The two public picture galleries of Florence--the Pitti and the
Uffizi--are on either side of the Arno. They are connected by a
covered way, which runs along over the roofs of houses, and crosses
the jewelers’ bridge, so called because upon it are built the shops of
all the jewelers in town,--or so it would seem at first sight. At all
events, here are nothing but jewelers’ shops; small shops, such as I
imagine the shops of the middle ages to have been. But in the narrow
windows, and in the unostentatious show-cases, are displayed most
exquisite workmanship in Florentine mosaic, in turquoise, in malakite,
exquisite as to the quality of the mosaic and the character of the
designs in which the earrings, brooches, bracelets, were made up. As a
rule, however, the gold-work was inferior, and the settings were very
apt to come apart, and the pins to break and bend, after a very short
wear.
Sauntering across this bridge, one passes, on his way to the Uffizi,
various shops in narrow streets, where the silks of Florentine
manufacture are displayed. Such pretty silks, dear girls, and so cheap!
For a mere song you may go dressed like the butterflies, in Florence,
clad in bright, sheeny raiment, spun by native worms out of native
mulberry leaves. Equally cheap are the cameos, and the coral, that are
brought here from neighboring Naples, and the turquoises, imported
directly from the Eastern market, and the mosaics, inlaid of precious
stones in Florence herself.
So we come out upon the Piazza, or Square, of the Uffizi. The Uffizi
Palace itself is of irregular form, and inclosed by _loggiae_, or
covered colonnades. In front of the palace stands the David of Michael
Angelo, in its strong beauty. Michael Angelo said of this that “the
only test for a statue is the light of a public square.” To this test
the David has been subjected for over three hundred years, and still,
in the searching light of day, stand revealed the courage and the
faith and the strength of the young man who went forth to do battle
with the giant, “In the name of the Lord of Hosts, the God of the
armies of Israel.” And who shall say to how many of us Michael Angelo
does not preach, across the centuries, a sermon in stone, as we stand
before his David?--as we recall what Giants of Doubt, of Passion, of
Pride, we, too, are called upon to battle with in our day?
In a square portico, or _loggia_, giving upon the Piazza, is a statue
of Perseus, another slayer of monsters, or, rather, a slayer of
monsters in another realm. It was this Perseus to whom Pallas gave a
mirror-shield of burnished brass, whom Mercury armed with an adamantine
scythe, giving him also wings on his feet. It was this Perseus who slew
the Gorgon Princess Medusa. In the statue, the fatal head of Medusa,
with its stony stare, is held aloft by the warrior, who is trampling
upon the headless trunk. This head had, in death as in life, the power
of turning many men to stone, and was thus made use of by Perseus
against other enemies of his. The subject of the stony-eyed Gorgon
possessed, apparently, a curious fascination for artists. There is a
famous head painted on wood by Leonardo da Vinci, besides this statue
by Benvenuto Cellini, in the Uffizi.
How, as a child, I used to puzzle over the strange fable in both statue
and picture! But, since then, I have had experience of Gorgon natures
in real life; natures that chilled and repressed, stupefied all with
whom they came in contact; and I wonder less at the fable, and I pass
the word on to you, that you may know, when unsympathetic surroundings
chill your heart and blunt your feelings, and subdue your better self,
that you are being haunted by Da Vinci’s very Medusa, by Gellini’s very
Medusa, snaky locks, fixed eyes, impassive deadness.
[Illustration: MICHAEL ANGELO IN HIS STUDIO.]
Into the great Uffizi Palace: up the wide marble stairway, into the
long gallery that opens into the immense suite of rooms hung with
pictures; the gallery hung with pictures, too, and set with statues.
How I wish I could make you see with my eyes! How I wish I could be
to you something more than a mere traveler, telling what _I_ have
seen! That long corridor, windows on one side, statues and pictures
on the other, always seems to me like a nursery for love of art. At
the far end are the quaint pictures of Giotto and Cimabue. Then the
reverent, religious paintings of Fra Angelico. Oh, those sweet-faced,
golden-haired angels! Oh, the glimpse into the land seen by faith,
inhabited by shining ones! Oh, the radiance of those pictures! The gold
back-grounds, the bright faces, the happy effect of them! The artists
_believed_ them with all their souls, as Ruskin has said; so they
painted pictures which recall the refrain of Bernard de Cluny’s Rhyme
of the Celestial Country. Presently pictures by Perugino, Raphael’s
master, and--quite at the other end of the gallery--the portrait of
Raphael, painted by himself. This picture is on an easel, and stands
apart. Are you familiar with Raphael’s beautiful, calm, _young_ face?
It is a face which has passed into a proverb for beauty and serenity.
A velvet cap is pushed off the pure brow; the hair is long and waving;
the eyes are large and dark and abstracted. I always stood before this
picture as before a shrine.
All the way down the gallery are statues and busts. There are the
Roman emperors, far more familiar to me through their counterfeit
presentments than through the pages of history. Augustus, Diocletian,
Trajan: to us girls they were studies in hair-dressing, if in nothing
else. Some of them with flowing locks, some with close, short curls,
some with hair parted in the middle and laid in long, smooth curls,
like a woman. Of such was Heliogabulus, and of such was Vitellius.
One morning--soon after we came to Florence--we started off up on a
quest--through the Uffizi--Millie, Eva and I, and our elders. The
object of our quest was no less a goddess than she called of the Medici.
I remember that we wandered down the long gallery I have described, and
through room after room. It was the fancy of our mamma, and the uncle
who was taking care of us all, to find their way about for themselves.
For instance: if we had been told that a certain picture, by a certain
master, was to be found in a certain palace, we roamed in and out
around the other pictures until _the_ picture _revealed itself_ to
us. It was surprising how seldom we were deceived in this method
of ours. We would pass by dozens of pictures by inferior artists,
completely unmoved; then, suddenly, a thrilling vision of beauty would
glow upon us, and we would acknowledge ourselves to be in a royal
presence-chamber.
[Illustration]
Such a presence-chamber is the Tribune in the Uffizi palace. We came
upon many marble Venuses before we arrived in this Tribune, a large,
octagon room, with a domed ceiling, blue, flecked with gold stars; but
we passed them all by--until finally we entered the reverent stillness
which is kept about the Venus of Venuses. We recognized her at once.
There she stood, in that silent room, the light subdued to a judicious
mellowness--beautiful with the fresh, smiling beauty of perpetual
youth; beautiful with the same beauty that gladdened the heart of the
Greek artist who carved her, hundreds of years ago; so many hundreds of
years that the marble has, in consequence, the rich cream-color of old
ivory.
In this same Tribune hangs the portrait of a beautiful young woman,
called the Fornarina. Of her only this is known, that she was the
beloved of Raphael, and that she was the daughter of a baker in
Rome. Fornarina means little bakeress, or, perhaps _we_ should say,
baker-girl. But _this_ Fornarina might be a princess. An “ox-eyed Juno”
princess, dark and glowing, with a serene composure about her that one
remembers as her most striking characteristic.
Raphael’s lady-love. Millie and I knew more about her than was ever
written in books. Not reliable gossip--gossip of our own invention, but
gossip that delighted our hearts.
Other pictures by Raphael hang here, too. How distinctly I recall them.
How vivid are all the works of this great painter! The critics say that
one who excelled in so many things, excelled also in _expression_. Yes.
It is this which gives to his pictures the distinctness of photographs
from life. They are dramatic. They take you at once into the spirit
of the scene represented. They are full of soul, and herein lies the
great difference between Raphael’s works and those of other schools,
the Venetian, for instance. The painters of Venice aimed at effects of
color; Raphael used color only in order to express a loftier thought.
Are you tired of the Uffizi? Come with me, for a few minutes, before we
go, into the Hall of Niobe. Words fail me to relate with what mingled
emotions of sympathy, distress and delight we children used to haunt
this hall, and examine each sculptured form in turn. The story goes
that Niobe incurred the displeasure of Diana and Apollo, who wreaked
their vengeance upon the mother by killing her fourteen children.
At the head of the hall stands Niobe, convulsed with grief, vainly
imploring the angry brother and sister to show compassion, and at the
same time protecting the youngest child, who is clinging to her. But
we feel that both intercession and protection will be in vain. On
the other side of the hall are her sons and daughters. Some already
pierced with arrows, stiff in death; some in the attitude of flight,
some staggering to the ground. It is an easy matter for the imagination
to picture the supreme moment when, bereft of all her children, the
mother’s heart breaks, and she is turned to stone. The legend relates
that that stone wept tears. Nor was it a difficult matter for me to
take this on faith. What is more, many is the time I have planted
myself before the very marble Niobe in the Uffizi, firmly expecting to
see the tears flow down her cheeks.
So we come out upon the streets of Florence again. Fair Florence, the
narrow Arno dividing her, the purple Appennines shutting her in the
Arno’s fertile valley. Flower-women stop us on the streets, and offer
us flowers. Flower-women who are not as pretty as they are wont to be
at fancy-dress parties; they are apt to be heavy and middle-aged, in
fact, one of them, the handsomest of the band, has a scar on her face,
and a tinge of romance attached to her name. It is whispered about
that her lover’s dagger inflicted the scar, in a fit of jealousy. Once
I myself saw a look flash into her eyes, when something was said to
offend her by a passer-by on the street, which suggested the idea that
she might have used her dagger in return. It was the look of a tiger
aroused. And after that I never quite lost sight of the smothered fire
in those black eyes of hers.
[Illustration: LA FORNARINA OF THE UFFIZI, AT FLORENCE.]
I used to wonder why I saw so few pretty faces in Florence. Moreover,
how lovely the American ladies always looked in contrast with the
swarthy, heavy Tuscan women. As a rule, that is. Of course, there were
plain Americans and handsome Tuscans; but our countrywomen certainly
bear off the palm for delicacy of feature and coloring. Still, the
Tuscan peasant-girls make a fine show, with their broad flats of
Leghorn straw; and when they are married they are invariably adorned
with strings of Roman pearls about their necks. So many rows of pearls
counts for so much worldly wealth.
I stroll on, stopping to look in at the picture stores, or coming to an
enraptured pause before a cellar-way piled up with rare and fragrant
flowers, such as one sees seldom out of Florence--the City of Flowers.
A CHILD IN FLORENCE.
BY K. R. L.