THE CATHEDRAL
The rays of the setting sun were imparting even more than their wonted
cheerfulness to the airy and bustling streets of Milan. There was the
usual rush and roar of busy life which mark the great city, and the
display of gay costumes and brilliant trappings proper to a ducal
capital which at that time gave the law to Europe in all matters of
taste and elegance, even as Paris does now. It was, in fact, from the
reputation of this city in matters of external show that our English
term Milliner was probably derived; and one might well have believed
this, who saw the sweep of the ducal cortege at this moment returning
in pomp from the afternoon airing. Such glittering of gold-embroidered
mantles, such bewildering confusion of colors, such flashing of jewelry
from cap and dagger-hilt and finger-ring, and even from bridle and
stirrup, testified that the male sex at this period in Italy were no
whit behind the daughters of Eve in that passion for personal adornment
which our age is wont to consider exclusively feminine. Indeed,
all that was visible to the vulgar eye of this pageant was wholly
masculine; though no one doubted that behind the gold-embroidered
curtains of the litters which contained the female notabilities of the
court still more dazzling wonders might be concealed. Occasionally
a white jeweled hand would draw aside one of these screens, and a
pair of eyes brighter than any gems would peer forth; and then there
would be tokens of a visible commotion among the plumed and gemmed
cavaliers around, and one young head would nod to another with jests
and quips, and there would be bowing and curveting and all the antics
and caracolings supposable among gay young people on whom the sun shone
brightly, and who felt the world going well around them, and deemed
themselves the observed of all observers.
Meanwhile, the mute, subservient common people looked on all this as
a part of their daily amusement. Meek dwellers in those dank, noisome
caverns, without any opening but a street-door, which are called
dwelling-places in Italy, they lived in uninquiring good-nature,
contentedly bringing up children on coarse bread, dirty cabbage-stumps,
and other garbage, while all that they could earn was sucked upward by
capillary attraction to nourish the extravagance of those upper classes
on which they stared with such blind and ignorant admiration.
This was the lot they believed themselves born for, and which every
exhortation of their priests taught them to regard as the appointed
ordinance of God. The women, to be sure, as women always will be,
were true to the instinct of their sex, and crawled out of the damp
and vile-smelling recesses of their homes with solid gold ear-rings
shaking in their ears, and their blue-black lustrous hair ornamented
with a glittering circle of steel pins or other quaint coiffure.
There was sense in all this: for had not even Dukes of Milan been
found so condescending and affable as to admire the charms of the
fair in the lower orders, whence had come sons and daughters who took
rank among princes and princesses? What father, or what husband,
would be insensible to prospects of such honor? What priest would
not readily absolve such sin? Therefore one might have observed more
than one comely dark-eyed woman, brilliant as some tropical bird in
the colors of her peasant dress, who cast coquettish glances toward
high places, not unacknowledged by patronizing nods in return, while
mothers and fathers looked on in triumph. These were the days for
the upper classes; the Church bore them all in her bosom as a tender
nursing-mother, and provided for all their little peccadilloes with
even grandmotherly indulgence, and in return the world was immensely
deferential towards the Church; and it was only now and then some
rugged John Baptist, in raiment of camel's hair, like Savonarola,
who dared to speak an indecorous word of God's truth in the ear of
power, and Herod and Herodias had ever at hand the good old recipe for
quieting such disturbances. John Baptist was beheaded in prison, and
then all the world and all the Scribes and Pharisees applauded; and
only a few poor disciples were found to take up the body and go and
tell Jesus.
The whole piazza around the great Cathedral is at this moment full of
the dashing cavalcade of the ducal court, looking as brilliant in the
evening light as a field of poppy, corn-flower, and scarlet clover
at Sorrento; and there, amid the flutter and rush, the amours and
intrigues, the court scandal, the laughing, the gibing, the glitter,
and dazzle, stands that wonderful Cathedral, that silent witness, that
strange, pure, immaculate mountain of airy, unearthly loveliness,--the
most striking emblem of God's mingled vastness and sweetness that
ever it was given to human heart to devise or hands to execute. If
there be among the many mansions of our Father above, among the houses
not made with hands, aught purer and fairer, it must be the work of
those grand spirits who inspired and presided over the erection of
this celestial miracle of beauty. In the great, vain, wicked city,
all alive with the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the
pride of life, it seemed to stand as much apart and alone as if it
were in the solemn desolation of the Campagna, or in one of the wide
deserts of Africa,--so little part or lot did it appear to have in
anything earthly, so little to belong to the struggling, bustling
crowd who beneath its white dazzling pinnacles seemed dwarfed into
crawling insects. They who could look up from the dizzy, frivolous
life below saw far, far above them, in the blue Italian air, thousands
of glorified saints standing on a thousand airy points of brilliant
whiteness, ever solemnly adoring. The marble which below was somewhat
touched and soiled with the dust of the street seemed gradually to
refine and brighten as it rose into the pure regions of the air,
till at last in those thousand distant pinnacles it had the ethereal
translucence of wintry frost-work, and now began to glow with the
violet and rose hues of evening, in solemn splendor.
The ducal cortege sweeps by; but we have mounted the dizzy, dark
staircase that leads to the roof, where, amid the bustling life of the
city there is a promenade of still and wondrous solitude. One seems
to have ascended in those few moments far beyond the tumult and dust
of earthly things, to the silence, the clearness, the tranquillity of
ethereal regions. The noise of the rushing tides of life below rises
only in a soft and distant murmur; while around, in the wide, clear
distance, is spread a prospect which has not on earth its like or its
equal. The beautiful plains of Lombardy lie beneath like a map, and the
northern horizon-line is glittering with the entire sweep of the Alps,
like a solemn senate of archangels with diamond mail and glittering
crowns. Mont Blanc, Monte Rosa with its countenance of light, the
Jungfrau and all the weird brothers of the Oberland, rise one after
another to the delighted gaze, and the range of the Tyrol melts far off
into the blue of the sky. On another side, the Apennines, with their
picturesque outlines and cloud-spotted sides, complete the enclosure.
All around, wherever the eye turns, is the unbroken phalanx of
mountains; and this temple, with its thousand saintly statues standing
in attitudes of ecstasy and prayer, seems like a worthy altar and
shrine for the beautiful plain which the mountains enclose: it seems to
give all Northern Italy to God.
The effect of the statues in this high, pure air, in this solemn,
glorious scenery, is peculiar. They seem a meet companionship for
these exalted regions. They seem to stand exultant on their spires,
poised lightly as ethereal creatures, the fit inhabitants of the pure
blue sky. One feels that they have done with earth; one can fancy
them a band of white-robed kings and priests forever ministering in
that great temple of which the Alps and the Apennines are the walls
and the Cathedral the heart and centre. Never were Art and Nature so
majestically married by Religion in so worthy a temple.
One form could be discerned standing in rapt attention, gazing from a
platform on the roof upon the far-distant scene. He was enveloped in
the white coarse woolen gown of the Dominican monks, and seemed wholly
absorbed in meditating on the scene before him, which appeared to move
him deeply; for, raising his hands, he repeated aloud from the Latin
Vulgate the words of an Apostle:--
"Accessistis ad Sion montem et civitatem Dei viventis, Jerusalem
cælestem, et multorum millium angelorum frequentiam, ecclesiam
primitivorum, qui inscripti sunt in cælis."[11]
[11] "Ye are come unto Mount Sion, and unto the city of the
living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable
company of angels, to the general assembly and church of
the first-born, which are written in heaven."
At this moment the evening worship commenced within the Cathedral, and
the whole building seemed to vibrate with the rising swell of the great
organ, while the grave, long-drawn tones of the Ambrosian Liturgy rose
surging in waves and dying away in distant murmurs, like the rolling
of the tide on some ocean-shore. The monk turned and drew near to the
central part of the roof to listen, and as he turned he disclosed the
well-known features of Father Antonio.
Haggard, weary, and travel-worn, his first impulse, on entering the
city, was to fly to this holy solitude, as the wandering sparrow of
sacred song sought her nest amid the altars of God's temple. Artist no
less than monk, he found in this wondrous shrine of beauty a repose
both for his artistic and his religious nature; and while waiting for
Agostino Sarelli to find his uncle's residence, he had determined to
pass the interval in this holy solitude. Many hours had he paced alone
up and down the long promenades of white marble which run everywhere
between forests of dazzling pinnacles and flying buttresses of airy
lightness. Now he rested in fixed attention against the wall above the
choir, which he could feel pulsating with throbs of sacred sound, as if
a great warm heart were beating within the fair marble miracle, warming
it into mysterious life and sympathy.
"I would now that boy were here to worship with me," he said. "No
wonder the child's faith fainteth: it takes such monuments as these of
the Church's former days to strengthen one's hopes. Ah, woe unto those
by whom such offense cometh!"
At this moment the form of Agostino was seen ascending the marble
staircase.
The eye of the monk brightened as he came towards him. He put out
one hand eagerly to take his, and raised the other with a gesture of
silence.
"Look," he said, "and listen! Is it not the sound of many waters and
mighty thunderings?"
Agostino stood subdued for the moment by the magnificent sights
and sounds; for, as the sun went down, the distant mountains grew
every moment more unearthly in their brilliancy; and as they lay in
a long line, jeweled brightness mingling with the cloud-wreaths of
the far horizon, one might have imagined that he in truth beheld the
foundations of that celestial city of jasper, pearl, and translucent
gold which the Apostle saw, and that the risings and fallings of
choral sound which seemed to thrill and pulsate through the marble
battlements were indeed that song like many waters sung by the Church
Triumphant above.
For a few moments the monk and the young man stood in silence, till at
length the monk spoke.
"You have told me, my son, that your heart often troubles you in being
more Roman than Christian; that you sometimes doubt whether the Church
on earth be other than a fiction or a fable. But look around us. Who
are these, this great multitude who praise and pray continually in this
temple of the upper air? These are they who have come out of great
tribulation, having washed their robes and made them white in the blood
of the Lamb. These are not the men that have sacked cities, and made
deserts, and written their triumphs in blood and carnage. These be men
that have sheltered the poor, and built houses for orphans, and sold
themselves into slavery to redeem their brothers in Christ. These be
pure women who have lodged saints, brought up children, lived holy and
prayerful lives. These be martyrs who have laid down their lives for
the testimony of Jesus. There were no such churches in old Rome,--no
such saints."
"Well," said Agostino, "one thing is certain. If such be the True
Church, the Pope and the Cardinals of our day have no part in it; for
they are the men who sack cities and make desolations, who devour
widows' houses and for a pretense make long prayers. Let us see one of
_them_ selling himself into slavery for the love of anybody, while they
seek to keep all the world in slavery to themselves!"
"That is the grievous declension our master weeps over," said the
monk. "Ah, if the Bishops of the Church now were like brave old Saint
Ambrose, strong alone by faith and prayer, showing no more favor to an
unrepentant Emperor than to the meanest slave, then would the Church
be a reality and a glory! Such is my master. Never is he afraid
of the face of king or lord, when he has God's truth to speak. You
should have heard how plainly he dealt with our Lorenzo de' Medici on
his death-bed,--how he refused him absolution, unless he would make
restitution to the poor and restore the liberties of Florence."
"I should have thought," said the young man, sarcastically, "that
Lorenzo the Magnificent might have got absolution cheaper than that.
Where were all the bishops in his dominion, that he must needs send for
Jerome Savonarola?"
"Son, it is ever so," replied the monk. "If there be a man that cares
neither for Duke nor Emperor, but for God alone, then Dukes and
Emperors would give more for his good word than for a whole dozen of
common priests."
"I suppose it is something like a rare manuscript or a singular gem:
these _virtuosi_ have no rest till they have clutched it. The thing
they cannot get is always the thing they want."
"Lorenzo was always seeking our master," said the monk. "Often would
he come walking in our gardens, expecting surely he would hasten down
to meet him; and the brothers would run all out of breath to his cell
to say, 'Father, Lorenzo is in the garden.' 'He is welcome,' would he
answer, with his pleasant smile. 'But, father, will you not descend
to meet him?' 'Hath he asked for me?' 'No.' 'Well, then, let us not
interrupt his meditations,' he would answer, and remain still at his
reading, so jealous was he lest he should seek the favor of princes and
forget God, as does all the world in our day."
"And because he does not seek the favor of the men of this world he
will be trampled down and slain. Will the God in whom he trusts defend
him?"
The monk pointed expressively upward to the statues that stood
glorified above them, still wearing a rosy radiance, though the
shadows of twilight had fallen on all the city below.
"My son," he said, "the victories of the True Church are not in time,
but in eternity. How many around us were conquered on earth that
they might triumph in heaven! What saith the Apostle? 'They were
tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better
resurrection.'"
"But, alas!" said Agostino, "are we never to see the right triumph
here? I fear that this noble name is written in blood, like so many of
whom the world is not worthy. Can one do nothing to help it?"
"How is that? What have you heard?" said the monk, eagerly. "Have you
seen your uncle?"
"Not yet; he is gone into the country for a day,--so say his servants.
I saw, when the Duke's court passed, my cousin, who is in his train,
and got a moment's speech with him; and he promised, that, if I would
wait for him here, he would come to me as soon as he could be let off
from his attendance. When he comes, it were best that we confer alone."
"I will retire to the southern side," said the monk, "and await the end
of your conference;" and with that he crossed the platform on which
they were standing, and, going down a flight of white marble steps, was
soon lost to view amid the wilderness of frost-like carved work.
He had scarcely vanished, before footsteps were heard ascending the
marble staircase on the other side, and the sound of a voice humming a
popular air of the court.
The stranger was a young man of about five-and-twenty, habited with all
that richness and brilliancy of coloring which the fashion of the day
permitted to a young exquisite. His mantle of purple velvet falling
jauntily off from one shoulder disclosed a doublet of amber satin
richly embroidered with gold and seed-pearl. The long white plume
which drooped from his cap was held in its place by a large diamond
which sparkled like a star in the evening twilight. His finely moulded
hands were loaded with rings, and ruffles of the richest Venetian
lace encircled his wrists. He had worn over all a dark cloak with a
peaked hood, the usual evening disguise in Italy; but as he gained
the top-stair of the platform, he threw it carelessly down and gayly
offered his hand.
"Good even to you, cousin mine! So you see I am as true to my
appointment as if your name were Leonora or Camilla instead of
Agostino. How goes it with you? I wanted to talk with you below, but I
saw we must have a place without listeners. Our friends the saints are
too high in heavenly things to make mischief by eavesdropping."
"Thank you, Cousin Carlos, for your promptness. And now to the point.
Did your father, my uncle, get the letter I wrote him about a month
since?"
"He did; and he bade me treat with you about it. It's an abominable
snarl, this, they have got you into. My father says, your best way
is to come straight to him in France, and abide till things take a
better turn: he is high in favor with the King and can find you a very
pretty place at court, and he takes it upon him in time to reconcile
the Pope. Between you and me, the old Pope has no special spite in
the world against _you_: he merely wants your lands for his son, and
as long as you prowl round and lay claim to them, why, you must stay
excommunicated; but just clear the coast and leave them peaceably and
he will put you back into the True Church, and my father will charge
himself with your success. Popes don't last forever, or there may come
another falling out with the King of France, and either way there will
be a chance of your being one day put back into your rights; meanwhile,
a young fellow might do worse than have a good place in our court."
During this long monologue, which the young speaker uttered with all
the flippant self-sufficiency of worldly people with whom the world is
going well, the face of the young nobleman who listened presented a
picture of many strong contending emotions.
"You speak," he said, "as if man had nothing to do in this world but
seek his own ease and pleasure. What lies nearest my heart is not that
I am plundered of my estates, and my house uprooted, but it is that my
beautiful Rome, the city of my fathers, is a prisoner under the heel
of the tyrant. It is that the glorious religion of Christ, the holy
faith in which my mother died, the faith made venerable by all these
saints around us, is made the tool and instrument of such vileness and
cruelty that one is tempted to doubt whether it were not better to have
been born of heathen in the good old times of the Roman Republic,--God
forgive me for saying so! Does the most Christian King of France know
that the man who pretends to rule in the name of Christ is not a
believer in the Christian religion,--that he does not believe even in a
God,--that he obtained the holy seat by simony,--that he uses all its
power to enrich a brood of children whose lives are so indecent that it
is a shame to modest lips even to _say_ what they do?"
"Why, of course," said the other, "the King of France is pretty well
informed about all these things. You know old King Charles, when he
marched through Italy, had more than half a mind, they say, to pull the
old Pope out of his place; and he might have done it easily. My father
was in his train at that time, and he says the Pope was frightened
enough. Somehow they made it all up among them, and settled about their
territories, which is the main thing, after all; and now our new King,
I fancy, does not like to meddle with him: between you and me, he
has his eye in another direction here. This gay city would suit him
admirably, and he fancies he can govern it as well as it is governed
now. My father does not visit here with his eyes shut, I can tell you.
But as to the Pope--Well, you see such things are delicate to handle.
After all, my dear Agostino, we are not priests,--our business is with
this world; and, no matter how they came by them, these fellows have
the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and one cannot afford to quarrel
with them,--we must have the ordinances, you know, or what becomes of
our souls? Do you suppose, now, that I should live as gay and easy a
life as I do, if I thought there were any doubt of my salvation? It's a
mercy to us sinners that the ordinances are not vitiated by the sins of
the priests; it would go hard with us, if they were: as it is, if they
will live scandalous lives, it is their affair, not ours."
"And is it nothing," replied the other, "to a true man who has taken
the holy vows of knighthood on him, whether his Lord's religion be
defamed and dishonored and made a scandal and a scoffing? Did not all
Europe go out to save Christ's holy sepulchre from being dishonored
by the feet of the Infidel? and shall we let infidels have the very
house of the Lord, and reign supreme in his holy dwelling-place? There
has risen a holy prophet in Italy, the greatest since the time of
Saint Francis, and his preaching hath stirred all hearts to live more
conformably with our holy faith; and now for his pure life and good
works he is under excommunication of the Pope, and they have seized and
imprisoned him, and threaten his life."
"Oh, you mean Savonarola," said the other. "Yes, we have heard of
him,--a most imprudent, impracticable fellow, who will not take advice
nor be guided. My father, I believe, thought well of him once, and
deemed that in the distracted state of Italy he might prove serviceable
in forwarding some of his plans: but he is wholly wrapt up in his own
notions; he heeds no will but his own."
"Have you heard anything," said Agostino, "of a letter which he wrote
to the King of France lately, stirring him up to call a General Council
of the Christian Church to consider what is to be done about the
scandals at Rome?"
"Then he has written one, has he?" replied the young man; "then the
story that I have heard whispered about here must be true. A man who
certainly is in a condition to know told me day before yesterday that
the Duke had arrested a courier with some such letter, and sent it on
to the Pope: it is likely, for the Duke hates Savonarola. If that be
true, it will go hard with him yet; for the Pope has a long arm for an
enemy."
"And so," said Agostino, with an expression of deep concern, "that
letter, from which the good man hoped so much, and which was so
powerful, will only go to increase his danger!"
"The more fool he!--he might have known that it was of no use. Who was
going to take his part against the Pope?"
"The city of Florence has stood by him until lately," said Agostino,
"and would again, with a little help."
"Oh, no! never think it, my dear Agostino! Depend upon it, it will end
as such things always do, and the man is only a madman that undertakes
it. Hark ye, cousin, what have _you_ to do with this man? Why do you
attach yourself to the side that is _sure_ to lose? I cannot conceive
what you would be at. This is no way to mend your fortunes. Come
to-night to my father's palace: the Duke has appointed us princely
lodgings, and treats us with great hospitality, and my father has plans
for your advantage. Between us, there is a fair young ward of his, of
large estates and noble blood, whom he designs for you. So you see, if
you turn your attention in this channel, there may come a reinforcement
of the family property, which will enable you to hold out until the
Pope dies, or some prince or other gets into a quarrel with him,
which is always happening, and then a move may be made for you. My
father, I'll promise you, is shrewd enough, and always keeps his eye
open to see where there is a joint in the harness, and have a trusty
dagger-blade all whetted to stick under. Of course, he means to see you
righted; he has the family interest at heart, and feels as indignant as
you could at the rascality which has been perpetrated; but I am quite
sure he will tell you that the way is not to come out openly against
the Pope and join this fanatical party."
Agostino stood silent, with the melancholy air of a man who has much
to say, and is deeply moved by considerations which he perceives it
would be utterly idle and useless to attempt to explain. If the easy
theology of his friend were indeed true,--if the treasures of the
heavenly kingdom, glory, honor, and immortality, could indeed be placed
in unholy hands, to be bought and sold and traded in,--if holiness of
heart and life, and all those nobler modes of living and being which
were witnessed in the histories of the thousand saints around him,
were indeed but a secondary thing in the strife for worldly place and
territory,--what, then, remained for the man of ideas, of aspirations?
In such a state of society, his track must be like that of the dove in
sacred history, who found no rest for the sole of her foot.
Agostino folded his arms and sighed deeply, and then made answer
mechanically, as one whose thoughts are afar off.
"Present my duty," he said, "to my uncle, your father, and say to him
that I will wait on him to-night."
"Even so," said the young man, picking up his cloak and folding it
about him. "And now, you know, I must go. Don't be discouraged; keep
up a good heart; you shall see what it is to have powerful friends to
stand by you; all will be right yet. Come, will you go with me now?"
"Thank you," said Agostino, "I think I would be alone a little while.
My head is confused, and I would fain think over matters a little
quietly."
"Well, _au revoir_, then. I must leave you to the company of the
saints. But be sure and come early."
So saying, he threw his cloak over his shoulder and sauntered
carelessly down the marble steps, humming again the gay air with which
he had ascended.
Left alone, Agostino once more cast a glance on the strangely solemn
and impressive scene around him. He was standing on a platform of the
central tower which overlooked the whole building. The round, full
moon had now risen in the horizon, displacing by her solemn brightness
the glow of twilight; and her beams were reflected by the delicate
frost-work of the myriad pinnacles which rose in a bewildering maze
at his feet. It might seem to be some strange enchanted garden of
fairy-land, where a luxuriant and freakish growth of Nature had been
suddenly arrested and frozen into eternal stillness. Around in the
shadows at the foot of the Cathedral, the lights of the great gay
city twinkled and danced and veered and fluttered like fireflies in
the damp, dewy shadows of some moist meadow in summer. The sound of
clattering hoofs and rumbling wheels, of tinkling guitars and gay
roundelays, rose out of that obscure distance, seeming far off and
plaintive like the dream of a life that is past. The great church
seemed a vast world; the long aisles of statued pinnacles with their
pure floorings of white marble appeared as if they might be the
corridors of heaven; and it seemed as if the crowned and sceptred
saints in their white marriage-garments might come down and walk there,
without ever a spot of earth on their unsullied whiteness.
In a few moments Father Antonio had glided back to the side of the
young man, whom he found so lost in reverie that not till he laid his
hand upon his arm did he awaken from his meditations.
"Ah!" he said, with a start, "my father, is it you?"
"Yes, my son. What of your conference? Have you learned anything?"
"Father, I have learned far more than I wished to know."
"What is it, my son? Speak it at once."
"Well, then, I fear that the letter of our holy father to the King of
France has been intercepted here in Milan, and sent to the Pope."
"What makes you think so?" said the monk, with an eagerness that showed
how much he felt the intelligence.
"My cousin tells me that a person of consideration in the Duke's
household, who is supposed to be in a position to know, told him that
it was so."
Agostino felt the light grasp which the monk had laid upon his arm
gradually closing with a convulsive pressure, and that he was trembling
with intense feeling.
"Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight!" he said, after a
few moments of silence.
"It is discouraging," said Agostino, "to see how little these princes
care for the true interests of religion and the service of God,--how
little real fealty there is to our Lord Jesus."
"Yes," said the monk, "all seek their own, and not the things that are
Christ's. It is well written, 'Put not your trust in princes.'"
"And what prospect, what hope do you see for him?" said Agostino. "Will
Florence stand firm?"
"I could have thought so once," said the monk, "in those days when I
have seen counselors and nobles and women of the highest degree all
humbly craving to hear the word of God from his lips, and seeming to
seek nothing so much as to purify their houses, their hands, and their
hearts, that they might be worthy citizens of that commonwealth which
has chosen the Lord Jesus for its gonfalonier. I have seen the very
children thronging to kiss the hem of his robe, as he walked through
the streets; but, oh, my friend, did not Jerusalem bring palms and
spread its garments in the way of Christ only four days before he was
crucified?"
The monk's voice here faltered. He turned away, and seemed to wrestle
with a tempest of suppressed sobbing. A moment more, he looked
heavenward and pointed up with a smile.
"Son," he said, "you ask what hope there is. I answer, There is hope
of such crowns as these wear who came out of great tribulation and now
reign with Christ in glory."