"It is a good thing in this world to be bold and have a good opinion of
one's self; yes, and to hold your head high--but not so high as to bend
over backwards--else that may happen to you which befell the celebrated
cock of Aspromonte."
"And what happened to him?"
"Only this, Signore--he was so cocky, and bent his head so far backwards,
that his spurs ran into his eyes and blinded him. Now, the cock reminds
me of Saint Peter, and too much cheek of the _ferrajo spacciato_, or the
saucy smith, who wanted to equal him.
"It happened once that the Lord and Saint Peter came to a forge, and the
smith was about to lead a horse from the stable to the anvil to shoe him.
Saint Peter said:
"'Thou hast boasted that thou art the best smith in the world, and canst
work such wonders in shoeing as man never beheld. Canst thou not shoe
this horse without taking him to the forge?'
"'Neither thou, nor I, nor any man can do it,' replied the smith.
"Saint Peter took the hoof in his left hand, gave it a rap with the side
of his right across the joint, and the hoof fell off. Then Saint Peter
carried it to the anvil, fastened a new shoe on it, returned and put it
on the horse again, who stamped with it as if nothing had happened.
"Now the smith, like all boasters, was a great fool, and he only thought
that this was something which he had not learned before, and so cried
boldly, 'Oh, that is only the Bolognese manner of taking hoofs off and
putting them on--we do it much better here in Florence!' So he seized
the horse's hoof, and with one blow of a hatchet cut it off.
"'And now put it on again,' said Saint Peter. The smith tried, but it
would not stick.
"'The horse is bleeding to death rapidly,' remarked the Saint.
"'I believe,' said the smith ruefully, 'that I am a fool in folio.'
"'_Piu matto che un granchio_--as crazy as a crawfish,' solemnly added
one of his assistants.
"'_Pazzo a bandiera_--as wild and witless as a flapping flag,' quoth
another.
"'_Matto di sette cotte_--an idiot seven times baked,' chimed in Saint
Peter.
"'A _campanile_--a church bell-tower of a fool,' contributed his wife,
who had just come in.
"The poor horse continued to bleed.
"'You are like the mouse,' added a neighbour, 'who thought because he had
dipped the end of his tail in the meal, that he owned and could run the
mill.'
"'The Florentine method of shoeing horses,' remarked Saint Peter gravely,
'does not appear to be invariably successful. I think that we had better
recur to mine.' And with this he put the hoof to the ankle, and
_presto_! the miracle was wrought again. That is the story. In most
cases, Signore, _un pazzo gitta una pietra nel pozzo_--a fool rolls a
rock into a well which it requires a hundred wise men to get out again.
This time a single sage sufficed. But for that you must have the Lord at
your back, as Saint Peter had."
"Why do they say, as foolish as a crawfish or lobster?" I inquired.
"Because, Signore, the _granchio_, be he lobster or crawfish, carries his
head in the _scarsella_, which is a hole in his belly. Men who have
their brains in their bellies--or gluttons--are generally foolish. But
what is the use of boasting of our wisdom? He who has neither poor men
nor fools among his relations was born of the lightning or of thunder."
* * * * *
There is another story current among the people, though it is in print,
but as it is a merry one, belonging truly enough to the folk-lore of
Florence, I give it as it runs:
"You have heard of Piovano Arlotto, who made this our town so lively long
ago. It was rich then, indeed. There are more flowers than florins in
Florence now: _ogni fior non fa frutto_--all flowers do not bear fruit.
"Well, it happened one day that Piovano, having heard a good story from
Piero di Cosimo de' Medicis, answered with another. Now the tale which
Messer Piero di Cosimo told was this:
"Once there lived in Florence a poor shoemaker, who went every morning to
the Church of San Michele Berteldi--some say it was at San Bartolommeo,
and maybe at both, for a good story or a big lie is at home anywhere.
"Well, he used to pray before a John the Baptist in wood, or it may have
been cast in plaster, or moulded in wax, which was on the altar. One
morning he prayed scalding hot, and the _chierico_--a boy who waits on
the priest, who was a young rascal, like all of his kind--overheard him
say: 'Oh, Saint John, I pray thee make known to me two things. One is
whether my wife is good and true to me, and the other what will become of
my only son.'
"Then the mass-boy, who had hidden himself behind the altar, replied in a
soft, slow, strange voice: 'Know, my son, that because thou hast long
been so devout to me, thou shalt be listened unto. Return hither
to-morrow, and thou wilt be answered; and now go in peace.'
"And the shoemaker, having heard this, verily believed that Saint John
had spoken to him, and went his way with great rejoicing. So, bright and
early the next morning, he was in the church, and said: 'Saint John, I
await thy reply.'
"Then the mass-boy, who was hidden as before, replied: 'Oh, my son, I am
sorry to say that thy wife is no better than she should be--_ha fatto
fallo con piu d'uno_--and everybody in Florence except thee knows it.'
"'And my son?' gasped the shoemaker.
"'_He will be hung_,' replied the voice.
"The shoemaker rose and departed abruptly. In the middle of the church
he paused, and, without a sign of the cross, and putting on his cap, he
cried: 'What sort of a Saint John are you, anyhow?'
"'Saint John the Baptist,' replied the voice.
"'_Sia col malanno e con la mala Pasque che Iddio ti dia_!--Then may the
Lord give you a bad year and a miserable Easter-tide! You never utter
aught save evil, and it was for thy evil tongue that Herod cut thy head
off--and served thee right! I do not believe a word of all which thou
hast told me. I have been coming here every day for twenty-five years,
and never asked thee for anything before; but I will make one more vow to
thee, and that is--never to see thy face again.'
"And when Messer Cosimo had ended, Piovano Arlotto replied:
"'One good turn deserves another. It is not many years ago since a poor
_farsettajo_, or doublet-maker, lived in Florence, his shop being close
to the Oratorio di Orto San Michele, {126} and every morning he went to
worship in the church, and lit a candle before a picture representing
Christ as a child disputing with the Doctors, while his mother enters
seeking him.
"'And after he had done this daily for more than twenty-five years, it
happened that his little son, while looking on at a game of ball, had a
tile fall on his head, which wounded him terribly. The doctors being
called in, despaired.
"'The next morning the poor tailor went to his devotions in Or' San
Michele, bearing this time, instead of a farthing taper, a great
wax-candle; and kneeling, he spoke thus: "_Dolce Signor mio Gesu Cristo_,
I beg thee to restore my son to health. Thou knowest that I have
worshipped thee here for twenty-five years, and never asked for anything
before, and thou thyself can best bear witness to it. This my son is all
my happiness on earth, and he was also most devoted to thee. Should he
be taken away, I would die in despair, and so I commend myself to three!"
"'Then he departed, and coming home, learned that his son had died.
"'The next morning, in grief and anger, he entered Orto San Michele, and,
without any candle, he went directly to the picture, and, without
kneeling, broke forth in these words: "_Io ti disgrazio_--I dislike,
disown, and despise thee, and will return here no more. Five-and-twenty
years have I worshipped thee and never asked for anything before, and now
thou dost refuse me my request. If I had only gone to the great crucifix
there, I daresay I should have got all I wanted; but this is what comes
of trusting to a mere child, for, as the proverb says, _Chi s'impaccia
con fanciulli_, _con fanciulli si ritrova_--he who troubles himself with
children will himself be treated as a child.'"
* * * * *
It is worth remarking, as regards the tone and character of this tale,
that such freedom was commonest when people were most devout. The most
sceptical critics generally agree that these stories of Piovano Arlotto
are authentic, having been dictated by him, and that he had a very
exceptional character in his age for morality, honesty, and truth. He
himself declared, without being contradicted, that he was the only priest
of whom he knew who did not keep a mistress; and yet this story is simply
an average specimen of the two hundred connected with his name, and that
they in turn are identical in character with all the popular wit and
humour of the time.
Regarding the image of the Holy Blacksmith, Saint Eligius or Eloi, the
authors of "Walks in Florence" say that it is attributed to Nanni di
Banco, and is meagre and stiff, but has dignity, which accords admirably
with the character of most saints, or their ideals. It is evident that
the _bon roi_ Dagobert was considered as the type of all that was free
and easy--
"Le bon roi Dagobert
Mettait son culotte a l'envers."
Therefore he is contrasted with the very dignified Saint Eloy, who was
(like the breeches) quite the reverse, declining to lend the monarch two
sous, which Dagobert had ascertained were in the holy man's possession.
"The bas-relief below," continue the critics cited, "is more certainly by
the hand of Nanni. It records a miracle of Saint Eloy, who one day, when
shoeing a restive horse which was possessed by a demon, and was kicking
and plunging, cut off the animal's leg to fasten the shoe, and having
completed his task, made the sign of the cross and restored the severed
limb." I regret to say that this was written without careful reference
to the original. It was not the _leg_ of the horse which was severed,
nor a limb, but only the hoof at the pastern joint.
There is yet another explanation of this bas-relief, which I have
somewhere read, but cannot now recall--more's the pity, because it is the
true one, as I remember, and one accounting for the presence of the
female saint who is standing by, evidently invisibly. Perhaps some
reader who knows Number Four will send it to me for a next edition.
It is worth noting that there is in Innsbruck, on the left bank of the
Inn, a blacksmith's shop, on the front of which is a very interesting
bas-relief of the fourteenth or fifteenth century, representing Saint
Peter or Eligius with the horse in a smithy.
There is another statue on the exterior of this church, that of Saint
Philip, by the sculptor Nanni de Banco, concerning which and whom I find
an anecdote in the _Facetie Diverse_, A.D. 1636:
"Now, it befell in adorning the church of Or' San Michele in
Florence, that _I Consoli d'Arte_ (Art Directors of Florence) wanting
a certain statue, wished to have it executed by Donatello, a most
excellent sculptor; but as he asked fifty _scudi_, which was indeed a
very moderate price for such statues as he made, they, thinking it
too dear, refused him, and gave it to a sculptor _mediocre e
mulo_--indifferent and mongrel--who had been a pupil of Donatello;
nor did they ask him the price, supposing it would be, of course,
less. Who, having done his best, asked for the work eighty scudi.
Then the Directors in anger explained to him that Donatello, a
first-class sculptor, had only asked fifty; but as he refused to
abate a single _quattrino_, saying that he would rather keep the
statue, the question was referred to Donatello himself, who at once
said they should pay the man _seventy_ scudi. But when they reminded
him that he himself had only asked fifty, he very courteously
replied, 'Certainly, and being a master of the art, I should have
executed it in less than a month, but that poor fellow, who was
hardly fit to be my pupil, has been more than half a year making it.'
"By which shrewd argument he not only reproached them for their
meanness and his rival for incapacity, but also vindicated himself as
an artist."
This is the story as popularly known. In it Nanni is called Giovanni,
and it is not true that he was an unworthy, inferior sculptor, for he was
truly great. There is another legend of Or' San Michele, which is thus
given by Pascarel, who, however, like most writers on Florence, is so
extravagantly splendid or "gushing" in his description of everything,
that untravelled readers who peruse his pages in good faith must needs
believe that in every church and palazzo there is a degree of picturesque
magnificence, compared to which the Pandemonium of Milton, or even the
Celestial City itself as seen by Saint John, is a mere cheap Dissenting
chapel. According to him, Or' San Michele is by right "a world's wonder,
and a gift so perfect to the whole world, that, passing it, one should
need say (or be _compelled_ to pronounce) a prayer for Taddeo's soul."
Which is like the dentist in Paris, who proclaimed in 1847 that it was--
"Presque une crime
De ne pas crier, '_Vive_ Fattet!'"
The legend, as told by this writer, and cited by Hare, is as follows:
"Surely nowhere in the world is the rugged, changeless, mountain
force of hewn stone piled against the sky, and the luxuriant,
dream-like poetic delicacy of stone carven and shaped into leafage
and loveliness, more perfectly blended and made one than where San
Michele rises out of the dim, many-coloured, twisting streets, in its
mass of ebon darkness and of silvery light.
"The other day, under the walls of it, I stood and looked at its
Saint George, where he leans upon his shield, so calm, so young, with
his bared head and his quiet eyes.
"'That is our Donatello's,' said a Florentine beside me--a man of the
people, who drove a horse for hire in the public ways, and who
paused, cracking his whip, to tell this tale to me. 'Donatello did
that, and it killed him. Do you not know? When he had done that
Saint George he showed it to his master. And the master said, "It
wants one thing only." Now this saying our Donatello took gravely to
heart, chiefly because his master would never explain where the fault
lay; and so much did it hurt him, that he fell ill of it, and came
nigh to death. Then he called his master to him. "Dear and great
one, do tell me before I die," he said, "what is the one thing my
statue lacks?" The master smiled and said: "Only speech." "Then I
die happy," said our Donatello. And he--died--indeed, that hour.'
"Now I cannot say that the pretty story is true--it is not in the
least true; Donatello died when he was eighty-three, in the Street of
the Melon, and it was he himself who cried, 'Speak then--speak!' to
his statue, as it was carried through the city. But whether true or
false, this fact is surely true, that it is well--nobly and purely
well--with a people when the men amongst it who ply for hire on its
public ways think caressingly of a sculptor dead five hundred years
ago, and tell such a tale, standing idly in the noonday sun, feeling
the beauty and the pathos of it all."
Truly, in a town half of whose income is derived from art-hunting
tourists, and where every vagabond offers himself, in consequence, as a
cicerone, it is no sign that "all is well--nobly and purely well--with a
people," because a coachman who had been asked which was Donatello's
Saint George by about five hundred English "fares," and nearly as many
American young ladies--of whom many of the latter told him all they knew
about it--should have picked up such a tale. In fact, while I have been
amazed at the _incredible_ amount of legend, superstitious traditions,
and incantations existing among the people, I have been struck by their
great ignorance of art, and all pertaining to it; of which, were it worth
while, I could cite convincing and amusing instances.
"But as regards a vast proportion of the 'sweet and light' writing on
the Renaissance and on Italy which is at present fashionable," writes
Flaxius, "I am reminded of the 'esthetic axe'ems' of an American
writer, the first of which were:
"'Art is a big thing. Always bust into teers wen you see a pictur.'
"'Bildins and churches arn't of no account unless they drive you
clean out of your census.'"