The Piazza di S. Croce, in which stands the great Franciscan church of
Florence, is still almost as it was in the sixteenth century when the
Palazzo del Borgo on the southern side was painted in fresco by the
facile brush of Passignano; but whatever charm so old and storied a
place might have had for us, for here Giuliano de' Medici fought in a
tournament under the eyes of La Bella Simonetta, and here, too, the
Giuoco del Calcio was played, it is altogether spoiled and ruined, not
only by the dishonouring statue of Dante, which for some unexplained
reason has here found a resting-place, but by the crude and staring
façade of the church itself, a pretentious work of modern Italy, which
lends to what was of old the gayest Piazza in the city, the very aspect
of a cemetery.
Not long before the end of the thirteenth century, a little shrine of
St. Anthony stood where now we may see the great Church of S. Croce, in
the midst of the marshes, as it is said, that waste land which in the
Middle Age seems to have surrounded every city in Italy. It belonged, as
did the land round about, to a certain family called Altafronte, who
appear to have presented it to the friars of the neighbouring convent of
Franciscans just outside Porta S. Gallo. St. Francis being dead, and the
strictness of his rule relaxed, the first stone of the great Church of
S. Croce was laid on Holy Cross Day, 1297. Arnolfo, the architect of the
Duomo, was the first builder here, till later Giotto was appointed. The
church itself is in the form of a tau cross, the eastern end on both
sides of the choir consisting of twelve chapels scarcely less deep than
the choir and tiny apse, itself a chapel of St. Anthony. The wide and
spacious nave, with two aisles, could doubtless hold half the city, as
perhaps it did when Fra Francesco of Montepulciano preached here in the
early years of the sixteenth century just after the death of Savonarola.
And indeed the very real beauty of the church consists in just that
splendour of space and light which so few seem to have cared for, but
which seems to me certainly in Italy the most precious thing in the
world. And then S. Croce is really the Pantheon, as it were, of the
city; the golden twilight of S. Maria Novella even would seem too gloomy
for the resting-place of heroes. Already before the sixteenth century it
had been here that Florence had set up the banners of those she
delighted to honour. And though Cosimo I destroyed them when he let
Vasari so unfortunately have his way with the church, some remembrance
of the glory that of old hung about her seems to have lingered, for here
Michelangelo was buried, under a heavy monument by Vasari, and close by
Vittorio Alfieri lies in a tomb carved by Canova at the request of the
Duchess of Albany. Not far away you come upon the grave of Niccolò
Machiavelli, the statesman, and beside it the monument erected to his
memory in the eighteenth century. And then here too you find the
beautiful tomb of Leonardo Bruni, one of the first great scholars of the
modern world, and secretary to the Republic, who died in 1443. It is the
masterpiece of Bernardo Rossellino (1409-1464), achieved at the end of
the early Renaissance, and forming the very style of such things for
those sculptors who came after him. It is true that the lunette of
Madonna is a little feeble and without life, though some have given it
falsely to Verrocchio, and the two angioloni bearing the arms have
little force; but the tomb itself is a thing done once and for all, and
the figure of the dead poet is certainly the masterpiece of a man who
was perhaps the first sculptor in marble of his time. If we compare it
for a moment with the lovely Annunciation of Donatello (1386-1466) on
the other side of the gateway, where for once that strong and fearless
artist seems to have contented himself with beauty, we shall understand
better the achievement of Rossellino; and though it were difficult to
imagine a more lovely thing than that Annunciation set there by the
Cavalcanti, with the winged wreath of Victory beneath it to commemorate
their part in the victory of Florence over Pisa in 1406, as a piece of
architecture Rossellino's work is as much better than this earlier
design of Donatello's as in every other respect his work falls below it.
Covered with all sorts of lovely ornament, the frame supports an
elaborate and splendid cornice on which six children stand, three
grouped on either side, playing with garlands. And within the frame, as
though seen through some magic doorway, Madonna, about to leave her
prayers, has been stopped by the message of the angel, who has not yet
fallen on his knees. It is as though one had come upon the very scene
itself suddenly at sunset on some summer day.
If the tomb of Leonardo Bruni is the masterpiece of Bernardo Rossellino,
the tomb of Carlo Marsuppini, the humanist, Bruni's successor as
secretary to the Republic, placed in the north aisle exactly opposite,
is no less the masterpiece of another of Donatello's friends, Desiderio
da Settignano (1428-1464). Standing as they were to do, face to face
across the church, no doubt Desiderio was instructed to follow as
closely as might be the general design of Rossellino. On a rich bed
Marsuppini lies, a figure full of sweetness and strength, while under is
the carved tomb, supported by the feet of lions, and borne by a winged
shell. On either side two children bear his arms, figures so naïve and
lovely that, as it seems to me, Luca della Robbia in his happiest moment
might have thought of them almost in despair. Above, under a splendid
canopy of flowers and fruit, in a tondo, severe and simple, is Madonna
with Our Lord, and on either side an angel bows half-smiling,
half-weeping, while without stand two youths of tender age, slender and
full of grace, but strong enough to bear the great garland of fruits
with lovely and splendid gestures of confidence and expectancy. Before
the tomb in the pavement is a plaque of marble also from the hand of
Desiderio, and here Gregorio Marsuppini, Carlo's father, lies: other
similar works of his you may find here and there in the church.
Scattered through the two aisles and the nave are many modern monuments
and tablets to famous Italians, Dante who lies at Ravenna, Galileo,
Alberti, Mazzini, Rossini, and the rest; they have but little interest.
It is not only in the aisles, however, that we find the work of the
Florentine sculptors. Galileo Galilei, an ancestor of the great
astronomer, is buried in the nave at the west end, under a carved
tombstone enthusiastically praised by Ruskin. And then on the first
pillar on the right we find the work of Bernardo Rossellino's youngest
brother Antonio (1427-1478), who, under the influence of Desiderio da
Settignano, has carved there a relief of Madonna and Child, surrounded
by a garland of cherubim lovely and fair. Antonio Rossellino's work is
scattered all over Tuscany, in Prato, in Empoli, in Pistoja, and we
shall find it even in such far-away places as Naples and Forli. His
masterpiece, however, the beautiful tomb of the Cardinal of Portugal, is
in the Church of S. Miniato al Monte, of which I shall speak later.
It was another and younger pupil of Desiderio's, Benedetto da Maiano
(1442-1497), who made the beautiful pulpit to the order of that Pietro
Mellini, whose bust, also from his hand, is now in the Bargello. It is
the most beautiful pulpit in all Italy, splendid alike in its decoration
and its construction. It seems doubtful whether the pulpit itself is not
earlier than the five reliefs of the life of St. Francis which surround
it--The Confirmation of the Order by the Pope, the Test by Fire before
the Sultan, the Stigmata, the Death of St. Francis, and the Persecution
of the Order. These were carved in 1474, and for the life and charm
which they possess are perhaps Benedetto's finest work. In the beautiful
niches below he has set some delightful statuettes, representing Faith,
Hope, Charity, Fortitude, and Justice.
Passing now into the south transept, we come to the great chapel of the
Blessed Sacrament, with its spoiled frescoes of the stories of St. John
Baptist, St. John the Divine, St. Nicholas and St. Anthony; while here,
too, is the tomb of the Duchess of Albany, who was the wife of the Young
Pretender, and who loved Alfieri the poet, whose monument, as we have
seen, she caused Canova to make.
The south transept ends in the Baroncelli Chapel, which "between the
close of December 1332 and the first days of August 1338," Taddeo Gaddi
painted in fresco.[104] Giotto died in 1337, and Taddeo, who had served
under him, seems to have been content to carry on his practice without
bringing any originality of his own to the work. What Taddeo could
assimilate of Giotto's manner he most patiently reproduced, so that his
work, never anything but a sort of imitation, threatens to overwhelm in
its own mediocrity much of the achievement of his master. The beautiful
and sincere work of Giotto in him degenerates into a mannerism, a
mannerism that the people of his own day seem to have appreciated quite
as much as the living work of Giotto himself. Taddeo, trained by his
master in the Giottesque manner, became its most patient champion, and
practising an art that was in his hands little better than a craft, he
finds himself understood, and when Giotto is not available very
naturally takes his place. Here in S. Croce, a church in which Giotto
himself had worked, we find Taddeo's work everywhere: over the door of
the Sacristy he painted Christ and the Doctors; in the Cappella di S.
Andrea, the stories of St. Peter and St. Andrew; in the Bellaci chapel,
too, and above all in this the chapel of the Baroncelli family. But when
Giotto, being long dead, other and newer painters arose, Taddeo's work,
out of fashion at last, suffered the oblivion of whitewash, sharing this
fate with some of the best work in Italy: so that there is to-day but
little left of it in S. Croce save these frescoes, where he has painted,
not without a certain vigour and almost a gift for composition, the
story of the Blessed Virgin.
Close by, without the chapel, is a very beautiful monument the school
of Niccolò Pisano; passing this and entering the great door of the
Sacristy, we come into a corridor and thence into the Sacristy itself,
which Vasari covered with whitewash. Built in the fourteenth century, it
is divided into two parts by a grating of exquisitely wrought iron of
the same period. Behind this grating is the Rinuccini chapel, painted in
fresco by a pupil of Taddeo Gaddi, Giovanni da Milano, in whose work we
may discern, in spite of the rigid convention of his master, something
sincere, a lightness and grace and even perhaps a certain reliance on
Nature, which the authority of Giotto had spoiled for Taddeo himself. It
is the stories of the Blessed Virgin and of St. Mary Magdalen that he
has set himself to tell, with an infinite detail that a little confuses
his really fine and sincere work. Repainted though they be, something of
their original beauty may still be found there, their simplicity and
homely realism.
At the end of the corridor is the chapel which Cosimo de' Medici, Pater
Patriae caused Michelozzo to build for his delight. Over the altar is
one of the loveliest works of the della Robbia school, a Madonna and
Child, between St. Anthony of Padua, St. Elizabeth of Hungary, St. John
Baptist, St. Laurence, St. Louis of Toulouse, and St. Francis; while on
the wall is a later work of the same school, after a work by Verrocchio,
where Madonna holds her Son in her arms; and opposite is another work by
a Tuscan sculptor, a Tabernacle, by Mino da Fiesole (1431-1484), who
certainly has loved the gracious marbles of Desiderio da Settignano. The
picture of the Coronation of the Virgin beside this Tabernacle, once the
altar-piece of the Baroncelli Chapel, a genuine work of Giotto's, as it
is thought, is tender in feeling and magnificent in arrangement and
composition. Full of a grave earnestness and full of ardent life,--mark
the eagerness of those clouds of Saints,--it is worthy of the painter of
the tribune of the Lower Church at Assisi.
Returning now to the church itself, we begin our examination of those
twelve chapels, which with the choir form the eastern end of S. Croce.
The first three chapels have little interest, but the two nearest the
choir, Cappella Peruzzi and Cappella Bardi, were both painted in fresco
by Giotto, his work there being among the best of his paintings.
The Peruzzi Chapel was built by the powerful family that name, who had
already done much for S. Croce, when about 1307 they employed Giotto to
decorate these walls with frescoes of the story of St. John Baptist and
St. John the Divine. In 1714, the new Vasari tells us,[105] and, indeed,
we may read as much on the floor of the chapel itself, Bartolommeo di
Simone Peruzzi caused the place to be restored, and it was then, as we
may suppose, that the work of Giotto was covered with whitewash. It was
in 1841 that the Dance of Herodias was discovered, and the whitewash not
very carefully, perhaps, removed, and by 1863 the rest of the frescoes
here were brought to light. In their original brightness they formed
probably "the finest series of frescoes which Giotto ever produced"; but
the hand of the restorer has spoiled them utterly, so that only the
shadow of their former beauty remains, amid much that is hard or
unpleasing.
On the left we see the story of St. John Baptist; above, the Angel
announces to Zacharias the birth of a son; and, with I know not what
mastery of his art, Giotto tells us of it with a simplicity and
perfection beyond praise. If we consider the work merely as a
composition, it is difficult to imagine anything more lovely; and then
how beautiful and full of life is the angel who has entered so softly
into the Holy of Holies, not altogether without dismay to the high
priest, who, busy swinging his censer before the altar, has suddenly
looked up and seen a vision. Below, we see the Birth of St. John
Baptist, where Elizabeth is a little troubled, it may be, about her dumb
husband, to whom the child has been brought. An old man with an eager
and noble gesture seems to argue with Zacharias, holding the child the
while by the shoulder, and Zacharias writes the name on his knee. Below
this again is the Dance of Herodias, the first of these frescoes to be
uncovered and ruined in the process. But even yet, in the perfect
grouping of the figures, the splendour of the viol player, the
frightened gaze of the servants, we may still see the very hand of
Giotto.
But it is in the frescoes on the right wall that Giotto is seen at his
highest: it is the story of St. John the Divine; above he dreams on
Patmos, below he raises Drusiana at the Gate of Ephesus, and is himself
received into heaven. Damaged though they be, there is nothing in all
Italian art more fundamental, more simple, or more living than these
frescoes. It is true that the Dream of St. John is almost ruined, and
what we see to-day is very far from being what Giotto painted, but in
the Raising of Drusiana and in the Ascension of St. John we find a
grandeur and force that are absent from painting till Giotto's time, and
for very many years after his death. The restorer has done his best to
obliterate all trace of Giotto's achievement, especially in the fresco
of Drusiana, but in spite of him we may see here Giotto's very work, the
essence of it at any rate, its intention and the variety of his powers
of expressing himself.
The chapel nearest the choir was built by Ridolfo de' Bardi, it is said,
sometime after 1310,[106] and it was for him that Giotto painted there
the story of St. Francis; while on the ceiling he has painted the three
Franciscan virtues, Poverty, Chastity, and Obedience, and in the fourth
space has set St. Francis in Glory, as he had done in a different manner
at Assisi.
After the enthusiastic pages of Ruskin,[107] to describe these frescoes,
beautiful still, in spite of their universal restoration, would be
superfluous. It will be enough to refer the reader to his pages, and to
add the subjects of the series. Above, on the left wall, St. Francis
renounces his father, while below he appears to the brethren at Arles,
and under this we see his death. On the left above, Pope Honorius gives
him his Rule, and below, he challenges the pagan priests to the test of
the fire before the Sultan, and appears to Gregory IX, who had thought
to deny that he received the Stigmata. Beside the window Giotto has
painted four great Franciscans, St. Louis of Toulouse, St. Clare, St.
Louis of France, and St. Elizabeth of Hungary. All these frescoes in the
Bardi Chapel are much more damaged by restoration than those in Cappella
Peruzzi.
In the choir, behind the high altar, Agnolo Gaddi, one of the two sons
of Taddeo, has painted, with a charm and brightness of colour that hide
the poor design, the story of the Holy Cross. It was at the request of
Jacopo degli Alberti that Agnolo painted these eight frescoes, where the
angel gives a branch of the Tree of Life from Eden to Seth, whom Adam,
feeling his death at hand, had sent on this errand. Seth returns,
however, only to find Adam dead, and the branch is planted on his grave.
Then in the course of ages that branch grows to a tree, is hewn down,
and, as the Queen of Sheba passes on her way to King Solomon, the
carpenters are striving to cut this wood for the Temple, but they reject
it and throw it into the Pool of Bethesda. And this rejected tree was at
length hewn into the Cross of Our Lord. Then comes Queen Helena to seek
that blessed wood, and finding the three crosses, and in ignorance which
was that of Our Lord, commands that the dead body of a youth which is
borne by shall be touched with them all, one after another. So they find
the True Cross, for at its touch the dead rises from his bier. Then they
bear the cross before the Queen: till presently it is lost to Chosroes,
King of Persia, who took Jerusalem "in the year of Our Lord six hundred
and fifteen," and bare away with him that part of the Holy Cross which
St. Helena had left there. So he made a tower of gold and of silver,
crusted with precious stones, and set the Cross of Our Lord before him,
and commanded that he should be called God. Then Heraclius, the Emperor,
went out against him by the river of Danube, and they fought the one
with the other upon the bridge, and agreed together that the victor
should be prince of the whole Empire: and God gave the victory to
Heraclius, who bore the Cross into Jerusalem. So Agnolo Gaddi has
painted the story in the choir of S. Croce.
In the chapels on the north side of the choir there is but little of
interest. And then one is a little weary of frescoes. If we return to
the south aisle and pass through the door between the Annunciation of
Donatello and the tomb of Leonardo Bruni, we shall come into the
beautiful cloisters of Arnolfo, where there will be sunshine and the
soft sky. Here, too, is the beautiful Cappellone that Brunellesco built
for the Pazzi family, whose arms decorate the porch. Under a strange and
beautiful dome, which, as Burckhardt reminds us, Giuliano da Sangallo
imitated in Madonna delle Carceri at Prato, Brunellesco has built a
chapel in the form almost of a Greek cross. And without, before it, he
has set, under a vaulted roof, a portico borne by columns, interrupted
by a round arch. It is the earliest example, perhaps, of the new
Renaissance architecture. Very fair and surprising it is with its frieze
of angels' heads by Donatello, helped perhaps by Desiderio da
Settignano. Within, too, you come upon Donatello's work again, in the
Four Evangelists in the spandrels, and below them the Twelve Apostles.
Walking in the cloisters, you find the great ancient refectory of the
convent itself, which has here been turned into a museum, while another
part of it is used as a barracks; and indeed the finest cloister of the
Early Renaissance, one of the loveliest works of Brunellesco, has also
been given up to the army of Italy. The museum contains much that, in
its removal here or dilapidation, has lost nearly all its interest. The
beautiful fresco of St. Eustace, said to be the work of Andrea Castagno,
is yet full of delight, while here and there amid these old crucifixes,
tabernacles, and frescoes, by pupils of Giotto long forgotten, something
will charm you by its sincerity or naïve beauty, so that you will
forget, if only for a moment, the destruction that has befallen all
around you; the convent that once housed S. Bernardino of Siena, now
noisy with conscripts, the library housed in another convent, Dominican
once, that like this has become a museum and public monument of
vandalism and rapacity.