"If there is any faith to be put in old stories and ancient books, even
the ladies and gentleman, to say nothing of priests, used such language
in their ordinary conversation, in good old Medici times, as would not be
heard among any but the lowest people now-a-days. Well, as the saying
is:
"'Ne di tempo, ne di Signoria,
Non ti dar malinconia.'
"'Fret not thyself for time long past away,
For weather, nor for what the great may say.'
"Well, it happened one morning in Florence that a _gentil donna_, who, I
take it, was more _donna_ than truly _gentil_, whatever her rank may have
been, meeting at the door of the Duomo a very ordinary and rough figure
of her acquaintance, who had only made himself look more vulgar by new
and gaudy clothes, asked him as he came out:
"'Is the Cads' Mass {180} over already?'
"To which he, in nowise put out, promptly replied:
"'Yes, Madonna, and that of the Demireps is just going to begin; {181}
only hurry, and you'll be there in time with the rest of 'em!'
"And that lifted him to celebrity, for in those famous days a small joke
often made a great reputation. Ah! Signore--a great many of us have
been born into this world four hundred years too late--more's the pity!
However, the lady learned the truth of the old proverb, '_Guardati del
villan_, _quando ha la camicia bianca_'--'Look out for a vulgar fellow
when he has a clean shirt on,' for then he thinks himself fine enough to
say anything saucy.
"And there is yet another story of the same sort, Signore; indeed, I
think that while the world lasts there will always be a few of them left
for steady customers, under the counter, like smuggled goods in Venice;
and it is this: It befell once that a Florentine fell in love with a
lady, who was like her mother, _come il ramo al tronco s'assomiglia_--'as
the bough to the tree, or very much worse than she ought to be;' for the
dear mamma was like the Porta San Niccolo, only not so well famed.
"However, the gentleman wedded her, never heeding the proverb:
"'Let every wooer be afraid
To wed a maiden not a maid;
For sooner or later, as 'tis said,
She'll turn again unto her trade.'
"However, in this case the proverb got the lie, for the lady after she
was married behaved with great propriety, and yet was often reminded that
she had better have repented before she sinned than after; for many would
not speak to her, for all her wealth, till she was well convinced that
_Che profitta ravedersi dopo il fatto_?
"'When the deed has once been done,
What is the use of repenting, my son?'
"So it befell one morning that the poor soul was praying in the Cathedral
or Duomo, as many another poor sinner had done before her (doubtless on
the same spot), when a noble lady, who had never been found out in any
naughtiness (some people are certainly very lucky in this world, Signore
Carlo!), came by, and seeing the penitent, drew in her robe, turned up
her nose, and retreated as if the other had the plague. To which the
Magdalen replied, in a sad but firm voice, 'Madonna, you need not be
afraid to touch me, for I assure you that the malady (of which I have, I
trust, been thoroughly cured) attacks none save those who wish to have
it.'"
* * * * *
When standing in the Cathedral, the visitor may remember that here Santo
Crescenzio, who died in 424, once wrought a miracle, thus recorded in his
"Life" of the fourteenth century:
"A poor man had come into the Cathedral and saw no light (_i.e._, was
blind), and going to where Saint Crescentius was, implored him with
great piety that he would cause the light to return unto him. And
being moved to pity, he made the sign of the cross in the eyes of the
blind man, and incontinently the light was restored unto him. Saint
Crescentius did not wish this to be made known, and pretended to know
nothing about it, but he could not conceal such miracles."
Of which the immortal Flaxius remarks, that "it is singular that so many
saints who wished to keep their miracles unknown had not the forethought
to make silence a condition of cure. Also, that of all the
wonder-working once effected by the holy men of the Church, the only gift
now remaining to them is the miraculous power of changing sons and
daughters into nephews and nieces; the which, as I am assured, is still
as flourishing as ever, and permitted as a proof of transubstantiation."
Thus it is that simple heretics deride holy men. And Flaxius is, I bid
ye note, a sinner, in whose antique, unsanctified derision I most
assuredly do take no part, "it being in bad form in this our age to
believe or disbelieve in anything," and therefore in bad style to laugh
at aught.
It may be worth recalling, when looking out on the Cathedral Square, that
it was here that San Zenobio performed another great miracle, recorded in
all his lives, but most briefly in the poetical one:
"Then did he raise an orphan from the dead,
The only son of a poor widow, he,
A cart with oxen passing o'er his head,
Died in the Duomo Square in misery;
But though all crushed, the Saint restored his life,
And, well and gay and bright as stars do shine,
He went to his mother, and the pious wife
Gave thanks to God for mercy all divine."
Which being witnessed, says the _Vita San Zenobii_, all who were present
began to sing, "_Gloria tibi Domine qui mirabilia per servos tuos in
nobis operari dignatus es_, _gloria sit tibi-i et laus in
saecu-la--sec-u-lo-o-o-rum_, _A-men_.
Which, if they sung it as I heard it sung yesterday in the Cathedral of
Siena, must have had an extremely soporific effect, lulling all others to
sleep, and causing them to see beatific visions beyond all belief. I had
in my boyhood a teacher named Professor Sears C. Walker, who was wont to
tell how he had once heard in a rural New England village a church
congregation sing:
"Before thy throne the angels bow-wow-wow-ow!"
But to hear the _bow-wow_ in perfection, one must go to Rome. A pack in
full cry or a chorus of owls is nothing to it. But let us pass on to a
fresh story.
LEGENDS OF THE BOBOLI GARDENS: THE OLD GARDENER, AND THE TWO STATUES AND
THE FAIRY
"He found such strange enchantment there,
In that garden sweet and rare,
Where night and day
The nightingales still sing their roundelay,
And plashing fountains 'neath the verdure play,
That for his life he could not thence away;
And even yet, though he hath long been dead,
'Tis said his spirit haunts the pleasant shade."
--_The Ring of Charlemagne_.
A great showman, as I have heard, once declared that in establishing a
menagerie, one should have the indispensable lion, an _obligato_
elephant, a requisite tiger, an essential camel, and imperative monkeys.
One of the "indispensable lions" of Florence is the Boboli Gardens,
joining the Pitti Palace, which, from their careful preservation in their
original condition, give an admirable idea of what gardens were like in
an age when far more was thought of them than now as places of habitual
resort and enjoyment, and when they entered into all literature and life.
Abraham a Santa Clara once wrote a discourse against gardens, as making
life too happy or simple, basing his idea on the fact that sin originated
in the Garden of Eden.
The Boboli Gardens were planned by Il Tribolo for Cosimo di Medici. The
ground which they occupy is greatly varied, rising high in some places,
from which very beautiful views of Florence, with its "walls and
churches, palaces and towers," may be seen. Of their many attractions
the guide-book remarks poetically in very nearly the following words:--
"Its long-embowered walks, like lengthened arbours,
Are well adapted to the summer's sun;
While statues, terraces, and vases add
Still more unto its splendour. All around
We see attractive statues, and of these
A number really are restored antiques,
And many by good artists; best of all
Are four by mighty Michel Angelo,
Made for the second Julius, and meant
To decorate his tomb. You see them at
The angles of the grotto opposite
The entrance to the gardens. Of this grot
The famous Redi sang in verse grotesque:
"Ye satyrs, in a trice
Leave your low jests and verses rough and hobbly,
And bring me a good fragment of the ice
Kept in the grotto of the Garden Boboli.
With nicks and picks
Of hammers and sticks,
Disintegrate it
And separate it,
Break it and split it,
Splinter and slit it!
Till at the end 'tis fairly ground and rolled
Into the finest powder, freezing cold."
There are also, among the things worth seeing, the Venus by Giovanni of
Boulogne (called di Bologna); the Apollo and Ceres by Baccio Bandinelli;
the group of Paris carrying off Helen by V. de' Rossi, and the old Roman
fountain-bath and obelisk. The trees and flowers, shrubbery and
_boschetti_, are charming; and if the reader often visits them, long
sitting in the sylvan shade on sunny days, he will not fail to feel that
strange enchantment which seems to haunt certain places, and people them
with dreams, if not with elves.
The fascination of these dark arbours old, and of the antique gardens,
has been recognised by many authors, and there are, I suppose, few
visitors to Florence who have not felt it and recalled it years after in
distant lands as one recalls a dream. Therefore, I read with interest or
sympathy the following, which, though amounting to nothing as a legend,
is still valuable as setting forth the fascination of the place, and how
it dates even from him who gave the Boboli Gardens their name: