Love. He embodied his reflexions in canzones, which it is not given to
all men to interpret, composing a book of these verses that was borne in
triumph through the streets, garlanded with laurel. Then, seeing the
purest souls are not without alloy of terrestrial passions, and life
bears us one and all along in its sinuous and stormy course, it fell out
that at the turning-point of youth and age, Messer Guido was seduced by
the ambitions of the flesh and the powers of this world. He wedded, to
further his projects of aggrandizement, the daughter of the Lord
Farinata degli Uberti, the same who one time reddened the Arbia with the
blood of the Florentines. He threw himself into the quarrels of the
citizens with all the pride and impetuosity of his nature. And he took
for mistresses the Lady Mandetta and the Lady Giovanna, who represented
the one the Albigensians, the other the Ghibellines. It was the time
when Messer Dante Alighieri was Prior of the Arts and Liberty. The city
was divided into two hostile camps, those of the Bianchi and the Neri.
One day when the principal citizens were assembled in the Piazza of the
Frescobaldi, the Bianchi on one side the square and the Neri on the
other, to assist at the obsequies of a noble lady of Florence, the
Doctors and the Knights were seated as the custom was, on raised
benches, while in front of them the younger men sat on the ground on
rush mats. One of the latter standing up to settle his cloak, those who
were opposite thought he was for defying them. They started to their
feet in turn, and bared their swords. Instantly every one unsheathed,
and the kinsmen of the dead lady had all the difficulty in the world to
separate the combatants.
From that day, Florence ceased to be a town gladdened by the work of its
handicraftsmen, and became a forest full of wolves ravening for each
other's blood. Messer Guido shared these savage passions, and grew
gloomy, restless and sullen. Never a day passed but he exchanged
sword-thrusts with the Neri in the streets of Florence, where in old
days he had meditated on the nature and constitution of the soul. More
than once he had felt the assassin's dagger on his flesh, before he was
banished with the rest of his faction and confined in the
plague-stricken town of Sarzana. For six months he languished there,
sick with fever and hate. And when eventually the Bianchi were recalled,
he came back to his native city a dying man.
In the year 1300, on the third day after the Assumption of the Blessed
Virgin Mary, he found strength enough to drag himself as far as his own
fair Church of San Giovanni. Worn out with fatigue and grief, he lay
down on the tomb of Julia Laeta, who in the old days had revealed to him
the mysteries the profane know nothing of. It was the hour when the
Church bells ring out through the quivering air of evening a long-drawn
farewell to the setting sun. Messer Betto Brunelleschi, who was crossing
the Piazza on his way home from his country house, saw amid the tombs
two haggard falcon's eyes burning in a fleshless face, and recognizing
the friend of his youth, was seized with wonder and pity.
He approached him, and kissing him as he used in former days, said with
a sigh:
"Ah! Guido mine! what fire is it hath consumed you away thus? You burned
up your life in science first, and then in public affairs. I beseech
you, quench somewhat the ardour of your spirit; comrade, let us husband
our strength, and, as Riccardo the blacksmith says, make up a fire to
last."
But Guido Cavalcanti put his hand on his lips.
"Hush!" he whispered, "hush! not a word more, friend Betto. I wait my
lady, her who shall console me for so many vain loves that in this world
have betrayed me and that I have betrayed. It is equally cruel and
useless to think and to act. This I know. The curse is not so much to
live, for I see you are well and hearty, friend Betto, and many another
man is the same. The curse is not to live, but to know we live. The
curse is to be conscious and to will. Happily there is a remedy for
these evils. Let us say no more; I await the lady whom I have never
wronged, for never have I doubted but she was gentle and true-hearted,
and I have learned by much pondering how peaceful and secure it is to
slumber on her bosom. Many fables have been told of her bed and
dwelling-places. But I have not believed the lies of the ignorant crowd.
So it is, she cometh to me as a mistress to her lover, her brow
garlanded with flowers and her lips smiling."
He broke off with these words, and fell dead over the ancient tomb. His
body was buried without any great pomp in the Cloister of Santa Maria
Novella.
LUCIFER
TO LOUIS GANDERAX
LUCIFER
_E si compiacque tanto Spinello di farlo orribile e contrafatto, che
si dice (tanto puo alcuna fiata l'immaginazione) che la detta figura
da lui dipinta gli apparve in sogno, domandandolo dove egli l' avesse
veduta si brutta._[1]
(_Vite de' piu eccellenti pittori_, da Messer Giorgio Vasari.--"Vita
di Spinello.")
[Footnote 1: "And so successful was Spinello with his horrible and
portentous Production that it was commonly reported--so great is alway
the force of fancy--that the said figure (of Lucifer trodden underfoot
by St. Michael in the Altar-piece of the Church of St. Agnolo at Arezzo)
painted by him had appeared to the artist in a dream, and asked him in
what place he had beheld him under so brutish a form."
_Lives of the most Excellent Painters_, by Giorgio Vasari.--"Life of
Spinello."]
Andrea Tafi, painter and worker-in-mosaic of Florence, had a wholesome
terror of the Devils of Hell, particularly in the watches of the night,
when it is given to the powers of Darkness to prevail. And the worthy
man's fears were not unreasonable, for in those days the Demons had good
cause to hate the Painters, who robbed them of more souls with a single
picture than a good little Preaching Friar could do in thirty sermons.
No doubt the Monk, to instil a soul-saving horror in the hearts of the
faithful, would describe to the utmost of his powers "that day of wrath,
that day of mourning," which is to reduce the universe to ashes, _teste
David et Sibylla_, borrowing his deepest voice and bellowing through his
hands to imitate the Archangel's last trump. But there! it was "all
sound and fury, signifying nothing," whereas a painting displayed on a
Chapel wall or in the Cloister, showing Jesus Christ sitting on the
Great White Throne to judge the living and the dead, spoke unceasingly
to the eyes of sinners, and through the eyes chastened such as had
sinned by the eyes or otherwise.
It was in the days when cunning masters were depicting at Santa-Croce in
Florence and the Campo Santo of Pisa the mysteries of Divine Justice.
These works were drawn according to the account in verse which Dante
Alighieri, a man very learned in Theology and in Canon Law, wrote in
days gone by of his journey to Hell and Purgatory and Paradise, whither
by the singular great merits of his lady, he was able to make his way
alive. So everything in these paintings was instructive and true, and we
may say surely less profit is to be had of reading the most full and
ample Chronicle than from contemplating such representative, works of
art. Moreover, the Florentine masters took heed to paint, under the
shade of orange groves, on the flower-starred turf, fair ladies and
gallant knights, with Death lying in wait for them with his scythe,
while they were discoursing of love to the sound of lutes and viols.
Nothing was better fitted to convert carnal-minded sinners who quaff
forgetfulness of God on the lips of women. To rebuke the covetous, the
painter would show to the life the Devils pouring molten gold down the
throat of Bishop or Abbess, who had commissioned some work from him and
then scamped his pay.
This is why the Demons in those days were bitter enemies of the
painters, and above all of the Florentine painters, who surpassed all
the rest in subtlety of wit. Chiefly they reproached them with
representing them under a hideous guise, with the heads of bird and
fish, serpents' bodies and bats' wings. This sore resentment which they
felt will come out plainly in the history of Spinello of Arezzo.
Spinello Spinelli was sprung of a noble family of Florentine exiles, and
his graciousness of mind matched his gentle birth; for he was the most
skilful painter of his time. He wrought many and great works at
Florence; and the Pisans begged him to complete Giotto's wall-paintings
in their Campo Santo, where the dead rest beneath roses in holy earth
shipped from Jerusalem. At last, after working long years in divers
cities and getting much gold, he longed to see once more the good city
of Arezzo, his mother. The men of Arezzo had not forgotten how Spinello,
in his younger days, being enrolled in the Confraternity of Santa Maria
della Misericordia, had visited the sick and buried the dead in the
plague of 1383. They were grateful to him beside for having by his works
spread the fame of their city over all Tuscany. For all these reasons
they welcomed him with high honours on his return.
Still full of vigour in his old age, he undertook important tasks in his
native town. His wife would tell him:
"You are rich, Spinello. Do you rest, and leave younger men to paint
instead of you. It is meet a man should end his days in a gentle,
religious quiet. It is tempting God to be for ever raising new and
worldly monuments, mere heathen towers of Babel. Quit your colours and
your varnishes, Spinello, or they will destroy your peace of mind."
So the good dame would preach, but he refused to listen, for his one
thought was to increase his fortune and renown. Far from resting on his
laurels, he arranged a price with the Wardens of Sant' Agnolo for a
history of St. Michael, that was to cover all the Choir of the Church
and contain an infinity of figures. Into this enterprise he threw
himself with extraordinary ardour. Rereading the parts of Scripture that
were to be his inspiration, he set himself to study deeply every line
and every word of these passages. Not content with drawing all day long
in his workshop, he persisted in working both at bed and board; while at
dusk, walking below the hill on whose brow Arezzo proudly lifts her
walls and towers, he was still lost in thought. And we may say the story
of the Archangel was already limned in his brain when he started to
sketch out the incidents in red chalk on the plaster of the wall. He was
soon done tracing these outlines; then he fell to painting above the
high altar the scene that was to outshine all the others in brilliancy.
For it was his intent therein to glorify the leader of the hosts of
Heaven for the victory he won before the beginning of time. Accordingly
Spinello represented St. Michael fighting in the air against the serpent
with seven heads and ten horns, and he figured with delight, in the
bottom part of the picture, the Prince of the Devils, Lucifer, under the
semblance of an appalling monster. The figures seemed to grow to life of
themselves under his hand. His success was beyond his fondest hopes; so
hideous was the countenance of Lucifer, none could escape the nightmare
of its foulness. The face haunted the painter in the streets and even
went home with him to his lodging.
Presently when night was come, Spinello lay-down in his bed beside his
wife and fell asleep. In his slumbers he saw an Angel as comely as St.
Michael, but black; and the Angel said to him:
"Spinello, I am Lucifer. Tell me, where had you seen me, that you should
paint me as you have, under so ignominious a likeness?"
The old painter answered trembling, that he had never seen him with his
eyes, never having gone down alive into Hell, like Messer Dante
Alighieri; but that, in depicting him as he had done, he was for
expressing in visible lines and colours the hideousness of sin.
Lucifer shrugged his shoulders, and the hill of San Gemignano seemed of
a sudden to heave and stagger.
"Spinello," he went on, "will you do me the pleasure to reason awhile
with me? I am no mean Logician; He you pray to knows that."
Receiving no reply, Lucifer proceeded in these terms:
"Spinello, you have read the books that tell of me. You know of my
enterprise, and how I forsook Heaven to become the Prince of this World.
A tremendous adventure,--and a unique one, had not the Giants in like
fashion assailed the god Jupiter, as yourself have seen, Spinello,
recorded on an ancient tomb where this Titanic war is carved in marble."
"It is true," said Spinello, "I have seen the tomb, shaped like a great
tun, in the Church of Santa Reparata at Florence. 'Tis a fine work of
the Romans."
"Still," returned Lucifer, smiling, "the Giants are not pictured on it
in the shape of frogs or chameleons or the like hideous and horrid
creatures."
"True," replied the painter, "but then they had not attacked the true
God, but only a false idol of the Pagans. 'Tis a mighty difference. The
fact is clear, Lucifer, you raised the standard of revolt against the
true and veritable King of Earth and Heaven."
"I will not deny it," said Lucifer. "And how many sorts of sins do you
charge me with for that?"
"Seven, it is like enough," the painter answered, "and deadly sins one
and all."
"Seven!" exclaimed the Angel of Darkness; "well! the number is
canonical. Everything goes by sevens in my history, which is close bound
up with God's. Spinello, you deem me proud, angry and envious. I enter
no protest, provided you allow that glory was my only aim. Do you deem
me covetous? Granted again; Covetousness is a virtue for Princes. For
Gluttony and Lust, if you hold me guilty, I will not complain. Remains
_Indolence_."
As he pronounced the word, Lucifer crossed his arms across his breast,
and shaking his gloomy head, tossed his flaming locks:
"Tell me, Spinello, do you really think I am indolent? Do you take me
for a coward? Do you hold that in my revolt I showed a lack of courage?
Nay! you cannot. Then it was but just to paint me in the guise of a
hero, with a proud countenance. You should wrong no one, not even the
Devil. Cannot you see that you insult Him you make prayer to, when you
give Him for adversary a vile, monstrous toad? Spinello, you are very
ignorant for a man of your age. I have a great mind to pull your ears,
as they do to an ill-conditioned schoolboy."
At this threat, and seeing the arm of Lucifer already stretched out
towards him, Spinello clapped his hand to his head and began to howl
with terror.
His good wife, waking up with a start, asked him what ailed him. He told
her with chattering teeth, how he had just seen Lucifer and had been in
terror for his ears.
"I told you so," retorted the worthy dame; "I knew all those figures
you will go on painting on the walls would end by driving you mad."
"I am not mad," protested the painter. "I saw him with my own eyes; and
he is beautiful to look on, albeit proud and sad. First thing to-morrow
I will blot out the horrid figure I have drawn and set in its place the
shape I beheld in my dream. For we must not wrong even the Devil
himself."
"You had best go to sleep again," scolded his wife. "You are talking
stark nonsense, and unchristian to boot."
Spinello tried to rise, but his strength failed him and he fell back
unconscious on his pillow. He lingered on a few days in a high fever,
and then died.
THE LOAVES OF BLACK BREAD
TO MADEMOISELLE MARY FINALY
THE LOAVES OF BLACK BREAD
_Tu tibi divitias stolidissime congeris amplas,
Negasque micam pauperi;
Advenit ecce dies qua saevis ignibus ardens
Rogabis aquae guttulam._[1]
(_Navis stultifera_, Sebastian Brandt, 1507, fol, xix.)
[Footnote 1: "You heap up in your folly ample riches for yourself, and
refuse a crumb of bread to the poor man; lo! the day is at hand when
burning in cruel flames, you shall beg for a drop of water."--_Ship of
Fools._]
In those days Nicolas Nerli was a banker in the noble city of Florence.
Tierce was no sooner sounded than he was at his desk, and at nones he
was seated there still, poring all day long over the figures he wrote in
his table-books. He lent money to the Emperor and to the Pope. And if he
did not lend to the Devil, it was only because he was afraid of bad
debts with him they call the Wily One, and who is full of cunning and
trickery. Nicolas Nerli was bold and unscrupulous; he had won great
riches and robbed many folks of their own. Wherefore he was highly
honoured in the city of Florence. He dwelt in a Palace where the light
of God's day entered only by narrow windows; and this was a wise
precaution, for the rich man's house must be a castle, and they who
possess much wealth do well to defend by force what they have gotten by
cunning.
Accordingly the windows were guarded with bars and the doors with
chains. Outside, the walls were painted in fresco by clever craftsmen,
who had depicted thereon the Virtues under the likeness of women, the
Patriarchs, the Prophets and the Kings of Israel. Tapestries hung in the
rooms within, displaying the histories of Alexander and Tristram, as
they are told us in legends. Nicolas Nerli set all the city talking of
his wealth by the pious foundations he established. He had raised an
Hospital beyond the walls, the frieze of which, carved and painted,
represented the most honourable actions of his own life; in gratitude
for the sums of money he had given towards the completion of Santa Maria
Novella, his portrait was suspended in the choir of that Church. In it
he was shown kneeling, with praying hands, at the feet of the Blessed
Virgin, easily recognizable by his cap of red worsted, his furred hood,
his yellow face swimming in fatness and his little keen eyes. His good
wife, Monna Bismantova, a worthy-looking woman with a mournful air, and
seeming as though no man could ever have taken aught of pleasure with
her, was on the other side of the Virgin in the humble attitude of
supplication. Nicolas Nerli was one of the chiefest citizens of the
Republic; seeing he had never spoken against the laws, and because he
had never regarded the poor nor such folk as the great and powerful
condemn to fine and exile, nothing had lowered in the estimation of the
Magistrates the high repute he had won in their eyes by reason of his
great riches.
Returning one winter evening later than usual to his Palace, he was
surrounded on the threshold by a band of half-naked mendicants who held
out their hands and asked alms.
He repulsed them with hard words. But hunger making them as fierce and
bold as wolves, they formed a circle round him, and begged him for bread
in hoarse, lamentable voices. He was just stooping to pick up stones to
throw at them when he saw one of his serving-men coming, carrying on his
head a basketful of loaves of black bread, intended for the stablemen,
kitchen helpers and gardeners.
He signed to the pantler to approach, and diving both hands into the
basket, tossed the loaves to the starving wretches. Then entering the
house, he went to bed and fell asleep. In the night, he was smitten
with apoplexy and died so suddenly he believed himself still in his bed
when he saw, in a place "as dark as Erebus," St. Michael the Archangel
shining in the brightness that issued from his own presence.
Balance in hand, the Archangel was engaged in filling the scales.
Recognizing in the scale that hung lowest certain jewels belonging to
widow women that he had in pledge, a great heap of clippings from pieces
he had filched dishonestly, and sundry very fine gold coins which were
unique and which he had acquired by usury or fraud, Nicolas Nerli
comprehended it was his own life, now come to an end, that St. Michael
was at that instant weighing before his eyes.
"Good Sir!" he said, "good St. Michael! if you put in the one scale all
the lucre I have gotten in my life, set in the other, if it please you,
the noble foundations whereby I have so splendidly shown my piety.
Forget not the Duomo of Santa Maria Novella, to which I contributed a
good third; nor my Hospital beyond the walls, that I built entirely out
of my own pocket."
"Never fear, Nicolas Nerli," answered the Archangel; "I will forget
nothing."
And with his own heavenly hands he set in the lighter scale the Duomo of
Santa Maria Novella and the Hospital with its frieze all carved and
painted. But the scale did not drop an inch.
At this the Banker was sorely disquieted.
"Good St. Michael! think again. You have not put this side of the
balance my fine holy-water stoup I gave to San Giovanni, nor the pulpit
in Sant' Andrea, where the baptism of Our Lord Jesus Christ is depicted
life-size. The artist charged me a pretty penny for it."
The Archangel put both pulpit and stoup atop of the Hospital in the
scale, but still it never stirred. Nicolas Nerli began to feel a cold
sweat bathing his brow.
"Good Sir! dear Archangel!" he asked, "are you quite certain your
balances are true?"
St. Michael replied, smiling, that they were of a different pattern from
the balances the brokers of Paris use and the money-changers of Venice,
and were precisely accurate.
"What!" sighed Nicolas Nerli, his face as white as chalk. "Duomo,
pulpit, basin, Hospital with all its beds, do they weigh no more than a
bit of straw, a pinch of down from a bird's breast?"
"See for yourself, Nicolas!" said the Archangel; "so far the weight of
your iniquities much outweighs the light load of your good works."
"Then I must go to Hell," cried the Florentine; and his teeth chattered
with horror.
"Patience, Nicolas Nerli," returned the Weigher of Souls, "patience! we
are not done yet. There is something left."
So saying, the Blessed St. Michael took the loaves of black bread the
rich man had tossed the night before to the poor beggars. He laid them
in the scale containing the good works, which instantly fell, while the
other rose, and the two scales remained level. The beam dropped neither
to right nor left, and the needle marked the exact equality of the two
loads.
The Banker could not believe his eyes; but the glorious Archangel said
solemnly:
"See, Nicolas Nerli; you are good neither for Heaven nor Hell. Begone!
Go back to Florence! multiply through the city the loaves you gave last
night with your own hand, in the dusk, when no man saw you--and you
shall be saved. It is not enough that Heaven open its doors to the thief
that repented and the harlot that wept. The mercy of God is infinite,
and able to save even a rich man. Do this; multiply the loaves whose
weight you see weighing down my balances. Begone!"
Then Nicholas Nerli awoke in his bed. He resolved to follow faithfully
the counsel of the Archangel, and multiply the bread of the poor, and
so enter into the kingdom of Heaven.
For the three years he spent on earth after his first death, he was very
pitiful to the unfortunate and a great giver of alms.
THE MERRY-HEARTED BUFFALMACCO
TO EUGENE MUeNTZ
THE MERRY-HEARTED BUFFALMACCO
_Buonamico di Cristofano detto Buffalmacco pittore Fiorentino, il qual
fu discepolo d' Andrea Tafi, e come uomo burlevole celebrato da Messer
Giovanni Boccaccio nel suo Decamerone, fu come si sa carissimo
compagno di Bruno e di Calendrino pittori ancor essi faceti e
piacevole, e, come si puo vedere nell' opere sue sparse per tutta
Toscana, di assai buon giudizio nell' arte sua del dipignere._
_(Vite de' piu eccellenti pittori_, da Messer Giorgio Vasari.--"Vita
di Buonamico Buffalmacco.")[1]
[Footnote 1: "Buonamico di Cristofano, known as Buffalmacco, a
Florentine painter, the same that was pupil of Andrea Tafi, and
celebrated as a burlesque character by Messer Giovanni Boccaccio in his
_Decameron_ was as we know bosom friend of Bruno and Calendrino, also
painters and of an even more witty and merry humour than himself, and as
may be seen in his works scattered throughout Tuscany, of no mean
judgement in his art of painting." _(Lives of the most Excellent
Painters_ by Messer Giorgio Vasari.--"Life of Buonamico Buffalmacco.")]
I
THE COCKROACHES