It is but four miles down the hillside and through the valley along Via
Pisana to Empoli in the plain. And in truth that way, difficult truly at
midday--for the dusty road is full of wagons and oxen--is free enough at
dawn, though every step thereon takes you farther from the hills of S.
Miniato. Empoli, which you come to not without preparation, is like a
deserted market-place, a deserted market-place that has been found, and
put once more to its old use. Set as it is in the midst of the plain
beside Arno on the way to Florence, on the way to Siena, amid the
villages and the cornfields, it was the Granary of the Republic of
Florence, 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, its
new villas, its strangely busy streets, its cosy look of importance and
comfort there in the waste of plain, serve to hide any historical
importance it may have, so that those who come here are content for the
most part to go no farther than the railway station, where on the way
from Pisa or from Florence they must change carriages for Siena. And
indeed, for her history, it differs but little from that of other Tuscan
towns within reach of a great city. Yet for Empoli, as her Saint willed,
there waited a destiny. For after the rout of the Guelphs, and
especially of Florence, the head and front of that cause at Montaperti,
when in all Tuscany only Lucca remained free, and the Florentine
refugees built the loggia in front of S. Friano, there the Ghibellines
of Tuscany proposed to destroy utterly and for ever the City of the
Lily, and for this cause Conte Giordano and the rest caused a council to
be held at Empoli; and so it happened. Now Conte Giordano, Villani tells
us, was sent for by King Manfred to Apulia, and there was proclaimed as
his vicar and captain, Conte Guido Novello of the Conti Guidi of
Casentino, who had forsaken the rest of the family, which stood for the
Guelph cause. This man was eager to fling every Guelph out of Tuscany.
There were assembled at that council all the cities round about, and the
Conti Guidi and the Conti Alberti, and those of Santafiora and the
Ubaldini; and these were all agreed that for the sake of the Ghibelline
cause Florence must be destroyed, "and reduced to open villages, so that
there might remain to her no renown or fame or power." It was then that
Farinata degli Uberti, though a Ghibelline and an exile, rose to oppose
this design, saying that if there remained no other, whilst he lived he
would defend the city, even with his sword. Then, says Villani, "Conte
Giordano, 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 and
citizen our city of Florence was saved from so great fury, destruction,
and ruin." But Florence was ever forgetful of her greatest sons, and
Farinata's praise was not found in her mouth, but in that of her
greatest 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 whisperings
from any council; and as though to mark the fact that all are friends at
last, if you come to her at all, you will sleep at the Aquila Nera in
the street of the Lily; Guelph and Ghibelline hate no more. And as
though to prove to man, ever more mindful of war than peace, that it is
only the works of love after all that abide for ever, in Empoli at least
scarcely 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 by
the beautiful Porta Pisana, but though you may find some delightful
works of della Robbia ware there, especially a S. Lucia, it is in the
Collegiata di S. Andrea in the lovely Piazza Farinata degli Uberti, that
most of the works have been gathered in some of the rooms of the old
college. The church itself is very interesting, with its beautiful
façade in the manner of the Badia at Fiesole, where you may see carved
on either side of the great door the head of S. Andrea and of St. John
Baptist.
In the Baptistery, however, comes your first surprise, a beautiful
fresco, a Pietà attributed to Masolino da Panicale, where Christ is laid
in the tomb by Madonna and St. John, while behind rises the Cross, on
which hangs a scourge of knotted chords. And then in the second chapel
on the right is a lovely Sienese Madonna, and a strange fresco on the
left 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 children
winged and crowned with roses, dressed in the manner of the fifteenth
century, with purfled skirts and slashed sleeves powdered with flowers,
who bow before the S. Sebastian of Rossellino. Two other works
attributed to Botticini, certainly not less lovely, are to be found
here: an Annunciation in the manner of his master Verrocchio, where Mary
sits, a delicate white girl, under a portico into which Gabriele has
stolen at sunset and found her at prayer; far away the tall cypresses
are black against the gold of the sky, and in the silence it almost
seems as though we might overhear the first Angelus and the very message
from the angel's lips. And if this is the Annunciation as it happened
long ago in Tuscany, in heaven the angels danced for sure, thinking of
our happiness, as Botticini knew; and so he has painted those seven
angels playing various instruments, while about their feet he has strewn
a song of songs. A S. Andrea and St. John Baptist in a great
fifteenth-century altar are also given to him, while below you may see
S. Andrea's crucifixion, the Last Supper, and Salome bringing the head
of St. John Baptist to Herodias at her supper with Herod. Some fine
della Robbia fragments and a beautiful relief of the Madonna and Child
by Mino da Fiesole are among the rest of the treasures of the
Collegiata, where you may find much that is merely old or curious. Other
churches there are in Empoli, S. Stefano, for instance, with a Madonna
and two angels, given to Masolino, and the marvellously lovely
Annunciation by Bernardo Rossellino; and S. Maria di Fuori, with its
beautiful loggia, but they will not hold you long. The long white road
calls you; already far away you seem to see the belfries of Florence
there, where they look into Arno, for the very water at your feet has
held in its bosom the fairest tower in the world, whiter than a lily,
rosier than the roses of the hills. With this dream, dream or
remembrance, in your heart, it is not Empoli with its brown country face
that will entice you from the way. And so, a little weary at last for
the shadows of the great city, it was with a sort of impatience I
trudged the dusty highway, eager for every turn of the road that might
bring the tall towers, far and far away though they were, into sight.
Somewhat in this mood, still early in the morning, I passed through
Pontormo, the birthplace of the sixteenth-century painter Jacopo
Carrucci, who has his name from this little town. Two or three pictures
that he painted, a lovely font of the fourteenth century in the Church
of S. Michele Arcangiolo, called for no more than a halt, for there,
still far away before me, were the hills, the hills that hid Florence
herself.
It was already midday when I came to the little city of Montelupo at the
foot 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 of
drivers and countrymen, but quite sufficient for my needs, for I found
there food, a good wine, and courtesy. Later, in the afternoon, climbing
the stony street across Pesa, I came to the Church of S. Giovanni
Evangelista, and there in the sweet country silence was Madonna with her
Son and four Saints, by some pupil of Sandro Botticelli.
It is not any new vision of Madonna you will see in that quiet country
church, full of afternoon sunshine and wayside flowers, but the same
half-weary maiden of whom Botticelli has told us so often, whose honour
is too great for her, whose destiny is more than she can bear. Already
she has been overwhelmed by our praise and petitions; she has closed her
eyes, she has turned away her head, and while the Jesus Parvulus lifts
his 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 so
carefully in his book. Something of the same eagerness, graver, and more
youthful, you may see in the figure of St. Sebastian, who, holding three
arrows daintily in his hand, has suddenly looked up at the sound of that
Divine childish voice. Two other figures, S. Lorenzo and perhaps S.
Roch, listen with a sort of intent sadness there under that splendid
portico, 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 see
certain 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 me
at 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 last
to the walls of an old fortress, that now houses a few peasants, and
turning there saw all the Val d'Arno, from S. Miniato far and far away
to the west, to little Vinci on the north, where, as Vasari says,
Leonardo was born; while below me, beside Arno, rose the beautiful Villa
Ambrogiana, with its four towers at the corners; and then on a hill
before me, not far away, a little town nestling round another fortress,
maybe less dilapidated than Montelupo, Capraja, that goat which
caused Montelupo to be built. For in the days when Florence disputed Val
d'Arno and the plains of Empoli with many nobles, the Conti di Capraja
lorded 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 not
only as a fortress, for that she ceased to be almost when the Counts of
Capraja were broken, and certainly by 1203, when Villani tells us that
the Florentines destroyed the place because it would not obey the
commonwealth; but as a city of art, or at any rate of a beautiful
handicraft. Even to-day the people devote themselves to pottery, but of
old it was not merely a matter of commerce, but of beauty and
craftsmanship.
It was through a noisy gay crowd of these folk, the young men lounging
against the houses, the girls talking, talking together, arm in arm, as
they went to and fro before them, with a wonderful sweet air of
indifference to those who eyed them so keenly and yet shyly too, and
without anything of the brutal humour of a northern village, that in the
later afternoon I again sought the highway. And before I had gone a mile
upon my road the whole character of the way was changed; no longer was I
crossing a great plain, but winding among the hills, while Arno, noisier
than before, fled past me in an ever narrower bed among the rocks and
buttresses of what soon became little more than a defile between the
hills. Though the road was deep in dust, there was shadow under the
cypresses beside the way, there was a whisper of wind among the reeds
beside the river, and the song of the cicale grew fainter and the hills
were touched with light; evening was coming.
And indeed, when at last I had left the splendid villa of Antinori far
behind, evening came as I entered Lastra, and by chance taking the wrong
road, passing under a most splendid ilex, huge as a temple, I climbed
the hill to S. Martino a Gangalandi. Standing there in the pure calm
light just after sunset, the whole valley of Florence lay before me. To
the left stood Signa, piled on her hill like some fortress of the Middle
Age; then Arno, like a road of silver, led past the Villa delle Selve to
the great mountain Monte Morello, and there under her last spurs lay
Florence herself, clear and splendid like some dream city, her towers
and pinnacles, her domes and churches shining in the pure evening light
like some delectable city seen in a vision far away, but a reality, and
seen at last. Very far off she seemed in that clear light, that
presently fading fled away across the mountains before the advance of
night, 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 at
once, that even the fairest things were not fair, since she was hidden
away. Not without a sort of reluctance I heard Mass in S. Martino, spent
a moment before the beautiful Madonna of that place, a picture of the
fifteenth century, and looked upon the fortifications of Brunellesco.
Everywhere the women sitting in their doorways were plaiting straw, and
presently I came upon a whole factory of this craft, the great courtyard
strewn 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 this
business. Then taking the road, hot and dusty, I set out--not by Via
Pisana, but by the byways, which seemed shorter--for Florence. For long
I 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 of
goats led by an old man in velveteen and a lad in tatters, one herd
after another covered me with dust, or, standing in front of the houses,
were milked at the doorways, where still the women, their brown legs
naked in the sun, plaited the straw. Then at a turning of the way, as
though to confirm me in any fears I might have of the destruction of the
city I had come so far to see, a light railway turned into the highway
between the houses, where already there was not room for two carts to
pass. How may I tell my anger and misery as I passed through that
endless suburb, the great hooting engine of the train venting its
stench, and smoke, and noise into the very windows of the houses,
chasing me down the narrow way, round intricate corners, over tiny
piazzas, from the very doors of churches. Yet, utterly weary at last,
covered with dust, it was in this brutal contrivance that I sought
refuge, and after an hour of agony was set down before the Porta al
Prato. The bells were ringing the Angelus of midday when I came into
Florence.