upon the art of theancients, asleep in the beautiful Campo Santo of Pisa, and awakened it, yes, almost with a kiss. 

It is, however, in the work of his pupils Giovanni Pisano and ArnolfoFiorentino[115] that Tuscan sculpture begins to throw off the yoke ofantiquity and to express itself. Fra Guglielmo, another pupil ofNiccolò's, in his work at Perugia more nearly preserves the manner ofhis master, though always inferior to him in beauty and force: but inthe work of Arnolfo which remains to us chiefly in the tomb of Cardinalde Braye in S. Domenico at Orvieto, and in the Tabernacle of S. PaoloFuori at Rome, and more especially in the work of Giovanni Pisano in thepulpit for the Duomo of Pisa, now in the Museo, for instance, we may seethe beginnings of that new Tuscan sculpture which in Andrea Pisano andAndrea Orcagna was to make the work of Nanni di Banco, of Ghiberti andDonatello possible, and through them to inspire the art of all thesculptors of the fifteenth century, that is to say of the Renaissanceitself. 

Here in the Bargello it is chiefly that art of the fifteenth centurythat we see in all its beauty and realism: and though for the properunderstanding of it some knowledge of its derivation might seem to benecessary, a knowledge not to be had in the Museo itself, it is really anew impulse in sculpture, different from, though maybe directed by, thatolder art which we come upon, and may watch there, in its dawn and inits splendour, till with Bandinelli and the pupils of Michelangelo itloses itself in a noisy grandiosity, a futile gesticulation. 

Realism, I said in speaking of the character of this fifteenth centurywork, and indeed it is just there that we come upon the very thought ofthe time. Sculpture is no longer content with mere beauty, it hasdivined that something is wanting, yes, even in the almost miraculouswork of Niccolò Pisano himself; is it only an expression of character, of the passing moment, of movement that is lacking, or somethingcomprising all these things--some indefinable radiance which is verylife itself? It is this question which seems to have presented itself tothe sculptors of the fifteenth century: and their work is their answerto it. 

For even as the philosophers and alchemists had sought so patiently forlife, for the very essence of it, through all the years of the MiddleAge, so art now set out in search of it, the greatest treasure of all, and seems to have found it at last, not hardly or hidden away in someprecipitous place of stones, or among the tombs, but as a little childplaying among the flowers. 

The great masters of the Middle Age had set themselves to express instone or colour the delicate beauty of the soul, its terror, too, in theloneliness of the world, where only as it were by chance it might escapeeverlasting death. The subtle beauty and pathos of their art hasescaped our eyes filled as they are with the marvellous work of Greece, unknown till our own time, the splendid and joyful work of theRenaissance, the mysterious and lovely work of our own day: it remains, nevertheless, a consummate and exquisite art in its dawn, in its noon, in its decadence, but it seeks to express something we have forgotten, and its secret is for the most part altogether hidden from us. It isfrom this art, as beautiful in its expression of itself as that ofGreece, that Niccolò Pisano turns away, not to Nature, but to Antiquity. The movement which followed, producing while it continued almost allthat is to-day gathered in the Bargello, together with much else that isstill happily where it was born, is as it were an appeal from Antiquityto Life, to Nature. In the simplicity and impulse of this movement, sospontaneous, so touching, so full of a sense of beauty, which sometimes, though not often, becomes prettiness, the art of sculpture, awakened atlast from the mysticism of the Middle Age, seems to look back withlonging to the antique world, which it would fain claim as its brother, and after a little moment in the sun falls again into a sort ofmysticism, a new kingdom of the spirit with Michelangelo, and of thesenses merely with Sansovino and Giovanni da Bologna. 

Really Tuscan in its birth, the art of the Quattrocento became at lastalmost wholly Florentine, a flower of the Val d'Arno or of the hillsabout it, where even to-day at Settignano, at Fiesole, at Majano, atRovezzano, you may see the sculptors at work in an open bottega by theroadside, the rough-hewn marble standing here and there in many sizesand shapes, the chips and fragments strewing the highway. 

In the twilight of this new dawn of the love of nature, perhaps thefirst figure we may descry is Piero di Giovanni Tedesco (1386-1402), whocarved the second south door of the Duomo about 1398, where amid so manylovely natural things, the fig leaf and the oak leaf and the vine, youmay see the lion and the ox, the dog and the snail, and man too; littlefantastic children peeping out from the foliage, or blowing throughmusical reeds, or playing with a kitten, tiny naked creatures full oflife and gladness. 

The second door north of the Duomo was carved by Niccolò di Pierod'Arezzo, who was still working more than forty years after Tedesco'sdeath; but his best work, for we pass by his Statue of St. Mark in thechapel of the apex of the Duomo, is the little Annunciation over theniche of the St. Matthew of Or San Michele. In his work on the gate ofthe Duomo, however, he was assisted by his pupil Nanni di Banco, who, born in the fourteenth century, died in 1420; and in his work, and inthat of Jacopo della Quercia, a Sienese, and a much greater man, we seethe very dawn itself. 

Nanni di Banco, Vasari tells us, was a man who "inherited a competentpatrimony, and one by no means of inferior condition. " He goes on to saythat Nanni was the pupil of Donatello, and though in any technical sensethat seems to be untrue, it may well be that he sought Donato's advicewhenever he could, for he seems to have practised his art for love ofit, and may well have recognised the genius of Donatello, who probablyworked beside him. He too worked at Or San Michele, where he carved theSt. Philip, the delightful relief under the St. George of Donatello, theFour Saints, which seem to us so full of the remembrance of antiquity, and the S. Eligius with its beautiful drapery, a little stupid still, orsleepy is it, with the mystery of the Middle Age that after all was butjust passing away. Something of this sleepiness seems also to haveovertaken the St. Luke, that tired figure in the Duomo; and so it iswith a real surprise that we come at last upon the best work of Nanni'slife, "the first great living composition of the Renaissances, " asBurckhardt says, the Madonna della Cintola over Niccolò d'Arezzo's doorof the Duomo. Even with all the work of Ghiberti, of Donatello even, tochoose from, that relief of Madonna in an almond-shaped glory, stretching out her hands among the cherubim, with a gesture so eager andso moving to St. Thomas, who kneels before her, remains one of the mostbeautiful works of that age, and one of the loveliest in all Tuscany. 

There follows Ciuffagni (1381-1457), that poor sculptor working in hisold age amid much that was splendid and strange at Rimini, where LorenzoGhiberti (1378-1455) had painted in his youth. For all his genius, Ghiberti, that euphuist, did not influence those who came after him asDonatello did. His work, inspired by the past, by Andrea Pisano, forinstance, is full of the lost beauty of the Middle Age, the old secretsof the Gothic manner. His solution of the problem before him, a problemof movement, of character, of life, is to make the relief as purelypicturesque as possible; with him sculpture almost passes into painting, using not without charm the perspective of a picture the mere seeming ofjust that, but losing how profoundly, much of the nobility, the delightof pure form, the genius peculiar to sculpture. As an artist pure andsimple, as a master of composition, he may well have no superior, forthe fantasy and beauty of his work, its complexity, too, are almostunique, and entirely his own; but in simplicity, and in a certain senseof reality, he is wanting, so that however delightful his work may be, those "gates of Paradise, " for instance, that Michelangelo praised, itseems to be complete in itself, to suggest nothing but the wonderfuleffect one may get by using the means proper to one art for expressionin another, as though one were to write a book that should have theeffect upon one of an opera, to allow the strange rhythm and sensuousbeauty of Tristan and Isolde, for instance, to disengage itself frompages which were full of just musical words. 

Ghiberti's gift for composition, as well as his failure to understand, or at least to satisfy the more fundamental needs of his art, may beseen very happily in those two panels now in the Bargello, which he andBrunellesco made in the competition for the gates of the Baptistery. Looking on those two panels, where both artists have carved theSacrifice of Isaac, you see Ghiberti at his best, the whole interest notdivided, as it is in Brunellesco's panel, between the servants and thesacrifice, but concentrated altogether upon that scene which is aboutto become so tragical. Yet with what energy Brunellesco has conceived anact that in his hands seems really to have happened. How swiftly theangel has seized the hand of Abraham; how splendidly he stands, the oldman who is about to kill his only son for the love of God. And thenconsider the beauty of Isaac, that naked body which in Brunellesco'shands is splendid with life, really living and noble, with a truth andloveliness far in advance of the art of his time. Ghiberti has felt noneof the joy of a creation such as this; his Isaac is sleepy, a littlesurprised and altogether docile; he has not sprung up from his knees asin Brunellesco's panel, but looks up at the angel as though he had neverunderstood that his very life was at stake. Yet it was in those gateswhich, Brunellesco, as it is said, retiring from the contest, the Operathen gave into his hands, that we shall find the best work of Ghiberti. There it is really the art of Andrea Pisano that he takes as a master, and with so fair an example before him produces as splendid a thing ashe ever accomplished, simpler too, and it may be more sincere, though alittle lacking in expressiveness and life. All the rest of his workseems to me to be lacking in conviction, to be frankly almost anexperiment. His Statue of St. John Baptist, his St. Matthew and St. Stephen, too, at Or San Michele, different though they are, and with sixyears between each of them, seem alike in this, that they are, whilesplendid in energy, wanting in purpose, in intention: he never seemssufficiently sure of himself to convince us. His reliquary in bronzecontaining the ashes of S. Zenobius in the apse of the Duomo, isdifficult to see, but it is in the manner of the gates of Paradise. Itwas not to the disciples of Ghiberti that the future belonged, but tothose who have studied with Brunellesco. His crucifix in S. MariaNovella, his Evangelists in the Pazzi Chapel, are among the finest workof that age, full of life and the remembrance of it in their strengthand beauty. 

It is, however, in the art of a contemporary that the new age came atlast to its own--in the work of Donatello. In his youth he had workedfor the Duomo and for Or San Michele side by side with Nanni di Banco, who may perhaps pass as his master. Of Donatello's life we know almostnothing If we seek to learn something of him, it must be in his works ofwhich so many remain to us. We know, however, that he was the intimatefriend of Brunellesco, and that it was with him he set out for Rome soonafter this great and proud man had withdrawn from the contest withGhiberti for the Baptistery gates. Donatello was to visit Rome again inlater life, but on this first journey that he made with Brunellesco forthe purposes of study, he must have become acquainted with what was leftof antiquity in the Eternal City. It was too soon for that enthusiasmfor antiquity, which later overwhelmed Italian art so disastrously, tohave arisen. When Donatello returned about a year later to Florence towork for the Opera del Duomo, it is not any classic influence we find inhis statues, but rather the study of nature, an extraordinary desire toexpress not beauty, scarcely ever that, but character. His work isstrong, and often splendid, full of energy, movement, and conviction, but save now and then, as in the S. Croce Annunciation, for instance, itis not content with just beauty. 

Of his work for the Duomo and the Campanile, I speak elsewhere; it willbe sufficient here to note the splendour of the St. John the Divine inthe apse of the Duomo, which, as Burckhardt has divined, alreadysuggests the Moses of Michelangelo. The destruction of the unfinishedfaçade has perhaps made it more difficult to identify the figures hecarved there, but whether the Poggio of the Duomo, for instance, be Jobor no, seems after all to matter very little, since that statue itself, be its subject what it may, remains to us. 

In his work at Or San Michele, in the St. Peter, in the St. Mark, solike the St. John the Divine and in the St. George, here in theBargello, we see his progress, and there in that last figure we findjust that decision and simplicity which seem to have been his own, witha certain frankness and beauty of youth which are new in his work. 

[Illustration: ST. JOHN THE DIVINE

_By Donatello. Duomo, Florence_

_Alinari_]

There are some ten works by the master in the Bargello, together withnumerous casts of his statues and reliefs in other parts of Italy, sothat he may be studied here better than anywhere else. Looking thus onhis work more or less as a whole, it is a new influence we seem todivine for the first time in the marble David, a little faintly, perhaps, but obvious enough in the St. George, a Gothic influence thatappears very happily for once, in work that almost alone in Italy seemsto need just that, well, as an excuse for beauty. That marble statue ofDavid was made at about the same time as the St. John the Divine, forthe Duomo too, where it was to stand within the church in a chapel therein the apse. A little awkward in his half-shy pose, the young Davidstands over the head of Goliath, uncertain whether to go or stay. It isa failure which passes into the success, the more than success of theSt. George, which is perhaps his masterpiece. Made for the Guild ofArmourers, from the first day on which it was set up it has beenbeloved. Michelangelo loved it well, and Vasari is enthusiastic aboutit, while Bocchi, writing in 1571, [116] devotes a whole book to it. Inits present bad light--for the light should fall not across, but from infront and from above, as it did once when it stood in its niche at OrSan Michele--it is not seen to advantage, but even so, the life thatseems to move in the cold stone may be discerned. With a proud andterrible impetuosity St. George seems about to confront some renownedand famous enemy, that old dragon whom once he slew. Full of confidenceand beauty he gazes unafraid, as though on that which he is about toencounter before he moves forward to meet it. Well may Michelangelo havewhispered "March!" as he passed by, it is the very order he awaits, thewhisper of his own heart. It is in this romantic and beautiful figurethat, as it seems to me, that new Gothic influence may be most clearlydiscerned. M. Reymond, in his learned and pleasant book on Florentinesculpture, has pointed out the likeness which this St. George ofDonatello bears to the St. Theodore of Chartres Cathedral, and thoughit is impossible to deny that likeness, it seems at first almost asimpossible to explain it. It is true that many Italians were employed inFrance in the building of the churches; it is equally true thatMichelozzo, the friend and assistant of Donato, was the son of aBurgundian; but it seems as unlikely that an Italian artist, inspired bythe French style, returned from France to work in Florence, as thatMichelozzo was born with a knowledge of the northern manner which henever practised. An explanation, however, offers itself in the fact thatthe Religious Orders, those internationalists, continually passed fromNorth to South, from East to West, from monastery to monastery, and thatthey may well have brought with them certain statues in ivory of Madonnaor the Saints, in which such an one as Donatello could have found thehint he needed. That such statues were known in Italy is proved not onlyby their presence in this museum, but by the ivory Madonna of GiovanniPisano in the sacristy of the Duomo at Pisa. 

The Marzocco which stood of old on the Ringhiera before the PalazzoVecchio might seem to be a work of this period, for it is only saved bya kind of good fortune from failure. It is without energy and withoutlife, but in its monumental weight and a certain splendour of design itimpresses us with a sort of majesty as no merely naturalistic study of alion could do. If we compare it for a moment with the heraldic shield inCasa Martelli, where Donato has carved in relief a winged griffinrampant, cruel and savage, with all the beauty and vigour of Verrocchio, we shall understand something of his failure in the Marzocco, andsomething, too, of his success. In that heavy grotesque and fantasticLion of the Bargello some suggestion of the monumental art of Egyptseems to have been divined for a moment, but without understanding. 

In the Casa Martelli, too, you may find a statue of St. John Baptist, afigure fine and youthful and melancholy, with the vague thoughts ofyouth, really the elder brother as it were of the child of the Bargello, who bears his cross like a delicate plaything, unaware of his destiny. That figure, so full of mystery, seems to have haunted Donatello all hislife, and then St. John Baptist was the patron of Florence and presidedover every Baptistery in Italy; yet it is always with a particularmelancholy that Donatello deals with him, as though in his vague destinyhe had found as it were a vision. The child of the Bargello passes intothe boy of the Casa Martelli, that lad who maybe has heard a voice sweetenough as yet while wandering by chance on the mountains, sandalled andclad in camel's hair. We see him again as the chivalrous youth of theCampanile, the dedicated, absorbed wanderer of the Bargello, thehaggard, emaciated prophet of the Friars' Church at Venice, and at lastas the despairing and ancient seer of Siena, a voice that is only avoice weary of itself, crying unheeded in the wilderness. And, as itseems to me in all these figures, which in themselves have so littlebeauty, it is rather a mood of the soul that Donatello has set himselfto express than any delight. He has turned away from physical beauty, inwhich man can no longer believe, using the body refined almost to thedelicacy and transparency of a shell, in which the soul may shine, or atleast be seen, in all its moods of happiness or terror. That wearyfigure who, unconscious of his cross, unconscious of the world, absorbedin his own destiny, in the scroll of his fate, trudges through thewilderness without a thought of the way, is as far from the idealabstract beauty of the Greeks as from the romantic splendour of Gothicart. Only with him the soul has lost touch with particular things, evenas the beauty of the Greeks was purged of all the accidents and feelingthat belonged alone to the individual. Like a ghost he passes by, intenton some immortal sorrow; he is like a shadow on a day of sun, a darkcloud over the moon, the wind in the desert. And in a moment, we knewnot why, our hearts are restless suddenly, we know not why, we areunhappy, we know not why, we desire to be where we are not, or only toforget. 

So in the bronze David now in the Bargello we seem to see youth itselfdreaming after the first victory of all the conquests to come, while asmile of half-conscious delight, is passing from the lips; tyranny isdead. It is the first nude statue of the Renaissance made for Cosimo de'Medici before his exile. For Cosimo, too, the Amorino was made thatstudy of pure delight, where we find all the joy of the children of theCantoria, but without their unction and seriousness. And then in theportrait busts the young Gattemalata, and the terra-cotta of Niccolò daUzzano, we may see Donatello's devotion to mere truthfulness without anafterthought, as though for him Truth were beauty in its loyalty, at anyrate, to the impression of a moment that for the artist is eternity. 

His marvellous equestrian statue of Gattemalata is in Padua, his tomband reliefs and statues lie in many an Italian city, but here in theBargello we have enough of his work to enable us to divine something atleast of his secret. And this seems to me to have been Donatello'sintention in the art of sculpture: his figures are like gestures oflife, of the soul, sometimes involuntary and full of weariness, sometimes altogether joyful, but always the expression of a mood of thesoul which is dumb, that in its agony or delight has in his workexpressed itself by means of the body, so that, though he never carvesthe body for its own sake, or for the sake of beauty, he is as faithfulin his study of it for the sake of the truth, as he is in his study ofthose moods of the soul which through him seem for the first time tohave found an utterance. His life was full of wanderings; beside thejourney to Rome with Brunellesco he went to Siena to make the tomb inthe Duomo there of Bishop Pecci of Grosseto, and in 1433, when Cosimode' Medici went into exile, he was again in Rome, and even in Naples. Returning to Florence after no long time, in 1444, he went to Padua, where he worked in S. Antonio and made the equestrian statue that wasthe wonder of the world. On his return to Florence, an old man, acertain decadence may be found in his work, so that his reliefs in S. Lorenzo are not altogether worthy of him, are perhaps the work of a manwho is losing his sight and is already a little dependent on hispupils. One of these, Bertoldo di Giovanni, who died in 1491, has leftus a beautiful relief of a battle, now in the Bargello, and later wecatch a glimpse of him in the garden of Lorenzo's villa directing thestudies in art of a number of young people, among whom was the youthfulMichelangelo. But of the real disciples of Donatello, those who, withoutnecessarily being his pupils, carried his art a step farther, we knownothing. His influence seems to have died with him. Tuscan art after hisdeath, and even before that, had already set out on another road thanhis. 

Something of that expressiveness, that _intimité_, which Pater found socharacteristic of Luca della Robbia, seems to have inspired all thesculptors of the fifteenth century save Donatello himself. Not vitalitymerely, but a wonderful sort of expressiveness--it is the mood of alltheir work. It is perhaps in Luca della Robbia and his school that wefirst come upon this strange sweetness, which is really a sort ofclairvoyance, as it were, to the passing aspect of the world, of men, ofthe summer days that go by so fast, bringing winter behind them. Whatthe Greeks had striven to attain, that naturalness in sculpture, asthough the god were really about to breathe and put out its hand, thatwonderful vagueness of Michelangelo akin to nature, by which he attainedthe same life giving effect, a something more than mere form, bloomed inLuca's work like a new wild flower. Expression, life, the power toexpress the spirit in marble and terra-cotta, these are what he reallydiscovered, and not the mere material of his art, that paintedearthenware, as Vasari supposes. 

Of his two great works in marble, the tomb of Benozzo Federighi, Bishopof Fiesole, at San Miniato, and the Cantoria for the Duomo, of hisbronze doors for the sacristy there, and his work on the Campanile, Ispeak elsewhere; but here in the Bargello, and all over Tuscany too, youmay see those terra-cotta reliefs of Madonna, of the Annunciation, ofthe Birth of our Lord, painted first just white, and then blue andwhite, and later with many colours which are peculiar to him and hisschool--could such flower-like things have been born anywhere but inItaly?--and then, if you take them away they fade in the shadows of theNorth. 

Among the first to give Luca commissions for this exquisite work in claywas Piero de' Medici. For him Luca decorated a small book-lined chamberin the great Medici palace that Cosimo had built. His work was for theceiling and the pavement, the ceiling being a half sphere. For the hotsummer days of Italy, when the streets are a blaze of light and the sunseems to embrace the city, this terra-cotta work with its cool whitesand blues, was particularly delightful bringing really, as it were, something of the cool morning sea, the soft sky, into a place confinedand shut in, so that where they were, coolness and temperance might finda safe retreat. And it was in such work as this that he found his fame. Andrea della Robbia, his nephew, the best artist of his school, followshim, and after come a host of artists, some little better thancraftsmen, who add colour to colour, till Luca's blue and white has beenalmost lost amid the greens and yellows and reds which at lastaltogether spoil the simplicity and beauty of what was really asdelicate as a flower peeping out from the shadow into the sun and therain. 

But of one of the pupils of Luca, Agostino di Duccio, 1418-81(?), something more remains than these fragile and yet hardy works interra-cotta. He has carved in marble with something of Luca's gentlenessat Perugia and Rimini. He left Florence, it is said, in 1446, after anaccusation of theft, returning there to carve the lovely tabernacle ofthe Ognissanti. It is said that he had tried unsuccessfully to deal withthat block of marble which stood in the Loggia dei Lanzi, and from whichMichelangelo unfolded the David. Two panels attributed to him remain inthe Bargello, a Crucifixion and a Pietà, which scarcely do him justice. The last sculptor of the first half of the fifteenth century, his bestwork seems to me to be at Rimini, where he worked for SigismondoMalatesta in the temple Alberti had built in that fierce old city by thesea. 

It is with the second half of the fifteenth century that the artcontrived for the delight of private persons, for the decoration ofpalaces, of chapels, and of tombs, begins. Already Donatello had workedfor Cosimo de' Medici, and had made portrait busts, and, as it mightseem, the work of Luca della Robbia was especially suited for privatealtars or oratories, or the cool rooms of a people which had not yetdivided its religion from its life. And then, in Florence at any rate, all the great churches were finished, or almost finished; it wasnecessary for the artist to find other patrons. Among those workers inmetal who had assisted Ghiberti when he cast the reliefs of his firstbaptistery gate was the father of a man who had with his brother learnedthe craft of the goldsmiths. His name was Antonio Pollajuolo. Born in1429, he was the pupil of his father and of Paolo Uccello, learning fromthe latter the art of painting, which he practised, however, like asculptor, his real triumph being, in that art at any rate, one ofmovement and force. His best works in sculpture seem to me to be histombs of Sixtus IV and Innocent VII in S. Pietro in Rome; but here inthe Bargello you may see the beautiful bust in terra-cotta of a youngcondottiere in a rich and splendid armour, and a little bronze group ofHercules and Antaeus. In the Opera del Duomo his silver relief of theBirth of St. John Baptist is one of the finest works of that age; buthis art is seen at its highest in that terra-cotta bust here in theBargello, perhaps a sketch for a bronze, where he has expressed theinfinite confidence and courage of one of those captains of adventure, who, with war for their trade, carried havoc up and down Italy. 

It is, however, in the work of another goldsmith--or at least the pupilof one, whose name he took--that we find the greatest master of the newage, Andrea Verrocchio. Born in 1435, and dead in 1488, he waspreoccupied all his life with the fierce splendour of his art, thesubtle sweetness that he drew from the strength of his work. The master, certainly, of Lorenzo di Credi and Leonardo, and finally of Peruginoalso, he was a painter as well as a sculptor; and though his greatestwork was achieved in marble and bronze, one cannot lightly pass by theAnnunciation of the Uffizi, or the Baptism of the Accademia. Neglectedfor so long, he is at last recognised as one of the greatest of allItalian masters of the Renaissance. 

The pupil of a goldsmith practising the craft of a founder, he cast thesacristy gates of the Duomo for Luca della Robbia. In sculpture heappears to have studied under Donatello, though his work shows little ofhis influence; and working, as we may suppose, with his master in S. Lorenzo, he made the bronze plaque for the tomb of Cosimo there beforethe choir, and the monument of Piero and Giovanni de' Medici beside thedoor of the sacristy. It was again for Lorenzo de' Medici that he madethe exquisite Child and Dolphin now in the court of Palazzo Vecchio, andthe statue of the young David now in Bargello. The subtle grace anddelight of this last seem not uncertainly to suggest the strange andlovely work of Leonardo da Vinci. There for the first time you maydiscern the smile that is like a ray of sunshine in Leonardo's shadowypictures. More perfect in craftsmanship and in the knowledge of anatomythan Donatello, Verrocchio here, where he seems almost to have beeninspired by the David of his master, surpasses him in energy and beauty, and while Donatello's figure is involved with the head of Goliath, sothat the feet are lost in the massive and almost shapeless bronze, Verrocchio's David stands clear of the grim and monstrous thing at hisfeet. Simpler, too, and less uncertain is the whole pose of the figure, who is in no doubt of himself, and in his heart he has already "slainhis thousands. "

In the portrait of Monna Vanna degli Albizi, the Lady with the Nosegay, Verrocchio is the author of the most beautiful bust of the Renaissance. She fills the room with sunshine, and all day long she seems to whispersome beloved name. A smile seems ever about to pass over her face underher clustering hair, and she has folded her beautiful hands on herbosom, as though she were afraid of their beauty and would live ever intheir shadow. 

[Illustration: THE LADY WITH THE NOSEGAY (VANNA TORNABUONI?)

_In the Bargello. Andrea Verrocchio_

_Alinari_]

In two reliefs of Madonna and Child, one in marble and one interra-cotta, you find that strange smile again, not, as with Leonardo, some radiance of the soul visible for a moment on the lips, but thesmile of a mother happy with her little son. In the two Tornabuonireliefs that we find here too in the Bargello, it is not Verrocchio'shand we see; but in the group of Christ and St. Thomas at Or SanMichele, and in the fierce and splendid equestrian statue of BartolomeoColleoni at Venice, you see him at his best, occupied with a subtlebeauty long sought out, and with an expression of the fierce ardour andpassion that consumed him all his life. He touches nothing that does notlive with an ardent splendour and energy of spirit because of him. If hemakes only a leaf of bronze for a tomb, it seems to quiver under hishands with an inextinguishable vitality. 

Softly beside him, untouched by the passion of his style, grew all thelovely but less passionate works of the sculptors in marble, the sweetand almost winsome monuments of the dead. Bernardo Rossellino, born in1409, his elder by more than twenty years, died more than twenty yearsbefore him, in 1464, carving, among other delightful things, the lovelyAnnunciation at Empoli, the delicate monument of Beata Villana in S. Maria Novella, and creating once for all, in the tomb of Leonardo Bruniin S. Croce, the perfect pattern of such things, which served as anexample to all the Tuscan sculptors who followed, till Michelangelohewed the great monuments in the Sacristy of S. Lorenzo. His brotherAntonio, born in 1427, worked with him at Pistoja certainly in the tombof Filippo Lazzari in S. Domenico, surpassing him as a sculptor, underthe influence of Desiderio da Settignano. His finest work is thebeautiful tomb in S. Miniato of the young Cardinal of Portugal, who diedon a journey to Florence. In that strange and lovely place there isnothing more beautiful than that monument under the skyey work of Lucadella Robbia, before the faintly coloured frescoes of AlessioBaldovinetti. Under a vision of Madonna borne by angels from heaven, where two angels stoop, half kneeling, on guard, the young Cardinalsleeps, supported by two heavenly children, his hands--those delicatehands--folded in death. Below, on a frieze at the base of the tomb, Antonio has carved all sorts of strange and beautiful things--a skullamong the flowers over a garland harnessed to two unicorns; angels too, youthful and strong, lifting the funeral vases. At Naples, again, hecarved the altar of the Cappella Piccolomini in S. Maria at Montoliveto. Here in the Bargello some fragments of beautiful things have beengathered--a tabernacle with two adoring angels, a little St. John madein 1477 for the Opera, a relief of the Adoration of the Shepherds, another of Madonna in an almond-shaped glory of cherubim, and, last ofall, the splendid busts of Matteo Palmieri and Francesco Sassetti; buthis masterpiece in pure sculpture is the S. Sebastian in the Collegiataat Empoli, a fair and youthful figure without the affectation andlanguor that were so soon to fall upon him. 

Perhaps the greatest of these sculptors in marble, whose works, aswinsome as wild flowers, are scattered over the Tuscan hills, wasDesiderio da Settignano, born in 1428. He had worked with Donatello inthe Pazzi Chapel, and his tabernacle in the chapel of the BlessedSacrament in S. Lorenzo is one of the most charming things left in thatmuseum of Tuscan work. Of his beautiful tomb of Carlo Marsuppini in S. Croce I speak elsewhere: it is worthy of its fellows--BernardoRosellino's tomb of Leonardo Bruni in the same church, and the tomb ofthe Cardinal of Portugal by Antonio Rossellino at S. Miniato. Desideriohas not the energy of Rossellino or the passionate ardour of Verrocchio. He searches for a quiet beauty full of serenity and delight. His work inthe Bargello is of little account. The bust of a girl (No. 198 in thefifth room on the top floor) is but doubtfully his: Vasari speaks onlyof the bust of Marietta Strozzi, now in Berlin. He died in 1464, and hiswork, so rare, so refined and delicate in its beauty, comes to its ownin the perfect achievement of Benedetto da Maiano, born in 1442, whomade the pulpit of S. Croce, the ciborium of S. Domenico in Siena. Itwas for Pietro Mellini that he carved the pulpit of S. Croce, and herein the Bargello we may see the bust he made of his patron. In his youthhe had carved in wood and worked at the intarsia work so characteristica craft of the fifteenth century; but on bringing some coffers of thiswork to the King of Hungary, Vasari relates that he found they hadfallen to pieces on the voyage, and ever after he preferred to work inmarble. Having acquired a competence, of this work too he seems to havetired, devoting himself to architectural work--porticos, altars, andsuch--buying an estate at last outside the gate of Prato that is towardsFlorence; dying in 1497. 

It is with a prolific master, Mino da Fiesole, the last pupil, accordingto Vasari, of Desiderio da Settignano, that the delicate and flower-likework of the Tuscan sculptors may be said to pass into a still lovelydecadence. His facile work is found all over Italy. The three busts ofthe Bargello are among his earliest and best works--the Piero de'Medici, the Giuliano de' Medici, and the small bust of Rinaldo dellaLuna. There, too, are two reliefs from his hand, and some tabernacleswhich have no great merit. A relief of the Madonna and Child is a finerachievement in his earlier manner, and in the Duomo of Fiesole thereremains a bust of the Bishop, Leonardo Salutati, while in the samechapel, an altar and relief, from his hand, seem to prove that it wasonly a fatal facility that prevented him from becoming as fine an artistas Benedetto da Maiano. 

With Andrea Sansovino, born in 1460, we come to the art of the sixteenthcentury, very noble and beautiful, at any rate in its beginning, but sosoon to pass into a mere affectation. The pupil, according to Vasari, ofAntonio Pollaiuolo, Sansovino's work is best seen in Rome. Here inFlorence he made in his youth the altar of the Blessed Sacrament in theleft transept of S. Spirito, and in 1502 the Baptism of Christ, over theeastern gates of the Baptistery, but this was finished by another hand. And there followed him Benedetto da Rovezzano, whose style has becomeclassical, the sculptor of every sort of lovely furniture, --mantelpieces, tabernacles, and such, --yet in his beautiful reliefs of the life ofS. Giovanni Gualberto you see the work of the sixteenth century at itsbest, without the freshness and delicate charm of fifteenth-centurysculpture, but exquisite enough in its perfect skill, its realachievement. 

There follows Michelangelo (1475-1564). It is with a sort of surpriseone comes face to face with that sorrowful, heroic figure, as though, following among the flowers, we had come upon some tragic precipice, some immense cavern too deep for sight. How, after the delight, thedelicate charm of the fifteenth century, can I speak of this beautiful, strong, and tragic soul? It might almost seem that the greatest Italianof the sixteenth century has left us in sculpture little more than animmortal gesture of despair, of despair of a world which he has not beencontent to love. His work is beautiful with the beauty of the mountains, of the mountains in which he alone has found the spirit of man. Hisfigures, half unveiled from the living rock, are like some terribleindictment of the world he lived in, and in a sort of rage at itsuselessness he leaves them unfinished, and it but half expressed;--anindictment of himself too, of his own heart, of his contempt for thingsas they are. Yet in his youth he had been content with beauty--in thelovely Pietà of S. Pietro, for instance, where, on the robe of Mary, alone in all his work he has placed his name; or in the statue ofBacchus, now here in the Bargello, sleepy, half drunken with wine orwith visions, the eyelids heavy with dreams, the cup still in his hand. But already in the David his trouble is come upon him; the sorrow thatembittered his life has been foreseen, and in a sort of protest againstthe enslavement of Florence, that nest where he was born, he createsthis hero, who seems to be waiting for some tyranny to declare itself. The Brutus, unfinished as we say, to-day in the Bargello, he refused totouch again, since that city which was made for a thousand lovers, as hesaid, had been enjoyed by one only, some Medici against whom, as weknow, he was ready to fight. If in the beautiful relief of Madonna wefind a sweetness and strength that is altogether without bitterness orindignation, it is not any religious consolation we find there, but suchcomfort rather as life may give when in a moment of inward tragedy welook on the stars or watch a mother with her little son. What secret andimmortal sorrow and resentment are expressed in those strange andbeautiful figures of the tombs in the Sacristy of S. Lorenzo! The nameswe have, given them are, as Pater has said, too definite for them; theysuggest more than we know how to express of our thoughts concerninglife, so that for once the soul of man seems there to have taken formand turned to stone. The unfinished Pietà in the Duomo, it is said, hecarved for his own grave: like so much of his great, tragical work, itis unfinished, unfinished though everything he did was complete from thebeginning. For he is like the dawn that brings with it noon and evening, he is like the day which will pass into the night. In him the spirit ofman has stammered the syllables of eternity, and in its agony of longingor sorrow has failed to speak only the word love. All things particularto the individual, all that is small or of little account, that enduresbut for a moment, have been purged away, so that Life itself may make, as it were, an immortal gesticulation, almost monstrous in itspassionate intensity--a mirage seen on the mountains, a shadow on thesnow. And after him, and long before his death, there came BaccioBandinelli and the rest, Cellini the goldsmith, Giovanni da Bologna, andthe sculptors of the decadence that has lasted till our own day. Withhim Italian art seems to have been hurled out of heaven; henceforth hisfollowers stand on the brink of Pandemonium, making the frantic gesturesof fallen gods. 

[Illustration: "LA NOTTE"

_From Tomb of Giulinto de' Medici. Michelangelo_

_Anderson_]

FOOTNOTES:

[115] It seems necessary to note that probably Arnolfo Fiorentino andArnolfo di Cambio are not the same person. Cf. Crowe and Cavalcaselle, _op. Cit. _ vol. I. P. 127, note 4. 

[116] Eccellenza della Statua di S. Giorgio di Donatello: Marescotti, 1684. 

XXII. FLORENCE

ACCADEMIA

Florentine art, that had expressed itself so charmingly, and at last sopassionately and profoundly, in sculpture, where design, drawing, thatintegrity of the plastic artist, is everything, and colour almostnothing at all, shows itself in painting, where it is mostcharacteristic, either as the work of those who were sculptorsthemselves, or had at least learned from them--Giotto, Orcagna, Masaccio, the Pollaiuoli, Verrocchio, and Michelangelo--or in such workas that of Fra Angelico, Fra Lippo Lippi, Botticelli, and Leonardo, where painting seems to pass into poetry, into a canticle or a hymn, aTrionfo or some strange, far-away, sweet music. The whole impulse ofthis art lies in the intellect rather than in the senses, is busiedcontinually in discussing life rather than in creating it, in discussingone by one the secrets of movement, of expression; always more eager tofind new forms for ideas than to create just life itself in all itssplendour and shadow, as Venice was content to do. Thus, while Florencewas the most influential school of art in Italy, her greatest sons donot seem altogether to belong to her: Leonardo, a wanderer all his life, founds his school in Milan, and dies at last in France; Michelangelobecomes almost a Roman painter, the sculptor, the architect in paint ofthe Sistine Chapel; while Andrea del Sarto appears from the first as aforeigner, the one colourist of the school, only a Florentine in this, that much of his work is, as it were, monumental, composing itselfreally--as with the Madonna delle Arpie or the great Madonna and Saintsof the Pitti, for instance--into statuesque groups, into sculpture. Soif we admit that Leonardo and Michelangelo were rather universal thanFlorentine, the most characteristic work of the school lies in thefourteenth and fifteenth centuries, in the work of Giotto, so full ofgreat, simple thoughts of life; in that of the Pollaiuoli, so full ofmovement; but most of all perhaps in the work of Angelico, Lippo Lippi, and Botticelli, where the significance of life has passed into beauty, into music. 

The rise of this school, so full of importance for Italy, for the world, is very happily illustrated in the Accademia della Belle Arti; and ifthe galleries of the Uffizi can show a greater number of the best worksof the Florentine painters, together with much else that is foreign tothem; if the Pitti Palace is richer in masterpieces, and possesses someworks of Raphael's Florentine period and the pictures of Fra Bartolomeoand Andrea del Sarto, as well as a great collection of the work of theother Italian schools, it is really in the Accademia we may study bestthe rise of the Florentine school itself, finding there not only thework of Giotto, his predecessors and disciples, but the pictures of FraAngelico, of Verrocchio, of Filippo Lippi, of Botticelli, the paintersof that fifteenth century which, as Pater has told us, "can hardly bestudied too much, not merely for its positive results in the things ofthe intellect and the imagination, its concrete works of art, itsspecial and prominent personalities with their profound aesthetic charm, but for its general spirit and character, for the ethical qualities ofwhich it is a consummate type. "

The art of the Sculptors had been able to free itself from the beautifulbut sterile convention of the Byzantine masters earlier than the art ofPainting, because it had found certain fragments of antiquity scatteredup and down Southern Italy, and in such a place as the Campo Santo ofPisa, to which it might turn for guidance and inspiration. No suchforlorn beauty remained in exile to renew the art of painting. All thepictures of antiquity had been destroyed, and though in such work asthat of the Cavallini and their school at Assisi there may be found afaint memory of the splendour that had so unfortunately passed away, itis rather the shadow of the statues we find there--in the Abraham of theupper church of S. Francesco, for instance--than the more lyrical andmortal loveliness of the unknown painters of Imperial Rome. Yet it isthere, in that lonely and beautiful church full of the soft sweet lightof Umbria, that Giotto perhaps learned all that was needed to enable himnot only to recreate the art of painting, but to decide its future inItaly. 

Here in the Accademia in the Sala dei Maestri Toscani you may see analtarpiece that has perhaps come to us from his hands, amid muchbeautiful languid work that is still in the shadow of the Middle Age, orthat, coming after him, has almost failed to understand his message, thewords of life which may everywhere be found in his frescoes in Assisi, in Florence, in Padua, spoiled though they be by the intervention offools, the spoliation of the vandals. 

Those strange and lovely altarpieces ruthlessly torn from the conventsand churches of Tuscany still keep inviolate the secret of those who, not without tears, made them for the love of God: once for sure theymade a sunshine in some shadowy place. Hung here to-day in a museum, just so many specimens that we number and set in order, they seem rudeand fantastic enough, and in the cold light of this salone, crowdedtogether like so much furniture, they have lost all meaning orintention. They are dead, and we gaze at them almost with contempt; theywill never move us again. That rude and almost terrible picture ofMadonna and Saints with its little scenes from the life of our Lord, stolen from the Franciscan convent of S. Chiara at Lucca, what is it tous who pass by? Yet once it listened for the prayers of the little nunsof S. Francis, and, who knows, may have heard the very voice of IlPoverello. That passionate and dreadful picture of St. Mary Magdalencovered by her hair as with a robe of red gold, does it move us at all?Will it explain to us the rise of Florentine painting? And you, Olearned archaeologist, you, O scientific critic, you, O careless andcurious tourist, will it bring you any comfort to read (if you can) theinscription--

 "Ne desperetis, vos qui peccare soletis Exemploque meo vos reperate Deo. "

Those small pictures of the life of St. Mary, which surround her stillwith their beauty, do you even know what they mean? And if you do, arethey any more to you than an idle tale, a legend, which has lost evenits meaning? No, we look at these faint and far-off things merely withcuriosity as a botanist looks through his albums, like one who does notknow flowers. 

Then there is the great Ancona (102) from S. Trinità attributed toCimabue about which the critics have been so eloquent, till under theirhands Cimabue has vanished into a mere legend; and Madonna too, is shenow any more than a tale that is told? Beside it you find anotherMadonna (103) from Ognissanti which they agree together is really fromthe hand of Giotto, though with how much intervention and repainting;but they confess too that there is little to be learnt from it, sinceGiotto may be seen to better advantage and more truly himself in hisfrescoes, which yet remain in the churches as of old. And it is for thiswe have robbed the lowly and stolen away the images of their gods. 

It is a lesser because a merely imitative art that you see in the workof Taddeo Gaddi and the Madonna and Child with six saints of his sonAgnolo, or the Entombment ascribed to Taddeo but really the work of aninferior painter, Niccolò di Pietro Gerini from Or San Michele. Yetthose twelve scenes from the lives of Christ and St. Francis are lovelyenough; and in the Crucifixion there (112) we seem to see the work of amaster. A host of painters, "the Giottesques, " as we may call them, followed: Puccio Capanna, Buffalmacco, Francesco da Volterra, StefanoFiorentino, the grandson of Giotto, Giottino, and Spinello Aretino, allof whom were painting about the middle of the fourteenth century inGiotto's manner but without his genius, or any true understanding of hisart. The gradual passing of this derivative work, the prophecy of suchpainters as Masolino, Masaccio, and Fra Angelico may be found in thework of Orcagna, of Antonio Veneziano, and Starnina, and possibly too inthe better-preserved paintings of Lorenzo Monaco of the order of S. Romuald of Camaldoli, in the Annunciation (143), for instance, here inthis very room. 

Andrea Orcagna was born about 1308. He was a man of almost universalgenius, but his altarpiece in S. Maria Novella is nearly all thatremains to us of his painting, and splendid though it be, has beenperhaps spoiled by a later hand than his. In the Accademia here there isa Vision of St. Bernard (No. 138), faint, it is true, but still soft andcharming in colour, while in the Uffizi there is in the corridor analtarpiece with St. Matthew in the midst that is certainly partially hisown. Nothing at all remains to us of the work of Starnina, the master ofMasolino, and thus we lose the link which should connect the art ofGiotto and the Giottesques with the art of Masolino and Angelico. [117]It was about the same time as Starnina was painting in the chapel of S. Girolamo at the Carmine that Lorenzo Monaco was working in the manner ofAgnolo Gaddi. His work is beautiful by reason of its delicacy andgentleness, but it is so completely in the old manner that Vasari giveshis altarpiece of the Annunciation now here in the Accademia (No. 143)to Giotto, praising that master for the tremulous sweetness of Madonnaas she shrinks before the Announcing Angel just about to alight fromheaven. It is a very different scene you come upon in his altarpiece inS. Trinità, where Gabriel, his beautiful wings furled, has alreadyfallen on his knees, and our Lord Himself, still among the Cherubim, speeds the Dove to Mary, who has looked up from her book suddenly in anecstasy. 

[Illustration: THE ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS

_By Domenico Ghirlandajo, Accademia_

_Anderson_]

No work that we possess of the fourteenth century, save Giotto's, prepares us for the frescoes of Masolino: they must be sought in theBrancacci Chapel of the Carmine. But of the work of Masaccio his pupil, though his best work remains in the same place, there may be found herein the Accademia an early altarpiece of Madonna and Child with St. Anne (Sala III, No. 70). Born in 1401, dying when he was buttwenty-seven years of age, he recreated for himself that reality inpainting which it had been the chief business of Giotto to discover. Influenced by Donatello, his work is almost as immediate as that ofsculpture. Impressive and full of an energy that seems to be lifeitself, his figures have almost the sense of reality. "I feel, " says Mr. Berenson, "that I could touch every figure, that it would yield adefinite resistance ... That I could walk round it. " There follow PaoloUccello, whose work will be found in the Uffizi, and Andrea delCastagno, who painted the equestrian portrait of Niccolò da Tolentino inthe Duomo, and the frescoes in S. Apollonia. 

Thus we come really into the midst of the fifteenth century, to the workof Fra Angelico, Fra Lippo Lippi, and Botticelli, which we have loved somuch. 

It is really the Middle Age, quite expressed for once, by one who, standing a little way off perhaps, could almost scorn it, that we comeupon in Gentile da Fabriano's picture, on an easel here, of theAdoration of the Shepherds. It is one of the loveliest of all earlyUmbrian pictures, full of a new kind of happiness that is about todiscover the world. And if with Gentile we seem to look back on theMiddle Age from the very dawn of the Renaissance, it is the Renaissanceitself, the most simple and divine work it achieved in its earliest andbest days, that we see in the work of Fra Angelico. One beautiful andsplendid picture, the Descent from the Cross, alas! repainted, standsnear Gentile's Adoration, among several later pictures, of whichcertainly the loveliest is a gentle and serene work by DomenicoGhirlandajo, an Adoration of the Shepherds; but the greater part ofAngelico's work to be found here is in another room. There, in manylittle pictures, you may see the world as Paradise, the very gardenwhere God talked with Adam. Or he will tell us the story of S. Cosmasand S. Damian, those good saints who despised gold, so that with theirbrethren they were cast into a furnace, but the beautiful bright flamescurled and leaped away from them as at the breath of God, lickingfeverishly at the persecutors, who with iron forks try to thrust thefaggots nearer, while one hides from the heat of the fire behind hisshield, and another, already dead, is consumed by the flames. Above in agallery of marble, decked with beautiful rugs and hangings ofneedlework, the sultan looks on astonished amid his courtiers. Or it isthe story of our Lord he tells us: how in the evening Mary set out fromNazareth mounted on a mule, her little son in her arms, Joseph followingafoot, with a pipkin for the fire in the wilderness, and a _fiasco_ ofwine lest they be thirsty, a great stick over his shoulder for thedifficult way, and a cloak too, for our Lady. Or it is the Annunciationhe shows us: how in the dawn of that day of days, his bright wings stilltremulous with flight, Gabriel fell like a snowflake in the garden, inthe silence of the cypresses between two little loggias, light and fair, where Madonna was praying; far and far away in the faint clear sky theDove hovers, that is the Spirit of God, the Desire of all Nations. Or itis Hosanna he sings, when Christ rides under the stripped palms intoJerusalem, while the people strew the way with branches. Or again hewill tell us of Paradise, beneath whose towers, in a garden of wildflowers, the saints dance with the angels, crowned with garlands, in thelight that streams through the gates of heaven from the throne of God. 

How may we rightly speak of such a man, who in his simplicity has seenangels on the hills of Tuscany, the flowers and trees of our worldscattered in heaven? Truly his master is unknown, for, as perhaps he wastoo simple to say, St. Luke taught him in an idle hour, after the visionof the Annunciation, when he was tired of writing the Magnificat ofMary: and Angelico was his only pupil. That such things as these couldcome out of the cloister is not so marvellous as that, since they grewthere, we should have suppressed the convents and turned the friarsaway. For just as the lily of art towered first and broke into blossomon the grave of St. Francis, so here in the convent of S. Marco of theDominicans was one who for the first time seems to have seen the world, the very byways and hills of Tuscany, and dreamed of them as heaven. 

It was another friar who was, as it were, to people that world, a littlemore human perhaps, a little less than Paradise, which Angelico hadseen; to people it at least with children, little laughing rascals fromthe street corner, caught with a soldo and turned into angels. Anotherfriar, but how different. The story, so romantic, so full of laughterand tears, that Vasari has told us of Fra Lippo Lippi, is one of hisbest known pages; I shall not tell it again. Four little panels paintedby him are here in this room, beside the work of Fra Angelico. While notfar away you come upon two splendid studies by Perugino of two monks ofthe Vallombrosa, Dom Biagio Milanesi and Dom Baldassare, the finestportraits he ever painted, and in some sort his most living work. [118]Four other works by Perugino may also be found here, --the Assumption ofthe Blessed Virgin, a Pietà, and the Agony in the Garden in the Sala diPerugino, a Crucifixion in the Sala di Botticelli. The Assumption waspainted at Vallombrosa late in the year 1500, and is a fine piece ofwork in Perugino's more mannered style. Above, God the Father, in aglory of cherubim with a worshipping angel on either side, blessesMadonna, who in mid-heaven gazes upward, seated on a cloud, in amandorla of cherubs, surrounded by four angels playing musicalinstruments, while two others are at her feet following her in herflight; below, three saints, with St. Michael, stand disconsolate. Inthe Pietà, painted much earlier, where the dead Christ lies on HisMother's knees, while an angel holds the head of the Prince of Life onhis shoulders, and Mary Magdalen weeps at his feet, and two saints, St. John and St. Joseph, perhaps, watch beside Him, there might seem to belittle to hold us or to interest us at all; the picture is reallywithout life, just because everything is so unreal, and if we gather anyemotion there, it will come to us from the soft sky, full of air andlight, that we see through a splendid archway, or from a tiny glimpse ofthe valley that peeps from behind Madonna's robe. And surely it was inthis valley, on a little hill, that, as we may see in another picturehere, Christ knelt; yes, in the garden of the world, while the disciplesslept, and the angel brought Him the bitter cup. Not far away isJerusalem, and certain Roman soldiers and the priests; but it is notthese dream-like figures that attract us, but the world that remainsamid all interior changes still the same, and, for once in his work, those tired men, really wearied out, who sleep so profoundly whileChrist prays. In the Crucifixion all the glamour, the religiousimpression that, in Perugino's work at least, space the infinite heavenof Italy, the largeness of her evening earth, make on one, is wanting, and we find instead a mere insistence upon the subject. The world isdark under the eclipsed sun and moon, and the figures are full ofaffectation. Painted for the convent of St. Jerome, it was necessary toinclude that saint and his lion, that strangely pathetic and sentimentalbeast, so full of embarrassment, that looks at one so wearily from manyan old picture in the galleries of the world. If something of thatclairvoyance which created his best work is wanting here, it hasvanished altogether in that Deposition which Filippino Lippi finished, and instead of a lovely dream of heaven and earth, one finds a labouredpicture full of feats of painting, of cleverness, and calculatedarrangement. This soft Umbrian world of dreamy landscape, which we findin Perugino's pictures, is like a clearer vision of the land we alreadydescry far off with Fra Angelico, where his angels sing and his saintsdance for gladness. 

It is a different and a more real life that you see in the work of FraLippo Lippi. Realism, it is the very thought of all Florentine work ofthe fifteenth century. Seven pictures by the Frate have been gathered inthis gallery, --the Madonna and Child Enthroned, the St. Jerome in theDesert, a Nativity, a Madonna adoring Her Son, and the great Coronationof the Virgin, the Archangel Gabriel and the Baptist, and a Madonna andSt. Anthony. 

Here in the Accademia you may see Lucrezia Buti, that pale beauty whomhe loved, very fair and full of languor and sweetness. She looks at youout of the crowd of saints and angels gathered round the feet ofMadonna, whom God crowns from His throne of jasper. Behind her, lookingat her always, Lippo himself comes--_iste perfecit opus_, --up the stepsinto that choir where the angels crowned with roses lift the lilies, asthey wait in some divine interval to sing again Alleluia. And for thistoo he should be remembered, for his son was Filippino Lippo and hispupil Sandro Botticelli. 

The Accademia possesses some five pictures by Botticelli, --theCoronation of the Virgin and its predella (Nos. 73, 74), the Madonnawith saints and angels (No. 85), the Dead Christ (No. 157), the Salome(No. 161), and the Primavera (No. 80). The Coronation is from theConvent of S. Marco, and seems to have been painted after Botticelli hadfallen under the strange, unhappy influence of Savonarola; much the samemight be said of the Madonna with saints and angels, where hisexpressiveness, that quality which in him was genius, seems to havefallen almost into a mannerism, a sort of preconceived attitude; andcertainly here, where such a perfect thing awaits us, it is rather tothe Spring we shall turn at once than to anything less splendid. 

The so-called Primavera was painted for Lorenzo de' Medici, and in somevague way seems to have been inspired by Poliziano's verses in praise ofGiuliano de' Medici and Bella Simonetta--

 "Candida è ella, e Candida la vesta, Ma pur di rose e fior dipinta e d'erba: Lo innanellato crin dell' aurea testa Scende in la fronte umilmente superba. Ridele attorno tutta la foresta, E quanto può sue cure disacerba. Nell' atto regalmente è mansueta; E pur col ciglio le tempeste acqueta. "[119]

Here at last we see the greatest, the most personal artist of thefifteenth century really at his best, in that fortunate moment ofhalf-pensive joy which was so soon to pass away. How far has hewandered, and through what secret forbidden ways, from the simplethoughts of Angelico, the gay worldly laughter of Lippo Lippi. On thatstrange adventurous journey of the soul he has discovered the modernworld, just our way of looking at things, as it were, with a sort ofgift for seeing in even the most simple things some new and subtlemeaning. And then, in that shadowy and yet so real kingdom in which, notwithout a certain timidity, he has ventured so far, he has come upon thevery gods in exile, and for him Venus is born again from the foam of thesea, and Mars sleeping in a valley will awake to find her beside him, not as of old full of laughter, disdain, and joy; but half reconciled, as it were, to sorrow, to that change which has come upon her so thatmen now call her Mary, that name in which bitter and sweet are mingledtogether. With how subtly pensive a mien she comes through the springwoods here in the Primavera, her delicate hand lifted half in protest, half in blessing of that gay and yet thoughtful company, --Flora, hergown full of roses, Spring herself caught in the arms of Aeolus, theGraces dancing a little wistfully together, where Mercurius touchesindifferently the unripe fruit with the tip of his caducaeus, and Amorblindfold points his dart, yes almost like a prophecy of death.... Whatis this scene that rises so strangely before our eyes, that are filledwith the paradise of Angelico, the heaven of Lippo Lippi. It is the newheaven, the ancient and beloved earth, filled with spring and peopledwith those we have loved, beside whose altars long ago we have hushedour voices. It is the dream of the Renaissance. The names we have giventhese shadowy beautiful figures are but names, that Grace who looks solongingly and sadly at Hermes is but the loveliest among the lovely, though we call her Simonetta and him Giuliano. Here in the garden of theworld is Venus's pleasure-house, and there the gods in exile dream oftheir holy thrones. Shall we forgive them, and forget that since ourhearts are changed they are changed also? They have looked fromOlympus upon Calvary; Dionysus, who has borne the youngest lamb on hisshoulders, has wandered alone in the wilderness and understood thesorrow of the world; even that lovely, indifferent god has beencrucified, and she, Venus Aphrodite, has been born again, not from thesalt sea, but in the bitterness of her own tears, the tears of MadonnaMary. It is thus Botticelli, with a rare and personal art, expresses thevery thought of his time, of his own heart, which half in love with Picoof Mirandola would reconcile Plato with Moses, and since man'sallegiance is divided reconcile the gods. You may discern something, perhaps, of the same thought, but already a little cold, a littleindifferent in its appeal, in the Adoration of the Shepherds which LucaSignorelli painted, now in the Uffizi, where the shepherds are fair andnaked youths, the very gods of Greece come to worship the Desire of allNations. But with Botticelli that divine thought is altogether fresh andsincere. It is strange that one so full of the Hellenic spirit shouldlater have fallen under the influence of a man so singularly wanting intemperance or sweetness as Savonarola. One pictures him in his sorrowfulold age bending over the _Divina Commedia_ of Dante, continuallyquestioning himself as to that doctrine of the Epicureans, to wit, thatthe soul dies with the body; at least, one reads that he abandoned alllabour at his art, and was like to have died of hunger but for theMedici, who supported him. [120]

[Illustration: "THE THREE GRACES FROM THE PRIMAVERA"

_By Sandro Botticelli. Accademia_

_Anderson_]

FOOTNOTES:

[117] Cf. Crowe and Cavalcaselle, _History of Painting in Italy_, 1903, vol. Ii. P. 290. 

[118] For a full consideration of these and other works of Perugino, Gentile da Fabriano, and the Umbrian masters, see my _Cities of Umbria_. 

[119] Poliziano, Stanza I, str. 43, 44, 46, 47 68, 72, 85, 94; andAlberti, Opere Volgari, _Della Pittura_, Lib. III (Firenze, 1847). 

[120] Of the work of Verrocchio in this gallery, the Baptism of Christ, in which Leonardo is said, I think mistakenly, to have painted an angelin the left hand kneeling at the feet of Jesus, I speak in the chapteron the Uffizi. 

XXIII. FLORENCE

THE UFFIZI

If it is difficult to speak with justice and a sense of proportion ofthe Accademia delle Belle Arti, how may I hope to succeed with theUffizi Gallery, where the pictures are infinitely more varied andnumerous. It might seem impossible to do more than to give a catalogueof the various works here gathered from royal and ducal collections, from many churches, convents, and monasteries, forming, certainly, withthe gallery of the Pitti Palace, the finest collection of the Italianschools of painting in the world. And then in this palace, built forCosimo I, by Giorgio Vasari, the delightful historian of the Italianpainters, you may find not only paintings but a great collection ofsculpture also, a magnificent collection of drawings and jewels, together with the Archives, the Biblioteca Nazionale, which includes thePalatine and the Magliabecchian Libraries. It will be best, then, seeingthat a whole lifetime were not enough in which to number such treasures, to confine ourselves to a short examination of the sculpture, which iscertainly less valuable to us than to our fathers, and to a briefreview, hardly more than a personal impression, of the Italian pictures, which are its chiefest treasure. 

Of the rooms in which are hung the portraits of painters, thoseunfortunate self-portraits in which some of the greatest painters havenot without agony realised their own ugliness, exhibiting themselves inthe pose that they have hoped the world would mistake for the verytruth, I say nothing. It is true, the older men, less concerned perhapsat staring the word in the face, are not altogether unfortunate in theirself-revelation; but consider the portrait of Lord Leighton byhimself, --it must have been painted originally as a signboard forBurlington House, for the summer exhibition of the Academy there, as whoshould say to a discerning public: Here you may have your fill of theimpudent and blatant commonplace you love so much. And if such a thingis really without its fellow in these embarrassing rooms, where Raphael, Leonardo, Titian, and Velasquez are shouted down by some forgottenGerman, some too well remembered English painter, it is but the perfectessence of the whole collection, as though for once Leighton had reallyunderstood what was required of him and had done his marvellous best. 

It is on the top floor of this palace of Cosimo I, after passing thebusts of the lords and dukes of the Medici family, that one enters thegallery itself, which, running round three sides of a parallelogram, opens into various rooms of all shapes and sizes. It was Francesco I, second Grand Duke of Tuscany, who began to collect here the variousworks of art which his predecessors had gathered in their villas andpalaces. To this collection Cardinal Ferdinando de' Medici, his brother, added, on his succession to the Grand-Dukedom, the treasures he hadcollected in the villa which he had built in Rome, and which still bearsthe name of his house. To Cosimo II, it might seem, we owe the coveredway from this Palazzo degli Uffizi across Ponte Vecchio to the PalazzoPitti, while Ferdinand II began the collection of those self-portraitsof the painters of which I have spoken. Inheriting, as he did throughhis wife, Vittoria della Rovere, the treasures of Urbino, he broughtthem here, while it is to his son, Cosimo III, that we owe the presenceof Venus de' Medici, which had been dug up in the gardens of Hadrian'svilla, and bought by Ferdinando I when he was Cardinal. Most of theFlemish pictures were brought here by Anna, the sister of Gian Gastone, and daughter of Cosimo III, when she returned a widow to Florence fromthe North. The house of Lorraine also continued to enrich the gallery, which did not escape Napoleon's generals. They took away many pricelesspictures, all of which we were not able to force them to restore, thoughwe spent some £30, 000 in the attempt. We were, however, able to sendback to Italy the Venus de' Medici, which Napoleon had thought to marryto the Apollo Belvedere. 

As may be supposed, the Gallery of the Uffizi, gathered as it has thusbeen from so many sources, is as various as it is splendid. It is truethat it possesses no work by Velasquez, and if we compare it with suchcollections as those of the National Gallery or the Louvre, we shallfind it a little lacking in proportion as a gallery of universal art. Itis really as the chief storehouses of Italian painting that we mustconsider both it and the Pitti Palace. And both for this reason, andbecause under its director, Signor Corrado Ricci, a new and clearerarrangement of its contents is being carried out, I have thought itbetter to speak of the pictures in no haphazard fashion, but, as is nowbecoming easy, under their respective schools, as the Florentine, theSienese, the Umbrian, the Venetian, thus suggesting an unity which tillnow has been lacking in the gallery itself. 

I. THE FLORENTINE SCHOOL

Florentine painting in the fourteenth century may be seen to bestadvantage in the churches of Florence and in the Accademia delle BelleArti, for here in the Uffizi there is nothing from Giotto's or Orcagna'shand, though the work of their schools is plentiful. In the first longgallery, among certain Sienese pictures of which I speak elsewhere, youmay find these works; and there, too, like antique jewels slumbering inthe accustomed sunlight, you come upon the tabernacles and altar-piecesof Don Lorenzo Monaco, monk of the Angeli of Florence, as Vasari callshim, the pupil of Agnolo Gaddi, who has most loved the work of theSienese. Lorenzo was of the Order of Camaldoli, and belonged to themonastery of the Angeli, which was founded in 1295 by Fra Guittoned'Arezzo, himself of the Military Order of the Virgin Mother of Jesus, whose monks were called Frati Gaudenti, the Joyous Brothers. Born about1370, seventeen years before Angelico, and dying in 1425, his works, full of an ideal beauty that belongs to some holy place, are altogetherlost in the corridors of a gallery. Those works of his, the Virgin andSt. John, both kneeling and holding the body of our Lord (40), dated1404; the Adoration of the Magi (39), or the triptych (41), whereMadonna is in the midst with her little Son standing in her lap, whiletwo angels stand in adoration, and St. John Baptist and St. Bartholemew, St. Thaddeus and St. Benedict, wait on either side, was painted in 1410, and was brought here from the subterranean crypt of S. Maria of MonteOliveto, not far away. Another triptych (1309), the Coronation of theVirgin, in the Sala di Lorenzo Monaco, is perhaps his masterpiece. Inthe midst is the Coronation of our Lady, surrounded by a glory ofangels, while on either side stand ten saints, and on the frames areangels, cherubs, saints, and martyrs, scattered like flowers. Painted in1413 for the high altar of the Monastery of the Angels, it was lost onthe suppression of the Order, and only found about 1830 at the Badia diS. Pietro at Cerreto, in Val d'Elsa. Though it has doubtless sufferedfrom repainting, for we read of a restoration in 1866, it remains, lovely and exquisite beyond any other work of the master. 

Fra Angelico may well have been the pupil of Lorenzo Monaco. Here in theUffizi are two of his works, the great Tabernacle (17), with itspredella (1294), and the great Coronation of the Virgin (1290), with itspredelle (1162 and 1178). The Tabernacle was painted in 1433 for theArte de' Linaioli, which paid a hundred and ninety gold florins for it. It is an early work, but such an one as in Florence at any rate, onlyFra Angelico could have achieved. Within the doors is the Virginherself, with Christ standing on her knee between two saints, surroundedby twelve angels of heavenly beauty playing on various instruments ofmusic In the doors themselves are St. John Baptist and St. Mark whileoutside are St. Peter and St. Jerome. In the predella St. Peter preachesat Rome, St. Mark writes his Gospel, the Kings come to adore Jesus inBethlehem, and St. Mark is martyred. The whole is like some marvellousintroit for St. Mark's day, in which the name of Mary has passed by. 

The Coronation of the Virgin (1290) is like a litany of the saints andof the Virgin herself, chanted in antiphon, ending in the simplersplendour of Magnificat, sung to some Gregorian tone full of gold, offaint blues as of a far-away sky, of pale rose-colours as of rosesfading on an altar in the sunlight, and the candles of white are morespotless than the lily is. Amidst a glory of angels, the piping voicesof children, she in whose name all the flowers are hidden is crownedQueen of Angels by the Prince of Life. This marvellous dead picturelived once in S. Maria Nuova; its predelle have been torn away from it, but may be found here, nevertheless, in the Birth of St. John Baptist(1162) and the Spozalizio (1178). 

It is to a painter less mystical, but not less visionary, that we comein the work of Paolo Uccello, the great "Battle" (52), of which twovariants exist, one in the Louvre, the other, the most beautiful of thethree, in the National Gallery. It is, as some have thought, a pictureof the Battle of S. Egidio, where Braccio da Montone made CarloMalatesta and his nephew Galeotto prisoners in 1416. Splendid as it is, something has been lost to us by restoration. Paola Uccello, the friendof Donatello and of Brunellesco, was all his life devoted to the studyof perspective. Many marvellous drawings in which he traced thatbaffling vista, of which he was wont to exclaim when, labouring far intothe night, his wife poor soul, would entreat him to take rest andsleep: "Ah, what a delightful thing is this perspective. " And then, muchbeautiful work of his has perished. It was on this art he staked hislife. "What have you there that you are shutting up so close?" Donatellosaid to him one day when he found him alone at work on the Christ andSt. Thomas, which he had been commissioned to paint over the door of thechurch dedicated to that saint in the Mercato Vecchio. "Thou shalt seeit some day, --let that suffice thee, " Uccello answered. "And itchanced, " says Vasari, "that Donato was in the Mercato Vecchio buyingfruit one morning when he saw Paolo Uccello, who was uncovering hispicture. " Saluting him courteously, therefore, his opinion was instantlydemanded by Paolo, who was anxiously curious to know what he would sayof the work. But when Donato had examined it very minutely, he turned toPaolo and said: "Why, Paolo, thou art uncovering thy picture just at thevery time when thou shouldst be shutting it up from the sight of all. "These words wounded Paolo so grievously that he would no more leave hishouse, but shut himself up, devoting himself only the more to the studyof perspective, which kept him in poverty and depression to the day ofhis death. 

Paolo had been influenced, it is said, by Domenico Veneziano, who in histurn was influenced by the work of Masolino and Masaccio. Nothing isknown of the birthplace of this painter, who appears first at Perugia, and was the master of Piero della Francesca. His work is very rare; inFlorence there are two heads of saints in the Pitti, and Mr. Berensonspeaks of a fresco of the Baptist and St. Francis in S. Croce. Here inthe Uffizi, however, we have a Madonna and four Saints (1305) from hishand, formerly in the Church of S. Lucia de' Magnoli in the Via de'Bardi. It is a very splendid work, and certainly his masterpiece;something of Piero della Francesca's later work may perhaps be discernedthere, in a certain force and energy, a sort of dry sweetness in thefaint colouring that he seems to have loved. The Virgin is enthroned, and in her lap she holds our Lord; on the left stands St. John Baptistand S. Francis, on the right St. Nicholas and S. Lucia. 

In the only work by Filippo Lippi in the Uffizi, the beautiful Madonnaand Child (1307) that has been so much beloved, we come again to apainter who has been influenced by Masaccio, and thought at least tounderstand and perhaps transform the work of Lorenzo Monaco and FraAngelico It is once more in the work of his pupil, Botticelli, that wefind some of the chief treasures of the gallery. There are some nineworks here by Sandro, --the Birth of Venus (39), the Madonna of theMagnificat (1269 bis), the Madonna of the Pomegranate (1269), the Judithand Holofernes (1158), the Calumny (1182), the Adoration of the Magi(1286), and a Madonna and Child, a Portrait of Piero de' Medici (1154), and St. Augustine (1179). 

Painted for Pierfrancesco de' Medici, the Birth of Venus is perhaps themost beautiful, the most expressive, and the most human picture of theQuattrocento. She is younger than the roses which the south-west windfling at her feet, the roses of earth to the Rose of the sea. Not yethas the Shepherd of Ida praised her, nor Adon refused the honey of herthroat; not yet has Psyche stolen away her joy, nor Mars rolled her on asoldier's couch amid the spears and bucklers; for now she is but a maid, and she cometh in the dawn to her kingdom dreaming over the sea. If wecompare her for a moment with the Madonna of the Magnificat, with theMary of the Pomegranate, she seems to us more virgin than the Virginherself; less troubled by a love in which all the sorrow and desire ofthe world have found expression, less weary of the prayers that will behers no less than Mary's. How wearily and with what sadness Madonnawrites Magnificat, or dreams of the love that even now is come into herarms! Is it that, as Pater has thought, the honour is too great for her, that she would have preferred a humbler destiny, the joy of any othermother of Israel? Who is she, this woman of divine and troubling beautythat masquerades as Venus, and with Christ in her arms is so sad andunhappy. Tradition tells us that he was Simonetta, the mistress ofGiuliano de' Medici, who, dying still in her youth, was borne throughFlorence with uncovered face to her grave under the cypresses. Whoevershe may be, she haunts all the work of Botticelli, who, it might seem, loved her as one who had studied Dante, and, one of the company of thePlatonists of Lorenzo's court, might well love a woman altogether remotefrom him. As Venus she is a maid about to step for the first time uponthe shores of Cypris, and her eyes are like violets, wet with dew thathave not looked on the sun; her bright locks heavy with gold her maidhas caught about her, and the pale anemones have kissed her breasts, andthe scarlet weeds have kissed her on the mouth. As Mary, her destiny istoo great for her, and her lips tremble under the beauty of the wordsshe is about to utter; the mystical veils about her head have blindedher, her eyelids have fallen over her eyes, and in her heart she seemsto be weeping. But it is another woman not less mysterious who, asJudith, trips homeward so lightly in the morning after the terriblenight, her dreadful burden on her head and in her soul some too brutalaccusation. Again you may see her as Madonna in a picture brought herefrom S. Maria Nuova, where she would let Love fall, she is so weary, butthat an angel's arm enfolds Him. 

[Illustration: THE BIRTH OF VENUS

_By Sandro Botticelli. Uffizi Gallery_

_Anderson_]

In the Calumny you see a picture painted from the description Albertihad given in his treatise on painting of the work of Apelles. "There wasin this picture, " says Alberti, "a man with very large ears, and besidehim stood two women; one was called Ignorance, the other Superstition. Towards him came Calumny. This was a woman very beautiful to look upon, but with a double countenance (_ma parea nel viso troppo astuta_). Sheheld in her right hand a lighted torch, and with the other hand shedragged by the hair a young man (_uno garzonotto_), who lifted his handstowards heaven. There was also a man, pale, _brutto_, and gross, ... Hewas guide to Calumny, and was called Envy. Two other women accompaniedCalumny, and arranged her hair and her ornaments, and one was Perfidyand the other Fraud. Behind them came Penitence, a woman dressed inmourning, all ragged. She was followed by a girl, modest and sensitive, called Truth. "[121]

The Birth of Venus was the first study of the nude that any painter haddared to paint; but profound as is its significance, Florentine paintingwas moving forward by means less personal than the genius, the greatpersonal art of Botticelli. Here in the Uffizi you may see anAnnunciation (56) of Baldovinetti (1427-99), in which something of thatstrangeness and beauty of landscape which owed much to Angelico, andmore perhaps in its contrivance to Paolo Uccello, was to come to suchsplendour in the work of Verrocchio and Leonardo. Baldovinetti's pupil, Piero Pollaiuoli (1443-96), the younger brother of Antonio (1429-98), whose work in sculpture is so full of life, was, with his brother's helpand guidance, giving to painting some of the power and reality ofmovement which we look for in vain till his time. In a picture of St. James, with St. Vincent and St. Eustace on either side (1301), you maysee Piero's work, the fine, rather powerful than beautiful people heloved. It is, however, in the work of one whom he influenced, AndreaVerrocchio, the pupil of Donatello and Baldovinetti, that, as it seemsto me, what was best worth having in his work comes to its own, expressed with a real genius that is always passionate and reallyexpressive. The Baptism in the Accademia, a beautiful but not verycharming work, perhaps of his old age, received, Vasari tells us, sometouches from the brush of Leonardo, and for long the Annunciation of theUffizi (1286) passed as Leonardo's work. Repainted though it is, inalmost every part (the angel's wings retain something of their originalbrightness), this Annunciation remains one of the loveliest pictures inthe gallery, full of the eagerness and ardour of Verrocchio. In a gardenat sunset, behind the curiously trimmed cypresses under a portico ofmarble, Madonna sits at her _prie dieu_, a marvellously carvedsarcophagus of marble, while before her Gabriel kneels, holding thelilies, lifting his right hand in blessing. The picture comes from theChurch of Monte Oliveto, not far away. 

[Illustration: THE ANNUNCIATION

_By Andrea Verrocchio, Uffizi Gallery_

_Anderson_]

Verrocchio was the master of Lorenzo di Credi and of Leonardo, while, as it is said, Perugino passed through his bottega. There are many workshere given to Lorenzo, who seems to have been a better painter than hewas a sculptor: the Madonna and Child (24), the Annunciation (1160), theNoli me Tangere (1311), and above all, the Venus (3452), are beautiful, but less living than one might expect from the pupil of Verrocchio. Verrocchio's true pupil, if we may call him a pupil of any master at allwho was an universal genius, wayward and altogether personal ineverything he did, was Leonardo da Vinci. Of Leonardo's rare work (Mr. Berenson finds but nine paintings that may pass as his in all Europe)there is but one example in the Uffizi, and that is unfinished. It isthe Adoration of the Magi (1252), scarcely more than a shadow, begun in1478. Leonardo was a wanderer all his life, an engineer, a musician, asculptor, an architect, a mathematician, as well as a painter. ThisAdoration is the only work of his left in Tuscany, and there are butthree other paintings from his hand in all Italy. Of these, the frescoof the Last Supper, at Milan, has been restored eight times, and isabout to suffer another repainting; while of the two pictures in Rome, the St. Jerome of the Vatican is unfinished, and the Profile of a Girl, in the possession of Donna Laura Minghetti, is "not quite finished"either, Mr. Berenson tells us. It is to the Louvre that we must go tosee Leonardo's work as a painter. 

Tuscan painting at its best, its most expressive, in the work ofBotticelli, fails to convince us of sincerity in the work of his pupilFilippino Lippi, the son of Fra Filippo. Of all his pictures here in theUffizi, the two frescoes--the portrait of himself (286), the portrait ofan old man (1167), the Adoration of the Magi (1217), painted in 1496, the Madonna and Saints (1268), painted in 1485, it is rather the littlepicture of Madonna adoring her Son (1549) that I prefer, for a certainsweetness and beauty of colour, before any of his more ambitious works. Ghirlandajo too, that sweet and serene master, is not so lovely here asin the Adoration of the Shepherds at the Accademia. In his so-calledPortrait of Perugino (1163), [122] the Adoration of the Magi (1295), andthe Madonna and Child with Saints and Angels (1297), his work seems tolack sincerity, in all but the first, at any rate, to be the facile workof one not sufficiently convinced of the necessity for just that withoutwhich there is no profound beauty. 

But the age was full of misfortune; it was necessary, perhaps, topretend a happiness one did not feel. Certainly in the strangelyfantastic work of Pier di Cosimo, the Rescue of Andromeda (1312), forinstance, there is nothing of the touching sincerity and beauty of hisDeath of Procris, now in the National Gallery, which remains his onesplendid work. His pupil Fra Bartolommeo, who was later so unfortunatelyinfluenced by Michelangelo, may be seen here at his best in a smalldiptych (1161); in his early manner, his Isaiah (1126) and Job (1130), we see mere studies in drapery and anatomy. His most characteristic workis, however, in the Pitti Gallery, where we shall consider it. 

Much the same might be said of his partner Albertinelli, and his friendAndrea del Sarto, whom again we shall consider later in the PittiPalace. It will be sufficient here to point out his beautiful early Nolime Tangere (93), The Portrait of his Wife (188), the Portrait of Himself(280), the Portrait of a Lady, with a Petrarch in her hands (1230), andthe Madonna dell' Arpie (1112), that statuesque and too grandiosefailure that is so near to success. 

Michelangelo, that Roman painter--for out of Rome there are but two ofhis works, and one of these, the Deposition in the National Gallery, isunfinished--has here in the Uffizi a very splendid Holy Family (1139), splendid perhaps rather than beautiful, where in the background we maysee the graceful nude figures which Luca Signorelli had taught him topaint there. Luca Signorelli, born in Cortona, the pupil of Piero dellaFrancesca, passes as an Umbrian painter, and indeed his best work maybe found there. But he was much influenced by Antonio Pollaiuolo, and isaltogether out of sympathy with the mystical art of Umbria. Here in theUffizi are two of his early works, the Holy Family (1291) and a Madonnaand Child (74), where, behind the Virgin holding her divine Son in herlap, you may see four naked shepherds, really the first of their race. This picture was painted for Lorenzo de' Medici, and doubtlessinfluenced Michelangelo when he painted his Holy Family for MesserAngelo Doni, who haggled so badly over his bargain. 

It is really the decadence, certainly prophesied in the later work ofAndrea del Sarto, that we come to in the work of that pupil of his, whowas influenced by what he could understand of the work of Michelangelo. Jacopo Pontormo's work almost fails to interest us to-day save in hisportraits. The Cosimo I (1270), the Cosimo dei Medici (1267), paintedfrom some older portrait, the Portrait of a Man (1220), have a certainsplendour, that we find more attenuated but still living in the work ofhis pupil Bronzino, who also failed to understand Michelangelo. Finethough his portraits are, his various insincere and badly colouredcompositions merely serve to show how low the taste of the time--thetime of the end of the Republic--had fallen. 

Thus we have followed very cursorily, but with a certain faithfulnessnevertheless, the course of Florentine Art. With the other schools ofItaly we shall deal more shortly. 

II. THE SIENESE SCHOOL

It is as a divine decoration that Sienese art comes to us in theprofound and splendid work of Duccio di Buoninsegna, the delicate andlovely work of Simone Martini, the patient work of the Lorenzetti. Themasterpiece, perhaps, of Duccio is the great Rucellai Madonna of S. Maria Novella. There is none of his work in the Uffizi; but one of themost beautiful paintings in the world, the Annunciation of SimoneMartini (23), from the Church of S. Ansano in Castelvecchio, is in thefirst Long Gallery here. On a gold ground under three beautiful arches, in the midst of which the Dove hovers amid the Cherubim, Gabrielwhispers to the Virgin the mysterious words of Annunciation. In his handis a branch of olive, and on his brow an olive crown. Madonna, a littleoverwhelmed by the marvel of these tidings, draws back, pale in herbeauty, the half-closed book of prayer in her hands, catching her robeabout her; between them is a vase of campanulas still and sweet. Who maydescribe the colour and the delicate glory of this work? The hand of mancan do no more; it is the most beautiful of all religious paintings, subtle and full of grace. Simone was the greatest follower of Duccio. Born in 1284, in 1324 he married Vanna di Memmo, and his brother, LippoMemmi, sometimes assisted him in his work. Lippo's hand cannot bediscerned in the Annunciation--none but Simone himself could haveachieved it; but the two saints, who stand one on either side, are hiswork, as well as the four little figures in the frame. 

Of the other early Sienese painters, only Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzettiare represented in the Uffizi. The first, by a Madonna (15) and aThebaid; the second (16), in the two predella pictures for thealtar-piece of S. Procolo, Sassetta, the best of the SieneseQuattrocento painters, is absent, and Vecchietta is only represented bya predella picture (47); it is not till we came to Sodoma, whose famousSt. Sebastian (1279) suggests altogether another kind of art, a sensuousand sometimes an almost hysterical sort of ecstasy, as in the SwooningVirgin or the Swoon of St. Catherine at Siena, that we find Sienesepainting again. 

III. THE UMBRIAN SCHOOL[123]

Influenced in the beginning by the Sienese, the Umbrian school ofpainting remained almost entirely religious. The Renaissance passed itby as in a dream, and although in the work of Perugino you find awonderful and original painter, a painter of landscape too, it is ratherin the earlier men, Ottaviano Nelli, whose beautiful work at Gubbio islike a sunshine on the wall of S. Maria Nuova; Gentile da Fabriano, whose Adoration of the Magi is one of the treasures of the Accademiadelle Belle Arti; of Niccolò da Foligno, and of Bonfigli whoseflower-like pictures are for the most part in the Pinacoteca at Perugia, than in Perugino, or Pinturicchio, or Raphael, that you come upon themost characteristic work of the school. 

There was no Giotto, no Duccio even, in Umbria. Painting for its ownsake, or for the sake of beauty or life, never seems to have taken rootin that mystical soil; it is ever with a message of the Church that shecomes to us, very simply and sweetly for the most part, it is true, butexcept in the work of Piero della Francesca, who was not really anUmbrian at all, and in that of his pupil Melozzo da Forli, the work ofthe school is sentimental and illustrative, passionately beautiful for amoment with Gentile da Fabriano; clairvoyant almost in the best work ofPerugino; most beloved, though maybe not most lovely, in the marvellouswork of Raphael, who, Umbrian though he be, is really a Roman painter, full of the thoughts of a world he had made his own. 

Here, in the Uffizi, Gentile da Fabriano is represented by parts of analtar-piece, four isolated saints, St. Mary Magdalen, St. Nicholas ofBari, St. John Baptist, and St. George. It is rather in the beautifulwork of Piero della Francesca, and of Signorelli, in the rare and lovelywork of Melozzo da Forli, in the sweet and holy work of Perugino, theperfect work of Raphael, that Umbria is represented in the Uffizi, thanin the mutilated altar-piece of Gentile da Fabriano. 

Piero della Francesca was born about 1416 at the little town of BorgoSan Sepolcro, just within the borders of Tuscany towards Arezzo. [124] Hewas a great student of perspective, a friend of mathematicians, of FraLuca Paccioli, for instance, who later became the friend of Leonardo daVinci. His work has force, and is always full of the significance oflife. Influenced by Paolo Uccello, founding his work on a reallyscientific understanding of certain laws of vision, of drawing, his workseems to have been responsible for much that is so splendid in the workof Signorelli and Perugino. Nor is he without a faint and simple beauty, which is altogether delightful in his pictures in the National Gallery, for instance the Nativity and the Baptism of our Lord. Here, in theUffizi, are two portraits from his hand--Count Federigo of Urbino, andhis wife Battista Sforza (1300), painted in 1465. Splendid and full ofconfidence, they are the work of a man who is a consummate draughtsman, and whose drawing here, at any rate, is a thing of life. On the back ofthese panels Piero has painted an allegory, or a trionfo, whose meaningno one has yet read. The Uffizi has lately been enriched by a work ofhis pupil, that rare painter, Melozzo da Forli. Two panels of theAnnunciation, very beautiful in Colour and full of something that seemsstrange, coming from that Umbrian country, so mystical and simple, hangnow with the portraits of Piero. Nor is the work of Melozzo da Forli'spupil, Marco Palmezzano, whose facile work litters the Gallery of Forli, wanting, for here is a Crucifixion (1095) from his hand, certainly oneof his more important pictures. 

Pietro Vanucci, called Il Perugino, was born about 1446 at Castel dellaPieve, some twenty-six miles from Perugia. The greatest master of theUmbrian School, for we are content to call Raphael a Roman painter, hiswork, so sweet and lovely at its best, is at its worst little betterthan a repetition of his own mannerisms. Here, in the Uffizi, however, we have four of his best works--the three great portraits, Francescodelle Opere (287), Alessandro Braccesi (1217), and the Portrait of aLady (1120), long given to Raphael, but which Mr. Berenson assures us isPerugino's; and the Madonna and Child of the Tribuna, painted in 1493. The Francesco delle Opere was perhaps his first portrait, full ofvirility beyond anything else in his work, save his own portrait atPerugia. For many years this picture, owing, it might seem, to a mistakeof the Chevalier Montalvo, was supposed to represent Perugino himself, so that the picture was hung in the Gallery of the Portraits ofPainters. At last an inscription was discovered on the back of thepicture, which reads as follows: _1494, D'Luglio Pietro Perugino PinseFranco Delopa_. 

Francesco delle Opere was a Florentine painter, the brother of Giovannidelle Corniole. He died at Venice, and it may well be that it was atVenice that Perugino first met him. Perugino's picture shows usFrancesco, a clean-shaven and young person, holding a scroll on which iswritten, "Trineta Deum;" the portrait is a half-length, and the handsare visible. In the background is a characteristic country of hill andvalley under the deep serene sky, the light and clear golden air that wesee in so much of his work. The Portrait of a Lady (1120), long given toRaphael, comes to the Uffizi from the Grand Ducal Villa of Poggio aCaiano; it was supposed to be the portrait of Maddalena Strozzi, wife ofAngela Doni. The portrait shows us a young woman, in a Florentine dressof the period, while around her neck is a gold chain, from which hangs alittle cross. The Portrait of a Young Man (1217) is painted on wood, andis life size. 

The Madonna and Child, with two Saints, was painted in 1493 for theChurch of S. Domenico at Fiesole, and was placed in the Uffizi by theGrand Duke Peter Leopold in 1756. Madonna sits a little indifferent on athrone under an archway, holding the Child, who turns towards St. JohnBaptist as he gazes languidly on the ground; while St. Sebastian, abeautiful youth, stands on the other side, looking upwards, and thoughthe arrows have pierced his flesh, he is still full of affected grace, and is so occupied with his prayers that he has not noticed them. On thebase of the throne, Perugino has written his name, _Petrus PerusinusPinxit, An. 1493_. It is in such a work as this that Perugino is reallyleast great. Painted to order, as we may think, it is so full ofaffectation, of a kind of religiosity, that there is no room left forsincerity. And yet how well he has composed this picture after all, sothat there is no sense of crowding, and the sun and sky are not so faraway. Is it perhaps that in an age that has become suspicious of anyreligious emotion we are spoiled for such a picture as this, finding inwhat it may be was just a natural expression of worship to the simpleFriars of S. Domenico long ago, all the ritualism and affectation inwhich we should find it necessary to hide ourselves before we mightapproach her, as she seemed to them, a Queen enthroned, _causa nostraeLaetitiae_, between two saints whose very names we find it difficult toremember? How often in our day has Perugino been accused of insincerity, yet it was not so long ago when he lived. Almost all his life he wasengaged in painting for the Church those things which were most preciousin her remembrance. If men found him insincere, it is strange that amongso much that was eager and full of sincerity his work was able to holdits own. His pupil Raphael, that most beloved name, is represented herein the Uffizi only by the Madonna del Cardellino (1129); for the otherworks attributed to him in the Tribuna are not his. The picture is inhis early manner, and was painted about 1548. It has, like so much ofRaphael's work, suffered restoration; and indeed these compositions fromhis hand no longer hold us as they used to do, whether because of thatrepainting or no, I know not. It is as a portrait painter we think ofRaphael to-day, and as the painter of the Stanze at Rome; and thereforeI prefer to speak of him with regard to his work in the Pitti Galleryrather than here. With him the Umbrian School passed into the world. 

IV. THE VENETIAN SCHOOL

Nearly all the Venetian pictures were bought in 1654 by CardinalLeopoldo de' Medici from Messer Paolo del Sera, a Florentine merchant inVenice. More truly representative of the Renaissance, its humanism andsplendour, than any other school of painting in Italy, the earlier worksof that great Venetian School are not seen to advantage in the Uffizi. There is nothing here by Jacopo Bellini, nothing by his son Gentile; norany work from the hands of Antonio or Bartolommeo Vivarini, or Antonelloda Messina, who apparently introduced oil painting into Venice. It isnot till we come to Giovanni Bellini, born about 1430, that we find awork of the Quattrocento in the delightful but puzzling Allegory (631), where Our Lady sits enthroned beside a lagoon in a strange and lovelylandscape of rocks and trees; while beside her kneels St. Catherine ofAlexandria, and again, St. Catherine of Siena; farther away stand St. Peter and St. Paul, while below children are playing with fruit and acurious tree; on the other side are Job and St. Sebastian, while in thebackground you may see the story of the life of St. Anthony. Thismysterious picture certainly stands alone in Giovanni Bellini's work, and suggests the thoughts at least of Mantegna; and while it is truethat Giovanni had worked at Padua, one is surprised to come upon itsinfluence so late in his life. [125]

The influence of the Bellini is to be found in almost all the greatpainters of Venice in the Cinquecento. We come upon it first in the workof Vittore Carpaccio, of which there is but a fragment here, thedelicate little picture, the Finding of the True Cross (583 _bis_);while in two works attributed to Bissolo and Cima da Conegliano (584, 564 _bis_), we see too the influence of Bellini. 

If Carpaccio was the greatest pupil of Gentile Bellini, in Giorgione wesee the first of those marvellous painters who were taught their art byhis brother Giovanni. Giorgio Barbarelli, called Giorgione, was born atCastelfranco, a little town in the hills not far from Padua, in 1478. Three of his rare works--there are scarcely more than some fifteen inthe world--are here in the Uffizi, the two very early pictures--but allhis works were early, for he died in 1510--the Trial of Moses (621), andthe Judgment of Solomon (630), and the beautiful portrait of a Knight ofMalta (622). Giorgione was the dayspring of the Renaissance in Venice. His work, as Pater foretold of it, has attained to the condition ofMusic. And though in the portrait of the Knight of Malta, for instance, we have to admit much repainting, something of the original glamourstill lingers, so that in looking on it even to-day we may see to howgreat a place the painters of Venice had been called. It is in the workof his fellow-pupil and Titian that the great Venetian treasure of theUffizi lies. In the Madonna with St. Anthony (633) we have a picture inGiorgione's early manner, and a later, but still early work, in theFlora (626). The two portraits, Eleonora Gonzaga and Francesco Mariadella Rovere, Duke and Duchess of Urbino, were painted in Venice in 1536or 1538, and came into the Uffizi with the other Urbino pictures, withthe Venus of Urbino (1117), for instance, where Titian has painted theBella of the Pitti Palace naked on a couch, a little dog at her feet, and in her hand a chaplet of roses. In the background two maids searchfor a gown in a great chest under a loggia. This picture, firstmentioned in a letter of 1538, was painted for Duke Guidobaldo dellaRovere. The Venus with the little Amor (1108) appears to have beenpainted about 1545. It is not from Urbino. Dr. Gronau thinks it may beidentical with the Venus "shortly described in a book of the Guardarobaof Grand Duke Cosimo II in the year 1621. " The Portrait of BishopBeccadelli (1116) was painted in July 1552, and is signed by Titian. Itwas bought, with the other Venetian pictures, by Cardinal Leopoldo de'Medici in 1654. I say nothing of Titian here: preferring to speak of himin dealing with his more various and numerous work in the Pitti Palace. Other pupils of Giovanni Bellini, beside Giorgione and Titian, are foundhere--Palma Vecchio for instance--in a poor picture of Judith with theHead of Holofernes (619); Rondinelli in a Portrait of a Man (354) and aMadonna and two Saints (384); Sebastiano del Piombo in the Farnesina(1123), long given to Raphael, and the Death of Adonis (592). All thesemen, whose work is so full of splendour, came under the influence ofGiorgione after passing through Bellini's bottega. Nor did LorenzoLotto, the pupil of Alvise Vivarini, escape the authority of that sereneand perfect work, whose beauty lingered so quietly over the youth of thegreatest painter of Italy, Tiziano Vecelli: his Holy Family (575) seemsto be a work of Giorgione himself almost, that has suffered some change;that change was Lotto. 

Titian's own pupils, Paris Bordone, Tintoretto, and Schiavone, may alsobe found here; the first in a Portrait of a Young Man (607), full ofconfidence and force. Tintoretto has five works here, beside theportrait of himself (378): the Bust of a Young Man (577), the Portraitof Admiral Vernier (601), the Portrait of an Old Man (615), the Portraitof Jacopo Sansovino (638), and a Portrait of a Man (649). His portraitsare full of an immense splendour; they sum up often rhetorically enoughall that was superficial in the subject, representing him as we maysuppose he hardly hoped to see himself. Without the subtle distinctionof Titian's art, or the marvellous power of characterisation andexpression that he possessed with the earlier men, Tintoretto's work isnoble, and almost lyrical in its confidence and beauty. In his dayVenice seems to have been the capital of the world, peopled by a race ofmen splendid and strong, beside whom the men of our time, even the bestof them, seem a little vulgar, a little wanting in dignity and life. 

Two pictures by Paolo Veronese, the early Martyrdom of S. Giustina(589), and the Holy Family and St. Catherine (1136), bring the periodto a close. It is a different school of painting altogether that we seein the Piazzetta of Canaletto (1064), perhaps the last picture paintedby a Venetian in the gallery. 

THE NORTHERN SCHOOLS

Andrea Mantegna was born, not at Padua, where his greatest work is to befound--three frescoes in the Eremitani--but at Vicenza. Here in theUffizi, however, we have two works of his middle period, certainly amongthe best, if not the most beautiful, of his easel pictures. In one wesee Madonna and Child in a rocky landscape, where there are trees andflowers (1025); the other is a triptych (1111), one of the manypriceless things to be found here. In the midst you may see the ThreeKings at the feet of Jesus Parvulus in his Mother's arms, while on oneside Mantegna has painted the Presentation in the Temple, and on theother the Resurrection. Long ago this marvellous miniature, that evento-day seems to shine like a precious stone, was in the possession ofthe Gonzagas of Mantua, from whom it is supposed the Medici bought it. 

Five male portraits by the Bergamesque master Moroni are to be foundhere. One (360) is said to be a portrait of himself, though it certainlybears no resemblance to the portrait at Bergamo. I cannot forbear frommentioning the Portrait of a Scholar, which seems to me one of his bestworks. Moroni was born at Bondo, not far from Albino, in 1525. It isprobable that Moretto, who, as Morelli suggests, was a Brescian bybirth, though his parents originally came from the same valley asMoroni, Valle del Serio, was his master. Moretto is, I think, a greaterpainter than Moroni, though perhaps we are only beginning to appreciatethe latter. 

Three pictures here are from the hand of Correggio: the early smallpanel of Madonna and Child with Angels (1002), once ascribed to Titian, a naïve and charming little work; the Repose in Egypt (1118), grave andbeautiful enough, but in some way I cannot explain a littledisappointing; and the Madonna adoring her little Son (1134), which israther commonplace in colour, though delightful in conception. 

It might seem impossible within the covers of one book to do more thantouch upon the enormous wealth of ancient art in the possession ofalmost every city in Italy; and here in Florence, more than anywhereelse, I know my feebleness. If these few notes, for indeed they arenothing more, serve to group the pictures hung in the Uffizi intoSchools, to win a certain order out of what is already less a chaos thanof old, to give to the reader some idea almost at a glance of what theUffizi really possesses of the various schools of Italian painting, theywill have served their purpose. [126]

Of the sculpture, too, I say nothing. Vastly more important and belovedof old than to-day, when the work of the Greeks themselves has come intoour hands, and above all the Greek work of the fifth century B. C. , thereis not to be found in the Uffizi a single marble of Greek workmanship, and but few Roman works that are still untampered with. For myself, Icannot look with pleasure on a Roman Venus patched by the Renaissance, for I have seen the beauty of the Melian Aphrodite; and there arecertain things in Rome, in Athens, in London, which make it for everimpossible for us to be sincere in our worship at this shrine. 

FOOTNOTES:

[121] Alberti, _Opere Volgari_ (Firenze, 1847), vol. Iv. P. 75. 

[122] Mr. Berenson calls it a Portrait of Perugino, though for long itpassed as a Portrait of Verrocchio by Lorenzo di Credi. 

[123] For a full account of the Umbrian school see my _Cities ofUmbria_. 

[124] In 1416, Borgo S. Sepolcro was not just within the borders ofTuscany of course, as it is to-day, but just without: it was part of thePapal State till Eugenius IV sold it to Florence. 

[125] Mr. Berenson calls the picture An Allegory of the Tree of Life, and adds that it is certainly a late work of Giovanni. 

[126] Of the Flemish, Dutch, German, and French pictures here I intendto say no more than to name a few among them. The most valuable foreignpicture in Florence for the student of Italian art is Van der Goes'(1425-82) great triptych (1525) of the Adoration of the Shepherds, withthe Family of the donor Messer Portinari, agent of the Medici in Bruges. In the same sala are two Memlings (703, 778), and a Roger van der Weyden(795). Two Holbeins, the Richard Southwell (765), and Sir Thomas More(799), are in the German room; while Dürer's noble and lovely Adorationof the Magi (1141) is still in the Tribuna, and his portrait of hisFather (766) is with the other German pictures in the German room. Sometoo eloquent works of Rubens hang apart, while here and there you maysee a Vandyck--Lord John and Lord Bernard Stuart (1523), for instance, or Jean de Montfort (1115), a little pensive and proud amid thesplendour of Italy. 

XXIV. FLORENCE

THE PITTI GALLERY

During the last years of Cosimo de' Medici, Luca Pitti, that rare oldknight, sometime Gonfaloniere of Justice, thought to possess himself ofthe state of Florence, and to this end, besides creating a new Baliaagainst the wishes of Cosimo, distributed, as it is said, some 20, 000ducats in one day, so that the whole city came after him in flocks, andnot Cosimo, but he, was looked upon as the governor of Florence. "Sofoolish was he in his own conceit, that he began two stately andmagnificent houses, " Machiavelli tells us, "one in Florence, the otherat Rusciano, not more than a mile away: but that in Florence was greaterand more splendid than the house of any other private citizenwhatsoever. To finish this latter, he baulked no extraordinary way, fornot only the citizens and better sort presented him and furnished himwith what was necessary for it, but the common people gave him all oftheir assistance; besides, all that were banished or guilty of murder, felony, or any other thing which exposed them to punishment, hadsanctuary at that house provided they would give him their labour. "

Now, when Cosimo was dead, and Piero de' Medici the head of that family, Niccolò Soderini was made Gonfaloniere of Justice, and thinking tosecure the liberty of the city he began many good things, but perfectednothing, so that he left that office with less honour than he enteredinto it. This fortified Piero's party exceedingly, so that his enemiesbegan to resent it and work together to consider how they might killhim, for in supporting Galeazzo Maria Sforza to the Dukedom ofMilan--which his father Francesco, just dead, had stolen forhimself--they saw, or thought they saw, the way in which Piero woulddeal if he could with Florence. Thus the Mountain, as the party of hisenemies was called, leaned threatening to crush him more surely everyday. But Piero, who lay sick at Careggi, armed himself, as did hisfriends, who were not few in the city. Now the leaders of his enemieswere Luca Pitti, Dietosalvi Neroni, Agnolo Acciaiuoli, and mostcourageous of all, Niccolò Soderini. He, taking arms, as Piero had done, and followed by most of the people of his quarter, went one morning toLuca's house, entreating him to mount and ride with him to PalazzoVecchio for the security of the Senate, who, as he said, were of hisside. "To do this, " said he, "is victory. " But Luca had no mind for thisgame, for many reasons, --for one, he had already received promises andrewards from Piero; for another, he had married one of his nieces toGiovanni Tornabuoni, --so that, instead of joining him, he admonishedSoderini to lay aside his arms and return quietly to his house. In themeantime the Senate, with the magistrates, had closed the doors ofPalazzo Vecchio without appearing for either side, though the whole citywas in tumult. After much discussion, they agreed, since Piero could notbe present, for he was sick, to go to him in his palace, but Soderiniwould not. So they set out without him; and arrived, one was deputed tospeak of the tumult, and to declare that they who first took arms wereresponsible; and that understanding Piero was the man, they came to beinformed of his design, and to know whether it were for the advantage ofthe city. Piero made answer that not they who first took arms wereblameworthy, but they who gave occasion for it: that if they consideredtheir behaviour towards him, their meetings at night, theirsubscriptions and practices to defeat him, they would not wonder at whathe had done; that he desired nothing but his own security, and thatCosimo and his sons knew how to live honourably in Florence, either withor without a Balia. Then, turning on Dietosalvi and his brothers, whowere all present, he reproached them severely for the favours they hadreceived from Cosimo, and the great ingratitude which they had returned;which reprimand was delivered with so much zeal, that, had not Pierohimself restrained them, there were some present who would certainlyhave killed them. So he had it his own way, and presently new senatorsbeing chosen and another gonfaloniere, the people were called togetherin the Piazza and a new Balia was created, all of Piero's creatures. This so terrified "the Mountain" that they fled out of the city, butLuca Pitti remained, trusting in Giovanni Tornabuoni and the promises ofPiero. Now mark his fall. He quickly learned the difference betwixtvictory and misfortune, betwixt honour and disgrace. His house, whichformerly was thronged with visitors and the better sort of citizens, wasnow grown solitary and unfrequented. When he appeared abroad in thestreets, his friends and relations were not only afraid to accompanyhim, but even to own or salute him, for some of them had lost theirhonours for doing it, some their estates, and all of them werethreatened. The noble structures which he had begun were given over bythe workmen, the good deeds requited with contumely, the honours he hadconferred with infamy and disgrace. For many persons, who in the day ofhis authority had loaded him with presents, required them again in hisdistress, pretending they were but loans and no more. Those who beforehad cried him to the skies, cursed him down as fast for his ingratitudeand violence; so that now, when it was too late, he began to repenthimself that he had not taken Soderini's advice and died honourably, seeing that he must now live with dishonour. 

So far Machiavelli. The unfinished, half-ruinous palace, designed in1444 by Brunellesco, was a century later sold by the Pitti, quite ruinednow, to Eleonora, the wife of Grand Duke Cosimo, and was finished byAmmanati. The great wings were added later. In May 1550, Cosimo Ientered Palazzo Pitti as his Grand-Ducal residence. To-day it is theKing of Italy's Palace in Florence. 

The Galleria Palatina is a gallery of the masterpieces of the highRenaissance, formed by the Grand Dukes, who brought here from their ownvillas and from the Uffizi the greatest works in their possession. Likeother Italian galleries, it suffered from Napoleon's generals; butthough sixty or more pictures were taken to Paris, they all seem to havebeen returned. Here the Grand Dukes gathered ten pictures by Titianeight by Raphael, as well as two, the Madonna del Baldacchino and theVision of Ezekiel, which he designed, ten by Andrea del Sarto, six byFra Bartolommeo, two lovely Peruginos, two splendid portraits by RidolfoGhirlandajo, four portraits by Tintoretto, several pictures by Rubens, two portraits, one of himself, by Rembrandt, a magnificent Vandyck, andmany lesser pictures. In the royal apartments, among other interestingor beautiful things, is Botticelli's Pallas and the Centaur, painted, assome have thought, to celebrate Lorenzo's return from Naples in 1480. Itis, then, rather as a royal gallery than as a museum that we mustconsider the Galleria Palatina, a more splendid if less catholic SalonCarré, the Tribuna of Italian painting. It is strange that, among allthe beautiful and splendid pictures with which the Grand Dukessurrounded themselves, there is not one from the hand of Leonardo, norone that Michelangelo has painted. And then, of the many here that passunder the name of Botticelli, only the Pallas and the Centaur in theroyal apartments seems to be really his; so that when we look for thegreatest pictures of the Florentine school, we must be content with thestrangely unsatisfactory work of Andrea del Sarto, often lovely enoughit is true, but as often insincere, shallow, not at one with itself, andcertainly a stranger here in Florence. 

The work of Andrea del Sarto, as we are assured, might but for histragic story have been so splendid; but in truth that sentimental andpathetic tale neither excuses nor explains his failure, if failure itbe. He is the first artist who has worked badly because he loved awoman. He was born in 1456, and became the pupil of Piero di Cosimo. There in that fantastic bottega he must have met Fra Bartolommeo, wholater influenced him so deeply. Nor was Michelangelo, or at least hisgrand and tremendous art, without its effect upon one so easily moved, so subject to every passing mood, as Andrea. Yet he never seems to haveexpressed just himself, save in those tragic portraits of himself and ofhis wife, of which there are three here in the Pitti (188, 280, 1176). He has been called the faultless painter, and indeed he seems to beincapable of fault, to be really a little effeminate, a little vague, bewildered by the sculpture of Michelangelo, the confusion of art inFlorence, the advent of the colourists, of whom here in Tuscany he isperhaps the chief. It is no intellectual passion you find in that soft, troubled work, where from every picture Lucrezia del Fede looks out atyou, posing as Madonna or Magdalen or just herself, and even so, discontented, unhappy, unsatisfactory because she is too stupid to behappy at all. If she were Andrea's tragedy, one might think that evenwithout her his life could scarcely have been different. If we compare, here in the Pitti Gallery, the two pictures of the Annunciation from hishand, we shall see how completely the enthusiasm of his early work iswanting in his later pictures. Something, some divine energy, seems tohave gone out of his life, and ever after he is but trying to revive orto counterfeit it. Now and then, as in the Disputa (172), which marksthe very zenith of his art, he is almost a great painter, but theMadonna with six Saints (123), painted in 1524, is already full ofrepetitions, --the kneeling figures in the foreground, for instance, thatwe find again in the Deposition (58) painted in the same year. Nor inthe Assumption (225) painted in 1526, nor in the later picture (191) of1531, is there any significance, energy, or beauty: they arearrangements of draperies, splendid luxurious pictures without sincerityor emotion. It is not fair to judge him by the St. John Baptist, whichhas suffered too much from restoration to be any longer his work. Thusit is at last as the painter of the Annunziata and the Scalzo that wemust think of him, which, full of grandiose and heavy forms anddraperies though they are, still please us better than anything else heachieved, save the great Last Supper of S. Salvi and the portraits ofhimself and his wife. As a Florentine painter he seems ever amongstrangers: it is as an exiled Venetian, one who had been forced by someirony of circumstances to forego his birthright in that invigorating andworldly city, which might have revealed to him just the significance oflife which we miss in his pictures, that he appears to us; a failuredifficult to explain, a weak but beautiful nature spoiled by mediocrity. 

Fra Bartolommeo was another Florentine who seems, for a moment at anyrate, to have been bewildered by the influence of Michelangelo, but as aprofound conviction saved him from insincerity, so his splendidsensuality preserved his work from sentimentalism. Born about 1475 atSavignano, not far from Prato, his father sent him to Florence, placinghim in the care of Cosimo Rosselli, according to Vasari, but moreprobably, as we may think, under Piero di Cosimo. Here he seems to havecome under the influence of Leonardo, and to have been friends withMariotto Albertinelli. The great influence of his life, however, was FraGirolamo Savonarola, whom he would often go to S. Marco to hear. Savonarola was preaching as ever against vanities, --that is to say, pictures, statues, verses, books: things doubtless anathema to one whosewhole future depended upon the amount of interest he could awaken inhimself. At this time, it seems, Savonarola was asserting his convictionthat "in houses where young maidens dwelt it was dangerous and improperto retain pictures wherein there were undraped figures. " It seems tohave been the custom in Florence at the time of the Carnival to buildcabins of wood and furze, and on the night of Shrove Tuesday to set themablaze, while the people danced around them, joining hands, according toancient custom, amid laughter and songs. This Savonarola had denounced, and, winning the ear of the people for the moment, he persuaded thosewho were wont to dance to bring "pictures and works of sculpture, manyby the most excellent masters, " and to cast them into the fire, withbooks, musical instruments, and such. To this pile, Vasari tells us, Bartolommeo brought all his studies and drawings which he had made fromthe nude, and threw them into the flames; so also did Lorenzo di Crediand many others, who were called Piagnoni, among them, no doubt, SandroBotticelli. The people soon tired, however, of their new vanity, as theyhad done of the beautiful things they had destroyed at his bidding, and, the party opposed to Savonarola growing dangerous, Bartolommeo withothers shut themselves up in S. Marco to guard Savonarola. FraGirolamo's excommunication, torture, and death, which followed soonafter, seem finally to have decided the gentle Bartolommeo to assume thereligious habit, which he did not long after at S. Domenico in Prato. Later we find him back in Florence in the Convent of S. Marco, where heis said to have met Raphael and to have learned much from him of the artof perspective. However that may be, he continued to paint there in S. Marco really--saving a journey to Rome where he came under the influenceof Michelangelo, a visit to S. Martino in Lucca, and his journey toVenice in 1506--for the rest of his life, being buried there at last in1517. 

Six pictures from his hand hang to-day in the Pitti, --a Holy Family(256), the beautiful Deposition (64), an Ecce Homo in fresco (377), theMarriage of St. Catherine, painted in 1512 (208), a St. Mark, painted in1514 (125), and Christ and the Four Evangelists, painted in 1516 (159). The unpleasing "Madonna appearing to St. Bernard, " painted in 1506, nowin the Accademia, was his first work after he became a friar. 

Here, in the Pitti, Bartolommeo is not at his best; for his earlier andmore delicate manner, so full of charm and a sort of daintiness, onemust go to Lucca, where his picture of Madonna with St. Stephen and St. John Baptist hangs in the Duomo. The grand and almost pompous works inFlorence, splendid though they may be in painting, in composition, incolour, scarcely move us at all, so that it might almost seem that infollowing Savonarola he lost not the world only but his art also, thatrefined and delicate art which comes to us so gently in his earliestpictures. Something passionate and pathetic, truly, may be found in thePietà here, together with a certain dramatic effectiveness that is rarein his work. With what an effort, for instance, has St. John lifted thebody of his Master from the great cross in the background, howpassionately Mary Magdalen has flung herself at His feet; yet thepicture seems to be without any real significance, without spiritualitycertainly, only another colossal group of figures that even Michelangelohas refused to carve. 

[Illustration: PIETÀ

_By Fra Bartolomeo. Pitti Gallery_

_Anderson_]

On coming to the work of Raphael, to the work of Titian, we find thegreat treasure of the Pitti Gallery, beside which the rest is but abackground: it is for them really, after all, that we have come here. 

Raphael Sanzio, the "most beloved name in the history of painting, " wasborn at Urbino in 1483. The pupil first of his father maybe, thoughGiovanni died when his son was but eleven years old, and later ofTimoteo Viti, we hear of Raphael first in the bottega of the greatest ofthe Umbrian painters, Perugino, at Perugia. Two works of Perugino hangto-day in the Pitti Gallery, the Madonna and Child (219) and theEntombment (164), painted in 1495, for the nuns of S. Chiara. Vasari hasmuch to say of the latter, relating how Francesco del Pugliare offeredto give them three times as much as they had paid Perugino for thepicture, and to cause another exactly like it to be executed for them bythe same hand; but they would not consent, because Pietro had told themhe did not think he could equal the one they possessed. It is reallyUmbria itself we see in that lovely work, which has impressedBartolommeo so profoundly, the Lake of Trasimeno, surrounded by villagesthat climb the hills just as Perugino has painted the little city inthis picture. And it is in this mystical and smiling country, where thelight is so soft and tender, softer than on any Tuscan hills, that themost perfect if not the greatest painter of the Renaissance grew up. You may find some memory of that beautiful land of hills and quietvalleys even in his latest work, after he had learned from every master, and summed up, as it were, the whole Renaissance in his achievement. Butin four pictures here in the Pitti, it is the influence of Florence youfind imposing itself upon the art of Umbria, transforming it, strengthening it, and suggesting it may be, the way of advance. Something of the art of Pietro you see in the portraits of MadallenaDoni (59), Angelo Doni (61), and La Donna Gravida (229), something soakin to the Francesco delle Opere of the Uffizi that it would not besurprising to find the Madallena Doni, at any rate, attributed toPerugino. Yet superficial though they be in comparison with the laterportraits, they mark the patient endeavour of his work in Florence, therealism that this city, so scornful of _forestieri_, was forcing uponhim as it had already done on Perugino, who in the Francesco, theBracessi, and the two monks of the Accademia, touches life itself, perhaps, only there in all his work. It is the influence of Florence weseem to find too in the simplicity of the Madonna del Granduca (178). Here is a picture certainly in the manner of Perugino, but withsomething lost, some light, some beatitude, yet with something gainedalso, if only in a certain measure of restraint, a real simplicity thatis foreign to that master. And then, if we compare it with the Madonnadella Sedia (151), which is said to have been painted on the lid of awine cask, we shall find, I think, that however many new secrets he maylearn Raphael never forgot a lesson. It is Perugino who has taught himto compose so perfectly, that the space, small or large, of the pictureitself becomes a means of beauty. How perfectly he has placed Madonnawith her little Son, and St. John praying beside them, so that until youbegin to take thought you are not aware how difficult that compositionmust have been, and indeed you never remember how small that _tondo_really is. How eagerly these easel pictures of Madonna have been loved, and yet to-day how little they mean to us; some virtue seems to havegone out of them, so that they move us no longer, and we are indeed alittle impatient at their fame, and ready to accuse Raphael of I knownot what insincerity or dreadful facility. Yet we have only to look atthe portraits to know we are face to face with one of the greatest andmost universal of painters. Consider, then, La Donna Velata (245), orthe Pope Julius II (79), or the Leo X with the two Cardinals (40), howsplendid they are, how absolutely characterised and full of life, lifeseen in the tranquillity of the artist, who has understood everything, and with whom truth has become beauty. In the Leo X with the Cardinals, Giulio de' Medici and Lorenzo dei Rossi, how tactfully Raphael hascontrived the light and shadow so that the fat heavy face of the Pope isnot over emphasised, and you discern perfectly the beauty of the head, the delicacy of the nostrils, the clever, sensual, pathetic, wittymouth. And the hands seem to be about to move, to be a little tremulouswith life, to be on the verge of a gesture, to have only just becomemotionless on the edge of the book. It is in these portraits that theart of Raphael is at its greatest, becomes universal, achievesimmortality. 

There remains to be considered the splendid ever-living work of Titian. The early work of the greatest painter of Italy, of the world, greatestin the variety, number, and splendour of his pictures, is represented inthe Pitti, happily enough by one of the most lovely of all Italianpaintings, the Concert (185), so long given to Giorgone. A monk in cowland tonsure touches the keys of a harpsichord, while beside him standsan older man, a clerk and perhaps a monk too, who grasps the handle of aviol; in the background, a youthful, ambiguous figure, with a cap andplume, waits, perhaps on some interval, to begin a song. Yet, indeed, that is not the picture, which, whatever its subject may be, would seemto be more expressive than any other in the world. Some great joy, somegreat sorrow, seems about to declare itself. What music does he hear, that monk with the beautiful sensitive hands, who turns away towards hiscompanion? Something has awakened in his soul, and he is transfigured. Perhaps for the first time, in some rhythm of the music, he hasunderstood everything, the beauty of life which passeth like a sunshine, now that it is too late, that his youth is over and middle age is uponhim. His companion, on the threshold of old age, divines his trouble andlays a hand on his shoulder quietly, as though to still the tumult ofhis heart. Like a vision youth itself, ambiguous, about to possesseverything, waits, like a stranger, as though invoked by the music, onan interval that will never come again, that is already passed. 

If Titian is really the sole painter of this picture, how loyal he hasbeen to his friend, to that new spirit which lighted Venetian art as thesun makes beautiful the world. But indeed one might think that, evenwith Morelli, Crowe, and Cavalcaselle, and Berenson against us, not toname others who have done much for the history of painting in Italy, wemight still believe, not altogether without reason, that Giorgone hadsome part in the Concert, which, after all, passed as his altogether fortwo hundred and fifty years; was bought, indeed, as his in 1654, onlyseventy-eight years after Titian's death, by Cardinal Leopoldo de'Medici from Paolo del Sera, the Florentine collector in Venice. Thatfigure of a youth, ambiguous in its beauty--could any other hand thanGiorgone's have painted it; does it ever appear in Titian's innumerablemasterpieces at all? Dying as he did at the age of thirty-three, Giorgone must have left many pictures unfinished, which Titian, hisfriend and disciple almost, may well have completed, and even signed, inan age when works, almost wholly untouched by a master, were certainlysold as his. 

Titian's other pictures here, with the exception of the Head of Christ(228) and the Magdalen (67), are portraits, all, save the so-calledTommaso Mosti, painted certainly before 1526, of his great middleperiod. The Magdalen comes from Urbino, where Vasari saw it in theGuardaroba of the great palace. The quality of the picture is one ofsheer colour; there is here no other "subject" than a beautiful nudewoman, --it is called a Magdalen because it is not called a Venus. Consider, then, the harmony of the gold hair and the fair flesh and theblue of the sky: it is a harmony in gold and rose and blue. 

The earliest of the great portraits is the Ippolito de' Medici (201); itwas painted in Venice in October 1532. [127] Vasari saw this picture inthe Guardaroba of Cosimo I. It is a half-length portrait of adistinguished man, still very young, that we see. The Cardinal is notdressed as a Churchman, but as a grandee of Hungary. In the sad andcunning face we seem to foresee the fate that awaited him at Gaetascarcely three years later, where he was imprisoned and poisoned. Thebeautiful dull red of the tunic reminds one of the unforgetable red ofthe cloth on the table beside which Philip II stands in the picture inthe Prado. From this profound and almost touching portrait we come tothe joy of the Bella (18). It is a hymn to Physical Beauty. There isnothing in the world more splendid or more glad than this portrait, perhaps of Eleonora Gonzaga, Duchess of Urbino. How often Titian haspainted her!--once as it might seem as the Venus of the Tribune (1117), and again in her own character in the portrait now in the Uffizi (599), where certainly she is not so fair as she we see here as Bella and thereas Venus. If this, indeed, be the Duchess of Urbino, then the Venus isalso her portrait, for the Bella is described in the list of finepictures which were brought to Florence in 1631 as a portrait of thesame person we know as the Venus of the Tribune. But the first we hearof the Bella is in a letter of the Duke of Urbino in 1536, while theportrait in the Uffizi of Eleonora Gonzaga was painted in Venice in thatyear; and since the Duchess is certainly an older woman than the Bella, we must conclude either that the Bella was painted many years earlier, which seems impossible, or that it is not a portrait of EleonoraGonzaga. And, indeed, the latter conclusion seems likely, for who canbelieve that the Duke would have cared for a nude portrait of his wifeas Venus? It seems probable that the Bella is a portrait of his mistressrather than his wife, a mistress whom, since she was so fair, he did notscruple to ask Titian to paint as Venus herself. A harmony in blue andgold, Dr. Gronau calls the picture; adding that, "in spite of its faultsor of the restorations which have made it a mere shadow of its formersplendour, it remains an immortal example of what the art of theRenaissance at its zenith regarded as the ideal of feminine beauty. "

If it is beauty and joy we find in the Bella, it is a profound force andconfidence that we come upon in the portrait of Aretino painted before1545, --and life above all. Here is one of the greatest blackguards ofhistory, the "Scourge of Princes, " the blackmailer of Popes, thesensualist of the Sonnetti Lussuriosi, the witty author of the_Ragionamenti_. We seem to see his vulgarity, his immense ability, hissplendour, and his baseness, and to understand why Titian was wiseenough to take him for his friend. What energy, almost bestial in itsbrutality, you find in those coarse features and over-eloquent lips, andyet the head is powerful, really intellectual too, though without anydelicacy or fineness. Aretino himself presented this portrait to CosimoI in October 1545, inexplicably explaining that the rendering of thedress was not perfect. [128]

In another portrait of about the same time, the Young Englishman (92), we have Titian at his best. The extraordinarily beautiful English face, fulfilled with some incalculable romance, is to me at least by far themost delightful portrait in Florence. One seems to understand England, her charm, her fascination, her extraordinary pride and persistence, inlooking at this picture of one of her sons. All the tragedy of herkings, the adventure to be met with on her seas, the beauty and cultureof Oxford, and the serenity of her country places, come back to onefresh and unsullied by memories of the defiling and trumpery citiesthat so lately have begun to destroy her. Who this beautiful figure maybe we know not, nor, indeed, where the picture may have come from; forif it comes from Urbino it is not well described in the inventory of1631. 

After looking upon such a work as this, the Philip II (200), fine thoughit is, and only less splendid than the Madrid picture, the Portrait of aMan (215), both painted in Augsburg in 1548, and even the lovelyportrait of Giulia Varana, Duchess of Urbino, in the royal apartments, seem to lose something of their splendour. Yet if we compare them withthe work of Raphael or Tintoretto, they assuredly possess an energy anda vitality that even those masters were seldom able to express. ForTitian seems to have created life with something of the ease andfacility of a natural force; to have desired always Beauty as the onlyperfect flower of life; and while he was not content with the meretruth, and never with beauty divorced from life, he has created life insuch abundance that his work may well be larger than the achievement ofany two other men, even the greatest in painting; yet in his work, inthe work that is really his, you will find nothing that is not living, nothing that is not an impassioned gesture reaching above and beyond ourvision into the realm of that force which seems to be eternal. 

FOOTNOTES:

[127] Gronau, _Titian_ (London, 1904), p. 291, where Dr. Gronau suggestsit may belong to the following year; see also p. 104. 

[128] Cf. _Lettere di Pietro Aretino_ (1609), vol. Iii. P. 238. 

XXV. TO FIESOLE AND SETTIGNANO

How weary one grows of the ways of a city, --yes, even in Florence, whereevery street runs into the country and one may always see the hills andthe sky! But even in Athens, when they built the Parthenon, often, Ithink, I should have found my way into the olive gardens and vineyardsabout Kephisos: so to-day, leaving the dead beauty littered in thechurches, the palaces, the museums, the streets of Florence, very oftenI seek the living beauty of the country, the whisper of the poplarsbeside Arno, the little lovely songs of streams. And then Florence is acity almost without suburbs;[129] at the gate you find the hills, theolive gardens bordered with iris, the vineyards hedged with the rose. 

Many and fair are the ways to Fiesole: you may go like a burgess in thetram, or like a lord in a coach, but for me I will go like a young manby the bye ways, like a poor man on my feet, and the dew will be yet onthe roses when I set out, and in the vineyards they will be singingamong the corn--

 "Fiorin fiorello, La mi' Rosina ha il labbro di corallo E l'occhiettino suo sembra un gioiello. "

And then, who knows what awaits one on the way?

 "E quando ti riscontro per la via Abbassi gli occhi e rassembri una dea, E la fai consumar la vita mia. "

Of the ways to Fiesole, one goes by Mugnone and one by S. Gervasio, butit will not be by them that I shall go, but out of Barriera delle Cure;and I shall pass behind the gardens of Villa Palmieri, whither after thesecond day of the _Decamerone_ Boccaccio's fair ladies and gay lordspassed from Poggio Gherardo by a little path "but little used, which wascovered with herbs and flowers, that opened under the rising sun, whilethey listened to the song of the nightingales and other birds. " Thusbetween the garden walls I shall come to S. Domenico. 

S. Domenico di Fiesole is a tiny village half way up the hill ofFiesole, and on one side of the way is the Dominican convent, and on theother the Villa Medici, while in the valley of Mugnone is an abbey ofBenedictines, the Badia di Fiesole, founded in 1028. The convent ofDominican friars, where Fra Angelico and S. Antonino, who was the firstnovice here, lived, and Cosimo de' Medici walked so often, looking downon Florence and Arno there in the evening, was founded in 1405. Suppressed in the early part of the nineteenth century, the convent wasdespoiled of its frescoes, but in 1880 it was bought back by theDominicans, so that to-day it is fulfilling its original purpose as areligious house. The church too has suffered many violations, and to-daythere are but two frescoes left of all the work Angelico did here, --atriptych in a chapel, a Madonna and Saints restored by Lorenzo di Credi, and a Crucifixion in the sacristy. Of old, Perugino's Baptism now in theUffizi hung here, but that was taken by Grand Duke Leopold, who gave inexchange Lorenzo di Credi's picture; but the French stole Angelico'sCoronation of the Virgin, now in the Louvre, and gave nothing in return, so that of all the riches of this little place almost nothing remains, only (and this is rare about Florence at any rate) the original ownersare in possession, and you may hear Mass here very sweetly. 

It is down a lane, again between garden walls, that you must go to theBadia, once the great shrine of the Fiesolans, but since the eleventhcentury an abbey of Benedictines, where S. Romolo once upon a time layin peace, till, indeed, the oratory not far from the church wasstupidly destroyed. The Badia itself was rebuilt in the fifteenthcentury for Cosimo de' Medici, by the hand, as it is said, ofBrunellesco. Here in the loggia that looks over the city the PlatonicAcademy often met, so that these very pillars must have heard the gentlevoice of Marsilio Ficino, the witty speech of the young Lorenzo, thebeautiful words of Pico della Mirandola, the laughter of Simonetta, thefootsteps of Vanna Tornabuoni. It was, however, not for the Benedictinesbut for the Augustinians that Cosimo rebuilt the place, giving them, indeed, one of the most beautiful convents in Italy, and one of theloveliest churches too, a great nave with a transept under a circularvaulting, while the façade is part really of the earlier building, olderit may be than S. Miniato or the Baptistery itself, as we now see it;and there the pupils of Desiderio da Settignano have worked and Giovannidi S. Giovanni has painted, while Brunellesco is said to have designedthe lectern in the sacristy. Later, Inghirami set up his printing presshere, while in the church Giovanni de' Medici in 1452 was made Cardinal, and in the convent Giuliano, the Due de Nemours, died in 1516. Returningfrom this quiet and beautiful retreat to S. Domenico, one may go verywell on foot, though not otherwise, by the old road to Fiesole, stillbetween the garden walls; but then, who would go by the new way, noisywith the shrieking of the trams, while by the old way you may tread inthe footsteps of the Bishops of Fiesole? They would rest on the way fromFlorence at Riposo de' Vescovi, and leave their coach at S. Domenico. Bythe old way, too, you pass Le Tre Pulzelle, the hostel of the ThreeMaidens, or at least the place where it stood, and where Leo X stayed in1516. Farther, too, is the little church of S. Ansano, where there is ahost of fair pictures, and then suddenly you are in the great Piazza, littered with the booths of the straw-plaiters, in the keen air ofFiesole, among a ruder and more virile people, who look down on Florenceall day long. 

[Illustration: COSTA S. GEORGIO]

And indeed, whatever the historians may say, scorning wise tales ofold Villani, the Fiesolani are a very different people from theFlorentines; and whether Atlas, with Electra his wife, born in the fifthdegree from Japhet son of Noah, built this city upon this rock by thecounsel of Apollinus, midway between the sea of Pisa and Rome and theGulf of Venice, matters little. The Fiesolani are not Florentines, people of the valley, but Etruscans, people of the hills, and that youmay see in half an hour any day in their windy piazzas and narrowclimbing ways. Rough, outspoken, stark men little women keen and full ofsalt, they have not the assured urbanity of the Florentine, who, whilehe scorns you in his soul as a barbarian, will trade with you, eat withyou, and humour you, certainly without betraying his contempt. But theFiesolano is otherwise; quarrelsome he is, and a little aloof, he willnot concern himself overmuch about you, and will do his business whetheryou come or go. And I think, indeed, he still hates the Fiorentino, asthe Pisan does, as the Sienese does, with an immortal, cold, everlastinghatred, that maybe nothing will altogether wipe out or cause him toforget. All these people have suffered too much from Florence, whounderstood the art of victory as little as she understood the art ofempire. From the earliest times, as it might seem, Florence, a Romanfoundation after all, hated Fiesole, which once certainly was anEtruscan city. Time after time she destroyed it, generally inself-defence. In 1010, for instance, Villani tells us that "theFlorentines, perceiving that their city of Florence had no power to risemuch while they had overhead so strong a fortress as the city ofFiesole, one night secretly and subtly set an ambush of armed men indivers parts of Fiesole. The Fiesolani, feeling secure as to theFlorentines, and not being on their guard against them, on the morningof their chief festival of S. Romolo, when the gates were open and theFiesolani unarmed, the Florentines entered into the city under cover ofcoming to the festa; and when a good number were within, the other armedFlorentines which were in ambush secured the gates; and on a signal madeto Florence, as had been arranged, all the host and power of theFlorentines came on horse and on foot to the hill, and entered into thecity of Fiesole, and traversed it, slaying scarce any man nor doing anyharm, save to those who opposed them. And when the Fiesolani sawthemselves to be suddenly and unexpectedly surprised by the Florentines, part of them which were able fled to the fortress, which was verystrong, and long time maintained themselves there. The city at the footof the fortress having been taken and over run by the Florentines, andthe strongholds and they which opposed themselves being likewise taken, the common people surrendered themselves on condition that they shouldnot be slain nor robbed of their goods; the Florentines working theirwill to destroy the city, and keeping possession of the bishop's palace. Then the Florentines made a covenant, that whosoever desired to leavethe city of Fiesole and come and dwell in Florence might come safe andsound with all his goods and possessions, or might go to any place whichpleased him, for the which thing they came down in great numbers todwell in Florence, whereof there were and are great families inFlorence. And when this was done, and the city was without inhabitantsand goods, the Florentines caused it to be pulled down and destroyed, all save the bishop's palace and certain other churches and thefortress, which still held out, and did not surrender under the saidconditions. " Fifteen years later we read again: "In the year of Christ1125 the Florentines came with an army to the fortress of Fiesole, whichwas still standing and very strong, and it was held by certain gentlemen_cattani_ which had been of the city of Fiesole, and thither resortedhighwaymen and refugees and evil men, which sometimes infested the roadsand country of Florence; and the Florentines carried on the siege solong that for lack of victuals the fortress surrendered, albeit theywould never have taken it by storm, and they caused it to be all castdown and destroyed to the foundations, and they made a decree that noneshould ever dare to build a fortress again at Fiesole. "[130]

Now whether Villani is strictly right in his chronicle matters littleor nothing. We know that Fiesole was an Etruscan city, that with therise of Rome, like the rest, she became a Roman colony; all this too herruins confirm. With the fall of Rome, and the barbarian invasions, shewas perfectly suited to the needs of the Teutonic invader. What hatredFlorence had for her was probably due to the fact that she was astronghold of the barbarian nobles, and the fact that in 1010, asVillani says, the Fiesolani were content to leave the city and descendto Florence, while the citadel held out and had to be dealt with later, goes to prove that the fight was rather between the Latin commune ofFlorence and the pirate nobles of Fiesole than between Florence andFiesole itself. Certainly with the destruction of the alien power atFiesole the city of Florence gained every immediate security; the lastgreat fortress in her neighbourhood was destroyed. 

To-day Fiesole consists of a windy Piazza, in which a campanile towersbetween two hills covered with houses and churches and a host of narrowlanes. In the Piazza stands the Duomo, founded in 1028 by Bishop JacopoBavaro, who no doubt wished to bring his throne up the hill from theBadia, where of old it was established. Restored though it is, thechurch keeps something of its old severity and beauty, standing therelike a fortress between the hills and between the valleys. It is ofbasilica form, with a nave and aisles flanked by sixteen columns ofsandstone. As at S. Miniato, the choir is raised over a lofty crypt. There is not perhaps much of interest in the church, but over the westdoor you may see a statue of S. Romolo, while in the choir in theSalutati Chapel there is the masterpiece of Mino da Fiesole, the tomb ofBishop Salutati, who died in 1465, and opposite a marble reredos ofMadonna between S. Antonio and S. Leonardo, by the same master. Thebeautiful bust of Bishop Leonardo over his tomb is an early work, andthe tomb itself is certainly among the most original and charming worksof the master. If the reredos is not so fine, it is perhaps only thatwith so splendid a work before us we are content only with the best ofall. 

But it is not to see a church that we have wandered up to Fiesole, forin the country certainly the churches are less than an olive garden, andthe pictures are shamed by the flowers that run over the hills. Loungingabout this old fortress of a city, one is caught rather by the aspect ofnatural things--Val d'Arno, far and far away, and at last a glimpse ofthe Apennines; Val di Mugnone towards Monte Senario, the night ofcypresses about Vincigliata, the olives of Maiano--than by the churchesscattered among the trees or hidden in the narrow ways that everywhereclimb the hills to lose themselves at last in the woodland or in thecornlands among the vines. You wander behind the Duomo into the Scavi, and it is not the Roman Baths you go to see or the Etruscan walls andthe well-preserved Roman theatre: you watch the clouds on the mountains, the sun in the valley, the shadows on the hills, listen to a boy singingto his goats, play with a little girl who has slipped her hand in yourslooking for soldi, or wonder at the host of flowers that has run evenamong these ruins. Even from the windows of the Palazzo Pretorio, whichfor some foolish reason you have entered on your way to the hills, youdo not really see the statues and weapons of these forgotten Etruscanpeople, but you watch the sun that has perhaps suddenly lighted up theDuomo, or the wind that, like a beautiful thought, for a moment hasturned the hills to silver. Or if it be up to S. Francesco you climb, the old acropolis of Fiesole, above the palace of the bishop and theSeminary, it will surely be rather to look over the valley to thefarthest hills, where Val di Greve winds towards Siena, than to enter aplace which, Franciscan though it be, has nothing to show half so fairas this laughing country, or that Tuscan cypress on the edge of thatgrove of olives. 

That love of country life, no longer characteristic of the Florentines, which we are too apt to consider almost wholly English, was long agocertainly one of the most delightful traits of the Tuscan character; forSiena was not behind Florence in her delight in the life of thevilla. [131] It is perhaps in the Commentaries of Pius II that a love ofcountry byways, the lanes and valleys about his home, through which, gouty and old, he would have himself carried in a litter, is expressedfor the first time with a true understanding and appreciation of thingswhich for us have come to mean a good half of life. No such lovelydescriptions of scenery may be found perhaps in any Florentine writerbefore Lorenzo Magnifico, unless indeed it be in the verse of Sacchetti. Yet the Florentine burgess of the fifteenth century, the very man whosesimple and hard common-sense got him wealth, or at least a finecompetence, and, as he has told us, a good housewife, and made him oneof the toughest traders in Europe, would become almost a poet in hiscountry house. Old Agnolo Pandolfini, talking to his sons, and teachingthem his somewhat narrow yet wholesome and delightful wisdom, continually reminds himself of those villas near Florence, some likepalaces, --Poggio Gherardo for instance, --some like castles, --Vincigliataperhaps, --"in the purest air, in a laughing country of lovely views, where there are no fogs nor bitter winds, but always fresh water andeverything pure and healthy. " Certainly Cosimo de' Medici was not thefirst Florentine to retire from the city perhaps to Careggi, perhaps toS. Domenico, perhaps farther still; for already in Boccaccio's day wehear the praise of country life, --his description of Villa Palmieri, forinstance, when at the end of the second day of the _Decamerone_ thoseseven ladies and their three comrades leave Poggio Gherardo for thatpalace "about two miles westward, " whither they came at six o'clock of aSunday morning in the year 1348. "When they had entered and inspectedeverything, and seen that the halls and rooms had been cleaned anddecorated, and plentifully supplied with all that was needed for sweetliving, they praised its beauty and good order, and admired the owner'smagnificence. And on descending, even more delighted were they with thepleasant and spacious courts, the cellars filled with choice wines, andthe beautifully fresh water which was everywhere round about.... Thenthey went into the garden, which was on one side of the palace and wassurrounded by a wall, and the beauty and magnificence of it at firstsight made them eager to examine it more closely. It was crossed in alldirections by long, broad, and straight walks, over which the vines, which that year made a great show of giving many grapes, hung gracefullyin arched festoons, and being then in full blossom, filled the wholegarden with their sweet smell, and this, mingled with the odours of theother flowers, made so sweet a perfume that they seemed to be in thespicy gardens of the East. The sides of the walks were almost closedwith red and white roses and with jessamine so that they gave sweetodours and shade not only in the morning but when the sun was high, sothat one might walk there all day without fear. What flowers there werethere how various and how ordered, it would take too long to tell, butthere was not one which in our climate is to be praised, which was notto be found there abundantly. Perhaps the most delightful thing thereinwas a meadow in the midst, of the finest grass and all so green that itseemed almost black, all sprinkled with a thousand various flowers, shutin by oranges and cedars, the which bore the ripe fruit and the youngfruit too and the blossom, offering a shade most grateful to the eyesand also a delicious perfume. In the midst of this meadow there was afountain of the whitest marble marvellously carved, and within--I do notknow whether artificially or from a natural spring--it threw so muchwater and so high towards the sky through a statue which stood there ona pedestal, that it would not have needed more to turn a mill. The waterfell back again with a delicious sound into the clear waters of thebasin, and the surplus was carried away through a subterranean way intolittle waterways most beautifully and artfully made about the meadow, and afterwards ran into others round about, and so watered every part ofthe garden; it collected at length in one place, whence it had enteredthe beautiful garden, turning two mills, much to the profit, as you maysuppose, of the signore, and pouring down at last in a stream clear andsweet into the valley. "

If this should seem a mere pleasaunce of delight, the vision of a poet, the garden of a dream, we have only to remember how realistically andsimply Boccaccio has described for us that plague-stricken city, scarcely more than a mile away, to be assured of its truthfulness: andthen listen to Alberti--or old Agnolo Pandolfini, is it?--in his_Trattato del Governo della Famiglia_, one of the most delightful booksof the fifteenth century. He certainly was no poet, yet with whatenthusiasm and happiness he speaks of his villa, how comely and usefulit is, so that while everything else brings labour, danger, suspicion, harm, fear, and repentance, the villa will bring none of these, but apure happiness, a real consolation. Yes, it is really as an escape fromall the care and anxiety of business, of the wool or silk trade, whichhe praised so much, that he loves the country. "_La Villa_, the country, one soon finds, is always gracious, faithful, and true; if you govern itwith diligence and love, it will never be satisfied with what it doesfor you, always it will add [**Transcriber's Note: undecipherable] torecompense. In the spring the villa gives you continual delight; greenleaves, flowers, odours, songs and in every way makes you happy andjocund: all smiles on you and promises a fine harvest, filling you withgood hope, delight, and pleasure. Yes indeed, how courteous is thevilla! She gives you now one fruit, now another, never leaving youwithout some of her own joy. For in autumn she pays you for all yourtrouble, fruit out of all proportion to your merit, recompense, andthanks; and how willingly and with what abundance--twelve for one: for alittle sweat, many barrels of wine, and for what is old in the house, the villa will give you new, seasoned, clear, and good. She fills thehouse the winter long with grapes, both fresh and dry, with plums, walnuts, pears, apples, almonds, filberts, giuggiole, pomegranates, andother wholesome fruits, and apples fragrant and beautiful. Nor in winterwill she forget to be liberal; she sends you wood, oil, vine branches, laurels, junipers to keep out snow and wind, and then she comforts youwith the sun, offering you the hare and the roe, and the field to followthem.... " Nor are the joys of summer less, for you may read Greek andLatin in the shadow of the courtyard where the fountains splash, whileyour girls are learning songs and your boys are busy with the contadini, in the vineyards or beside the stream. It is a spirit of pure delight, we find there in that old townsman, in country life, simple and quiet, after the noise and sharpness of the market-place. And certainly, as wepass from Fiesole down the new road where the tram runs, turning intothe lanes again just by Villa Galetta, on our way to Maiano, we mayfancy we see many places where such a life as that has always beenlived, and, as I know, in some is lived to-day. Everywhere on thesehills you find villas, and every villa has a garden, and every gardenhas a fountain, where all day long the sun plays with the slim dancingwater and the contadine sing of love in the vineyards. 

Maiano itself is but a group of such places, among them a great villapainted in the manner of the seventeenth century, spoiled a little bymodernity. You can leave it behind, passing into a lane behind PoggioGherardo, where it is roses, roses all the way, for the podere is hedgedwith a hedge of roses pink and white, where the iris towers too, streaming its violet banners. Presently, as you pass slowly on yourway--for in a garden who would go quickly?--you come upon the littlechurch of S. Martino a Mensola, built, as I think indeed, so lovely itis, by Brunellesco, on a little rising ground above a shrunken stream, and that is Mensola on her way to Arno. She lags for sure, because, lostin Arno, she will see nothing again so fair as her own hills. 

[Illustration: OUTSIDE THE GATE]

S. Martino a Mensola is very old, for it is said that in the year 800 anoratory stood here, dedicated to S. Martino, and that il Beato Andrea diScozia, Blessed Andrew of Scotland, then archdeacon to the bishopric ofFiesole, rebuilt it and endowed a little monastery, where he went tolive with a few companions, taking the rule of St. Benedict. Caroccitells us that about 1550 it passed from the Benedictines to certainmonks who already had a house at S. Andrea in Mercato Vecchio ofFlorence. In 1450 the monastery returned to Benedictines, coming intothe possession of the monks of the Badia. Restored many times, thechurch was rebuilt in the fifteenth century, it may well be byBrunellesco; the portico, restored in 1857, was added in the sixteenthcentury. Within, the church is charming, having a nave and two aisles, with four small chapels and a great one, which belonged to the Zatifamily. And then, not without a certain surprise, you come here uponmany pictures still in their own place, over the altars of what is now avillage church. Over the high altar is a great ancona divided into manycompartments: the Virgin with our Lord, S. Maria Maddalena, S. Niccolò, St. Catharine of Alexandria, S. Giuliano, S. Amerigo of Hungary, S. Martino, S. Gregorio, S. Antonio, and the donor, Amerigo Zati. Caroccisuggests Bernardo Orcagna as the painter; whoever he may have been, thisaltarpiece is beautiful, and the more beautiful too since it is in itsown place. In the Gherardi Chapel there is an Annunciation given toGiusto d'Andrea, while in another is a Madonna and Saints by Neri diBicci. In the chapel of the Cecchini there is a fine fifteenth-centurywork attributed to Cosimo Rosselli. The old monastery is to-day partlythe canonica and partly a villa. Following the stream upwards, we passunder and then round the beautiful Villa I Tatti that of old belonged tothe Zati family whose altarpiece is in S. Martino, and winding up theroad to Vincigliata, you soon enter the cypress woods. All the way toyour left Poggio Gherardo has towered over you, Poggio Gherardo wherethe two first days of the _Decamerone_ were passed. How well Boccacciodescribes the place: "On the top of a hill there stood a palace whichwas surrounded by beautiful gardens, delightful meadows, and coolsprings, and in the midst was a great and beautiful court withgalleries, halls, and rooms which were adorned with paintings.... " Notfar away, Boccaccio himself lived on the podere of his father. You cometo it if you pass out of the Vincigliata road by a pathway down toFrassignaja, a little stream which, in its hurry to reach Mensola, itssister here, leaps sheer down the rocks in a tiny waterfall. This is the"shady valley" perhaps where in the evening the ladies of the_Decamerone_ walked "between steep rocks to a crystal brook which poureddown from a little hill, and there they splashed about with bare handsand feet, and talked merrily with one another. " Crossing this brook andfollowing the path round the hillside, where so often the nightingalesings, you pass under a little villa by a stony way to Corbignano, andthere, in what may well be the oldest house in the place, at the end ofthe street, past the miraculous orange tree, just where the hill turnsout of sight, you see Boccaccio's house, Casa di Boccaccio, as it iswritten; and though the old tower has become a loggia, and much has beenrebuilt, you may still see the very ancient stones of the place juttinginto the lane, where the water sings so after the rain, and the oliveswhisper softly all night long, and God walks always among the vines. 

Turning then uphill, you come at last to a group of houses, and wherethe way turns suddenly there is the Oratorio del Vannella, in the parishof Settignano: it is truly just an old wayside tabernacle, but within isone of the earliest works, a Madonna and Child, of Botticelli, whosefather had a podere hereabout. If you follow where the road leads, andturn at last where you may, past the cemetery, you come to Settignano, founded by Septimus Severus or by the Settimia family, it matters littlewhich, for its glory now lies with Desiderio the sculptor, who was born, it seems, at Corbignano, and Antonio and Bernardo Rossellino, who wereborn here. There is no other village near Florence that has so smiling aface as Settignano among the gardens. There is little or nothing to see, though the church of S. Maria has a lovely terra-cotta of Madonna withOur Lord between two angels in the manner of the della Robbia; but thelittle town is delightful, full of stonecutters and sculptors, still atwork in their shops as they were in the great days of Michelangelo. Faraway behind the hill of cypresses Vincigliata still stands on guard, onthe hilltop Castel di Poggio looks into the valley of Ontignano andguards the road to Arezzo and Rome. Here there is peace; not too farfrom the city nor too near the gate, as I said: and so to Firenze in thetwilight. 

NOTE. --_I have said little of the country places about Florence, Settimo, the Certosa in Val d'Ema, the Incontro and such, because thereseemed to be too much to say, and I wanted to treat of them in a bookthat should be theirs only. See my_ Country Walks Round Florence(_Methuen_, 1908). 

FOOTNOTES:

[129] This perhaps is open to criticism: there is a huge suburb ofcourse towards Prato, the other barriere are still fairly in thecountry. 

[130] Villani, _Cronica_, translated by R. E. Selfe (London, 1906), pp. 71-3, 97. 

[131] Cf. Fortini and Sermini for instance. See Symonds' _New ItalianSketches_ (Tauchnitz Ed. ), p. 37. 

XXVI. VALLOMBROSA AND THE CASENTINO, CAMALDOLI AND LA VERNA

I. VALLOMBROSA

There are many ways that lead from Florence to Vallombrosa--by thehills, by the valley, and by rail--and the best of these is by thevalley, but the shortest is by rail, for by that way you may leaveFlorence at noon and be in your inn by three; but if you go by road youmust set out at dawn, so that when evening falls you may hear thewhispering woods of the rainy valley Vallis Imbrosa at your journey'send. That is a pleasant way that takes you first to Settignano out ofthe dust of Via Aretina by the river. Thence you may go by the byways toCompiobbi, past Villa Gamberaja and Terenzano, among the terraced vinesand the old olives, coming to the river at last at Compiobbi, as I said, just under Montacuto with its old castle, now a tiny village, on theroad to the Incontro, that convent on the hilltop where, as it is said, St. Francis met St. Dominic on the way to Rome. The Via Aretina, deep indust that has already whitened the cypresses, passes through Compiobbion its way southward and west; but for me I will cross the river, and goonce more by the byways through the valley now, where the wind whispersin the poplars beside Arno, and the river passes singing gently on itsway. It is a long road full of the quiet life of the country--here alittle farm, there a village full of children; a vineyard heavy withgrapes, where a man walks leisurely, talking to his dog, the hose on hisshoulders; a little copse that runs down to the stones of Arno, where alittle girl sits spinning with her few goats, singing softly someendless chant; a golden olive garden among the corn, where there is nosound but the song of the cicale that sing all day long. And there areso many windings, and though the road leaves the river, it seems alwaysto be returning, always to be bidding good-bye: sometimes it climbs highup above the stream, which just there is very still, sleeping in theshadow under the trees; sometimes it dips quite down to the river bank, a great stretch of dusty shingle across which the stream passes like aroad of silver. Slowly in front of me a great flat-bottomed boat crossedthe river with two great white oxen. And then at a turning of the way aflock of sheep were coming on in a cloud of dust, when suddenly, at aword from the shepherd who led them, they crossed the wide beach todrink at the river, while he waited under the trees by the roadside. There were trees full of cherries too, so full that in the sunshine theyseemed to dance for joy, clothed all in scarlet, so red, so ripe was thefruit. Presently I came upon an old man high up in a tree gathering themin a great basket, and since I was thirsty I asked him for drink, andsince I was hungry I asked him for food. He climbed down the greatladder, coming towards me kindly enough, and drew me into the shadow. "Eat as you will, signore, and quench your thirst, " said he, as helifted a handful of the shining fruit, a handful running over, andoffered it to me. And he stayed with me and gave me his conversation. SoI dined, and when I had finished, "Open that great sack of yours, " saidhe, "and I will send you on your way, " but I would not. Just then fourothers came along in the sun, and on their heads were great bags ofleaves, and he bade them come and eat in the shade. Then said I, "Whatare those leaves that you have there, and what are you going to do withthem?" And they laughed, making answer that they were silk. "Silk?" saidI. "Silk truly, " said they, "since they are the leaves of the mulberryon which the little worm lives that presently will make it. " So I wenton my way with thanks, thinking in my heart: Are we too then but leavesfor worms, out of which, as by a miracle will pass the endless thread ofan immortal life?

So I came to Pontassieve, crossing the river again where the road beginsto leave it. There is nothing good to say of Pontassieve, which has nobeauty in itself, and where folk are rough and given to robbery. Aglance at the inn--for so they call it--and I passed on, glad in myheart that I had dined in the fields. A mile beyond the town, on the ViaAretina, the road of the Consuma Pass leaves the highway on the left, and by this way it is good to go into Casentino; for any of the inns inthe towns of the valley will send to Pontassieve to meet you, and it isbetter to enter thus than by railway from Arezzo. However, I was forVallombrosa; so I kept to the Aretine way. I left it at last at S. Ellero, whence the little railway climbs up to Saltino, passing firstthrough the olives and vines, then through the chestnuts, the oaks, andthe beeches, till at last the high lawns appeared, and evening fell atthe last turn of the mule path over the hill as I came out of the forestbefore the monastery itself, almost like a village or a stronghold, withsquare towers and vast buildings too, fallen, alas! from their highoffice, to serve as a school of forestry, an inn for the summer visitorwho has fled from the heat of the valleys. And there I slept. 

It is best always to come to any place for the first time at evening oreven at night, and then in the morning to return a little on your wayand come to it again. Wandering there, out of the sunshine, in thestillness of the forest itself, with the ruin of a thousand wintersunder my feet, how could I be but angry that modern Italy--ah, so smalla thing!--has chased out the great and ancient order that had dwelt hereso long in quietness, and has established after our pattern autilitarian school, and thus what was once a guest-house is now apension of tourists. But in the abbey itself I forgot my anger, I wasashamed of my contempt of those who could do so small a thing. Thisplace was founded because a young man refused to hate his enemy; everystone here is a part of the mountain, every beam a tree of the forest, the forest that has been renewed and destroyed a thousand times, thathas never known resentment, because it thinks only of life. Yes, this isno place for hatred; since he who founded it loved his enemies, I alsowill let them pass by, and since I too am of that company which thinksonly of life, what is the modern world to me with its denial, its doubt, its contemptible materialism, its destruction, its misery? Like winter, it will flee away before the first footsteps of our spring. 

It was S. Giovanni Gualberto who founded the Vallombrosan Order andestablished here an abbey, whose daughter we now see. Born about theyear 1000, he was the son of Gualberto dei Visdomini, Signore of Petroioin Val di Pesa, of the great family who lived in St. Peter's Gate inFlorence, and were, according to Villani, the patrons of the bishopric. In those days murder daily walked the streets of every Tuscan city, andso it came to pass that before Giovanni was eighteen years old hisbrother Ugo had been murdered by one of that branch of his own housewhich was at feud with Gualberto. Urged on by his father, who, we may besure, did not spare himself or his friends in seeking revenge, Giovanniwas ever on the watch for his enemy, his brother's murderer; and itchanced that as he came into Florence on Good Friday morning in 1018, just before he got to S. Miniato al Monte, at a turning of that steepway he came upon him face to face suddenly in the sunlight. Surely Godhad delivered him into his hands! Giovanni was on horseback with hisservant, and then the hill was in his favour; the other was alone. Seeing he had no chance, for the steel was already cold on his jumpingthroat, he sank on his knees, and, crossing his arms in the form of HolyCross, he prayed hard to the Lord Jesus to save his soul alive. Hearingthat blessed, beautiful name in the stillness of that morning, when allthe bells are silent and the very earth hushed for Christ's death, Giovanni could not strike, but instead lifted up his enemy and embracedhim, saying, "I give you not your life only, but my love too for ever. Pray for me that God may pardon my sin. " So they went on their way; butGiovanni, when he came to the monastery of S. Miniato of theBenedictines, stole into the church and prayed before the greatCrucifix, [132] begging God to pardon him; and while he prayed thus, theChrist miraculously bowed his head, "as it were to give him a token howacceptable was this sacrifice of his resentment. "

How little that sacrifice seems to us! But it was a great, an unheard-ofthing in those days. And for this cause, maybe, Giovanni proposed toremain with the monks, to be received as a novice among them, and toforsake the world for ever. And they received him. Now when Gualbertoheard it, he was first very much astonished and then more angry, so thathe went presently to take Giovanni out of that place; but he would not, for before his father he cut off his hair and clothed himself in a habitwhich he borrowed. Then, seeing his purpose, his father let him alone. So for some four years Giovanni lived a monk at S. Miniato; when, theold Abbot dying, his companions wished to make him their Abbot, but hewould not, setting out immediately with one companion to search for acloser solitude. And to this end he went to Camaldoli to consult with S. Romualdo; but even there, in that quiet and ordered place, he did notseem to have found what he sought. So he set out again, not withouttears, coming at last, on this side of Casentino, upon this high valley, Acqua Bella, as it was then called, because of its brooks. It belonged, with all the forest, to the Contessa Itta dei Guidi, the Abbess of S. Ellero, who gladly presented Giovanni with land for his monastery, andthat he built of timber. Nor was he alone, for he had found therealready two hermits, who agreed to join him; so under the rule of St. Benedict the Vallombrosan Order was founded. [133] Of S. Giovanni's workin Florence, of his fight with Simony and Nicolaitanism, this is noplace to speak. He became the hero of that country; yet such was hishumility that he never proceeded further than minor orders, and, thoughAbbot of Vallombrosa, was never a priest. He founded many houses, S. Salvi among them, while his monks were to be found at Moscetta, Passignano, and elsewhere in Tuscany and Umbria; while his Order was thefirst to receive lay brothers who, while exempt from choir and silence, were employed in "external offices. " It was in July 1073 that he fellsick at Passignano, and on the 12th of that month he died there. PopeCelestine III enrolled him among the saints in 1193. After S. Giovanni'sdeath the Order seems to have flourished by reason of the bequests ofthe Countess Matilda. 

There is but little of interest in the present buildings at Vallombrosa, which date from the seventeenth century; nor does the church itselfpossess anything of importance, unless it be the relic of S. Giovannienshrined in a casquet of the sixteenth century, a work of PaoloSoliano. 

About three hundred feet above the monastery is the old Hermitage--the_Celle_--now an hotel. Here those who sought solitude and silence foundtheir way, and indeed it seems to have been a spot greatly beloved, fora certain Pietro Migliorotti of Poppi passed many years there, andrefused to think of it as anything but a little paradise; thus it wascalled Paradisino, the name which it bears to-day. Far and far away liesFlorence, with her beautiful domes and towers, and around you are thevalleys, Val d'Arno, Val di Sieve, while behind you lies the strangestand loveliest of all, Val di Casentino, hidden in the hills at the footof the great mountain, scattered with castles, holy with convents; andthere Dante has passed by and St. Francis, and Arno is continually bornin the hills. And indeed, delightful as the woods of Vallombrosa are, with their ruined shrines and chapels, their great delicious solitude, their unchangeable silence under everything but the wind, thatvalley-enclosed Clusendinum calls you every day; perhaps in some strangesmile you catch for a moment in the sunshine on the woods, or in theaspect of the clouds; it will not be long before you are compelled toset out on your way to seek

 "Li ruscelletti, che dei verdi colli Del Casentin discendon giuso in Arno. "

II. OF THE WAY TO THE CASENTINO

And the path lies through the woods. You make your way under themountain towards S. Miniato in Alpe, leaving it at Villa del Lago for amule-track, which leads you at last to Consuma and the road fromPontassieve. The way is beautiful, and not too hard to find, the worldabout you a continual joy. If you start early, you may breakfast atConsuma (though it were better, perhaps, to carry provisions), for it isbut two and a half hours from Vallombrosa. Once at Consuma, the way iseasy and good. You climb into the pass, and in another three hours youmay be in Romena, Pratovecchio, or Stia. But there are other ways, too, of which the shortest is that by the mountains from Vallombrosa toMontemignajo--that lofty, ruined place; and the loveliest, that fromVallombrosa to Raggiola of the forests; but there be rambles, pilgrimages, paths of delight unknown to any but those who hide for longin the forests of Vallombrosa. Your tourist knows them not; he will goby rail from S. Ellero to Arezzo, and make his way by train up thevalley to Stia; your traveller will walk from Vallombrosa to Consuma, where Giuseppe Marari of Stia will send a _vettura_ to meet him. Formyself I go afoot, and take a lift when I can, and a talk with it, andthis is the happiest way of all to travel. Thus those who are young andwise will set out, putting Dante in their knapsack and Signor Beni'slittle book[134] in their pocket, and with these two, a good stick, alight heart, and a companion to your liking, the Casentino is yours. Andtruly there is no more delightful place in which to spend a Tuscansummer. The Pistojese mountains are fine; the air is pure there, thewoods lovely with flowers; but they lack the sentimental charm ofCasentino. The Garfagnana, again, cannot be bettered if you avoid suchtouristry as Bagni di Lucca; but then Castelnuovo is bare, and thoughBarga is fine enough, Piazza al Serchio is a mere huddle of houses, and it is not till you reach Fivizzano on the other side of thepass that you find what you want. In Casentino alone there iseverything--mountains, rivers, woods, and footways, convents andcastles. And then where is there a better inn than Albergo Amorosi ofBibbiena, unless, indeed, it be the unmatched hostelry at Fivizzano?

As for inns, in general they are fair enough; though none, I think, sogood as the Amorosi. You may sleep and eat comfortably at Stia, eitherat Albergo Falterona or Albergo della Stazione Alpina. At Pratovecchiothere is Albergo Bastieri; at Poppi the Gelati pension; at Bibbiena theAmorosi, as I say. These will be your centres, as it were. At La Vernayou may sleep for one night--not well, but bearably; at Camaldoli, verywell indeed in summer; and then, wherever you may be, you will find afine courtesy, for rough though they seem, these peasants and such, areof the Latin race, they understand the amenities. Saints have been here, and poets: these be no Teutons, but the good Latin people of the Faith;they will give you greeting and welcome. 

III. STIA AND MONTE FALTERONA

Stia is a picturesque little city with a curious arcaded Piazza, achurch that within is almost beautiful; yet it is certainly not foranything to be found there that one comes to so ancient and yet sodisappointing a place, but because from thence one may go most easily toFalterona to see the sun rise or to find out the springs of Arno, or tovisit Porciano, S. Maria delle Grazie, Papiano, and the rest in thehills that shut in this little town at the head of the long valley. 

Through the great endless sheepfolds you go to Falterona where the girlsare singing their endless chants all day long guarded by greatsheep-dogs, not the most peacable of companions. All the summer longthese pastures nourish the sheep, poor enough beasts at the best. Onerecalls that in the great days the Guild of Wool got its material fromFlanders and from England, because the Tuscan fleece was too hard andpoor. Through these lonely pastures you climb with your guide, throughforests of oak and chestnut, by many a winding path, not withoutdifficulty, to the steeper sides of the mountain covered with brushwood, into the silence where there is no voice but the voice of the streams. Here in a cleft, under the very summit of Falterona, Arno rises, gushingendlessly from the rock in seven springs of water, that will presentlygather to themselves a thousand other streams and spread throughCasentino:

 "Botoli trova poi, venendo giuso Ringhiosi più che non chiede lor possa Ed, a lor, disdegnosa, torce il muso"

at the end of the valley. 

Climbing above that sacred source to the summit of Falterona itself, youmay see, if the dawn be clear, the Tyrrhene sea and the Adriatic, theone but a tremor of light far and far away, the other a sheet of silverbeyond the famous cities of Romagna. It is from this summit that yourway through Casentino should begin. 

It was there I waited the dawn. For long in the soft darkness andsilence I had watched the mountains sleeping under the few summer stars. Suddenly the earth seemed to stir in her sleep, in every valley the dewwas falling, in all forests there was a rumour, and among the rockswhere I lay I caught a flutter of wings. The east grew rosy; out of themysterious sea rose a golden ghost hidden in glory, till suddenly acrossthe world a sunbeam fell. It touched the mountains one by one; higherand higher crept the tremulous joy of light, confident and ever moreconfident, opening like a flower, filling the world with gladness andlight. It was the dawn: out of the east once more had crept the beautyof the world. 

Then in that clear and joyful hour God spread out all the breadth ofItaly before me: the plains, the valleys, and the mountains. Far and faraway, shining in the sun, Ravenna lay, and lean Rimini and barteredPesaro. There, the mountains rose over Siena, in that valley Gubbioslept, on that hill stood S. Marino, and there, like a golden angelbearing the Annunciation of Day, S. Leo folded her wings on hermountain. Southward, Arezzo smiled like a flower, Monte Amiata wasalready glorious; northward lay a sea of mountains, named and nameless, restless with light, about to break in the sun. While to the westFlorence lay sleeping yet in the cusp of her hills, her towers, herdomes, perfect and fresh in the purity of dawn that had renewed herbeauty. 

It was an altogether different impression, an impression of sadness, ofsome tragic thing, that I received when at evening I stood above theCastle of Porciano on a hill a little way off, and looked down thevalley. It was not any joyful thing that I saw, splendid though it was, but the ruined castles, blind and broken, of the Counts Guidi: Porcianoitself, line a jagged menace, rises across Arno, which is heard but notseen; farther, on the crest of a blue hill, round which evening gathersout of the woods, rises the great ruin of Romena like a broken oath;while farther still, far away on its hill in a fold of the valley, Poppithrusts its fierce tower into the sky, a cruel boast that came tonothing. They are but the ghosts of a forgotten barbarism these gaunttowers of war; they are nothing now, less than nothing, unreconciledthough they be with the hills; they have been crumbling for hundreds ofyears: one day the last stone will fall. For around them is life; thechildren of Stia, laughing about the fountain, will never know thattheir ancestors went in fear of some barbarian who held Porciano bymurder and took toll of the weak. These shepherd girls, these_contadini_ and their wives and children, they have outlived the ContiGuidi, they have outlasted the greatest of the lords; like the flowers, they run among the stones without a thought of that brutal greatnessthat would have enslaved them if it could. Not by violence have theyconquered, but by love; not by death, but by life. It is just this whichI see round every ruin in the Casentino. Force, brute force, is the onlyfutile thing in the world. Why has La Verna remained when Romena isswept away, that strong place, when Porciano is a ruin, when the castleof Poppi is brought low, but that life which is love has beaten hate, and that a kiss is more terrible than a thousand blows. 

Yes, as one wanders about these hills where life itself is so hard amaster, it is just that which one understands in almost every village. You go to S. Maria delle Grazie--Vallombrosella, they call it, since itwas a daughter of the monastery of Vallombrosa--and there in thatbeautiful fifteenth-century church you still find the simple things oflife, of love; work of the della Robbia; pictures, too, cheerfulflowerlike things, with Madonna like a rose in the midst. Well, not faraway across Arno, where it is little, the ruins of Castel Castagnajo andof Campo Lombardo are huddled, though Vallucciole, that tiny village, islaughing with children. It is the same at Romena, where the church stilllives, though the castle is ruined. You pass to Pratovecchio; it is thesame story, ruins of the Guidi towers, walls, fortifications; but in theconvent church of the Dominican sisters they still sing Magnificat:

 Deposuit potentes de sede: et exaltavit humiles. 

So on the road to Poppi you come to Campaldino, where Dante fought, where Corso Donati saved the day, where Buonconte fell, and died withthe fog in his throat in the still morning air after the battle. Well, that famous field is now a vineyard; you may see the girls gathering thegrapes there any morning in early October. Where the horses of theAretines thundered away, the great patient oxen draw the plough; or aman walks, singing beside his wife, her first-born in her arms. It isthe victory of the meek; here, at least, they have inherited the earth. And Certomondo, as of old, sings of our sister the earth. Poppiagain--ah, but that fierce old place, how splendid it is, it and itsdaughter! Like all the rest of these Guidi strongholds, the Rocca ofPoppi stands on a hill; it can be seen for miles up and down the valley:and indeed the whole town is like a fortress on a hill, subject only tothe ever-changing sky, the great tide of light ebbing and flowing in thevalley between the mountains. Poppi is the greatest of the Guidifortresses; built by Arnolfo, it has much of the nobility of itsdaughter the Palazzo Vecchio of Florence. Of all these castles it is theonly one that is not a ruin. It is true it has been restored, But youmay still find frescoes on its walls in the chapel and in the greathall, work, it is said, of Jacopo da Casentino: and then it has one ofthe loveliest courtyards in Italy. 

It is from Poppi one may go very easily in a summer day to Camaldoli, some eight miles or so to the north-west, where the valley comes up in along arm into the mountains. On that lovely road you pass many an oldruin of the Guidi before you come at last to that monastery of theCamaldolese Order "so beloved of Dante, " which was confiscated with therest in 1866. The monks now hire their own house from the Government, which has let out their hospice for an hotel. About an hour above themonastery, among the pine trees, is the Sacro Eremo, the Holy Hermitage, where in some twenty separate cells the Hermits of Camaldoli live; for, as their arms go to show, the Order is divided into two parts, consisting of monks who live in community, and hermits who live alone. 

S. Romuald, the founder of the Order, of the family of the Dukes ofRavenna called Honesti, was born in that city in 956. He seems to havegrown up amid a certain splendour, and to have been caught by it, but bya love of nature no less; so that often when he was hunting, and found abeautiful or lonely place in the woods away from his companions, hewould almost cry out, "How happy were the old hermits, who lived alwaysin such places!" The romance of just that: it seems to have struck himfrom the first. Not long after, when he was but twenty years old, hisfather, deciding a dispute with a relation by fighting, fell, andRomuald, who had been compelled to witness this dreadful scene, was sooverwhelmed by the result that he retired for a time to the BenedictineMonastery at Classis, not far from Ravenna. After some difficulties hadbeen disposed of, for he was his father's heir, he spent seven years inthat monastery; but his sincerity does not appear to have pleasedcertain of the fathers, so that we find him at last obliged to retire toVenice, where, in fulfilment of his earliest wishes, he placed himselfunder the guidance of Marinus, a hermit. After many years, in which heseems to have gone to Spain, he returned at last, and took up his hermitlife in a marsh near Classis, where the monks of his old monasterysought him, and with the help of Otho III made him their Abbot. Thisoffice, however, he did not long retain, for he found it useless to tryto reform them. He seems to have wandered about, famous all over Italy, founding many houses, but the most famous of all is this house ofCamaldoli, which he founded in 1009. The land was given him by a certainConte Maldolo, it is said, an Aretine, by whose name the place was everafter known, Campus Maldoli; while another gift, Campus Arrabile, thegift of the same man, is that place where the Hermitage stands. There, in Camaldoli, Romuald built a monastery, "and by several observances headded to St. Benedict's rule, gave birth to a new Order, in which heunited the cenobite and eremetical life. " It is said that it was after avision, in which he saw his monks mounting up into heaven dressed inwhite, that he changed their habit from black to white--the habit theystill wear. 

Whether it be that the hills and valley are indeed more lovely herethan anywhere else in Casentino, and that the monks and the hermits luresome indefinable sweet charm to the place, I know not; yet I know thatI, who came for a day, stayed a month, returning here again and againfrom less lovely, less quiet places. Camaldoli is one of the loveliestplaces in Tuscany in which to spend a summer. Here are mountains, woods, streams, valleys, a monastery, and a hermitage; to desire more mightseem churlish, to be content with less when these may be had in quiet, stupid. 

IV. BIBBIENA, LA VERNA

Some eight miles away down the valley, enclosed above a coil of Arno, stands Bibbiena, just a little Tuscan hill city with a windy toweredPiazza in which a great fountain plays, and all about the tall cypressestower in the sun among the vineyards and the corn. Here CardinalBibbiena, the greatest ornament of the court of Urbino, was born, of nofamous family, but of the Divizi. It is not, however, any memory of sofamous and splendid a person that haunts you in these stony streets, butthe remembrance rather of a greater if humbler humanist, St. Francis ofAssisi. You may see work of the della Robbia in the Franciscan church ofS. Lorenzo in the little city, but it is La Verna which to-dayovershadows Bibbiena, La Verna where St. Francis nearly seven hundredyears ago received the Stigmata from Our Lord, and whence he was carrieddown to Assisi to die. The way thither is difficult but beautiful: youclimb quite into the mountains, and there in a lonely and stony placerises the strange rock, set with cypress and with fir, backed bymarvellous great hills. 

 "Mons in quo beneplacitum est Deo habitare in eo. "

It was on the morning of the 14th September 1224, in the Feast of theExaltation of the Holy Cross, that Francesco Bernadone received theStigmata of Christ's passion while keeping the Lent of St. MichaelArchangel on this strange and beautiful mountain. "Ye must needs know, "says the author of the _Fioretti_, "that St. Francis, being forty andthree years of age in the year 1224, being inspired of God, set out fromthe valley of Spoleto for to go into Romagna with brother Leo hiscompanion: and as they went they passed by the foot of the castle ofMontefeltro; in the which castle there was at that time a great companyof gentlefolk.... Among them a wealthy gentleman of Tuscany, by nameOrlando da Chiusi of Casentino, who by reason of the marvellous thingswhich he had heard of St. Francis, bore him great devotion and felt anexceeding strong desire to see him and to hear him preach. Coming to thecastle St. Francis entered in and came to the courtyard, where all thatgreat company of gentlefolk was gathered together, and in fervour ofspirit stood up upon a parapet and began to preach.... And Orlando, touched in the heart by God through the marvellous preaching of St. Francis ... Drew him aside and said, 'O Father, I would converse withthee touching the salvation of my soul. ' Replied St. Francis: 'Itpleaseth me right well; but go this morning and do honour to thy friendswho have called thee to the feast, and dine with them, and after we willspeak together as much as thou wilt. ' So Orlando got him to the dinner;and after he returned to St. Francis and ... Set him forth fully thestate of his soul. And at the end this Orlando said to St. Francis, 'Ihave in Tuscany a mountain most proper for devotion, the which is calledthe Mount La Verna, and is very lonely and right well fitted for whosomay wish to do penance in a place remote from man, or whoso may desireto live a solitary life; if it should please thee, right willingly wouldI give it to thee and thy companions for the salvation of my soul. ' St. Francis hearing this liberal offer of the thing that he so much desired, rejoiced with exceeding great joy; and praising and giving thanks firstto God and then to Orlando, he spake thus: 'Orlando, when you havereturned to your house, I will send you certain of my companions, andyou shall show them that mountain; and if it shall seem to them wellfitted for prayer and penitence, I accept your loving offer even now. 'So Orlando returned to Chiusi, the which was but a mile distant from LaVerna. 

"Whenas St. Francis had returned to St. Mary of the Angels, he sent oneof his companions to the said Orlando ... Who, desiring to show them theMount of La Verna, sent with them full fifty men-at-arms to defend themfrom the wild beasts of the forest; and thus accompanied, these brothersclimbed up the mountain and searched diligently, and at last they cameto a part of the mountain that was well fitted for devotion andcontemplation, for in that part there was some level ground, and thisplace they chose out for them and for St. Francis to dwell therein; andwith the help of the men-at-arms that bore them company, they made alittle cell of branches of trees; and so they accepted, in the name ofGod, and took possession of, the Mount of La Verna, and of thedwelling-place of the brothers on the mountain, and departed andreturned to St. Francis. And when they were come unto him, they told himhow, and in what manner, they had taken a place on the mountain ... And, hearing these tidings, St. Francis was right glad, and praising andgiving thanks to God, he spake to these brothers with joyfulcountenance, and said, 'My sons, our forty days' fast of St. Michael theArchangel draweth near: I firmly believe that it is the will of God thatwe keep this fast on the Mount of Alvernia, which, by divine decree, hath been made ready for us to the end, that to the honour and glory ofGod, and of His mother, the glorious Virgin Mary, and of the holyAngels, we may, through penance, merit at the hands of Christ theconsolation of consecrating this blessed mountain. ' Thus saying, St. Francis took with him Brother Masseo da Marignano of Assisi ... AndBrother Angelo Tancredi da Rieti, the which was a man of very gentlebirth, and in the world had been a knight; and Brother Leo, a man ofexceeding great simplicity and purity, for the which cause St. Francisloved him much. So they set out. 'And on the first night they came to ahouse of the brothers, and lodged there. On the second night, by reasonof the bad weather, and because they were tired, not being able to reachany house of the brothers, or any walled town or village, when the nightovertook them and bad weather, they took refuge in a deserted anddismantled church, and there laid them down to rest. ' But St. Francisspent the night in prayer. 'And in the morning his companions, beingaware that, through the fatigues of the night which he had passedwithout sleep, St. Francis was much weakened in body and could but illgo on his way afoot, went to a poor peasant of these parts, and beggedhim, for the love of God, to lend his ass for Brother Francis, theirFather, that could not go afoot. Hearing them make mention of BrotherFrancis, he asked them: 'Are ye of the brethren of the brother ofAssisi, of whom so much good is spoken?' The brothers answered 'Yes, 'and that in very truth it was for him that they asked for the sumpterbeast. Then the good man, with great diligence and devotion, made readythe ass and brought it to St. Francis, and with great reverence let himmount thereon, and they went on their way, and he with them behind hisass. And when they had gone on a little way, the peasant said to St. Francis, 'Tell me, art thou Brother Francis of Assisi?' Replied St. Francis, 'Yes. ' 'Try, then, ' said the peasant, 'to be as good as thouart by all folk held to be, seeing that many have great faith in thee;and therefore I admonish thee, that in thee there be naught save whatmen hope to find therein. ' Hearing these words, St. Francis thought noscorn to be admonished by a peasant, and said not within himself, 'Whatbeast is this doth admonish me?' as many would say nowadays that wearthe habit, but straightway threw himself from off the ass upon theground, and kneeled down before him and kissed his feet, and then humblythanked him for that he had deigned thus lovingly to admonish him. Thenthe peasant, together with the companions of St. Francis, with greatdevotion lifted him from the ground and set him on the ass again, andthey went on their way.... As they drew near to the foot of the rock ofAlvernia itself, it pleased St. Francis to rest a little under the oakthat was by the way, and is there to this day; and as he stood under it, St. Francis began to take note of the situation of the place and thecountry around. And as he was thus gazing, lo! there came a greatmultitude of birds from divers parts, the which, with singing andflapping of their wings, all showed joy and gladness exceeding great, and came about St. Francis in such fashion, some settled on his head, some on his shoulders, and some on his arms, some in his lap and someround his feet. When his companions and the peasant marvelled, beholdingthis, St. Francis, all joyful in spirit, spake thus unto them: 'Ibelieve, brethren most dear, that it is pleasing unto Our Lord JesusChrist that we should dwell in this lonely mountain, seeing that ourlittle sisters and brothers, the birds, show such joy at our coming. ' Sothey went on their way and came to the place the companions had firstchosen. "

It is not in any other words than those of the writer of the _Fioretti_that we should care to read of that journey. 

"Arrived there not long after, Orlando and his company came to visitFrancis, bringing with them bread and wine and other victuals; and St. Francis met him gladly and gave him thanks for the holy mountain. ThenOrlando built a little cell there, and that done, 'as it was drawingnear to evening and it was time for them to depart, St. Francis preachedunto them a little before they took leave of him. ' Ah, what would we notgive just for a moment to hear his voice in that place to-day? There, inthis very spot, angels visited him, which said, when he, thinking uponhis death, wondered what would become of 'Thy poor little family' afterhis death, 'I tell thee, in the name of God, that the profession of theOrder will never fail until the Day of Judgment, and there will be nosinner so great as not to find mercy with God if, with his whole heart, he love thine Order. '

"Thereafter, as the Feast of the Assumption of Our Lady drew near, St. Francis sought how he might find a place more solitary and secret, wherein he might the more solitary keep the forty days' fast of St. Michael the Archangel, which beginneth with the said Feast of theAssumption.... And as they searched, they found, on the side of themountain that looks towards the south, a lonely place, and very properfor his purpose; but they could not win there because in front there wasa horrid and fearful cleft in a huge rock; wherefore with great painsthey laid a piece of wood over it as a bridge, and got across to theother side. Then St. Francis sent for the other brothers and told themhow he was minded to keep the forty days' fast of St. Michael in thatlonely place; and therefore he besought them to make him a little cellthere, so that no cry of his could be heard of them. And when the cellwas made, St. Francis said to them: 'Go ye to your own place and leaveme here alone, for, with the help of God, I am minded to keep the fasthere without disturbance or distraction, and therefore let none of youcome unto me, nor suffer any lay folk to come to me. But Brother Leo, thou alone shalt come to me once a day with a little bread and water, and at night once again at the hour of Matins; and then shalt thou cometo me in silence, and when thou art at the bridgehead thou shalt say:"Domine, labia mea operies, " and if I answer thee, cross over and cometo the cell, and we will say Matins together; and if I answer thee not, then depart straightway. ' And so it was. But there came a morning whenSt. Francis made him no answer, and, contrary to St. Francis's desire, but with the very best of intentions, dear little brother Leo crossedthe bridge over the chasm, which you may see to this day, and enteredinto St. Francis's cell. There he found him in ecstasy, saying, 'Who artThou, O most sweet, my God? What am I, most vile worm, and Thineunprofitable servant?' Again and again brother Leo heard him repeatthese words, and wondering thereat, he lifted his eyes to the sky, andsaw there among the stars, for it was dark, a torch of flame verybeautiful and bright, which, coming down from the sky, rested on St. Francis's head. So, thinking himself unworthy to behold so sweet avision, he softly turned away for to go to his cell again. And as hewas going softly, deeming himself unseen, St. Francis was aware of himby the rustling of the leaves under his feet. Surely, even to the mostdoubtful, that sound of the rustling leaves must bring conviction. ThenSt. Francis explains to brother Leo all that this might mean. 

"And as he thus continued a long time in prayer, he came to know thatGod would hear him, and that so far as was possible for the merecreature, so far would it be granted him to feel the thingsaforesaid.... And as he was thus set on fire in his contemplation onthat same morn, he saw descend from heaven a Seraph with six wingsresplendent and aflame, and as with swift flight the Seraph drew nighunto St. Francis so that he could discern him, he clearly saw that hebore in him the image of a man crucified; and his wings were in suchguise displayed that two wings were spread above his head, and two werespread out to fly, and other two covered all his body. Seeing this, St. Francis was sore adread, and was filled at once with joy and grief andmarvel. He felt glad at the gracious look of Christ, who appeared to himso lovingly, and gazed on him so graciously; but, on the other hand, seeing Him crucified upon the cross, he felt immeasurable grief forpity's sake.... Then the whole mount of Alvernia appeared as though itburned with bright shining flames that lit up all the mountains andvalleys round as though it had been the sun upon the earth; whereby theshepherds that were keeping watch in these parts, seeing the mountainsaflame, and so great a light around, had exceeding great fear, accordingas they afterwards told unto the brothers, declaring that this flamerested upon the mount of Alvernia for the space of an hour and more. Inlike manner at the bright shining of this light, which through thewindows lit up the hostels of the country round, certain muleteers thatwere going into Romagna arose, believing that the day had dawned, andsaddled and laded their beasts; and going on their way, they saw thesaid light die out and the material sun arise. In the seraphic vision, Christ, the which appeared to him, spake to St. Francis certain highand secret things, the which St. Francis in his lifetime desired not toreveal to any man; but after his life was done he did reveal them, as itset forth below; and the words were these: 'Knowest thou, ' said Christ, 'what it is that I have done unto thee? I have given thee the Stigmatathat are the signs of My Passion, to the end that thou mayest be Mystandard-bearer. And even as in the day of My death I descended intohell and brought out thence all souls that I found there by reason ofthese My Stigmata: even so do I grant to thee that every year on the dayof thy death thou shalt go to Purgatory, and in virtue of thy Stigmatashalt bring out thence all the souls of thy three Orders, --to wit, Minors, Sisters, Continents, --and likewise others that shall have had agreat devotion for thee, and shalt lead them unto the glory of Paradise, to the end that thou mayest be confirmed to Me in death as thou art inlife. ' Then this marvellous image vanished away, and left in the heartof St. Francis a burning ardour and flame of love divine, and in hisflesh a marvellous image and copy of the Passion of Christ. Forstraightway in the hands and feet of St. Francis began to appear themarks of the nails in such wise as he had seen them in the body of JesusChrist the crucified, the which had shown Himself to him in the likenessof a Seraph; and thus his hands and feet appeared to be pierced throughthe middle with nails, and the heads of them were in the palms of hishands and the soles of his feet outside the flesh, and their points cameout in the back of his hands and of his feet, so that they seemed bentback and rivetted in such a fashion that under the bend and rivettingwhich all stood out above the flesh might easily be put a finger of thehand as a ring; and the heads of the nails were round and black. Likewise in the right side appeared the image of a wound made by alance, unhealed, and red and bleeding, the which afterwards oftentimesdropped blood from the sacred breast of St. Francis, and stained withblood his tunic and his hose. Wherefore his companions, before they knewit of his own lips, perceiving nevertheless that he uncovered not hishands and feet, and that he could not put the soles of his feet to theground ... Knew of a surety that in his hands and feet, and likewise inhis side, he bore the express image and similitude of Our Lord JesusChrist crucified. " On the day after the feast of St. Michael, St. Francis left La Verna never to return. 

 * * * * *

It was with a certain hesitation that I first came to La Verna, asthough something divine that was hidden in the life of the Apostle ofHumanity might be lost for me in the mere realism of his sacred places. But it was not so. In Italy, it might seem even to-day, St. Francis isnot a stranger, and, in fact, I had got no farther than the Cappelladegli Uccelli before I seemed to understand everything, and in a placeso lonely as this to have found again, yes, that Jesus whom I had lostin the city. 

On a high precipitous rock on the top of the mountain you come to theconvent itself, through a great court, il Quadrante, under a lowgateway. The buildings are of the end of the fifteenth century, simple, and with a certain country beauty about them, strong and engaging. Inthe dim corridors the friars pass you on their way to church at allhours of the day, smiling faintly at you, whom they, in their simpleway, receive without question as a friend. It is for St. Francis youhave come: it is enough. You pass into the Cappella della Maddalena, where the angel appeared to S. Francesco promising such great things, and it is with a certain confidence you remind yourself, yes, it istrue, the Order still lives, here men still speak S. Francesco's nameand pray to God. And there, as it is said, Jesus Himself spoke with him, and he wrote the blessing for Frate Leone. Then you enter the Chiesina, the first little church of the Mountain that St. Francis may have builtwith his own hands, and that S. Bonaventura certainly enlarged; and thusinto the great Church of S. Maria Assunta, built in 1348 by the Conte diPietramala, with its beautiful della Robbias. Coming out again, youpass along the covered way into the Cappella della Stigmata, built in1263 by the Conte Simone da Battifolle, where behind the high altar isthe great Crucifixion by one of the della Robbia. Next to this chapel isthe Cappella della Croce, where of old the cell stood in which St. Francis kept the Lent of St. Michael. Close by are the Oratories of S. Antonio di Padua and S. Bonaventura, where they prayed and worked. Belowthe Chapel of the Stigmata is the Sasso Spicco, whence the devil hurledone of the brethren. For during that Lent, "Francis leaving his cell oneday in fervour of spirit, and going aside a little to pray in a hollowof the rock, from which down to the ground is an exceeding deep descentand a horrible and fearful precipice, suddenly the devil came interrible shape, with a tempest and exceeding loud roar, and struck athim for to push him down thence. St. Francis, not having where to flee, and not being able to endure the grim aspect of the demon, he turned himquickly with hands and face and all his body pressed to the rock, commending himself to God and groping with his hands, if perchance hemight find aught to cling to. But as it pleased God, who suffereth notHis servants to be tempted above that they are able to bear, suddenly bya miracle the rock to which he clung hollowed itself out in fashion asthe shape of his body.... But that which the demon could not do thenunto St. Francis ... He did a good while after the death of St. Francisunto one of his dear and pious brothers, who was setting in order somepieces of wood in the self-same place, to the end that it might bepossible to cross there without peril, out of devotion to St. Francisand the miracle that was wrought there. On a day the demon pushed him, while he had on his head a great log that he wished to set there, andmade him fall down thence with the log upon his head. But God, that hadpreserved and delivered St. Francis from falling, through his meritsdelivered and preserved his pious brother from the peril of his fall;for the brother, as he fell, with exceeding great devotion commandedhimself in a loud voice to St. Francis, and straightway he appearedunto him, and, catching him, set him down upon the rocks withoutsuffering him to feel a shock or any hurt. " Can it have been this "piousbrother" who wrote the _Fioretti_? Everywhere you go in La Verna youfeel that S. Francesco has been before you; and where there is notradition to help you, surely you will make one for yourself. Can he wholoved everything that had life have failed to love, too, that world hesaw from La Penna--

 "Nel crudo sasso, intra Tevere ed Amo"

--Casentino and its woods and streams, Val d'Arno, Val di Tevere, thehills of Perugia, the valleys of Umbria, the lean, wolfish country ofthe Marche, the rugged mountains of Romagna. There, on the summit of LaVerna, you look down on the broken fortresses of countless wars, thepasses through which army after army, company upon company, has marchedto victory or fled in defeat; every hill-top seems to bear some ruinedRocca, every valley to be a forgotten battlefield, every stream has runred with blood. All is forgotten, all is over, all is done with. Thevictories led to nothing; the defeats are out of mind. In the midst ofthe battle the peasant went on ploughing his field; somewhere not faraway the girls gathered the grapes. All this violence was of no account;it achieved nothing, and every victory was but the tombstone of an idea. Here, on La Verna, is the only fortress that is yet living in allTuscany of that time so long ago. It is a fortress of love. The man whobuilt it had flung away his dagger, and already his sword rusted in itsscabbard in that little house in Assisi; he conquered the world by love. His was the irresistible and lovely force, the immortal, indestructibleconfidence of the Idea, the Idea which cannot die. If he prayed inLatin, he wrote the first verses of Italian poetry. Out of his tomb grewthe rose of the Renaissance, and filled the world with its sweetness. Hewas the son of a burgess in Assisi, and is now the greatest saint in ourheaven. With the sun he loved his name has shone round the world, andthere is no land so far off that it has not heard it. And we, who lootupon the ruined castles of the Conti Guidi, are here because of him, andspeak with his brothers as we gaze. 

V. A RIVEDERLA

Slowly, as the summer waned, I made my way up through the Casentino, once more past the strongholds and the little towns. Now and then on myway I met the herds, already setting out for the winter pastures ofMaremma. The grapes were plucking or gathered in, and everywhere therewere songs. 

 "Come volete faccia che non pianga, Sapendo che da voi devo partire? E tu, bello, in Maremma, ed io 'n montagna! Chesta partenza mi farà morire. "

So I came once more over Falterona, down to Castagno, that mountainvillage where Andrea del Castagno, the follower of Masaccio, was born, to S. Godenzo, between two streams, where Dante knew the castle of theGuidi, and where Conte Tegrimo of Porciano received Henry VII. Here, atlast, I was in the very footsteps of Dante; for in the church there, inthe choir set high above the old crypt, he signed the deed of alliancebetween the Guidi and the Ubaldini on 8th June 1302, "Actum in choroSancti Gaudentii de pede Alpium. "

Nothing remains of the place as it was in those days, I suppose, savethe church, and that has been for the most part rebuilt; but the choirstands, so that we may say here, on 8th June 1302, Dante took quill andsigned and spoke with his fellow-exiles. 

Thence I followed the way to Dicomano by Sieve, at the foot of theConsuma, and then up stream to Borgo S. Lorenzo, the capital of theMugello, and so by the winding road above the valley under the hills toFiesole, to Florence, wrapped in rain, through which an evening sun wasbreaking. 

FOOTNOTES:

[132] Now in S. Trinità in Firenze. 

[133] Mr. Montgomery Carmichael (_On the Old Road_, etc. , p. 293), quoting from Don Diego de' Franchi (_Historia del Patriarcha S. Giovangualberto_, p. 77: Firenze, 1640), says that S. Romuald and S. Giovanni Gualberto vowed eternal friendship between their Orders, "andfor a long time, if a Camaldolese was visiting Vallombrosa, he wouldtake off his own and put on a Vallombrosan habit as a symbol that themonks of the two Orders were brothers. "

[134] _Guida Illustrata del Casentino da C. Beni_: Firenze, 1889. Thisperhaps the best guide-book in the Tuscan language, is certainly thebest for the Casentino. Those who cannot read it must fall back on thecharming and delightful book by Miss Noyes, _The Casentino and itsStory_: Dent, 1905. It is too good a book to be left useless in itsheavy bulky form. Perhaps Miss Noyes will give us a pocket edition. 

XXVII. PRATO

Prato is like a flower that has fallen by the wayside that has faded inthe dust of the way. She is a little rosy city, scarcely more than acastello, full of ruined churches; and in the churches are ruinedfrescoes, ruined statues, broken pillars, spoiled altars. You pass fromone church to another--from S. Francesco, with its façade of green andwhite, its pleasant cloister and old frescoes, to La Madonna delleCarceri, to S. Niccolò da Tolentino, to S. Domenico--and you askyourself, as you pass from one to another, what you have come to see:only this flower fallen by the wayside. 

But in truth Prato is the child of Florence, a rosy child among theflowers--in the country, too, as children should be. Her churches aresmall. What could be more like a child's dream of a church than LaMadonna delle Carceri? And the Palazzo Pretorio--it is a toy palacewonderfully carved and contrived, a toy that has been thrown aside. Inthe Palazzo Comunale the little daughter of Florence has gathered allher broken treasures: here a discarded Madonna, there a Bambino longsince forgotten; flowers, too, flowers of the wayside, faded now, suchas a little country girl will gather and toss into your vettura at anyvillage corner in Tuscany; a terra-cotta of Luca della Robbia, and thatwould be a lily; a Madonna by Nero di Bicci, and that might have been arose; a few panels by Lippo Lippi, and they were from the conventgarden. In Via S. Margherita you come still upon a nosegay of suchcountry blossoms, growing still by the wayside--Madonna with St. Anthony, S. Margherita, S. Costanza, and S. Stefano about her, paintedby Filippino Lippo, a very lovely shrine, such as you cannot find inFlorence, but which Prato seems glad to possess, on the way to thecountry itself. 

And since Prato is a child, there are about her many children;mischievous, shy, joyful little people, who lurk round the coppersmiths, or play in the old churches, or hide about the corridors of PalazzoComunale. And so it is not surprising that the greatest treasures ofPrato are either the work of children--the frescoes, for instance, ofLippo Lippi and Lucrezia Buti in the Duomo--or the presentment of them, yes, in their happiest moments; some dancing, while others play onpipes, or with cymbals full of surprising sweetness, in the open-airpulpit of Donatello; a pulpit from which five times every year adelightful and wonderful thing is shown, not without its significance, too, in this child-city of children--Madonna's Girdle, the Girdle of theMother of them all, shown in the open air, so that even the tiniest maysee. 

The Duomo itself, simple and small, so that you may not lose your waythere, however little you may be, was built in 1317, though a church hasstood there apparently since about 750, while the façade, all in ivoryand green, is a work of the fifteenth century. Donatello's pulpit, forwhich a contract was made in 1425 which named Michelozzo with him as oneof those _industriosi maestri_ intent on the work, is built into thesouth-west corner of the church overlooking the Piazza. Almost acomplete circle in form, it is separated, unfortunately we may think, into seven panels divided by twin pilasters, where on a mosaic groundgroups, crowds almost, of children dance and play and sing. It is thevery spirit of childhood you see there, a naïve impetuosity thatoccasionally almost stumbles or forgets which way to turn; and if thesepanels have not the subtler rhythm of the Cantoria at Florence, they aremore frankly just children's work, so that any day you may see somelittle maid of Prato gazing at those laughing babies, babies who dancereally not without a certain awkwardness and simplicity, as though theywere her own brothers, as indeed they are. Under the pulpit, Michelozzohas forged in bronze a relief of one face of a capital, where otherchildren gaze with all the serious innocence of childhood at thepleasant world of the Piazza. 

Passing under the terra-cotta of Madonna with St. Stephen and St. Laurence, made by Andrea della Robbia in 1489, you enter the churchitself, a little dim and mysterious, and full of wonderful or preciousthings, those pillars, for instance, of green serpentine or the SacraCintola, the very Girdle of Madonna herself, in its own chapel there onthe left behind the beautiful bronze screen of Bruno di Ser Lapo. There, too, you will always find a group of children, and surely it was forthem that Agnolo Gaddi painted those frescoes of the life of Madonna andthe gift of her Girdle to St. Thomas. For it seems that doubting Thomaswas doubting to the last; he alone of all the saints was the least achild. How they wonder at him now, for first he could not believe thatJesus was risen from the dead, when the flowers rise, when the springlike Mary wanders to-day in tears in the garden. Was she not, indeed, the spring, who at break of day stood trembling on the verge of thegarden, looking for the sun, the sun that had been dead all winter long?"They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him. "After all, is it not the cry of our very hearts often enough at Easter, when the summer for which we have waited too long seems never to becoming at all? It came at last, and St. Thomas, like to us maybe, butunlike the children, would not believe it till he had touched the verydayspring with his hands, and felt the old sweetness of the sunshine. And so, when the sun was set and the world desolate, Madonna too came todie, and was received into heaven amid a great company of angels, andthey were the flowers, and there she is eternally. Now, when all thiscame to pass, St. Thomas was not by, and when he came and saw Winter inthe world he would not believe that Madonna was dead, nor would he bepersuaded that she was crowned Queen of Angels in heaven. And Mary, inpity of his sorrow, sent him by the hands of children "the girdle withwhich her body was girt, "--just a strip of the blue sky sprinkled withstars, --"and therefore he understood that she was assumpt into heaven. "And if you ask how comes this precious thing in Prato, I ask where else, then, could it be but in this little city among the children, where thepromise of Spring abides continually, and the Sun is ever in theirhearts. Ah, Rose of the world, dear Lily of the fields, you will return;like Spring you will come from that heaven where you are, and in everyvalley the flowers will run before you and the poppies will stray amongthe corn, and the proud gladiolus will bow its violet head; then on thehillside I shall hear again the silver laughter of the olives, and inthe wide valleys I shall hear all the rivers running to the sea, and thesweet wind will wander in the villages, and in the walled cities I shallfind the flowers, and I too, with the children, shall wait on the hillsat dawn to see you pass by with the Sun in your arms because it isspring--Stella Matutina, Causa nostrae laetitiae. 

It was a certain lad of Prato, Michele by name, who, wandering in thewake of the great army in Palestine in 1096 at evening, by one of thewells of the desert, kissed the little daughter of a great priest, whogave him the Girdle of Madonna for love. Returning to Prato with thisprecious thing, and having nowhere to hide it, he put it, as a childmight do, under his bed, and every night the angels for fear mountedguard about it. He died, and it came into the hands of a certain Uberto, a priest of the city; then, one tried to steal it, but he was put todeath, and after, the Girdle was placed in the Duomo in a casket ofivory in a chapel of marble between the pillars of serpentine and lampsof gold. And Andrea Pisano carved a statue of Madonna, and they dressedher in silk and placed her on an altar, in which lay hidden the promiseof spring. Then Ridolfo Ghirlandajo painted a fresco over the west door, of Madonna with her Girdle, and indeed they did all they knew in honourof their treasure: so that Mino da Fiesole and Rossellino made a pulpitand set it there in the nave, and there, too, you may see Madonnagiving her Girdle to St. Thomas, and St. Stephen, the boy martyr, stonedto death, and other remembrances. In the south transept Benedetto daMaiano carved a Madonna and Child, while his brothers carved a Pietà;but it is not such work as this which calls you to the Duomo to-day, butcertainly the Girdle itself, which, however, you can only see on certainoccasions. [135] And then there is the work of those two children, FraLippo Lippi and the little girl who ran away from her convent for loveof him, Lucrezia Buti; for though it was Lippo Lippi who painted, it wasLucrezia who served him for model, and since with him painting, for thefirst time perhaps, came to need life to inspire it, Lucrezia has herpart in his work which it would be ungenerous to ignore. 

Filippo Lippi was born in 1406 in a by-street of Florence calledArdiglione, behind the convent of the Carmelites, where he painted hisfirst frescoes. His mother, poor soul, died in giving him life, and hisfather died too before he was three years old. For some time he lived inthe care of a certain Mona Lapaccia, his aunt, who hardly brought him uptill he was eight years old, when, as Vasari tells us, no longer able tosupport the burden of his maintenance, she took him to the Carmelites, who promised to make a friar of him. Florence was at the moment of itsall too brief spring, in which painting and sculpture were to growalmost like flowers at every street corner, with a delicate beauty thatis characteristic of wild flowers, which yet are hardy enough inreality. Reality, it is just that which is so touching in the work ofthis naïve, observant painter, whose work has much of the beauty of afolk-song, one of those rispetti which on every Tuscan hill you may hearany summer day above the song of the cicale. He went about, like thechild he was his whole life long, looking at things out of curiosity, and remembering them for love. His adventures, those marvellousadventures of his childhood so carefully related by Vasari, --his captureby pirates on the beach of Ancona, his sojourn in Barbary, his escapehardly won by the astonishment of his art, are tales which, whether trueor not, have a real value for us because they are indicative of hislife, his view of the world: his life was in itself so daring, sodelightful an adventure, that nothing that could have happened to himcan seem marvellous beside it. For he has for the first time in Italyseen the things we have seen, and loved them: the children at the streetcorner, the flowers by the wayside, the girls grouped in a doorwaylooking sideways up the street, a mother nursing her little strugglingson. In 1421 he had taken the habit, and then Masaccio had come to theconvent to paint in the Brancacci Chapel, and Fra Filippo watched him, helping him perhaps, certainly fired by his work, till he who had playedin the streets of Florence decided that he must be a painter. It ischaracteristic of his whole method that from the very beginning thecloister was too strait for him; he had the passion for seeing things, people, the life of the city, of strange cities too, for we hear of himvaguely in Naples, but soon in Florence again, where he painted in S. Ambrogio for the nuns the Coronation of the Virgin, now in theAccademia. It was this picture which Cosimo came upon, and, finding thepainter, took him into his house. And truly, it was something verydifferent from the holy work of Angelico, a painter Cosimo loved sowell, that he found in that picture of the Coronation. That Virgin, wasshe Queen of Angels or some Florentine girl?--and then those angels, arethey not the very children of the City of Flowers? But Lippo was notcontent; he who had found the convent too narrow for him in hisinsatiable desire for life, was not likely to be content with anyburgher's palace. Cosimo ordered pictures, Lippo laughed in the streets, so they locked him in, and he knotted the sheets of the bed together andlet himself out of the window, and for days he lived in the streets. SoCosimo let him alone, "labouring to keep him at his work by kindness, "understanding, perhaps that it was a child with whom he had to deal, achild full of the wayward impulses of children, the naïve genius ofyouth, the happiness of all that;--the passions, too, a passion, inFilippo's case, for kisses. He was never far from a girl's arms; andthen how he has painted them, shy, roguish, wanton daughters ofFlorence, with their laughing, obstinate, kicking babies, half laughing, half smiling, altogether serious too, while Lippo paints them with akiss for payment. 

He spent some months in Prato with his friend Fra Diamante, who had beenhis companion in novitiate. The nuns of S. Margherita commissioned himto paint a picture for their high altar, and it was while at work therethat he caught sight of Lucrezia Buti. "Fra Filippo, " says Vasari, "having had a glance at the girl, who was very beautiful and graceful, so persuaded the nuns that he prevailed upon them to permit him to makea likeness of her for the figure of their Virgin. " The picture, now inParis, was finished, not before Filippo had fallen in love with Lucreziaand she with him, so that he led her away from the nuns; and on acertain day, when she had gone forth to do honour to the Cintola, hebore her from their keeping. "Take us the foxes, the little foxes thatspoil the vineyards; for our vineyards have tender grapes. "

Vasari tells us that Lucrezia never returned, but remained with Filippo, bearing him a son, --that Filippino "who eventually became a mostexcellent and very famous painter like his father. "

And it is said that not Lucrezia alone was involved in that adventure, for she had a sister not less lovely than herself, called Spinetta; shealso fled away, and this again brought disgrace on the nuns, so that thePope himself was compelled to interfere, for they were all living inPrato, not in disgrace but happily, children in a city of children. Cosimo, however, befriended them, and would laugh till the tears came intelling the tale, till Pius II, not altogether himself guiltless of thelove of women, at his request unfrocked Filippo and authorised his unionwith Lucrezia. However this may be, and however strange it may seem, this wolf, who had stolen the lamb from the fold of Holy Church, wasengaged by the Duomo authorities in this very city of the theft topaint in fresco there in the choir the story of St. John Baptist and ofSt. Stephen. It is a masterpiece. As we look to-day on the faded beautyof his work, it is with surprise we ask ourselves why he has signed thefresco of the death of St. Stephen, for instance, Frater Filippus;surely he was frater no longer, but Sponsus. He worked for four years atthose frescoes, Fra Diamante coming from Florence to help him. He was achild, and the children of Prato understood him--the Medici too; forwhen the work in Prato was finished, Piero de' Medici roused himself tofind him work, again in a church, the Duomo of Spoleto, where he haspainted very sweetly the Annunciation, the Adoration of the Shepherds, the Coronation of the Virgin. Could these things have happened in anyother city save Prato, or to any other than a child in the days not solong before Savonarola was burned? No; Fra Lippo played among thechildren of Italy, and has told us of them with simplicity andsweetness, --little stumbling fellows of the house doors, the laughingchildren about the fountains, the slim, pale girls who walk arm-in-arm, smiling faintly, in every Tuscan city at sunset, the flowers by thewayside, the shepherds of the hills. And he has made Jesus in the imageof his little son; and Madonna is but Lucrezia Buti, whom he kissed intothe world. You may see them to-day if you will go to Prato. 

FOOTNOTES:

[135] The occasions are Christmas Day, Easter Day, May 1, August 15, andSeptember 8. 

XXVIII. PISTOJA

If St. Francis of Assisi dreamed his whole life long of the resurrectionof love among men, and in the valleys of Umbria went about like a secondJesus doing good, with an immense love in his heart singing his LaudesCreaturarum by the wayside; Dante Alighieri, the greatest poet of hiscountry, might almost seem to have been overwhelmed with hatred, ahatred which is perhaps but the terrible reverse of an intolerable love, but which is an impeachment, nevertheless, not only of his own time, ofthe cities of his country, but of himself too, for while he thus sums upthe Middle Age and judges it, he is himself its most marvellous child, losing himself at last in one of its ideals. St. Francis of Assisi, concerned only with humanity, has by love contrived the Renaissance ofman, assured as he was by the love of God, His delight in us Hiscreatures. But for Dante, bitter with loneliness, wandering in the Hell, the Purgatory, the Paradise of his own heart, any such wide andoverwhelming love might seem to have been impossible. Imprisoned in theadamant of his personality, he has little but hatred and contempt forthe world he knew so well. How scornful he is! Some secret sorrow seemsto have burnt up the wells of sweetness in his nature, from which heonce drew a love for all mankind. He seems to have gone about hatingpeople, so that if he speaks of Florence it is with a passionate enmity, if of Siena with scorn, Pisa has only his contempt, Arezzo is to himabominable and beastly. He has judged his country as God Himself willnot judge it, and he kept his anger for ever. And since the greatFlorentine can bring himself to bid Florence

 "Godi, Fiorenza poi che sei si grande Che per mare, e per terra batti l'ali, E per l'Inferno il tuo nome si spande, "

it is not wonderful that Pistoja is lost in his scorn. Coming upon VanniFucci continually consumed by the adder, he hears him say

 "Ahi Pistoja, Pistoja, chè non stanzi D'incenerarti, si che più non duri Poi che in mal far lo seme tuo avanzi?"

"O Giustizia di Dio, quanto è severa, ... " yet Dante's will beggar it. 

The origin of Pistoja is obscure. Some ascribe its foundation to theBoian Gauls, some to the Romans; however that may be, it was here inPistoria, as the city was then called, that the army of the Republiccame up with Cataline, and defeated him and slew him in B. C. 62. Therefollows an impenetrable silence, unbroken till, by the will of theCountess Matilda, Tuscany passed, not without protest as we know, to thePope, when Pistoja seems to have vindicated its liberty in 1117, itscommune contriving her celebrated municipal statutes. In 1198 she madeone of the Tuscan League against the empire, and in the first year ofthe thirteenth century she had extended her power over the neighbouringstrongholds from Fucecchio to the Arno. After the death of Frederic II, in 1250, she became Guelph with the greater part of Tuscany, and in 1266took part with Charles of Anjou and fought on his side at Beneventounder the Pistojese captains, Giovanni and Corrado da Montemagno. Aboutthis time we first hear the name Cancellieri, Cialdo de' Cancellieribeing Potestà. At Campaldino the Pistojese fought under Corso Donati, and turned the battle against the Aretines; and it was under the PotestàGiano della Bella in 1294[136] that the Priore of the twelve _anziani_, established after Campaldino, was named Gonfaloniere of Justice. Villani gives us a vivid picture of Pistoja in 1300. "In these times, "says the prince of Florentine chroniclers, "the city of Pistoja being inhappy and great and good estate, among the other citizens there was onefamily very noble and puissant, not, however, of very ancient lineage, which was called Cancellieri, born of Ser Cancelliere, which was amerchant and gained much wealth, and by his two wives had many sons, which, by reason of their riches, all became knights and men of worthand substance, and from them were born many sons and grandsons, so thatat this time they numbered more than one hundred men in arms, rich andpuissant and of many affairs; and indeed, not only were they the leadingcitizens of Pistoja, but they were among the more puissant families ofTuscany. There arose among them, through their exceeding prosperity, andthrough the suggestion of the devil, contempt and enmity, between themwhich were born of one wife and them which were born of the other; andthe one took the name of the Black Cancellieri, and the other of theWhite, and this grew until they fought together, but it was not anygreat affair. And one of those on the side of the White Cancellieri, having been wounded, they on the side of the Black Cancellieri, to theend they might be at peace and concord with them, sent him which haddone the injury and handed him over to the mercy of them which hadreceived it, that they should take amend, and vengeance for it at theirwill; they on the side of the White Cancellieri, ungrateful and proud, having neither pity nor love, cut off the hand of him which had beencommended to their mercy on a horse-manger. By which sinful beginningnot only was the house of Cancellieri divided, but many violent deathsarose thereupon, and all the city of Pistoja was divided, for some heldwith one part and some with the other, and they called themselves theWhites and the Blacks, forgetting among themselves the Guelph andGhibelline parties; and many civil strifes and much peril and loss oflife arose therefore in Pistoja.... " The Whites seem to have beenlittle more than Ghibellines, to which party they presently alliedthemselves, when Andrea Gherardini was captain. This party soon got theupper hand in Pistoja, thus bringing down the hatred of the Lucchesi andthe Fiorentini; a cruel siege and pillage--touchingly described by DinoCampagni--following in 1305. Exiled, the Whites thronged to the bannerof Uguccione, and helped to win the battle of Montecatini in 1305. Thisdone, Uguccione became tyrant of Pistoja till Castruccio Castracaniflung him out, and by the will of Lewis of Bavaria became himself tyrantof the city, defeating the Florentines again in 1325. In his absence theFlorentines besieged Pistoja again three years later, and took it; thefortunate death of Castruccio confirming them in their conquest, whichthus became the vassal of the Lily. 

Such in brief is the story of Pistoja; but if we look a little moreclosely into the mere confusion of those wars, two facts will perhapsemerge clearly, and help us to understand the position. 

Florence, a city of merchants, was the last power in Italy to make warfor the pleasure of fighting, yet in turn she conquered every city inTuscany, save Lucca alone. [137] What can have been the overmasteringnecessity that drove her on so bloody a path? Certainly not a love ofempire, for she, who was so unfortunate in the art of government, wasnot likely to lust for dominion. Like all the Florentine wars, thatwhich at last brought Pisa under her yoke was a war on behalf of theguilds of Florence, a war of merchants. Florence humbled Pisa becausePisa held the way to the sea, she brought Arezzo and Siena low andbought Cortona because they stood on the roads to Rome, whose banker shewas. [138] And did not Pistoja guard the way to the north, to Bologna, toMilan, to Flanders, and England, whence came the wool that was herwealth?[139] Thus in those days as to-day, war was not a game which onemight play or not as one pleased, but the inexorable result of thecircumstances of life. When Bologna closed the passes, Florence wascompelled to fight or to die; when Pisa taxed Florentine merchandise shesigned her own death. 

On the other hand, the passionate desire of Pistoja was to be free. Liberty--it was the dream of her life; not the liberty of the people, but the essential liberty of the State, of the city. So she wasGhibelline because Florence was Guelph. All her life long she fearedlest Florence should eat her up: that death was ever before her eyes. This and this alone is the cause of the hate of the great Florentine: hehated Florence with an intolerable love because she thrust him out; hehated Pisa, Arezzo, Siena, and Pistoja because they feared or rivalledFlorence, and would not be reconciled. His dream of an Italy unitedunder a foreign Emperor, the ghost of the Roman Empire, remained adream, noble and yet ignoble too. For it is for this that we may accusehim of a lack of clairvoyance, a real failure to appreciate the future, which in the innumerable variety of her cities gave Italy anintellectual life less sustained and clear than the intellectual life ofGreece, but more spiritual and more various. In Italy Antiquity andHebraism became friends, to our undoubted benefit, to the gain of thewhole world. 

But little is left in the smiling, gracious city to-day to recall thosebitter quarrels so long ago. Pistoja, beyond any other Tuscan townperhaps, is full of grace, and gives one always, as it were, a smilingsalutation. La Ferrignosa she was called of old, but it is the lasttitle that fits her now, for the clank of her irons has long beensilent, and nothing any longer disturbs the quiet of her days. S. Attois her saint, and it is by his street that you enter the city, walledstill, coming at last into the Piazza Cino, Cino da Pistoja, one of thesweetest and least fortunate of Tuscan poets. Turning thence into ViaCavour, you come to S. Giovanni Evangelista, once without the walls, butnow not far from the middle of the city, really the earliest of herchurches, a Lombard building of about 1160, the façade decoratedsomewhat in the Pisan manner with rows of pillars, while over the gatesis a relief of the Last Supper, by Gruamonte, whom some have thought tobe the architect of the church. Within is the beautiful pulpit of FraGuglielmo, disciple of Niccolò Pisano, and there on the east he hascarved the Annunciation and the Birth of Jesus; on the north, theWashing of the Disciples' Feet, the Crucifixion, the Deposition, andChrist in Hades; while on the west is the Ascension and the Death of theVirgin. And just as at Bologna, in the tomb of St. Dominic, FraGuglielmo's work is but an inferior copy of the style of his master, sohere in this pulpit, built most probably in 1270, we find just Niccolò'swork spoiled, in a mere repetition, feeble, and without any of thedevotional spirit we might expect in the work of a friar. Beside it, near the next altar, is a very beautiful group in glazed terra-cotta, inthe manner of the della Robbia, by Fra Paolino. The holy water basinsupported by figures of the Virtues is a much-injured work by GiovanniPisano. 

Following Via Cavour, past Palazzo Panciatichi-Cellesi, through ViaFrancesco Magni, into Piazza del Duomo, you are in the midst of all thatwas most splendid in Pistoja of old: the Duomo, with its old fortifiedtower, Torre del Potestà, which still carries the arms of thosecaptains; the Baptistery, high above the way, designed by Andrea Pisano, with its open-air pulpit and broken sculptures; the magnificent Palazzodel Comune; and opposite, the not less splendid Palazzo Pretorio, thepalace of the Podestà. Of old the Piazza was less spacious, but in 1312it was enlarged, and later, too, the palace of the Capitano, on thenorth, was destroyed. Here every Wednesday they still hold thecorn-market, and every Saturday a market of stuffs, silks, and tissues. 

It was S. Romolo who first brought the gospel to Pistoja, and thetradition is that he converted a temple built by the Romans to the GodMars into a church, on the spot where now the Duomo stands, [140] andindeed in 1599 certain inscriptions were found, and the capitals of someRoman columns. It is generally thought that a church was built here inthe early part of the fifth century, dedicated to St. Martin of Tours, on whose day Stilicho, that Roman general who was by birth a Vandal, gained a victory over Radaugasius and his army of some 400, 000 Goths, who had ravaged the country as far as Florence in 406. However this maybe, in 589 the church was finally rebuilt, and certainly re-dedicated toS. Zenone, the Bishop of Verona, who, so it was said, had saved thePistojese from the floods by breaking through the Gonfolina Pass, thatnarrow defile beyond Signa through which the Arno flows, with theOmbrone in her bosom, into the Empolese. After being dedicated atvarious times to many saints, in 1443 it was given to S. Zenone, whosename it still bears. The present church is for the most part a work ofthe twelfth century, and certainly not the work of Niccolò Pisano. Thefaçade, like the rest of the church, has suffered an unfortunaterestoration. The marble loggia is a work of the fifteenth century, andthe two statues are, one of S. Jacopo, by Scarpellino, the other of S. Zenone, by Andrea Vaccà. The beautiful terra-cotta over the great doorof Madonna and Child with Angels, and the roof above, are the work ofAndrea della Robbia. The frescoes of the story of S. Jacopo arefourteenth-century work of Giovanni Balducci the Pisan. 

The splendid and fierce Campanile, still called Torre del Potestà, stoodtill about the year 1200, alone, a stronghold of the city. GiovanniPisano converted it to its present form in 1301. 

Within, the church has been greatly spoiled. The monument to Cino daPistoja, poet and professor, was decreed in 1337 by the PopoloPistojese, and was moved about the church from one place to another, till in 1839 it was erected in its present position. There you may seehim lecturing to his students, and one of them is a woman; can it bethat Selvaggia whom he loved?

 "Ay me, alas! the beautiful bright hair ... "

"Weep, Pistoja, " says Petrarch, in not the least musical of his perfectsonnets, in celebrating the death of his master--

 "Pianga Pistoia e i cittadin perversi Che perdut' hanno si dolce vicino; E rallegres' il ciel or' ello è gito. "

Dante, who exchanged sonnets with Cino and rallied him about hisinconstancy, calls the Pistojese worthy of the Beast[141] who dweltamong them; Petrarch calls them _i cittadin perversi_; the truth beingthat the Neri were in power and had exiled "il nostro amoroso messerCino. "

Close by, against the west wall, is the great font of Andrea Ferrucci, the disciple of Bernardo Rossellino, with five reliefs of the story ofSt. John Baptist. Opposite Cino's monument is the tomb of CardinalFortiguerra. For long this disappointing monument, so full ofgesticulation, passed as the work of Verrocchio; it is to-day attributedrather to Lorenzetto, his disciple. 

Passing up the north aisle, we enter at last the Cappella delSacramento, under whose altar St. Felix, the Pistojese, sleeps, while onthe south wall hangs one of the best works of Lorenzo di Credi, Madonnawith Jesus in her arms, and St. John Baptist and S. Zenone on eitherside. Opposite is the bust of Bishop Donato de' Medici, by AntonioRossellino. The little crypt under the high altar is scarcely worth avisit, but the great treasure of the church, the silver frontal of thehigh altar, is now to be found in the Cappella della Città, and over it, in a chest within the reredos, is the body, still uncorrupted, of S. Atto, Bishop of Pistoja, who died in 1155. The silver frontal, certainlythe finest in Italy, with its wings and reredos of silver and enamel, was removed from the high altar in 1786. It is the work of Andrea diPuccio di Ognibene, the Pistojese goldsmith: it was finished in 1316. Itis carved with fifteen stories from the New Testament, and with manystatues of prophets and pictures of saints. Of the two wings, that onthe left, consisting of stories from the Old Testament, with theNativity, the Presentation and the Marriage of the Virgin, is the workof Pietro of Florence--it was finished about 1357; that on the right, carved in 1371 by Leonardo di Ser Giovanni, consists of the story of St. James and the finding of his body at Campostella. All the guide-bookstell you that it was this treasure that Vanni Fucci stole on ShroveTuesday in 1292, but, as I suppose, since this altar was not begun till1314, it must have been the earlier treasure which this replaced. VanniFucci is famous because of his encounter with Dante in Hell. 

 "Vanni Fucci am I called, Not long since rained down from Tuscany To this dire gullet. Me the bestial life And not the human pleased, mule that I was, Who in Pistoja found my worthy den. "

Dante tell us--

 "I did not mark Through all the gloomy circles of the abyss, Spirit that swelled so proudly 'gainst his God. "[142]

It is in Pistoja better almost than anywhere else in Italy that theseearly sculptors--men who were at work here before Niccolò Pisano camefrom Apulia--may be studied. Rude enough as we may think, they are yetin their subtle beauty, if we will but look at them, the marvellousproduct of a time which many have thought altogether barbarous. Consider, then, the reliefs over the door of S. Giovanni Fuorcivitas, orthe sculptures on the fagade of S. Bartolommeo in Pantano, the work ofRodolfinus and Guido Bigarelli of Como: they are all works of thetwelfth century, and it is, as I think, no naïve beginning we see, butthe last hours of an art that is already thousands of years old, aboutto be born again in the work of Pisano. And indeed we may trace veryhappily the rise of Tuscan sculpture in Pistoja. Though she possesses nowork of Niccolò himself, his influence is supreme in the pulpit of S. Giovanni Fuorcivitas, and it is the beautiful work of his son Giovanniwe see in the great pulpit of S. Andrea, where you enter by a doorcarved in 1166 by Gruamonte with the Adoration of the Magi. Unlike thework of Fra Guglielmo in S. Giovanni, the pulpit of S. Andrea ishexagonal, and there Giovanni has carved in high relief the Birth of OurLord, the Adoration of the Magi, the Murder of the Innocents, theCrucifixion, and the Last Judgment. They were carved in 1301, beforeGiovanni began the Pisan pulpit now in the Museo in that city. And if wesee here the first impulse of the Gothic, the Romantic spirit, inItalian art, as in Niccolò's work we have seen the classic inspiration, it is the far result of these panels that we may discover in theterra-cotta frieze on the vestibule of the Ospedale del Ceppo. That is awork of the sixteenth century, and thus the fifteenth-century work, everpresent with us in Florence, is missing here. It is not, however, to anymember of the della Robbia clan that we owe this beautiful work, Ithink, but to some unknown sculptor with whom Buglioni may have worked. For the seven reliefs representing works of Charity and divided byfigures of the Virtues are of a surprising splendour, a really classicbeauty, and Burckhardt wishes to compare them with the frescoes ofAndrea del Sarto and his companions rather than with the sculpture ofthat time. 

One wanders about this quiet, alluring city, where the sculptures arescattered like flowers on every church porch and municipal building, without the weariness of the sightseer. One day you go by chance to S. Francesco al Prato, a beautiful and spacious church in a wilderness ofPiazza, built in 1294. And there suddenly you come upon the littleflowers of St. Francis, faded and fallen--here a brown rose, there awithered petal; here a lily broken short, there a nosegay drooped anddead: and you realise that here you are face to face with something realwhich has passed away, and so it is with joy you hurry out into thesun, which will always shine with splendour and life, the one thingperhaps that, if these dead might rise from their tombs in S. Francesco, they would recognise as a friend, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. 

Other churches too there are in Pistoja: S. Piero Maggiore, where, as inFlorence, so here, the Bishop, coming to the city, was wedded in alovely symbol to the Benedictine Abbess--there too are the works ofMaestro Bono the sculptor; S. Salvadore, which stands in the placewhere, as it is said, they buried Cataline; S. Domenico, where you mayfind the beautiful tombs of Andrea Franchi and of Filippo Lazzeri thehumanist--this made by Rossellino in 1494. Pistoja is a city ofchurches; one wanders into them and out again always with new delight;and indeed, they lend a sort of gravity to a place that is light-heartedand alluring beyond almost any other in this part of Tuscany certainly. Thinking thus of her present sweetness, one is glad to find that onepoet at least has thought Dante too hard with men. It is strange that itshould be Cino who sings--

 "This book of Dante's, very sooth to say, Is just a poet's lovely heresy, Which by a lure as sweet as sweet can be Draws other men's concerns beneath its sway; While, among stars' and comets' dazzling play, It beats the right down, let's the wrong go free, Shows some abased, and others in great glee, Much as with lovers is Love's ancient way. Therefore his vain decrees, wherein he lied, Fixing folks' nearness to the Fiend their foe, Must be like empty nutshells flung aside. Yet through the vast false witness set to grow, French and Italian vengeance on such pride May fall, like Antony's on Cicero. "[143]

FOOTNOTES:

[136] Cf. Dino Campagni, _Cronica Fiorentina_, Book 1, p. 62. Whenappointed Podestà of Pistoja, Giano rather raised strife than pacifiedthe factions. Cf. Also Villari, _History of Florence_, p. 445. 

[137] Strictly speaking, she never conquered Siena; Charles V did that. 

[138] In the Middle Age, Cortona and Arezzo were not on the road toRome, but so far as Florence was concerned, Siena, her holding that sheacquired these cities to keep Via Aretina open. Cf. Repetti, v. 715. 

[139] That Pistoja was not on the great Via Francesca goes for nothing, she threatened it. 

[140] There is a most excellent little book, _Nuova Guida di Pistoja_, by Cav. Prof. Giuseppe Tigri (Pistoja, 1896), which I strongly recommendto the reader's notice. I wish to acknowledge my debt to it. Unlike somany guides, it is full of life itself, and makes the city live for usalso. 

[141] Bestia, probably a nickname of Vanni Fucci's; cf. _Inferno_, xxiv, 125. 

[142] _Inferno_, xxiv. 125, 126; xxv. 13, 14. 

[143] "Cino impugns the verdicts of Dante's _Commedia_, " a sonnettranslated by D. G. Rossetti. 

_Note_. --No English writers have written well of Pistoja, for first theyalways write from a Florentine point of view, and then they quit toosoon. I plead guilty too. The key-note to Pistoja is given in thatsaying of Macchiavelli's, that the Florentine people "per fuggire ilnome di crudele lascio distruggere Pistoia. " Il Principe, cap. Xvii. Cf. Also Discorsi iii. 27. It is, of course, all a matter of Panciatichi andCancellieri. Cf. Zdekauer Statuti Pistoiesi dei Secoli xii. E xiii. 

XXIX. LUCCA

Who that has ever seen the Pistojese the Val di Lima, the country of S. Marcello, the Val di Reno, the country about Pracchia, does not loveit--the silent ways through the chestnut woods, the temperance of thehill country after the heat of the cities, the country ways after theways of the town? And there are songs there too. But to-day my way liesthrough the valley, Val di Nievole, towards Lucca, lost in the plain atthe gate of the Garfagnana. Serravalle, with its old gateway and highRocca, which fell to Castruccio Castracani; Monsummano, far on the left, with its old church in the valley; Montecatini, with its mineralsprings; Buggiano, and Pescia with its mulberries, where the Church ofS. Francesco hides and keeps its marvellous portrait of S. Francesco--these are the towns at the foot of the mountains that I shallpass before I turn into the plain between the island hills and come atlast to Lucca, Lucca l'Ombrosa, round whose high ramparts that havestood a thousand sieges now in whispering ranks there stand the coolplanes of the valley, the shadowy trees that girdle the city with acintola of green and gold. 

Lucca is the city of a great soldier, of one of the most charming ofTuscan sculptors, and of Santa Zita. Lucca l'Ombrosa I call her, but sheis the city of light too--Luce, light; it is the patriotic derivation ofher name. For One came to her with a star in His bosom, the Star ofBethlehem, that heralded the sweet dawn which crept through the valleysand filled them with morning; so Lucca was the first city in Italy, asthey say, to receive the light of the gospel. 

The foundation of this city, which alone of all the cities of Tuscanywas to keep in some sort her independence till Napoleon wrested it fromher, is obscure. She was not Etruscan, but possibly a Liguriansettlement that came into the power of Rome about 200 B. C. , and by 56B. C. We have certain news of her, for it was here that Caesar, Pompeius, and Crassus formed the triumvirate. Overwhelmed by the disasters thatbefell the Empire, we hear something of her in the sixth century, whenS. Frediano came from Ireland, from Galway, and after a sojourn in Romebecame a hermit in the Monti Pisani, till in 565 John III made himBishop of Lucca. It seems to have been about this time that Lucca beganto be of importance, after the fall of the Lombard rule, governed by herown Dukes. And then the Bishops of Lucca, those Bishop Counts whogoverned her so long, had a jurisdiction which extended to the confinesof the Patrimony of St. Peter. The same drama no doubt was played inLucca as in Pisa or Florence, a struggle betwixt nobles of foreigndescent and the young commune of the Latin population. We find Lucca onthe papal side in 1064, but in 1081 she joins the Emperor with Siena andFerrara; but for the most part after Pisa became Ghibelline Lucca wasGuelph, for her friends were the enemies of Pisa. Thus the fight wenton, a fight really of self-preservation, of civic liberty as it were, each city prizing its ego above every consideration of justice or unity. 

It was the fourteenth century that gave Lucca her great captain, Castruccio Castracani, the hero of Machiavelli's remarkable sketch, thesketch perhaps for the Prince. It is strange that Machiavelli shouldhave cared to write of the only two men who might in more favourablecircumstances have forged a kingdom out of various Republics, Lordships, Duchies, and Marquisates of the peninsula, Castruccio degli Intelminelliand Cesare Borgia. 

It seems, to follow the virile yet subtle tale of Machiavelli, that atthe end of the thirteenth century there was born out of the family ofCastracani one Antonio, who, entering himself into Orders, was made aCanon of S. Michele in Lucca, and was even called Messer Antonio. He hadfor sister a widow of Buonaccorso Cinami, who at the death of herhusband had come to live with him, resolved to marry no more. Now behindthe house where he lived, Messer Antonio, good man, had a vineyard, andit happened one morning about sunrise that Donna Dianora (for that wasthe sister's name) walking in the vineyard to gather herbs for a salad(as women frequently do), heard a rustling under the leaves, and turningtoward it she fancied it cried, and going towards it she saw the handsand face of a child, which, tumbling up and down in the leaves, seemedto call for relief. Donna Dianora, partly astonished and partly afraid, took it up very tenderly, carried it home, washed it, and having put itin clean clothes, presented it to Messer Antonio. "_Eccololi_!" saysshe, "and what will Messere do with this?" "Dianora, " says he, with agasp, "Dianora... !" "No, it is not, " says she, fluttering suddenly withrage, "and I'll thank you, Messer Antonio, " and that she said for spite, "I'll thank you to keep your lewd thoughts to yourself, " says she, "andfor the fine ladies, fine ladies, " says she, "that come to see you at S. Michele, " and she fell to weeping, holding the child in her arms. "Ithat might have had little hands (_manine_) under my chin many's thetime if Buonaccorso had not died so old. " And she carried the child outof his sight. Then Messer Antonio later, when he understood the case, being no less affected with wonder and compassion than his sister beforehim, debated with himself what to do, and presently concluded to bringthe little fellow up; for, as he said, "I, Antonio, am a priest, and mysister hath no children. " So he christened the child Castruccio afterhis own father, and Dianora looked to him as carefully as if he had beenher own. Now Castruccio's graces increased with his years, and thereforein his heart Messer Antonio designed him for a priest; but Dianora wouldnot have it so, and indeed he showed as yet but little inclination tothat kind of life, which was not to be wondered at, his naturaldisposition, as Dianora said, tending quite another way. For though hefollowed his studies, when he was scarce fourteen years old he began torun after the soldiers and knights, and always to be wrestling andrunning, and soon he troubled himself very little with reading, unlessit were such things as might instruct him for war. And Messer Antoniowas sore afflicted. 

Now the great house in Lucca at that time was Guinigi, and Francesco wasthen head of it. Ah! a handsome gentleman, rich too, who had borne armsall his life long under the Visconti of Milan. With them he had foughtfor the Ghibellines till the Lucchesi looked upon him as the very lifeof that party. This Francesco was used to walk in Piazza S. Michele, where one day he watched Castruccio playing among his companions. Seeinghis strength and confidence, he called him to him, and asked him if hedid not prefer a gentleman's family, where he could learn to ride thegreat horse and exercise his arms, before the cloister of a churchman. Guinigi had only to look at him to see which way his heart jumped, sonot long after he made a visit to Antonio and begged Castruccio of himin so pressing and yet so civil a manner, that Antonio, finding he couldnot master the natural inclinations of the lad, let him go. 

Often after that, Dianora and Antonio too, seeing him ride by inattendance on Francesco, would admire with what address he sat hishorse, with what grace he managed his lance, with what comeliness hissword; and indeed scarce any of his age dare meet him at the _Barriere_. He was about eighteen years old when he made his first campaign. For theGuelphs had driven the Ghibellines out of Pavia, and Visconti sought thehelp of his friends, among them of Francesco Guinigi. Francesco gaveCastruccio a company of foot, and marched with him to help Visconti: andCastruccio won such reputation in that fight, that his name gallopedthrough Lombardy, and when he returned to Lucca the whole city had himin respect. 

Not long after, Guinigi fell sick; in truth he was about to die. Seeing, then, that he had a son scarcely thirteen years old, called Pagolo, hegave him into Castruccio's charge, begging him to show the samegenerosity to his son as he had received from him. And all thisCastruccio promised. 

Now the head of the Guelph party in Lucca was a certain Signor GiorgioOpizi, who hoped when Francesco was dead to get the city into his power, so that when he saw Castruccio so well thought of and so strong, hebegan to speak secretly of a new tyranny, by which he meant the growingfavour of Castruccio. Pisa at this time was under the government ofUguccione della Faggiuola of Arezzo, whom the Pisans had chosen as theircaptain, but who had made himself their lord. He had befriended certainGhibellines banished from Lucca, and therefore Castruccio entered intosecret treaty with him in order that these exiles might be restored. Sohe furnished in Lucca the Tower of Honour, which was in his charge, incase he might have to defend it. He met Uguccione on the nightappointed, between Lucca and the hills towards Pisa, and, agreeing withhim, Uguccione marched on the city to St. Peter's Gate and set fire toit, while he attacked another on the other side of the town. Meanwhile, his friends within the city ran about in the night calling _To yourarms_, and filled the streets with confusion; so that Uguccione easilyentered, and, having seized the city, caused all the Opizi to bemurdered as well as all the Guelphs he could find. Nor did he stopthere, for he exiled one hundred of the best families, who immediatelyfled to Florence and Pistoja. The Florentines, seeing the Guelph powertottering, put an army in the field, and met the Pisans and Lucchesi atMontecatini. There followed the memorable battle called after thatplace, in which the Florentines lost some ten thousand men. [144] Thiswas in 1315. Now whether, as Villani says, Uguccione won that battle, or, as Machiavelli asserts, was sick, so that the honour fell toCastruccio, there was already of necessity much jealousy between the twocaptains; for certainly Castruccio had not called on Uguccione to makehim Lord of Lucca, nor had Uguccione obeyed that call for mere love ofCastruccio. He therefore, being returned to Pisa, sent his son Nerli toseize Lucca and kill Castruccio, but the lad bungled it: when Uguccionehimself set out to repair this, he found the city ready, demanding therelease of Castruccio, whom Nerli had imprisoned. Seeing, then, the moodof the city, and that he had but four hundred horse with him, he wascompelled to agree to this. And at once Castruccio, who was in no wisedaunted, assembled his friends and flung Uguccione out of Lucca. Meantime the Pisans had themselves revolted, so that this tyrant wascompelled to retire into Lombardy. 

It was now that Castruccio saw his opportunity. He got himself chosenCaptain-General of all the Lucchese forces for a twelvemonth, and beganto reduce the surrounding places near and far which had come under therule of Uguccione. The first of these to be attacked was Sarzana inLunigiana. But first he agreed with Pisa, who in hatred of Uguccionesent him men and stores. Sarzana proved very strong, so that before hewon it he was compelled to build a fortress beyond the walls, which wemay see to this day. Thus Sarzana was taken, and later Massa, Carrara, and Avenza easily enough, until the whole of Lunigiana was in his power, even Fosdinovo, and later Remoli, and that was to secure his way toLombardy. Then he returned to Lucca, and was received with every sort ofjoy. 

About this time Ludovic of Bavaria came into Italy seeking the ImperialCrown, and Castruccio went to meet him with 500 horse, leaving PagoloGuinigi his Deputy in Lucca. Ludovic received him with much kindness, making him Lord of Pisa and his vicar in all Tuscany: and thusCastruccio became the head of the Ghibelline party both in Lombardy andTuscany. But Castruccio's aim went higher yet, for he hoped not only tobe vicar but master indeed of Tuscany, and to this end he made a leaguewith Matteo Visconti of Milan; and seeing that Lucca had five gates, hedivided the country into five parts, and to every part he set a captain, so that presently he could march with 20, 000 men beside the Pisans. Nowthe Florentines were already busy in Lombardy against Visconti, whobesought Castruccio to make a diversion. This he readily did, takingFucecchio and S. Miniato al Tedesco. Then hearing of trouble in Lucca, he returned and imprisoned the Poggi, who had risen against him; an oldand notable family, but he spared them not. Meanwhile Florence retook S. Miniato; and Castruccio, not caring to fight while he was insecure athome, made a truce carefully enough, that lasted two years. 

He now set himself first to make Lucca secure, and for this he built afortress in the city; and then to possess himself of Pistoja--for heeven thought thereby to gain a foothold in Florence herself--and forthis he entered into correspondence secretly with both the Neri and theBianchi there. These two factions did not hesitate to use the enemy oftheir city to help their ambitions, so that while the Bianchi expectedhim at one gate, the Neri waited at the other, the one receiving Guinigiand the other Castruccio himself with their men into the city. Notcontent with thus winning Pistoja, he thought to control the city ofRome also, which he did in the name of the Emperor, the Pope being inAvignon; and this done, he went through the city with two devicesembroidered on his coat: the one before read, "He is as pleaseth God, "and that behind, "And shall be what God will have him. " Now theFlorentines were furious at the cunning breach of their truce by whichCastruccio had got himself Pistoja; so, while he was in Rome, theydetermined to capture the place: which they did one night by a ruse, destroying all Castruccio's party. And when he heard it, Castruccio camenorth in great anger. But at first the Florentines were too quick forhim: they got together all of the Guelph league, and before Castrucciowas back again, held Val di Nievole. Seeing their greatness--for theywere 40, 000 in number, while he on his return could muster but 12, 000men at most--he would not meet them in the plain, nor in the Val diPescia, but resolved to draw that great army into the narrow ways ofSerravalle, where he could deal with them. Now Serravalle is a Rocca noton the road but on the hillside above, and the way down into the valleyis rather strait than steep till you come to the place where the watersdivide: so strait that twenty men abreast take up all the way. ThatRocca belonged to a German lord called Manfredi, whose throat Castrucciocheerfully cut. The Florentines, who were eager not only to hold all Valdi Nievole but to carry the war away from Pistoja towards Lucca, knewnothing of Serravalle having fallen to Castruccio, so on they came inhaste, and encamped above it, hoping to pass the straits next day. ThereCastruccio fell upon them about midnight, putting all to confusion. Horse and foot fell foul upon one another, and both upon the baggage. There was no way left for them but to run, which they did helter-skelterin the plain of Pistoja, where each man shifted for himself. ButCastruccio followed them even to Peretola at the gates of Florence, carrying Pistoja and Prato on the way; there he coined money under theirwalls, [145] while his soldiers insulted over the conquered; and to makehis triumph more remarkable, nothing would serve the turn but nakedwomen must run Corsi on horseback under the very walls of the city. Andto deliver their city from Castruccio, the Florentines were compelled tosend to the King of Naples, and to pay him annual tribute. 

But Castruccio's business was always spoiled by revolt, and this time itwas Pistoja which rose, and later Pisa. Then the Guelphs raised a greatarmy--30, 000 foot and 10, 000 horse it was--and after a little, whileCastruccio was busy with Pisa, they seized Lastra, Signa, Montelupo, Empoli, and laid siege to S. Miniato: this in May 1328. Castruccio, inno wise discomposed, thought at last Tuscany was in his grasp; thereforehe went to Fucecchio and entrenched himself with 20, 000 foot and 4000horse, leaving 5000 foot in Pisa with Guinigi. Fucecchio is a walledcity on the other side of Arno opposite S. Miniato. There Castrucciowaited; nor could he have chosen better, for the Florentines could notattack him without fording the river from S. Miniato, which they hadtaken, and dividing their forces. This they were compelled to do, andCastruccio fell upon and beat them, leaving some 20, 000 of them dead inthe field, while he lost but fifteen hundred. Nevertheless, that provedto be his last fight, for death found him at the top of his fortune;riding into Fucecchio after the battle, he waited a-horseback to greethis men at the great gate of the place which is still called after him. Heated as he was with the fight, it was the evening wind that slew him;for he fell into an ague, and, neglecting it, believing himselfsufficiently hardened, it presently killed him, and Pagolo Guinigi ruledin his stead, but without his fortune. 

Following that strangely successful career, that for Macchiavelli at anyrate seemed like a promise of the Deliverer that was to come, the firstof modern historians gives us many of Castruccio's sayings set down athaphazard, which bring the man vividly before us. Thus when a friend ofhis, seeing him engaged in an amour with a very pretty lass, blamed himthat he suffered himself to be so taken by a woman--"You are deceived, signore, " says Castruccio, "she is taken by me. " Another desiring afavour of him with a thousand impertinent and superfluous words--"Harkyou, friend, " says Castruccio, "when you would have anything of me, forthe future send another man to ask it. " Something of his dream ofdominion may be found in that saying of his when one asked him, seeinghis ambition, how Caesar died, and he answered, "Would I might die likehim!" Blamed for his severity, perhaps over the Poggi affair, one saidto him that he dealt severely with an old friend--"No, " says he, "youare mistaken; it was with a new foe. " Something of his love forUguccione--who certainly hated him, but whom he held in greatveneration--may be found in his answer to that man who asked him if forthe salvation of his soul he never thought to turn monk. "No, " says he, "for to me it will be strange if Fra Nazarene should go to Paradise andUgguccione della Faggiuola to Hell. " And Macchiavelli says that what wasmost remarkable was that, "having equalled the great actions ofScipio and Philip, the father of Alexander, he died as they did, in theforty-fourth year of his age, and doubtless he would have surpassed themboth had he found as favourable dispositions at Lucca as one of them didin Macedon and the other in Rome. " Just there we seem to find the desireof the sixteenth century for unity that found expression in the deeds ofCesare Borgia, the Discorsi of Niccolò Macchiavelli. 

[Illustration: THE TOMB OF ILARIA DEL CARETTO

_By Jacopo della Quercia. Duomo, Lucca_

_Brogi_]

The rest of the history of Lucca is a sort of unhappy silence, out ofwhich from time to time rise the cry of Burlamacchi, a fool, yes, but ahero, the howling of the traitors, the whisper of feeble conspiracies, the purr of an ignoble prosperity, till in 1805 Napoleon came and madeher his prey. 

II

But to-day Lucca is like a shadowy pool hidden behind the Pisan hills, like a forgotten oasis in the great plain at the foot of the mountains, a pallid autumn rose, smiling subtly among the gardens that girdle herround about with a sad garland of green, a cincture of silver, a tossingsea of olives. However you come to her, you must pass through thosedelicate ways, where always the olives whisper together, and theirmillion leaves, that do not mark the seasons, flutter one by one to theground; where the cicale die in the midst of their song, and the flowersof Tuscany scatter the shade with the colours of their beauty. In themidst of this half-real world, so languidly joyful, in which the skycounts for so much, it is always with surprise you come upon thetremendous perfect walls of this city--walls planted all round withplane-trees, so that Lucca herself is hidden by her crown--a crown thatchanges as the year changes, mourning all the winter long, but in springis set with living emeralds, a thousand and a thousand points of greenfire that burst into summer's own coronet of flame-like leaves, thatfades at last into the dead and sumptuous gold of autumn. 

It is by Porta S. Pietro that we enter Lucca, coming by rail fromPistoja, and from Pisa too, then crossing La Madonnina and CorsoGaribaldi by Via Nazionale, we come almost at once into Piazza Giglio, where the old Palazzo Arnolfi stands--a building of the sixteenthcentury that is now Albergo Universo. Thence by the Via del Duomo, pastS. Giovanni, we enter the Piazza S. Martino, that silent, empty squarebefore the Duomo. The little Church of S. Giovanni that we pass on theway is the old cathedral, standing on the site of a pagan temple, andrebuilt by S. Frediano in 573, after the Lombards had destroyed thefirst Christian building. The present church dates, in part at least, from the eleventh century, and the three white pillars of the nave arefrom the Roman building; but the real interest of the church lies in itsBaptistery--Lombard work dug out of the earth which had covered it, thefloor set in a waved pattern of black and white marble, while in themidst is the great square font in which the people of Lucca wereimmersed for baptism. Little else remains of interest in this the mostancient church in Lucca--only a fresco of Madonna with St. Nicholas andothers, a fifteenth-century work in the north transept, and a beautifulwindow of the end of the sixteenth century in the Baptistery itself. 

All that is best in Lucca, all that is sweetest and most naïve, may befound in the beautiful Duomo, which Pope Alexander II consecrated in1070, --Pope Alexander II, who had once been Bishop of Lucca. _Non èfinito_, the sacristan, himself one of the most delightful and simplesouls in this little forgotten city, will tell you--it is not finished;and indeed, the alteration that was made in the church in the early partof the fourteenth century--when the nave was lengthened and the roofraised--was never completed; and you may still see where, through somany centuries, that which was so well begun has awaited a second S. Frediano. 

It is, however, the façade that takes you at once by its ancient smilingaspect, its three great unequal arches, over which, in three tiers, various with beautiful columns, rise the open galleries we have so lovedat Pisa. Built, as it is said, in 1204 by Guidetto, much work remainsin that beautiful frontispiece to one of the most beautiful churches inItaly that is far older than itself: the statue of S. Martino, thepatron, for instance; that labyrinth, too, on the great pier to theright; and perhaps the acts of St. Martin carved between the doors, andbelow them three reliefs of the months, where in January you see mansitting beside the fire; in February, as is most right, fishing in theSerchio; in March, wisely pruning his trees; in April, sowing his seed;in May, plucking the spring flowers; in June, cutting the corn; in July, beating it out with the flail--the flail that is used to-day in everycountry place in Tuscany; in August, plucking the fruits; in September, treading the wine-press; in October, storing the wine; in November, ploughing; and in December, for the festa killing a pig. Over the doorto the left is the earliest work, as it is said, of Nicolò Pisano, andbeneath it an Adoration of the Magi, in which some have found the handof Giovanni, his son; while above the great door itself Our Lord is inglory, with the Twelve Apostles beneath, and Madonna herself in themidst. Not far away, to the north beside the church, the rosy Campaniletowers over Lucca, calling city and country too, to pray at dawn and atnoon and at evening. 

Within, the church is of a great and simple beauty; in the form of aLatin cross, divided into three naves by columns supporting roundarches, over which the triforium passes across the transepts, lighted bybeautiful Gothic windows: the glass is certainly dreadful, but far awayin the choir the windows are filled still with the work of the oldmasters. 

The most beautiful and the most wonderful treasure that the churchholds, that Lucca itself can boast of, is the great tomb in the northtransept, carved to hold for ever the beautiful Ilaria del Caretto, thewife of Paolo Guinigi, whose tower still blossoms in the spring, sinceshe has sat there. It is the everlasting work of Jacopo della Quercia, the Sienese. On her bed of marble the young Ilaria lies, like a lilyfallen on a rock of marble, and in her face is the sweet gravity of allthe springs that have gone by, and in her hand the melody of all thesongs that have been sung; her mouth seems about to speak some lovelyaffirmation, and her body is a tower of ivory. Can you wonder that thesun lingers here softly, softly, as it steps westward, or that nightcreeps over her, kissing her from head to foot slowly like a lover? Whowas the vandal who robbed so great and noble a thing as this of therelief of dancing children which was found in the Bargello in 1829, andreturned here only in 1887?

It is, however, the work of another man, a Lucchese too, that fills theDuomo and Lucca itself with a sort, of lyric sweetness in the delicateand almost fragile sculpture of Matteo Civitali. In the south transepthe has carved the monument to Pietro da Noceto, the pupil of PopeNicholas V, and close by, the tomb of Domenico Bertini, his patron, while in the Cappella del Sacramento are two angels from his hands, kneeling on either side the tabernacle. It was he who built the marbleparapet, all of red and white, round the choir, the pulpit, and theTempietto in the nave, gilded and covered with ornaments to hold theVolto Santo, setting there the beautiful statue of St. Sebastian, whichwe look at to-day with joy while we turn away from that strange andmarvellous shrine of the holy face of Jesus which we no longer care tosee. Yet one might think that crucifix strange and curious enough for apilgrimage, beautiful, too, as it is, with the lost beauty of an art assubtle and lovely as the work of the Japanese. "It is really, " saysMurray, "a work of the eleventh century"; but the Lucchesi will not haveit so, for they tell you that it was carved at the bidding of an angelby Nicodemus, and that he, unable to finish his work, since his memorywas too full of the wonder of the reality, returning to it one day, perhaps to try again, found it miraculously perfect. At his death itpassed into the hands of certain holy men, who, to escape from the furyof the iconoclasts, hid it, till in 782 a Piedmontese bishop found it bymeans of a vision, and put it aboard ship and abandoned it to the sea. So the tale runs. Cast hither and thither in the waves, the ship at lastcame ashore at Luna, where the Bishop of Lucca was staying in thesummer heat. So, led by God, he would have borne it to Lucca; but thepeople of Luna, who had heard of its sanctity, objecting, it was placedin a cart drawn by two white oxen, and, as it had been abandoned to thesea, so now it was given to the world. But the oxen, which in fact camefrom the fields of Lucca, returned thither, to the disgust of the peopleof Luna, and to the great and holy joy of the Bishop of Lucca, as we mayimagine. Such is the tale; but the treasure itself is a crucifix ofcedar wood of a real and strange beauty. Whether it be European work orAsiatic I know not, nor does it matter much, since it is beautiful. Dante, who spent some time in Lucca, and there loved the gentleGentucca, whose name so fortunately chimed with that of the city, speaksof the Volto Santo in _Inferno_, xxi. 48, when in the eighth circle ofHell, over the lake of boiling pitch, the devils cry--

 "... Qui non ha luogo il Santo Volto: Qui si nuota altrimenti che nel Serchio. "

Matteo Civitali, the one artist of importance that Lucca produced, wasborn in 1435. He remains really the one artist, not of the territory ofFlorence, who has worked in the manner of the fifteenth-centurysculptors of that city. His work is everywhere in Lucca, --here in theDuomo, in S. Romano, in S. Michele, in S. Frediano, and in the Museo inPalazzo Mansi. Certainly without the strength, the constructive abilitythat sustains even the most delicate work of the Florentines, he has yeta certain flower-like beauty, a beauty that seems ever about to passaway, to share its life with the sunlight that ebbs so swiftly out ofthe great churches where it is; and concerned as it is for the most partwith the tomb, to rob death itself of a sort of immortality, to suggestin some faint and subtle way that death itself will pass away and belost, as the sun is lost at evening in the strength of the sea. Thesentiment that his work conveys to us of a beauty fragile at best, andrather exquisite than splendid, lacks, perhaps, a certain originalityand even freshness; yet it preserves very happily just the beauty offlowers, of the flowers that grow everywhere about his home in theslowly closing valleys, the tender hills that lead to Castelnuovo of theGarfagnana, to Barga above the Bagni di Lucca. More and more as youlinger in Lucca it is his work you seek out, caught by its sweetness, its delicate and melancholy joy, its strangeness too, as though he haddesired to express some long thought-out, recondite beauty, and, halfafraid to express himself after all, had let his thoughts pass over themarble as the wind passes over the sand between the Pineta and the sea. It is a beauty gone while we try to apprehend it that we find in hiswork, and though at last we may tire of this wayward and delicatespirit, while we shall ever return with new joy to the great and noblefigure of the young Ilaria del Caretto or to the serene Madonna ofGhirlandajo, hidden in the Sacristy, yet we shall find ourselves seekingfor the work of Matteo Civitali as for the first violets of the spring, without a thought of the beauty that belongs to the roses that lord itall the summer long. 

It is a Madonna of Civitali that greets you at the corner of the mostcharacteristic church of Lucca, S. Michele. There, under the greatbronze S. Michele, whose wings seem to brood over the city, you comeupon that strange fantastic and yet beautiful fagade which Guidettobuilt in 1188. Just Pisan work you think, but lacking a certainsimplicity and sincerity even, that you find certainly in the Duomo. Butif it be true that this fagade was built in 1188, and that the fagade ofthe Duomo of Pisa was built in 1250, and even that of S. Paolo a Ripad'Arno there, in 1194, Guidetto's work here in Lucca is the older, andthe Pisan master has made but a difficult simplification, perhaps, ofthis very work. A difficult simplification!--simplicity being really themost difficult achievement in any art, so that though it seem so easy itis really hard to win. Guidetto seems to have built here at S. Micheleas a sort of trial for the Duomo, which is already less like anapparition. And if the façade of S. Michele has not the strength orthe naturalness of that, leading as it does to nothing but poverty inthe midst of which still abides a mutilated work by a great Florentine, Fra Lippo Lippi, it is because Guidetto has gradually won to thatdifficult simplicity from such a strange and fantastic dream as this. 

[Illustration: THE TOMB OF THE MARTYR S. ROMANO IN S. ROMANO, LUCCA

_Matteo Civitali_

_Alinari_]

It is quite another sort of beauty we see when, passing through thedeserted, quiet streets, we come to S. Frediano, just within the PortaS. Maria, on the north side of the city. Begun by Perharlt, the Lombard, in 671, with the stones of the amphitheatre, whose ruins are still to beseen hard by, it stood without the city till the great wall was built inthe twelfth century, the apse being set where formerly the great doorhad stood, and the marvellously impressive fagade taking the place ofthe old apse. Ruined though it be by time and restoration, that mosaicof Our Lord amid the Apostles and Angels still surprises us with asudden glory, while the Campanile that rises still where of old the doorstood is one of the most beautiful in Italy. Within, the church hassuffered too from change and restoration. Once of basilical form, it isnow spoiled by the chapels that thrust themselves into the nave, butcannot altogether hide the nobility of those ancient pillars or thesimplicity of the roof. A few beautiful ancient things may still befound there. The font, for instance, with its rude sculptures, that hasbeen forsaken for a later work by Niccolò Civitali, the nephew ofMatteo; the Assumption, carved in wood by that master behind the pulpit;the lovely reliefs of Madonna and Child with Saints, by Jacopo dellaQuercia, in the Cappella del Sacramento; or the great stone which, as itis said, S. Frediano, that Irishman, lifted into a cart. 

But it is not of S. Frediano we think in this dark and splendid place, though the stone of his miracle lies before us, but of little S. Zita, patron of housemaids, little S. Zita of Lucca, born in 1211. "Anziani diSanta Zita, " the devil calls the elders of Lucca in the eighth circle ofHell; but in her day, indeed, she had no such fame as that. She wasborn at Montesegradi, a village of the Lucchese, and was put to serviceat twelve years of age, in the family of the Fantinelli, whose house wasclose to this church, where now she has a chapel to herself at the westend of the south aisle, with a fine Annunciation of the della Robbia. Tothink of it!--but in those days it was different; it would puzzle OurLord to find a S. Zita among our housemaids of to-day. For hear andconsider well the virtues of this pearl above price, whose daughters, alas! are so sadly to seek while she dusts the Apostles' chairs inheaven. She was persuaded that labour was according to the will of God, nor did she ever harbour any complaint under contradictions, poverty, hardships; still less did she ever entertain the least idle, inordinate, or worldly desire! She blessed God for placing her in a station whereshe was ever busy, and where she must perpetually submit her will tothat of others. "She was even very sensible of the advantages of herstate, which afforded all necessaries of life without engaging her inanxious cares, ... She obeyed her master and mistress in all things, ... She rose always hours before the rest of the family, ... She took careto hear Mass every morning before she was called upon by the duties ofher station, in which she employed the whole day with such diligence andfidelity that she seemed to be carried to them on wings, and studied toanticipate them!" Is it any wonder her fellow-servants hated her, calledher modesty simplicity, her want of spirit servility? Ah, we know thatspirit, we know that pride, S. Zita, and for those wings that bore you, for that thoughtfulness and care, S. Zita, we should be willing to payyou quite an inordinate wage! Nor would your mistress to-day beprepossessed against you as yours was, neither would your master be"passionate, " and he would see you, S. Zita, without "transports ofrage. " Your biographer tells us that it is not to be conceived how muchyou had continually to suffer in that situation. Unjustly despised, overburdened, reviled, and often beaten, you never repined nor lostpatience, but always preserved the same sweetness in your countenance, and abated nothing of your application to your duties. Moreover, youwere willing to respect your fellow-servants as your superiors. And ifyou were sent on a commission a mile or two, in the greatest storms, youset out without delay, executed your business punctually, and returnedoften almost drowned, without showing any sign of murmuring. And atlast, S. Zita, they found you out, they began to treat you better, theyeven thought so well of you that a single word from you would oftensuffice to check the greatest transports of your master's rage; and youwould cast yourself at the feet of that terrific man, to appease him infavour of others. And all these and more were your virgin virtues, lost, gone, forgotten out of mind, by a world that dreams of no heavenlyhousemaid save in Lucca where you lived, and where they still keep yourApril festa, and lay their nosegays on your grave. 

So I passed in Lucca from church to church, finding here the body of alittle saint, there the tomb of a soldier, or the monument of some deardead woman. In S. Francesco, that desecrated great mausoleum that liesat the end of the Via di S. Francesco not far from the garden tower ofPaolo Guinigi, I came upon the humble grave of Castruccio Castracani. InS. Romano, at the other end of the city behind the Palazzo Provinciale, it was the shrine of that S. Romano who was the gaoler of S. Lorenzo Ifound, a tomb with the delicate flowerlike body of the murdered saintcarved there in gilded alabaster by Matteo Civitali. 

It is chiefly Civitali's work you seek in the Museo in PalazzoProvinciale, for, fine as the work of Bartolommeo is in two pictures tobe found there, it is for something more of the country than that youare to come to Lucca. There, in a Madonna Assunta carved in wood andplaster, and daintily painted as it seems he loved to do, you haveperhaps the most charming work that has come from his bottega. He wasnot a great sculptor, but he had seen the vineyards round about, he hadwandered in the little woods at the city gates, he had watched the dawnrun down the valleys, and the wind that plays with the olives was hisfriend. He has loved all that is delicate and lovely, the wings ofangels, the hands of children, the long blown hair of St. John in hisDeath of the Virgin, the eyelids that have fallen over the eyes. He isfull of grace, and his virtues seem to me to be just those which Luccaherself possesses. Hidden away between the mountains, between the plainsand the sea, she achieved nothing, or almost nothing. Castracani for amoment forced her into the pell-mell of awakened Italy, but with hisdeath, and certainly with the fall of the House of Guinigi, she returnedto herself, to her own quiet heart, which was enough for her. This onesculptor is almost her sole contribution to Italian art, but she wascontent that his works should scatter her ways, and that hidden away inher churches his shy flowers should blossom. Civitali and S. Zita, theyare the two typical Lucchesi; they sum up a city composed of such asGiovanni Arnolfini and his wife, whom Van Eyck painted, that greatbourgeoisie which made Italy without knowing it, and, unconcerned whilethe great men and the rabble fought in the wars or lost their lives in apetty revolution, were eager only to be let alone, that they mightcontinue their labour and gather in wealth. And of them history issilent, for they made her. 

FOOTNOTES:

[144] See p. 94 et seq. 

[145] This coining of money was as much as to prove that he had a sortof sovereign right over their territory. 

XXX. OVER THE GARFAGNANA

So in the long August days, that are so fierce in the city, I soughtonce more the hills, the hills that are full of songs, those songs whichin Italy have grown with the flowers and are full of just their wistfulbeauty, their expectancy and sweetness. 

 "Fiorin di grano, Lasciatemi cantar, chè allegra sono, Ho rifatto la pace col mio damo. "

There in the Garfagnana, as I wandered up past Castelnuovo to the littlevillage of Piazza al Serchio, and then through the hills to Fivizanno, that wonderful old town in a cup of the mountains, I heard the wholedrama of love sung by the "vaghe montanine pastorelle" in the chestnutwoods or on the high lawns where summer is an eternal spring. 

 "O rosa! O rosa! O rosa gentillina! Quanto bella t'ha fatta la tua mamma! T'ha fatto bella, poi t'ha messo un fiore; T'ha messo alla finestra a far l'amore. T'ha fatto bella e t'ha messo una rosa: T'ha messo alla finestra a far la sposa. "

sings the young man one morning as he passes the cottage of his beloved, and she, scarcely fourteen, goes to her mother, weeping perhaps--

 "Mamma, se non mi date il mio Beppino, Vo' andar pel mondo, e mai più vo' tornare. Se lo vedessi quanto gli è bellino, O mamma, vi farebbe innamorare. E' porta un giubboncin di tre colori, E si chiama Beppino Ruba--cori: E' porta un giubboncin rosso incarnato, E si chiama Beppino innamorato: E' porta un giubboncin di mezza lana; Quest' è Beppino, ed io son la sua dama. "

Then the _damo_ comes to serenade his mistress--

 "Vengo di notte e vengo appassionato, Vengo nell'ora del tuo bel dormire. Se ti risveglio, faccio un gran peccato Perchè non dormo, e manco fo dormire. Se ti risveglio, un gran peccato faccio: Amor non dorme, e manco dormir lascia. "

And she, who doubtless has heard it all in her little bed, sings on themorrow--

 "Oh, quanto tempo l'ho desiderato Un damo aver che fosse sonatore! Eccolo qua che Dio me l'ha mandato Tutto coperto di rose e viole; Eccolo qua che vien pianin pianino, A capo basso, e suona il violino. "

Then they sing of Saturday and Sunday--

 "Quando sara sabato sera, quando? Quando sara domenica mattina, Che vedrò l'amor mio spasseggiando, Che vedrò quella faccia pellegrina, Che vedrò quel bel volto, e quel bel viso, O fior d'arancio côlto in paradiso! Che vedrò quel bel viso e quel bel volto, O fior d'arancio in paradiso côlto!"

So all the summer long they play at love; but with October Beppino mustgo to the Maremma with the herds, and she thinks over this as the timedraws near--

 "E quando io penso a quelle tante miglia, E che voi, amor mio, l'avete a fare, Nelle mie vene il sangue si rappiglia, Tutti li sensi miei sento mancare; E li sento mancare a poco a poco, Come la cera in sull'ardente foco: E li sento mancare a dramma, a dramma, Come la cera in sull'ardente fiamma. "

Or again, with half a sob--

 "Come volete faccia che non pianga Sapendo che da voi devo partire? E tu bello in Maremma ed io 'n montagna! Chesta partenza mi farà morire.... "

And at last she watches him depart, winding down the long roads--

 "E vedo e vedo e non vedo chi voglio, Vedo le foglie di lontan tremare. E vedo lo mio amore in su quel poggio, E al piano mai lo vedo calare. O poggio traditor, che ne farete? O vivo o morto me lo renderete. O poggio traditor, che ne farai? O vivo o morto me lo renderai. "

Then she dreams of sending a letter in verses, which recall, howclosely, the Swallow song of "The Princess"--

 "O Rondinella che passi monti e colli, Se trovi l'amor mio, digli che venga; E digli: son rimasta in questi poggi Come rimane la smarrita agnella. E digli: son rimasta senza nimo Come l'albero secco senza 'l cimo. E digli: son rimasta senza damo, Come l'albero secco senza il ramo. E digli: son rimasta abbandonata Come l'erbetta secca in sulle prata. "

At length she sends a letter with the help of the village scrivener, andin time gets an answer--

 "Salutatemi, bella, lo scrivano; Non lo conosco e non so chi si sia. A me mi pare un poeta sovrano Tanto gli è sperto nella poesia ... "

Signor Tigri in his excellent collection of _Canti Toscani_, from whichI have quoted, gives some examples too of these letters and theirreplies, but they are too long to set down here. 

With spring the lover returns. You may see the girls watching for thelads any day of spring in those high far woods through which the roadswind down to the plains. 

 "Eccomi, bella, che son già venuto Che li sospiri tuoi m'hanno chiamato, E tu credevi d'avermi perduto, Dal ben che ti volevo son tornato. Quando son morto, mi farai un gran pianto; Dirai: è morto chi mi amava tanto! Quando son morto, un gran pianto farai, Padrona del mio cor sempre sarai. "

Then in the early summer days the promises are given, and long and longbefore autumn the good priest marries Beppino to his Annuziatina, anddoubtless they live happy ever after in those quiet and holy places. 

It is into this country of happiness you come, a happiness so vaguelymusical, when, leaving Lucca in the summer heat, you climb into theGarfagnana. For to your right Bagni di Lucca lies under Barga, with itschurch and great pulpit; and indeed, the first town you enter is Borgo aMozzano by Serchio; then, following still the river, you come toGallicano, and then by a short steep road to Castelnuovo di Garfagnanaat the foot of the great pass. The mountains have clustered round you, bare and threatening, and though you be still in the woods it is theirtragic nudity you see all day long, full of the disastrous gestures ofdeath, that can never change or be modified or recalled. It is underthese lonely and desolate peaks that the road winds to Piazza alSerchio. 

Castelnuovo is a little city caught in a bend of Serchio, which it spansby a fantastic high bridge that leaps across the shrunken torrent. Amere huddle of mediaeval streets and piazzas in an amphitheatre ofmountains, its one claim on our notice is that here is a good inn, keptby a strange tragical sort of man with a beautiful wife, the onlysunshine in that forbidding place. She lies there like a jewel among theinhuman rocks, and Serchio for ever whispers her name. Here too, doubtless, came Ariosto, most serene of poets, when in 1522 he was sentto suppress an insurrection in the Garfagnana. But even Ariosto will notkeep you long in Castelnuovo, since she whom he would certainly havesung, and whose name you will find in his poem, cannot hold you there. So you follow the country road up stream, a laughing, leaping torrent inSeptember, full of stones longing for rain, towards Camporgiano. 

It is very early in the morning maybe, as you climb out of the shadowand receive suddenly the kiss of the morning sun over a shoulder of thegreat mountains, a kiss like the kiss of the beloved. From the villageof Piazza al Serchio, where the inn is rough truly but _pulito_, it is aclimb of some six chilometri into the pass, where you leave the river, then the road, always winding about the hills, runs level for fourmiles, and at last drops for five miles into Fivizzano. All the way themountains stand over you frighteningly motionless and threatening, tillthe woods of Fivizzano, that magical town, hide you in their shadow, andevening comes as you climb the last hill that ends in the Piazza beforethe door of the inn. 

Here are hospitality, kindness, and a welcome; you will get a great roomfor your rest, and the salone of the palace, for palace it is, for yoursojourn, and an old-fashioned host whose pleasure is your comfort, whois, as it were, a daily miracle. He it will be who will make your bed inthe chamber where Grand Duke Leopold slept, he will wait upon you atdinner as though you were the Duke's Grace herself, and if your sojournbe long he will make you happy, and if your stay be short you will gowith regret. For his pride is your delight, and he, unlike too many morefamous Tuscans, has not forgotten the past. Certainly he thinks it notaltogether without glory, for he has carved in marble over your bed oneof those things which befell in his father's time. Here it is--

 "Qui stette per tre giorni Nel Settembre del MDCCCXXXII Leopoldo Il Granduca di Toscana E i fratelli Cojari da Fivizzano L'imagine dell' Ottimo Principi vi possero Perchè rimanesse ai posteri memoria Che la loro casa fu nobilitata Dalle presenza dell' ospite augusto. "

But nature had ennobled the House of Cojari already. There all day longin the pleasant heat the fountain of Cosimo in plays in the Piazzaoutside your window, cooling your room with its song. And, indeed, inall Tuscany it would be hard to find a place more delightful or morelovely in which to spend the long summer that is so loath to go here inthe south. Too soon, too soon the road called me from those meadows andshadowy ways, the never-ending whisper of the woods, the sound ofstreams, the song of the mountain shepherd girls, the quiet ways of thehills. 

It was an hour after sunrise when I set out for Fosdinovo of theMalaspina, for Sarzana, for Spezia, for England. The way lies over therivers Aulella and Bardine, through Soliero in the valley, throughCeserano of the hills. Thence by a way steep and dangerous I came intothe valley of Bardine, only to mount again to Tendola and at last toFoce Cuccù, where on all sides the valleys filled with woods fell awayfrom me, and suddenly at a turning of the way I spied out Fosdinovo, lordly still on its bastion of rock, guarding Val di Magra, lookingtowards Luna and the sea. 

Little more than an eyrie for eagles, Fosdinovo is an almost perfectfortress of the Middle Age. It glowers in the sun like a threat over theways that now are so quiet, where only the bullocks dragging the marblefrom Carrara pass all day long from Massa to Spezia, from the valley tothe sea. 

It was thence for the first time for many months I looked on a land thatwas not Tuscany. Already autumn was come in that high place; a flutterof leaves and the wind of the mountains made a sad music round about theold walls, which had heard the voice of Castruccio Castracani, whosegates he had opened by force. And then, as I sat there above the woodstowards evening, from some bird passing overhead there fell a tinyfeather, whiter than snow, that came straight into my hand. Was it abird, or my angel, whose beautiful, anxious wings trembled lest I shouldfall in a land less simple than this?

INDEX

AdeodatusAgostino di DuccioAlberti, LeonAlbertinelliAlessi, GaleazzoAngelico, BeatoApuan AlpsArcolaArnolfo di CambioArnolfo FiorentinoAvenza

Bagni di LuccaBaldovinettiBandinelliBargaBartolommeo, FrateBellini, GiovanniBenedetto da MaianoBenedetto da RovezzanoBenozzo, GozzoliBertoldo di GiovanniBibbienaBiduinoBoccaccioBonannusBorgo a MozzanoBorgo S. LorenzoBotticelliBracco, Passo diBrunellescoBuggianoByron

CalciCamaldoliCamogliCampaldinoCaprajaCarpaccioCarrara S. Andrea QuarriesCascinaCasentino Bibbiena Camaldoli Campaldino Campo Lombardo Castel Castagnajo Falterona La Verna Poppi Porciano Pratovecchio Romena Stia The way to Vallombrosella ValluccioleCastagnoCastagno, Andrea delCastel del BoscoCastelfrancoCastelnuovo di GarfagnanaCastelnuovo di MagraCastracani, CastruccioCellini, BenvenutoCervaraChiavariChildren in ItalyCimabueCino da PistojaCiuffagniCivitali, MatteoColumbusConsuma PassCorbignanoCorreggioCorsicaCountry Life, Love ofCrusades

DanteDesiderio da SettignanoDicomanoDonatelloDoria, theDuccio of Siena

EmpoliEvelyn's approach to Genoa

Faggiuola, Uguccione dellaFalteronaFerrucci, AndreaFiesole S. Ansano Badia S. Domenico Duomo S. Francesco Palazzo Pretorio Scavi The way to View fromFivizzanoFlorence Albizzi, the S. Antonino Beata Villana Boboli gardens Bocca degli Abati Bridges Buondelmonti Campaldino Campanile, the Capponi, Piero Charles VIII. In Churches-- S. Ambrogio SS. Annunziata SS. Apostoli S. Appolonia Badia Baptistery Carmine S. Caterina Chiostro dello Scalzo S. Croce Chapels Choir Cloisters Museo Sacristy S. Donato a Torri Duomo Best aspect of Character of Nave, aspect of S. Felice S. Frediano in Castello S. Jacopo S. Lorenzo Laurentian library New Sacristy Old Sacristy S. Lucia sul Prato S. Marco S. Maria degli Angioli S. Maria degli Innocenti S. Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi S. Maria Novella Chapels Façade S. Miniato Misericordia Ognissanti S. Onofrio Or San Michele S. Piero Maggiore S. Piero Scheraggio S. Salvatore S. Salvi S. Simone S. Spirito S. Stefano S. Trinità Corso Donati Duke of Athens Farinata degli Uberti Gates-- Porta Alla Croce S. Frediano S. Giorgio S. Miniato S. Niccola Romana Guilds Humiliati Laudesi Liberty in Florence Loggia de' Lanzi Lung'Arno Marsilio Ficino Medici, the-- Alessandro Cosimo Cosimo I. Ferdinando II. Gian Gastone Giovanni Giovanni di Bicci Giulio Guiliano Ippolito Lorenzino Lorenzo Piero Piero the exile Salvestro Mercato Nuovo Montaperti Monte Senario Museums-- Accademia Bargello, the Opera del Duomo Pitti Palace Uffizi The curse of Neri and Bianchi Niccolò Uzzano Oltr'Arno Ospedale degli Innocenti Palazzi-- Albizzi Altoviti Antinori Bargello, _see_ Museums Bartolini Salimbeni Buondelmonte Corsini Davanzati Falconieri, _see_ Opera del Duomo, under Museums Frescobaldi Guadagni Nonfinito Pazzi del Podestà, _see_ Bargello Riccardi Cappella Ricasoli Spini Strozzi Torrigiani Uffizi, _see_ under Museums Uguccione Vecchio Pazzi Piazzas-- SS. Annunziata S. Croce Duomo Limbo S. Lorenzo S. Maria Novella S. Piero Signoria S. Trinità Vittorio Emanuele Pico della Mirandola Pitti, the family of Savonarola Soderini Streets-- delle Belle Donne Borgo Allegri Borgo degli Albizzi Borgo SS. Apostoli Borgo S. Jacopo Borgo S. Lorenzo Calzaioli Cerretani Corso Lambertesca Maggio Por S. Maria Porta Rossa Proconsolo dei Serpi Tornabuoni Viale dei ColliFoce La (di Spezia)Foce La (di Carrara)Fosdinovo

Gaddi, AgnoloGaddi, TaddeoGarfagnana PassGenoa A living city Acqua Sole Alfonso of Aragon Approach to Arcades Bank of S. George Boccanegra, Doge Guglielmo Boucicault Briglia, the Castelletto, the Catino, the Cemetery Charles V and Churches-- S. Agostino S. Ambrogio Duomo (S. Lorenzo) S. Fruttuoso S. Giovanni di Prè S. Maria di Castello S. Matteo S. Siro S. Stefano Columbus Cross of S. George Crusades Doria, the Doria, Andrea Embriaco Tower of Godfrey of Bouillon Grimaldi History of Libro d'Oro Loggia dei Banchi Moors, expedition against Palaces-- Adorno Balbi Bianco Cambiaso Carega della Casa Doria Doria, Giorgio Ducale Durazzo Pallavicini Gambaro Giorgio Doria Municipale Negrone Pallavicini Parodi Rosso Serra Spinola (via Garibaldi) Spinola (S. Di S. Catrina) della Università Piazzas-- Banchi Deferrari Fontane Marose Sarzana Pictures in Genoa-- Botticelli(?) David (Gerard) Domenichino Guido Reni Luca Cambiasi Moretto Murillo Ribera Rubens Ruysdael Tintoretto Vandyck Veronese Zurbaran Porta S. Andrea Ramparts Sforza, the Slums of Streets-- Arcades Balbi Cairoli Garibaldi Salita di S. Caterina Strada degli Orefici Towers Vandyck in Visconti in War with Pisa War with VeniceGentile da FabrianoGerini Niccola di PietroGherardesca Conte Ugolino dellaGhibertiGhirlandajoGiorgioneGiottoGiovanni da BolognaGruamoneGuelph and GhibellineGuglielmo, FraGuidi, ContiGuido da Como

Humiliati

InghiramiItaly, approach to

Jacopo della QuerciaJanus

LastraLaudesiLaurentian LibraryLa VernaLeonardoLericiLippi (Fra Lippo)Lippi, FilippinoLivorno Monte NeroLorenzetti, theLorenzo di CrediLucca Castruccio Castracane Churches-- Duomo S. Francesco S. Frediano S. Giovanni S. Michele in Borgo S. Romano Matteo Civitali Museo Walls S. ZitaLunaLunigiana

Magni, VillaMagra, theMaianoMalaspinaManetti, GianozzoMantegnaMarco PoloMartini, SimoneMasaccioMasolinoMassaMatilda ContessaMeloria, battle ofMelozzo da ForliMichelangeloMichelozzoMino da FiesoleMonaco, LorenzoMonsummanoMontecatiniMonteneroMontelupoMontignosoMorettoMoroni

Nanni di BancoNeri and BianchiNerviNiccolaNiccolò d'ArezzoNicholas V

OgnibeneOratorio della VannellaOrcagna

Pandolfini, AgnoloParis BordonePerugino, PietroPesciaPiazza al SerchioPiero della FrancescoPiero di CosimoPiero di Giovanni TedescoPietro a Grado, S. Pineta di PisaPineta di ViareggioPonocchioPisa Agnello, Doge Amalfi Archbishop Peter Assumption, Feast of, in Balearic Islands Benozzo Gozzoli Bergolini and Raspanti S. Bernard in Borgo, The Campagnia di S. Michele Campanile Campo Santo Casa dei Trovatelli Castruccio Castracane Churches-- S. Anna Baptistery S. Caterina Duomo S. Francesco S. Frediano Madonna della Spina S. Maria Maddalena S. Martino S. Michele in Borgo S. Niccola S. Paolo al Orto S. Paolo a Ripa S. Pierino S. Pietro a Grado S. Ranieri S. Sepolcro S. Sisto S. Stefano Cintola del Duomo Corsica Cosimo I Crusades Divisions in Twelfth Century Donatello Etruscan Pisa Florence Galileo Gambacorti Genoa Gentile da Fabriano Gherardesca, Ugolino della Guelph and Ghibelline Guglielmo, Frate History of Knights of S. Stephen Loggia dei Banchi Lucca Lung' Arno Martini, Simone Meloria Montaperti Montecatini Montefeltro, Guido di Museo Palaces-- Agostini Anziani dei Cavalieri del Comune del Consiglio Conventuale Gambacorti del Granduca Lanfreducci del Podestà Palermo Palio and Ponte Piazzas-- dei Cavalieri del Duomo di S. Francesco di S. Paolo Pisano Giovanni Pisano, Giunta Pisano, Niccolò Ponte di Mezzo Ponte Solferino Porta Aurea Porto Pisano Roman Pisa Salerno Torre Guelfa Tower of Hunger "Triumph of Death" Uguccione della Faggiuola University ViscontiPistoia Churches-- S. Andrea Baptistery S. Bartolommeo S. Domenico Duomo S. Francesco al Prato S. Giovanni Evangelista S. Piero Maggiore S. Salvatore Origin of Pistoia Palazzo del Comune Palazzo Pretorio Torre del PodestàPoggio GherardoPollaiuolo, Ant. PontassievePontederaPontevolaPontormoPoppiPorcianoPorto PisanoPortofinoPortovenerePrisons, position of

RapalloRaphaelReccoRiviera di LevanteRobbia dellaRobbia Luca dellaRomenaRossellino, AntonioRossellino, BernardoRottaRuta

S. Domenico di FiesoleS. ElleroS. FrancescoS. FruttuosoS. Giovanni GualbertoS. GodenzoS. MarcelloS. MargheritaS. Martino a MensolaS. Michele di PaganaS. Miniato al TedescoS. RomanoS. RomualdoS. TerenzanoSacchettiSaltinoSansovino, AndreaSarto, Andrea delSarzanaSavonarolaSchiavoneSerchioSerravalleSestri LevanteSettignanoShelleySimone MartiniSouth, Praise of theSpeziaStagi, StagioStarninaStia

TintorettoTitianToranoTuscany, entrance toTuscany, the road to

Uccello, Paolo

Val di LimaVal di NievoleVal di RenoVallombrosaVallombrosellaVandyckVasariVeroneseVerrocchioVerrucaViareggioVicopisanoVilla PalmieriVincigliata