Or San Michele, S. Michele in Orto, was till the middle of the
thirteenth century a little church belonging, as it is said, to the
Cistercians, who certainly claimed the patronage of it. About 1260,
however, the Commune of Florence began to dispute this right with the
Order, and at last pulled down the church, building there, thirty years
later, a loggia of brick, after a design by Arnolfo di Cambio, according
to Vasari, who tells us that it was covered with a simple roof and that
the piers were of brick. This loggia was the corn-market of the city, a
shelter, too, for the contadini who came to show their samples and to
talk, 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 on
one of the brick pillars a picture (_tavola_) of Madonna that, as it is
said, was the work of Ugolino da Siena. This shrine soon became famous
for the miracles Madonna wrought there. "On July 3rd," says Giovanni
Villani, writing of the year 1292, "great and manifest miracles began to
be shown forth in the city of Florence by a figure of Saint Mary which
was painted on a pilaster of the loggia of S. Michele d'Orto, where the
corn was sold: the sick were healed, the deformed were made straight,
and those who were possessed of devils were delivered from them in
numbers." In the previous year the Compagnia di Or San Michele, called
the Laudesi, had been established, and this Company, putting the fame of
the miracles to good use, grew rich, much to the disgust of the Friars
Minor and the Dominicans. "The Preaching Friars and the Friars Minor
likewise," says Villani, "through envy or some other cause, would put no
faith in that image, whereby they fell into great infamy with the
people. But so greatly grew the fame of these miracles and the merits of
Our Lady, that pilgrims flocked thither from all Tuscany for her festas,
bringing divers waxen images because of the wonders, so that a great
part of the loggia in front of and around Madonna was filled."
Cavalcanti, too, speaks of Madonna di Or San Michele, likening her to
his 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 the
head of the Blacks, though somewhat their enemy, was Corso Donati; at
the head of the Whites were the Cerchi and the Cavalcanti. After the
horrid disaster of May Day, when the Carraja bridge, crowded with folk
come to see that strange carnival of the other world, fell and drowned
so many, there had been much fighting in the city, in which Corso Donati
stood neutral, for he was ill with gout, and angered with the Black
party. Robbed thus of their great leader, the Neri were beaten day and
night by the Cerchi, who with the aid of the Cavalcanti and Gherardini
rode through the city as far as the Mercato Vecchio and Or San
Michele, and from there to S. Giovanni, and certainly they would have
taken the city with the help of the Ghibellines, who were come to their
aid, if one Ser Neri Abati, clerk and prior of S. Piero Scheraggio, a
dissolute 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 to
the Florentine Calimala near to the entrance of Mercato Vecchio. This
fire did enormous damage, as Villani tells us, destroying not only the
houses of the Abati, the Macci, the Amieri, the Toschi, the Cipriani,
Lamberti, Bachini, Buiamonti, Cavalcanti, and all Calimala, together
with all the street of Porta S. Maria, as far as Ponte Vecchio and the
great towers and houses there, but also Or San Michele itself. In this
disaster who knows what became of the miracle picture of Madonna? For
years the loggia lay in ruins, till peace being established in 1336, the
Commune decided to rebuild it, giving the work into the hands of the
Guild of Silk, which, according to Vasari, employed Taddeo Gaddi as
architect. The first stone of the new building was laid on July 29,
1337, the old brick piers, according to Villani, being removed, and
pillars of stone set up in their stead.[94] In 1339 the Guild of Silk
won leave from the Commune to build in each of these stone piers a
niche, which later should hold a statue; while above the loggia was
built a great storehouse for corn, as well as an official residence for
the officers of the market.
[Illustration: OR SAN MICHELE]
Nine years later there followed the great plague, of which Boccaccio has
left us so terrible an impression. In this dreadful calamity, which
swept away nearly two-thirds of the population, the Compagnia di Or San
Michele grew very wealthy, many citizens leaving it all their
possessions. No doubt very much was distributed in charity, for the
Company had become the greatest charitable society in the city, but by
1347, so great was its wealth, that it resolved to build the most
splendid shrine in Italy for the Madonna di Or San Michele. The loggia
was not yet finished, and after the desolation of the plague the Commune
was probably too embarrassed to think of completing it immediately. Some
trouble certainly seems to have arisen between the Guild of Silk, who
had charge of the fabric, and the Company, who were only concerned for
their shrine, the latter, in spite of their wealth, refusing in any way
to assist in finishing the building. Whether from this cause or another,
a certain suspicion of the Company began to rise in Florence, and Matteo
Villani roundly accuses the Capitani della Compagnia of peculation and
corruption. However this may be, by 1355 Andrea Orcagna had been chosen
to build the shrine of Madonna, which is still to-day one of the wonders
of the city. It seems to have been in a sort of recognition of the
splendour and beauty of Orcagna's work that the Signoria, between 1355
and 1359, removed the corn-market elsewhere, and thus gave up the whole
loggia to the shrine of Madonna. Thus the loggia became a church, the
great 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 this
strange and secular building, more like a palace than a church, is
unknown. Vasari, as I have said, speaks of Taddeo Gaddi; others again
have thought it the work of Orcagna himself; while Francesco Talenti and
his son Simone are said to have worked on it. The question is to a large
extent a matter of indifference. What is important here is the fact that
it is to the greater Guilds and to the Parte Guelfa that we owe the
church itself--that is to say, to the merchants and trades of the
city--while the beautiful shrine within is due to a secular Company
consisting of some of the greatest citizens, and to a large extent
opposed 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 Or
San Michele. Here, because their greatest and most splendid deed, the
expulsion 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 church
on every anniversary, above the fourteen niches which hold the statues
presented by the seven greater arts, by six of the fourteen lesser arts,
and by the Magistrato della Mercanzia, that magistracy which governed
all the guilds,[95] their banners are set up even to this day.
The great Guild of Wool was already responsible for the Duomo, and it
was for this reason, it might seem, that to the Guild of Silk was given
the care of Or San Michele; not altogether without jealousy, it might
seem, for when they had asked leave to place the image of their saint in
one of the niches there, all the other guilds had demanded a like
favour, thus in an especial manner marking the place as the Church of
the 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 the
Guild of Silk set its statue of St. John the Evangelist by Baccio da
Montelupo; next to it is an empty niche belonging to the Guild of
Apothecaries and Doctors. Here a Madonna and Child by Simone Ferrucci
once stood, but, owing to a rumour current in the seventeenth century,
that Madonna sometimes moved her eyes, the statue was placed inside the
church, so that the crowd which always collected to see this miracle
might no longer stop the way. In the next niche the Furriers placed a
statue of St. James by Nanni di Banco, and beyond, the Guild of Linen
set up a statue of St. Mark by Donatello. On the west, in the first
niche, 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 by
Ghiberti; while next to him stands St. Matthew, set there by the Bankers
and carved by Ghiberti, and cast in 1422 by Michelozzo. On the north,
Donatello's statue of St. George used to fill the first niche, somewhat
shallower than the rest owing to a staircase inside the church, but it
was removed to the Bargello for fear of the weather: the beautiful
relief, also by Donatello, below the copy, is still in its place, under
the St. George of the Armourers. The four statues in the next niche were
placed there by the Guilds of Sculptors, Masons, Smiths, and
Bricklayers; 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 of
the Butchers, by Donatello. On the east stands St. Luke, placed there by
the Notaries, and carved by Giovanni da Bologna; the great bronze group
of Christ and St. Thomas, the gift of the Magistrato della Mercanzia,
the governor of all the guilds; and the St. John Baptist, the gift of
the Calimala, and the work of Ghiberti: this last was the first statue
placed here--in 1414.
Nanni di Banco, that delightful sculptor of the Madonna della Cintola of
the Duomo, has thus four works here at Or San Michele--the S. Lo, the
group on the north side, the St. Philip, and the St. James. The St.
Philip, and the group which represents the four masons who, being
Christians, refused to build a Pagan temple, and were martyred long and
long ago, have little merit; and though the S. Lo has a certain force,
and the relief below it a wonderful simplicity, they lack altogether the
charm of the Madonna della Cintola.
Ghiberti has three works here--the St. Stephen, the St. Matthew, and the
St. John Baptist, the only sculptures of the kind he ever produced. Full
of energy though the St. Stephen may be, it has about it a sort of
divine modesty that lends it a charm altogether beyond anything we may
find in the St. John Baptist, a figure full of character, nevertheless.
It is, however, in the St. Matthew that we see Ghiberti at his best
perhaps, 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 work
done for Or San Michele, and is certainly the poorest. The St. Mark on
the south side is, however, a fine example of his earlier manner, with
a certain largeness, strength, and liberty about it a frankness, too, in
expression so that he has made us believe in the goodness of the
Apostle, which, as Michelangelo is reported to have said must have
vouched for the truth of what he taught.
The masterpiece, certainly, of these Tuscan sculptures is the bronze
group of Christ and St. Thomas by Verrocchio, which I have so loved. All
the work of this master is full of eagerness and force: something of
that strangeness without which there is no excellent beauty, that later
was so characteristic of the work of his pupil Leonardo, you will find
in this work also, a subtlety sometimes a little elaborate, that, as I
think is but a sort of over-eagerness to express all he has thought to
say. Donatello prepared this niche for him at the end of his life it was
almost his last work; and Verrocchio, after many years of labour, had
thought to place here really his masterpiece, in the church that, more
than any other, belonged to the people of the city, that middle class,
as we might say, from which he sprang. How perfectly, and yet not
altogether without affectation, he has composed that difficult scene, so
that St. Thomas stands a little out of the setting, and places his
finger--yes, almost as a child might do--in the wounded side of Jesus,
who stands majestically fair before him. It is true the drapery is
complicated, a little heavy even, but with what care he has remembered
everything! Consider the grace of those beautiful folds, the beauty of
the hair, the loveliness of the hands: and then, as Burckhardt reminds
us, as a piece of work founded and cast in bronze, it is almost
inimitable.
* * * * *
Within, the church is strange and splendid. It is as though one stood in
a loggia in deep shadow, at the end of the day in the last gold of the
sunset; and there, amid the ancient fading glory of the frescoes, is the
wonderful shrine that Orcagna made for the picture of Madonna, who had
turned the Granary of S. Michele into the Church of the People. Finished
in 1359, this tabernacle is the loveliest work of the kind in Italy, an
unique masterpiece, and perhaps the most beautiful example of the
Italian Gothic manner in existence. Orcagna seems to have been at work
on it for some ten years, covering it with decoration and carving those
reliefs of the Life of the Virgin in that grand style which he had found
in Giotto and learned perhaps from Andrea Pisano. To describe the shrine
itself would be impossible and useless. It is like some miniature and
magic church, a casquet made splendid not with jewels but with beauty,
where the miracle picture of Madonna--not that ancient and wonderful
picture by Ugolino da Siena, but a work, it is said, of Bernardo
Daddi--glows under the lamps. On the west side, in front of the altar,
Orcagna has carved the Marriage of the Virgin and the Annunciation; on
the south, the Nativity of Our Lord and the Adoration of the Magi; on
the north, the Presentation of the Virgin and her Birth; and on the
east, the Purification and the Annunciation of her Death. And above
these last, in a panel of great beauty, he has carved the Death of the
Virgin, where, among the Apostles crowding round her bed, while St.
Thomas--or is it St. John?--passionately kisses her feet, Jesus Himself
stands with her soul in His arms, that little Child which had first
entered the kingdom of heaven. Above this sorrowful scene you may see
the Glory and Assumption of Our Lady in a mandorla glory, upheld by six
angels, while St. Thomas kneels below, stretching out his arms, assured
at last. It is, as it were, the prototype of the Madonna della Cintola,
that exquisite and lovely relief which Nanni di Banco carved later for
the north gate of the Duomo, only here all the sweetness that Nanni has
seen and expressed seems to be lost in a sort of solemnity and strength.
Between these panels Orcagna has set the virtues Theological and
Cardinal, little figures of much force and beauty; and at the corners he
has carved angels bearing palms and lilies. Some who have seen this
shrine so loaded with ornament, so like some difficult and complicated
canticle, have gone away disappointed. Remembering the strength and
significance of Orcagna's work in fresco, they have perhaps looked for
some more simple thing, and indeed for a less rhetorical praise. Yet I
think it is rather the fault of Or San Michele than of the shrine
itself, that it does not certainly vanquish any possible objection and
assure us at once of its perfection and beauty. If it could be seen in
the beautiful spacious transept of S. Croce, or even in Santo Spirito
across Arno, that sense as of something elaborate and complicated would
perhaps not be felt; but here in Or San Michele one seems to have come
upon a priceless treasure in a cave.