If St. Francis of Assisi dreamed his whole life long of the resurrection
of love among men, and in the valleys of Umbria went about like a second
Jesus doing good, with an immense love in his heart singing his Laudes
Creaturarum by the wayside; Dante Alighieri, the greatest poet of his
country, might almost seem to have been overwhelmed with hatred, a
hatred which is perhaps but the terrible reverse of an intolerable love,
but which is an impeachment, nevertheless, not only of his own time, of
the cities of his country, but of himself too, for while he thus sums up
the Middle Age and judges it, he is himself its most marvellous child,
losing himself at last in one of its ideals. St. Francis of Assisi,
concerned only with humanity, has by love contrived the Renaissance of
man, assured as he was by the love of God, His delight in us His
creatures. But for Dante, bitter with loneliness, wandering in the Hell,
the Purgatory, the Paradise of his own heart, any such wide and
overwhelming love might seem to have been impossible. Imprisoned in the
adamant of his personality, he has little but hatred and contempt for
the world he knew so well. How scornful he is! Some secret sorrow seems
to have burnt up the wells of sweetness in his nature, from which he
once drew a love for all mankind. He seems to have gone about hating
people, so that if he speaks of Florence it is with a passionate enmity,
if of Siena with scorn, Pisa has only his contempt, Arezzo is to him
abominable and beastly. He has judged his country as God Himself will
not judge it, and he kept his anger for ever. And since the great
Florentine can bring himself to bid Florence
"Godi, Fiorenza poi che sei si grande
Che per mare, e per terra batti l'ali,
E per l'Inferno il tuo nome si spande,"
it is not wonderful that Pistoja is lost in his scorn. Coming upon Vanni
Fucci continually consumed by the adder, he hears him say
"Ahi Pistoja, Pistoja, chè non stanzi
D'incenerarti, si che più non duri
Poi che in mal far lo seme tuo avanzi?"
"O Giustizia di Dio, quanto è severa,..." yet Dante's will beggar it.
The origin of Pistoja is obscure. Some ascribe its foundation to the
Boian Gauls, some to the Romans; however that may be, it was here in
Pistoria, as the city was then called, that the army of the Republic
came up with Cataline, and defeated him and slew him in B.C. 62. There
follows an impenetrable silence, unbroken till, by the will of the
Countess Matilda, Tuscany passed, not without protest as we know, to the
Pope, when Pistoja seems to have vindicated its liberty in 1117, its
commune contriving her celebrated municipal statutes. In 1198 she made
one of the Tuscan League against the empire, and in the first year of
the thirteenth century she had extended her power over the neighbouring
strongholds from Fucecchio to the Arno. After the death of Frederic II,
in 1250, she became Guelph with the greater part of Tuscany, and in 1266
took part with Charles of Anjou and fought on his side at Benevento
under the Pistojese captains, Giovanni and Corrado da Montemagno. About
this time we first hear the name Cancellieri, Cialdo de' Cancellieri
being Potestà. At Campaldino the Pistojese fought under Corso Donati,
and turned the battle against the Aretines; and it was under the Potestà
Giano della Bella in 1294[136] that the Priore of the twelve _anziani_,
established after Campaldino, was named Gonfaloniere of Justice.
Villani gives us a vivid picture of Pistoja in 1300. "In these times,"
says the prince of Florentine chroniclers, "the city of Pistoja being in
happy and great and good estate, among the other citizens there was one
family very noble and puissant, not, however, of very ancient lineage,
which was called Cancellieri, born of Ser Cancelliere, which was a
merchant and gained much wealth, and by his two wives had many sons,
which, by reason of their riches, all became knights and men of worth
and substance, and from them were born many sons and grandsons, so that
at this time they numbered more than one hundred men in arms, rich and
puissant and of many affairs; and indeed, not only were they the leading
citizens of Pistoja, but they were among the more puissant families of
Tuscany. There arose among them, through their exceeding prosperity, and
through the suggestion of the devil, contempt and enmity, between them
which were born of one wife and them which were born of the other; and
the one took the name of the Black Cancellieri, and the other of the
White, and this grew until they fought together, but it was not any
great affair. And one of those on the side of the White Cancellieri,
having been wounded, they on the side of the Black Cancellieri, to the
end they might be at peace and concord with them, sent him which had
done the injury and handed him over to the mercy of them which had
received it, that they should take amend, and vengeance for it at their
will; they on the side of the White Cancellieri, ungrateful and proud,
having neither pity nor love, cut off the hand of him which had been
commended to their mercy on a horse-manger. By which sinful beginning
not only was the house of Cancellieri divided, but many violent deaths
arose thereupon, and all the city of Pistoja was divided, for some held
with one part and some with the other, and they called themselves the
Whites and the Blacks, forgetting among themselves the Guelph and
Ghibelline parties; and many civil strifes and much peril and loss of
life arose therefore in Pistoja...." The Whites seem to have been
little more than Ghibellines, to which party they presently allied
themselves, when Andrea Gherardini was captain. This party soon got the
upper hand in Pistoja, thus bringing down the hatred of the Lucchesi and
the Fiorentini; a cruel siege and pillage--touchingly described by Dino
Campagni--following in 1305. Exiled, the Whites thronged to the banner
of Uguccione, and helped to win the battle of Montecatini in 1305. This
done, Uguccione became tyrant of Pistoja till Castruccio Castracani
flung him out, and by the will of Lewis of Bavaria became himself tyrant
of the city, defeating the Florentines again in 1325. In his absence the
Florentines besieged Pistoja again three years later, and took it; the
fortunate death of Castruccio confirming them in their conquest, which
thus became the vassal of the Lily.
Such in brief is the story of Pistoja; but if we look a little more
closely into the mere confusion of those wars, two facts will perhaps
emerge clearly, and help us to understand the position.
Florence, a city of merchants, was the last power in Italy to make war
for the pleasure of fighting, yet in turn she conquered every city in
Tuscany, save Lucca alone.[137] What can have been the overmastering
necessity that drove her on so bloody a path? Certainly not a love of
empire, for she, who was so unfortunate in the art of government, was
not likely to lust for dominion. Like all the Florentine wars, that
which at last brought Pisa under her yoke was a war on behalf of the
guilds of Florence, a war of merchants. Florence humbled Pisa because
Pisa held the way to the sea, she brought Arezzo and Siena low and
bought Cortona because they stood on the roads to Rome, whose banker she
was.[138] And did not Pistoja guard the way to the north, to Bologna, to
Milan, to Flanders, and England, whence came the wool that was her
wealth?[139] Thus in those days as to-day, war was not a game which one
might play or not as one pleased, but the inexorable result of the
circumstances of life. When Bologna closed the passes, Florence was
compelled to fight or to die; when Pisa taxed Florentine merchandise she
signed her own death.
On the other hand, the passionate desire of Pistoja was to be free.
Liberty--it was the dream of her life; not the liberty of the people,
but the essential liberty of the State, of the city. So she was
Ghibelline because Florence was Guelph. All her life long she feared
lest Florence should eat her up: that death was ever before her eyes.
This and this alone is the cause of the hate of the great Florentine: he
hated Florence with an intolerable love because she thrust him out; he
hated Pisa, Arezzo, Siena, and Pistoja because they feared or rivalled
Florence, and would not be reconciled. His dream of an Italy united
under a foreign Emperor, the ghost of the Roman Empire, remained a
dream, noble and yet ignoble too. For it is for this that we may accuse
him of a lack of clairvoyance, a real failure to appreciate the future,
which in the innumerable variety of her cities gave Italy an
intellectual life less sustained and clear than the intellectual life of
Greece, but more spiritual and more various. In Italy Antiquity and
Hebraism became friends, to our undoubted benefit, to the gain of the
whole world.
But little is left in the smiling, gracious city to-day to recall those
bitter quarrels so long ago. Pistoja, beyond any other Tuscan town
perhaps, is full of grace, and gives one always, as it were, a smiling
salutation. La Ferrignosa she was called of old, but it is the last
title that fits her now, for the clank of her irons has long been
silent, and nothing any longer disturbs the quiet of her days. S. Atto
is her saint, and it is by his street that you enter the city, walled
still, coming at last into the Piazza Cino, Cino da Pistoja, one of the
sweetest and least fortunate of Tuscan poets. Turning thence into Via
Cavour, you come to S. Giovanni Evangelista, once without the walls, but
now not far from the middle of the city, really the earliest of her
churches, a Lombard building of about 1160, the façade decorated
somewhat in the Pisan manner with rows of pillars, while over the gates
is a relief of the Last Supper, by Gruamonte, whom some have thought to
be the architect of the church. Within is the beautiful pulpit of Fra
Guglielmo, disciple of Niccolò Pisano, and there on the east he has
carved the Annunciation and the Birth of Jesus; on the north, the
Washing of the Disciples' Feet, the Crucifixion, the Deposition, and
Christ in Hades; while on the west is the Ascension and the Death of the
Virgin. And just as at Bologna, in the tomb of St. Dominic, Fra
Guglielmo's work is but an inferior copy of the style of his master, so
here in this pulpit, built most probably in 1270, we find just Niccolò's
work spoiled, in a mere repetition, feeble, and without any of the
devotional spirit we might expect in the work of a friar. Beside it,
near the next altar, is a very beautiful group in glazed terra-cotta, in
the manner of the della Robbia, by Fra Paolino. The holy water basin
supported by figures of the Virtues is a much-injured work by Giovanni
Pisano.
Following Via Cavour, past Palazzo Panciatichi-Cellesi, through Via
Francesco Magni, into Piazza del Duomo, you are in the midst of all that
was most splendid in Pistoja of old: the Duomo, with its old fortified
tower, Torre del Potestà, which still carries the arms of those
captains; the Baptistery, high above the way, designed by Andrea Pisano,
with its open-air pulpit and broken sculptures; the magnificent Palazzo
del Comune; and opposite, the not less splendid Palazzo Pretorio, the
palace of the Podestà. Of old the Piazza was less spacious, but in 1312
it was enlarged, and later, too, the palace of the Capitano, on the
north, was destroyed. Here every Wednesday they still hold the
corn-market, and every Saturday a market of stuffs, silks, and tissues.
It was S. Romolo who first brought the gospel to Pistoja, and the
tradition is that he converted a temple built by the Romans to the God
Mars into a church, on the spot where now the Duomo stands,[140] and
indeed in 1599 certain inscriptions were found, and the capitals of some
Roman columns. It is generally thought that a church was built here in
the early part of the fifth century, dedicated to St. Martin of Tours,
on whose day Stilicho, that Roman general who was by birth a Vandal,
gained a victory over Radaugasius and his army of some 400,000 Goths,
who had ravaged the country as far as Florence in 406. However this may
be, in 589 the church was finally rebuilt, and certainly re-dedicated to
S. Zenone, the Bishop of Verona, who, so it was said, had saved the
Pistojese from the floods by breaking through the Gonfolina Pass, that
narrow defile beyond Signa through which the Arno flows, with the
Ombrone in her bosom, into the Empolese. After being dedicated at
various times to many saints, in 1443 it was given to S. Zenone, whose
name it still bears. The present church is for the most part a work of
the twelfth century, and certainly not the work of Niccolò Pisano. The
façade, like the rest of the church, has suffered an unfortunate
restoration. The marble loggia is a work of the fifteenth century, and
the two statues are, one of S. Jacopo, by Scarpellino, the other of S.
Zenone, by Andrea Vaccà. The beautiful terra-cotta over the great door
of Madonna and Child with Angels, and the roof above, are the work of
Andrea della Robbia. The frescoes of the story of S. Jacopo are
fourteenth-century work of Giovanni Balducci the Pisan.
The splendid and fierce Campanile, still called Torre del Potestà, stood
till about the year 1200, alone, a stronghold of the city. Giovanni
Pisano converted it to its present form in 1301.
Within, the church has been greatly spoiled. The monument to Cino da
Pistoja, poet and professor, was decreed in 1337 by the Popolo
Pistojese, and was moved about the church from one place to another,
till in 1839 it was erected in its present position. There you may see
him lecturing to his students, and one of them is a woman; can it be
that Selvaggia whom he loved?
"Ay me, alas! the beautiful bright hair ..."
"Weep, Pistoja," says Petrarch, in not the least musical of his perfect
sonnets, in celebrating the death of his master--
"Pianga Pistoia e i cittadin perversi
Che perdut' hanno si dolce vicino;
E rallegres' il ciel or' ello è gito."
Dante, who exchanged sonnets with Cino and rallied him about his
inconstancy, calls the Pistojese worthy of the Beast[141] who dwelt
among them; Petrarch calls them _i cittadin perversi_; the truth being
that the Neri were in power and had exiled "il nostro amoroso messer
Cino."
Close by, against the west wall, is the great font of Andrea Ferrucci,
the disciple of Bernardo Rossellino, with five reliefs of the story of
St. John Baptist. Opposite Cino's monument is the tomb of Cardinal
Fortiguerra. For long this disappointing monument, so full of
gesticulation, passed as the work of Verrocchio; it is to-day attributed
rather to Lorenzetto, his disciple.
Passing up the north aisle, we enter at last the Cappella del
Sacramento, under whose altar St. Felix, the Pistojese, sleeps, while on
the south wall hangs one of the best works of Lorenzo di Credi, Madonna
with Jesus in her arms, and St. John Baptist and S. Zenone on either
side. Opposite is the bust of Bishop Donato de' Medici, by Antonio
Rossellino. The little crypt under the high altar is scarcely worth a
visit, but the great treasure of the church, the silver frontal of the
high altar, is now to be found in the Cappella della Città, and over it,
in a chest within the reredos, is the body, still uncorrupted, of S.
Atto, Bishop of Pistoja, who died in 1155. The silver frontal, certainly
the finest in Italy, with its wings and reredos of silver and enamel,
was removed from the high altar in 1786. It is the work of Andrea di
Puccio di Ognibene, the Pistojese goldsmith: it was finished in 1316. It
is carved with fifteen stories from the New Testament, and with many
statues of prophets and pictures of saints. Of the two wings, that on
the left, consisting of stories from the Old Testament, with the
Nativity, the Presentation and the Marriage of the Virgin, is the work
of Pietro of Florence--it was finished about 1357; that on the right,
carved in 1371 by Leonardo di Ser Giovanni, consists of the story of St.
James and the finding of his body at Campostella. All the guide-books
tell you that it was this treasure that Vanni Fucci stole on Shrove
Tuesday in 1292, but, as I suppose, since this altar was not begun till
1314, it must have been the earlier treasure which this replaced. Vanni
Fucci is famous because of his encounter with Dante in Hell.
"Vanni Fucci am I called,
Not long since rained down from Tuscany
To this dire gullet. Me the bestial life
And not the human pleased, mule that I was,
Who in Pistoja found my worthy den."