_The Palazzo Vecchio--The Piazza della Signoria--The Uffizi_
"Ecco il Palagio de' Signori si bello
che chi cercasse tutto l'universo,
non credo ch'e trovasse par di quello."
--_Antonio Pucci._
[Illustration: THE PALAZZO VECCHIO]
At the eastern corner of the Piazza della Signoria--that great square
over which almost all the history of Florence may be said to have
passed--rises the Palazzo Vecchio, with its great projecting parapets
and its soaring tower: the old Palace of the Signoria, originally the
Palace of the Priors, and therefore of the People. It is often stated
that the square battlements of the Palace itself represent the Guelfs,
while the forked battlements of the tower are in some mysterious way
connected with the Ghibellines, who can hardly be said to have still
existed as a real party in the city when they were built; there is, it
appears, absolutely no historical foundation for this legend. The
Palace was commenced by Arnolfo di Cambio in 1298, when, in
consequence of the hostility between the magnates and the people, it
was thought that the Priors were not sufficiently secure in the Palace
of the Cerchi; and it may be taken to represent the whole course of
Florentine history, from this government of the Secondo Popolo,
through Savonarola's Republic and the Medicean despotism, down to the
unification of Italy. Its design and essentials, however, are
Arnolfo's and the people's, though many later architects, besides
Vasari, have had their share in the completion of the present
building. Arnolfo founded the great tower of the Priors upon an older
tower of a family of magnates, the Foraboschi, and it was also known
as the Torre della Vacca. When, in those fierce democratic days, its
great bell rang to summon a Parliament in the Piazza, or to call the
companies of the city to arms, it was popularly said that "the cow"
was lowing. The upper part of the tower belongs to the fifteenth
century. Stupendous though the Palazzo is, it would have been of
vaster proportions but for the prohibition given to Arnolfo to raise
the house of the Republic where the dwellings of the Uberti had once
stood--_ribelli di Firenze e Ghibellini_. Not even the heroism of
Farinata could make this stern people less "fierce against my kindred
in all its laws," as that great Ghibelline puts it to Dante in the
_Inferno_.
The present steps and platform in front of the Palace are only the
remnants of the famous Ringhiera constructed here in the fourteenth
century, and removed in 1812. On it the Signoria used to meet to
address the crowd in the Piazza, or to enter upon their term of
office. Here, at one time, the Gonfaloniere received the Standard of
the People, and here, at a somewhat later date, the batons of command
were given to the condottieri who led the mercenaries in the pay of
the Republic. Here the famous meeting took place at which the Duke of
Athens was acclaimed _Signore a vita_ by the mob; and here, a few
months later, his Burgundian followers thrust out the most unpopular
of his agents to be torn to pieces by the besiegers. Here the Papal
Commissioners and the Eight sat on the day of Savonarola's martyrdom,
as told in the last chapter.
The inscription over the door, with the monogram of Christ, was
placed here by the Gonfaloniere Niccolo Capponi in February 1528, in
the last temporary restoration of the Republic; it originally
announced that Jesus Christ had been chosen King of the Florentine
People, but was modified by Cosimo I. The huge marble group of
Hercules and Cacus on the right, by Baccio Bandinelli, is an atrocity;
in Benvenuto Cellini's autobiography there is a rare story of how he
and Baccio wrangled about it in the Duke's presence, on which occasion
Bandinelli was stung into making a foul--but probably true--accusation
against Cellini, which might have had serious consequences. The
Marzocco on the left, the emblematical lion of Florence, is a copy
from Donatello.
The court is the work of Michelozzo, commenced in 1434, on the return
of the elder Cosimo from exile. The stucco ornamentations and
grotesques were executed in 1565, on the occasion of the marriage of
Francesco dei Medici, son of Cosimo I., with Giovanna of Austria; the
faded frescoes are partly intended to symbolise the ducal exploits,
partly views of Austrian cities in compliment to the bride. The bronze
boy with a dolphin, on the fountain in the centre of the court, was
made by Andrea Verrocchio for Lorenzo the Magnificent; it is an
exquisite little work, full of life and motion--"the little boy who
for ever half runs and half flits across the courtyard of the Palace,
while the dolphin ceaselessly struggles in the arms, whose pressure
sends the water spurting from the nostrils."[27]
[27] Mr Armstrong in his _Lorenzo de' Medici_.
On the first floor is the _Sala del Consiglio Grande_, frequently
called the _Salone dei Cinquecento_. It was mainly constructed in 1495
by Simone del Pollaiuolo, called Cronaca from his capacity of telling
endless stories about Fra Girolamo. Here the Greater Council met,
which the Friar declared was the work of God and not of man. And here
it was that, in a famous sermon preached before the Signoria and chief
citizens on August 20th, 1496, he cried: "I want no hats, no mitres
great or small; nought would I have save what Thou hast given to Thy
saints--death; a red hat, a hat of blood--this do I desire." It was
supposed that the Pope had offered to make him a cardinal. In this
same hall on the evening of May 22nd, 1498, the evening before their
death, Savonarola was allowed an hour's interview with his two
companions; it was the first time that they had met since their
arrest, and in the meanwhile Savonarola had been told that the others
had recanted, and Domenico and Silvestro had been shown what purported
to be their master's confession, seeming, in part at least, to abjure
the cause for which Fra Domenico was yearning to shed his blood. A few
years later, in 1503, the Gonfaloniere Piero Soderini intrusted the
decoration of these walls to Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo; and
it was then that this hall, so consecrated to liberty, became _la
scuola del mondo_, the school of all the world in art; and Raphael
himself was among the most ardent of its scholars. Leonardo drew his
famous scene of the Battle of the Standard, and appears to have
actually commenced painting on the wall. Michelangelo sketched the
cartoon of a group of soldiers bathing in the Arno, suddenly surprised
by the sound of the trumpet calling them to arms; but he did not
proceed any further. These cartoons played the same part in the art of
the Cinquecento as Masaccio's Carmine frescoes in that of the
preceding century; it is the universal testimony of contemporaries
that they were the supremely perfect works of the Renaissance. Vasari
gives a full description of each--but no traces of the original works
now remain. One episode from Leonardo's cartoon is preserved in an
engraving by Edelinck after a copy, which is hardly likely to have
been a faithful one, by Rubens; and there is an earlier engraving as
well. A few figures are to be seen in a drawing at Venice, doubtfully
ascribed to Raphael. Drawings and engravings of Michelangelo's
soldiers have made a portion of his composition familiar--enough at
least to make the world realise something of the extent of its loss.
On the restoration of the Medici in 1512, the hall was used as a
barracks for their foreign soldiers; and Vasari accuses Baccio
Bandinelli of having seized the opportunity to destroy Michelangelo's
cartoon--which hardly seems probable. The frescoes which now cover the
walls are by Vasari and his school, the statues of the Medici partly
by Bandinelli, whilst that of Fra Girolamo is modern. It was in this
hall that the first Parliament of United Italy met, during the short
period when Florence was the capital. The adjoining rooms, called
after various illustrious members of the Medicean family, are adorned
with pompous uninspiring frescoes of their exploits by Vasari; in the
Salotto di Papa Clemente there is a representation of the siege of
Florence by the papal and imperial armies, which gives a fine idea of
the magnitude of the third walls of the city, Arnolfo's walls, though
even then the towers had been in part shortened.
On the second floor, the hall prettily known as the Sala dei Gigli
contains some frescoes by Domenico Ghirlandaio, executed about 1482.
They represent St Zenobius in his majesty, enthroned between Eugenius
and Crescentius, with Roman heroes as it were in attendance upon this
great patron of the Florentines. In a lunette, painted in imitation of
bas-relief, there is a peculiarly beautiful Madonna and Child with
Angels, also by Domenico Ghirlandaio. This room is sometimes called
the Sala del Orologio, from a wonderful old clock that once stood
here. The following room, into which a door with marble framework by
Benedetto da Maiano leads, is the audience chamber of the Signoria; it
was originally to have been decorated by Ghirlandaio, Botticelli,
Perugino, and Filippino Lippi--but the present frescoes are by
Salviati in the middle of the sixteenth century. Here, on the fateful
day of the _Cimento_ or Ordeal, the two Franciscans, Francesco da
Puglia and Giuliano Rondinelli, consulted with the Priors and then
passed into the Chapel to await the event. Beyond is the Priors'
Chapel, dedicated to St Bernard and decorated with frescoes in
imitation of mosaic by Ridolfo Ghirlandaio (Domenico's son). Here on
the morning of his martyrdom Savonarola said Mass, and, before
actually communicating, took the Host in his hands and uttered his
famous prayer:--
"Lord, I know that Thou art that very God, the Creator of the world
and of human nature. I know that Thou art that perfect, indivisible
and inseparable Trinity, distinct in three Persons, Father, Son, and
Holy Ghost. I know that Thou art that Eternal Word, who didst descend
from Heaven to earth in the womb of the Virgin Mary. Thou didst ascend
the wood of the Cross to shed Thy precious Blood for us, miserable
sinners. I pray Thee, my Lord; I pray Thee, my Salvation; I pray Thee,
my Consoler; that such precious Blood be not shed for me in vain, but
may be for the remission of all my sins. For these I crave Thy pardon,
from the day that I received the water of Holy Baptism even to this
moment; and I confess to Thee, Lord, my guilt. And so I crave pardon
of Thee for what offence I have done to this city and all this people,
in things spiritual and temporal, as well as for all those things
wherein of myself I am not conscious of having erred. And humbly do I
crave pardon of all those persons who are here standing round. May
they pray to God for me, and may He make me strong up to the last end,
so that the enemy may have no power over me. Amen."
Beyond the Priors' chapel are the apartments of Duke Cosimo's Spanish
wife, Eleonora of Toledo, with a little chapel decorated by Bronzino.
It was in these rooms that the Duchess stormed at poor Benvenuto
Cellini, when he passed through to speak with the Duke--as he tells us
in his autobiography. Benvenuto had an awkward knack of suddenly
appearing here whenever the Duke and Duchess were particularly busy;
but their children were hugely delighted at seeing him, and little Don
Garzia especially used to pull him by the cloak and "have the most
pleasant sport with me that such a _bambino_ could have."
A room in the tower, discovered in 1814, is supposed to be the
Alberghettino, in which the elder Cosimo was imprisoned in 1433, and
in which Savonarola passed his last days--save when he was brought down
to the Bargello to be tortured. Here the Friar wrote his meditations
upon the _In te, Domine, speravi_ and the _Miserere_--meditations
which became famous throughout Christendom. The prayer, quoted above,
is usually printed as a pendant to the _Miserere_.
On the left of the palace, the great fountain with Neptune and his
riotous gods and goddesses of the sea, by Bartolommeo Ammanati and his
contemporaries, is a characteristic production of the later
Cinquecento. No less characteristic, though in another way, is the
equestrian statue in bronze of Cosimo I., as first Grand Duke of
Tuscany, by Giovanni da Bologna; the tyrant sits on his steed,
gloomily guarding the Palace and Piazza where he has finally
extinguished the last sparks of republican liberty. It was finished
in 1594, in the days of his son Ferdinand I., the third Grand Duke.
At the beginning of the Via Gondi, adjoining the custom-house and now
incorporated in the Palazzo Vecchio, was the palace of the Captain,
the residence of the Bargello and Executor of Justice. It was here
that the Pazzi conspirators were hung out of the windows in 1478; here
that Bernardo del Nero and his associates were beheaded in 1497; and
here, in the following year, the examination of Savonarola and his
adherents was carried on. Near here, too, stood in old times the
Serraglio, or den of the lions, which was also incorporated by Vasari
into the Palace; the Via del Leone, in which Vasari's rather fine
rustica facade stands, is named from them still.
The Piazza saw the Pisan captives forced ignominiously to kiss the
Marzocco in 1364, and to build the so-called Tetto dei Pisani, which
formerly stood on the west, opposite the Palace. In this Piazza, too,
the people assembled in parliament at the sounding of the great bell.
In the fifteenth century, this simply meant that whatever party in the
State desired to alter the government, in their own favour, occupied
the openings of the Piazza with troops; and the noisy rabble that
appeared on these occasions, to roar out their assent to whatever was
proposed, had but little connection with the real People of Florence.
Among the wildest scenes that this Piazza has witnessed were those
during the rising of the Ciompi in 1378, when again and again the
populace surged round the Palace with their banners and wild cries,
until the terrified Signoria granted their demands. Here, too, took
place Savonarola's famous burnings of the Vanities in Carnival time;
large piles of these "lustful things" were surmounted by allegorical
figures of King Carnival, or of Lucifer and the seven deadly sins,
and then solemnly fired; while the people sang the _Te Deum_, the
bells rang, and the trumpets and drums of the Signoria pealed out
their loudest. But sport of less serious kind went on here
too--tournaments and shows of wild beasts and the like--things that
the Florentines dearly loved, and in which their rulers found it
politic to fool them to the top of their bent. For instance, on June
25th, 1514, there was a _caccia_ of a specially magnificent kind; a
sort of glorified bull-fight, in which a fountain surrounded by green
woods was constructed in the middle of the Piazza, and two lions, with
bears and leopards, bulls, buffaloes, stags, horses, and the like were
driven into the arena. Enormous prices were paid for seats; foreigners
came from all countries, and four Roman cardinals were conspicuous,
including Raphael's Bibbiena, disguised as Spanish gentlemen. Several
people were killed by the beasts. It was always a sore point with the
Florentines that their lions were such unsatisfactory brutes and never
distinguished themselves on these occasions; they were no match for
your Spanish bull, at a time when, in politics, the bull's master had
yoked all Italy to his triumphal car.
The _Loggia dei Priori_, now called the _Loggia dei Lanzi_ after the
German lancers of Duke Cosimo who were stationed here, was originally
built for the Priors and other magistrates to exercise public
functions, with all the display that mediaeval republics knew so well
how to use. It is a kind of great open vaulted hall; a throne for a
popular government, as M. Reymond calls it. Although frequently known
as the Loggia of Orcagna, it was commenced in 1376 by Benci di Cione
and Simone Talenti, and is intermediate in style between Gothic and
Renaissance (in contrast to the pure Gothic of the Bigallo). The
sculptures above, frequently ascribed to Agnolo Gaddi and
representing the Virtues, are now assigned to Giovanni d'Ambrogio and
Jacopo di Piero, and were executed between 1380 and 1390. Among the
numerous statues that now stand beneath its roof (and which include
Giambologna's Rape of the Sabines) are two of the finest bronzes in
Florence: Donatello's _Judith and Holofernes_, cast for Cosimo the
elder, and originally in the Medicean Palace, but, on the expulsion of
the younger Piero, set up on the Ringhiera with the threatening
inscription: _exemplum Salutis Publicae_; and Benvenuto Cellini's
_Perseus with the head of Medusa_, cast in 1553 for the Grand Duke
Cosimo (then only Duke), and possibly intended as a kind of despotic
counter-blast to the Judith. The pedestal (with the exception of the
bas-relief in front, of which the original is in the Bargello) is also
Cellini's. Cellini gives us a rare account of the exhibiting of this
Perseus to the people, while the Duke himself lurked behind a window
over the door of the palace to hear what was said. He assures us that
the crowd gazed upon him--that is, the artist, not the statue--as
something altogether miraculous for having accomplished such a work,
and that two noblemen from Sicily accosted him as he walked in the
Piazza, with such ceremony as would have been too much even towards
the Pope. He took a holiday in honour of the event, sang psalms and
hymns the whole way out of Florence, and was absolutely convinced that
the _ne plus ultra_ of art had been reached.
But it is of Savonarola, and not of Benvenuto Cellini, that the Loggia
reminds us; for here was the scene of the _Cimento di Fuoco_, the
ordeal of fire, on April 7th, 1498. An immense crowd of men filled the
Piazza; women and children were excluded, but packed every inch of
windows, roofs, balconies. The streets and entrances were strongly
held by troops, while more were drawn up round the Palace under
Giovacchino della Vecchia. The platform bearing the intended pyre--a
most formidable death-trap, which was to be fired behind the champions
as soon as they were well within it--ran out from the Ringhiera
towards the centre of the Piazza. In spite of the strict proclamation
to armed men not to enter, Doffo Spini appeared with three hundred
Compagnacci, "all armed like Paladins," says Simone Filipepi,[28] "in
favour of the friars of St Francis." They entered the Piazza with a
tremendous uproar, and formed up under the Tetto dei Pisani, opposite
the Palace. Simone says that there was a pre-arranged plot, in virtue
of which they only waited for a sign from the Palace to cut the
Dominicans and their adherents to pieces. The Loggia was divided into
two parts, the half nearer the Palace assigned to the Franciscans, the
other, in which a temporary altar had been erected, to the Dominicans.
In front of the Loggia the sun flashed back from the armour of a
picked band of soldiers, under Marcuccio Salviati, apparently intended
as a counter demonstration to Doffo Spini and his young aristocrats.
The Franciscans were first on the field, and quietly took their
station. Their two champions entered the Palace, and were seen no more
during the proceedings. Then with exultant strains of the _Exsurgat
Deus_, the Dominicans slowly made their way down the Corso degli
Adimari and through the Piazza in procession, two and two. Their
fierce psalm was caught up and re-echoed by their adherents as they
passed. Preceded by a Crucifix, about two hundred of these black and
white "hounds of the Lord" entered the field of battle, followed by
Fra Domenico in a rich cope, and then Savonarola in full vestments
with the Blessed Sacrament, attended by deacon and sub-deacon. A band
of devout republican laymen, with candles and red crosses, brought up
the rear. Savonarola entered the Loggia, set the Sacrament on the
altar, and solemnly knelt in adoration.
[28] Botticelli's brother and an ardent Piagnone, whose chronicle has
been recently discovered and published by Villari and Casanova. The
Franciscans were possibly sincere in the business, and mere tools in
the hands of the Compagnacci; they are not likely to have been privy
to the plot.
Then, while Fra Girolamo stood firm as a column, delay after delay
commenced. The Dominican's cope might be enchanted, or his robe too
for the matter of that, so Domenico was hurried into the Palace and
his garments changed. The two Franciscan stalwarts remained in the
Priors' chapel. In the meanwhile a storm passed over the city. A rush
of the Compagnacci and populace towards the Loggia was driven back by
Salviati's guard. Domenico returned with changed garments, and stood
among the Franciscans; stones hurtled about him; he would enter the
fire with the Crucifix--this was objected to; then with the
Sacrament--this was worse. Domenico was convinced that he would pass
through the ordeal scathless, and that the Sacrament would not protect
him if his cause were not just; but he was equally convinced that it
was God's will that he should not enter the fire without it. Evening
fell in the midst of the wrangling, and at last the Signoria ordered
both parties to go home. Only the efforts of Salviati and his soldiery
saved Savonarola and Domenico from being torn to pieces at the hands
of the infuriated mob, who apparently concluded that they had been
trifled with. "As the Father Fra Girolamo issued from the Loggia with
the Most Holy Sacrament in his hands," says Simone Filipepi, who was
present, "and Fra Domenico with his Crucifix, the signal was given
from the Palace to Doffo Spini to carry out his design; but he, as it
pleased God, would do nothing." The Franciscans of Santa Croce were
promised an annual subsidy of sixty pieces of silver for their share
in the day's work: "Here, take the price of the innocent blood you
have betrayed," was their greeting when they came to demand it.
In after years, Doffo Spini was fond of gossiping with Botticelli and
his brother, Simone Filipepi, and made no secret of his intention of
killing Savonarola on this occasion. Yet, of all the Friar's
persecutors, he was the only one that showed any signs of penitence
for what he had done. "On the ninth day of April, 1503," writes Simone
in his Chronicle, "as I, Simone di Mariano Filipepi, was leaving my
house to go to vespers in San Marco, Doffo Spini, who was in the
company of Bartolommeo di Lorenzo Carducci, saluted me. Bartolommeo
turned to me, and said that Fra Girolamo and the Piagnoni had spoilt
and undone the city; whereupon many words passed between him and me,
which I will not set down here. But Doffo interposed, and said that he
had never had any dealings with Fra Girolamo, until the time when, as
a member of the Eight, he had to examine him in prison; and that, if
he had heard Fra Girolamo earlier and had been intimate with him,
'even as Simone here'--turning to me--'I would have been a more ardent
partisan of his than even Simone, for nothing save good was ever seen
in him even unto his death.'"
THE UFFIZI
Beyond the Palazzo Vecchio, between the Piazza and the Arno, stands
the Palazzo degli Uffizi, which Giorgio Vasari reared in the third
quarter of the sixteenth century, for Cosimo I. It contains the
Archives, the Biblioteca Nazionale (which includes the Palatine and
Magliabecchian Libraries, and, like all similar institutions in
Italy, is generously thrown open to all comers without reserve), and,
above all, the great picture gallery commenced by the Grand Dukes,
usually simply known as the Uffizi and now officially the Galleria
Reale degli Uffizi, which, together with its continuation in the Pitti
Palace across the river, is undoubtedly the finest collection of
pictures in the world.
[Illustration: LOOKING THROUGH VASARI'S LOGGIA, UFFIZI]
Leaving the double lines of illustrious Florentines, men great in the
arts of war and peace, in their marble niches watching over the
pigeons who throng the Portico, we ascend to the picture gallery by
the second door to the left.[29]
[29] The following notes make no pretence at furnishing a catalogue,
but are simply intended to indicate the more important Italian
pictures, especially the principal masterpieces of, or connected with
the Florentine school.
RITRATTI DEI PITTORI--PRIMO CORRIDORE.
On the way up, four rooms on the right contain the Portraits of the
Painters, many of them painted by themselves. In the further room,
Filippino Lippi by himself, fragment of a fresco (286). Raphael (288)
at the age of twenty-three, with his spiritual, almost feminine
beauty, painted by himself at Urbino during his Florentine period,
about 1506. This is Raphael before the worldly influence of Rome had
fallen upon him, the youth who came from Urbino and Perugia to the
City of the Lilies with the letter of recommendation from Urbino's
Duchess to Piero Soderini, to sit at the feet of Leonardo and
Michelangelo, and wander with Fra Bartolommeo through the cloisters of
San Marco. Titian (384), "in which he appears, painted by himself, on
the confines of old age, vigorous and ardent still, fully conscious,
moreover, though without affectation, of pre-eminent genius and
supreme artistic rank" (Mr C. Phillips). Tintoretto, by himself (378);
Andrea del Sarto, by himself (1176); a genuine portrait of
Michelangelo (290), but of course not by himself; Rubens, by himself
(228). An imaginary portrait of Leonardo da Vinci (292), of a much
later period, may possibly preserve some tradition of the "magician's"
appearance; the Dosso Dossi is doubtful; those of Giorgione and
Bellini are certainly apocryphal. In the second room are two portraits
of Rembrandt by himself. In the third room Angelica Kauffmann and
Vigee Le Brun are charming in their way. In the fourth room, English
visitors cannot fail to welcome several of their own painters of the
nineteenth century, including Mr Watts.
Passing the Medicean busts at the head of the stairs, the famous Wild
Boar and the two Molossian Hounds, we enter the first or eastern
corridor, containing paintings of the earlier masters, mingled with
ancient busts and sarcophagi. The best specimens of the Giotteschi are
an Agony in the Garden (8), wrongly ascribed to Giotto himself; an
Entombment (27), ascribed to a Giotto di Stefano, called Giottino, a
painter of whom hardly anything but the nickname is known; an
Annunciation (28), ascribed to Agnolo Gaddi; and an altar-piece by
Giovanni da Milano (32). There are some excellent early Sienese
paintings; a Madonna and Child with Angels, by Pietro Lorenzetti,
1340 (15); the Annunciation, by Simone Martini and Lippo Memmi (23); and
a very curious picture of the Hermits of the Thebaid (16), a kind of
devout fairy-land painted possibly by one of the Lorenzetti, in the
spirit of those delightfully naive _Vite del Santi Padri_. Lorenzo
Monaco, or Don Lorenzo, a master who occupies an intermediate position
between the Giotteschi and the Quattrocento, is represented by the
Mystery of the Passion (40), a symbolical picture painted in 1404, of a
type that Angelico brought to perfection in a fresco in San Marco; the
Adoration of the Magi (39, the scenes in the frame by a later hand),
and Madonna and Saints (41). The portrait of Giovanni dei Medici (43)
is by an unknown hand of the Quattrocento. Paolo Uccello's Battle (52)
is mainly a study in perspective. The Annunciation (53), by Neri di
Bicci di Lorenzo, is a fair example of one of the least progressive
painters of the Quattrocento. The pictures by Alessio Baldovinetti (56
and 60) and Cosimo Rosselli (63 and 65) are tolerable examples of
very uninteresting fifteenth century masters. The allegorical figures
of the Virtues (69-73), ascribed to Piero Pollaiuolo, are second-rate;
and the same may be said of an Annunciation (such is the real subject
of 81) and the Perseus and Andromeda pictures (85, 86, 87) by Piero di
Cosimo. But the real gem of this corridor is the Madonna and
Child (74), which Luca Signorelli painted for Lorenzo dei Medici, a
picture which profoundly influenced Michelangelo; the splendidly
modelled nude figures of men in the background transport us into the
golden age.
TRIBUNA.
The famous Tribuna is supposed to contain the masterpieces of the
whole collection, though the lover of the Quattrocento will naturally
seek his best-loved favourites elsewhere. Of the five ancient
sculptures in the centre of the hall the best is that of the crouching
barbarian slave, who is preparing his knife to flay Marsyas. It is a
fine work of the Pergamene school. The celebrated Venus dei Medici is
a typical Graeco-Roman work, the inscription at its base being a
comparatively modern forgery. It was formerly absurdly overpraised,
and is in consequence perhaps too much depreciated at the present day.
The remaining three--the Satyr, the Wrestlers, and the young
Apollo--have each been largely and freely restored.
Turning to the pictures, we have first the Madonna del
Cardellino (1129), painted by Raphael during his Florentine period when
under the influence of Fra Bartolommeo, in 1506 or thereabouts, and
afterwards much damaged and restored: still one of the most beautiful
of his early Madonnas. The St. John the Baptist (1127), ascribed to
Raphael, is only a school piece, though from a design of the
master's. The Madonna del Pozzo (1125), in spite of its hard and
over-smooth colouring, was at one time attributed to Raphael; its
ascription to Francia Bigio is somewhat conjectural. The portrait of a
Lady wearing a wreath (1123), and popularly called the Fornarina,
originally ascribed to Giorgione and later to Raphael, is believed to
be by Sebastiano del Piombo. Then come a lady's portrait, ascribed to
Raphael (1120); another by a Veronese master, erroneously ascribed to
Mantegna, and erroneously said to represent the Duchess Elizabeth of
Urbino (1121); Bernardino Luini's Daughter of Herodias (1135), a fine
study of a female Italian criminal of the Renaissance; Perugino's
portrait of Francesco delle Opere, holding a scroll inscribed _Timete
Deum_, an admirable picture painted in oils about the year 1494, and
formerly supposed to be a portrait of Perugino by himself (287);
portrait of Evangelista Scappa, ascribed to Francia (1124); and a
portrait of a man, by Sebastiano del Piombo (3458). Raphael's Pope
Julius II. (1131) is a grand and terrible portrait of the tremendous
warrior Pontiff, whom the Romans called a second Mars. Vasari says
that in this picture he looks so exactly like himself that "one
trembles before him as if he were still alive." Albert Duerer's
Adoration of the Magi (1141) and Lucas van Leyden's Mystery of the
Passion (1143) are powerful examples of the religious painting of the
North, that loved beauty less for its own sake than did the Italians.
The latter should be compared with similar pictures by Don Lorenzo and
Fra Angelico. Titian's portrait of the Papal Nuncio Beccadelli (1116),
painted in 1552, although a decidedly fine work, has been rather
overpraised.
Michelangelo's Holy Family (1139) is the only existing easel picture
that the master completed. It was painted for the rich merchant,
Angelo Doni (who haggled in a miserly fashion over the price and was
in consequence forced to pay double the sum agreed upon), about 1504,
in the days of the Gonfaloniere Soderini, when Michelangelo was
engaged upon the famous cartoon for the Sala del Maggior Consiglio.
Like Luca Signorelli, Michelangelo has introduced naked figures,
apparently shepherds, into his background. "In the Doni Madonna of the
Uffizi," writes Walter Pater, "Michelangelo actually brings the pagan
religion, and with it the unveiled human form, the sleepy-looking
fauns of a Dionysiac revel, into the presence of the Madonna, as
simpler painters had introduced other products of the earth, birds or
flowers; and he has given to that Madonna herself much of the uncouth
energy of the older and more primitive 'Mighty Mother.'" The painters
introduced into their pictures what they loved best, in earth or sky,
as votive offerings to the Queen of Heaven; and what Signorelli and
Michelangelo best loved was the human form. This is reflected in the
latter's own lines:--
Ne Dio, sua grazia, mi si mostra altrove,
piu che'n alcun leggiadro e mortal velo,
e quel sol amo, perche'n quel si specchia.
"Nor does God vouchsafe to reveal Himself to me anywhere more than in
some lovely mortal veil, and that alone I love, because He is mirrored
therein."
In the strongest possible contrast to Michelangelo's picture are the
two examples of the softest master of the Renaissance--Correggio's
Repose on the Flight to Egypt (1118), and his Madonna adoring the
Divine Child (1134). The former, with its rather out of place St.
Francis of Assisi, is a work of what is known as Correggio's
transition period, 1515-1518, after he had painted his earlier easel
pictures and before commencing his great fresco work at Parma; the
latter, a more characteristic picture, is slightly later and was given
by the Duke of Mantua to Cosimo II. The figures of Prophets by Fra
Bartolommeo (1130 and 1126), the side-wings of a picture now in the
Pitti Gallery, are not remarkable in any way. The Madonna and Child
with the Baptist and St. Sebastian (1122) is a work of Perugino's
better period.
There remain the two famous Venuses of Titian. The so-called Urbino
Venus (1117)--a motive to some extent borrowed, and slightly coarsened
in the borrowing, from Giorgione's picture at Dresden--is much the
finer of the two. It was painted for Francesco Maria della Rovere,
Duke of Urbino, and, although not a portrait of Eleonora Gonzaga, who
was then a middle-aged woman, it was certainly intended to conjure up
the beauty of her youth. What Eleonora really looked like at this
time, you can see in the first of the two Venetian rooms, where
Titian's portrait of her, painted at about the same date, hangs. The
Venus and Cupid (1108) is a later work; the goddess is the likeness of
a model who very frequently appears in the works of Titian and Palma.
SCUOLA TOSCANA.
On the left we pass out of the Tribuna to three rooms devoted to the
Tuscan school.
The first contains the smaller pictures, including several priceless
Angelicos and Botticellis. Fra Angelico's Naming of St. John (1162),
Marriage of the Blessed Virgin to St. Joseph (1178), and her Death
(1184), are excellent examples of his delicate execution and spiritual
expression in his smaller, miniature-like works. Antonio Pollaiuolo's
Labours of Hercules (1153) is one of the masterpieces of this most
uncompromising realist of the Quattrocento. Either by Antonio or his
brother Piero, is also the portrait of that monster of iniquity,
Galeazzo Maria Sforza, Duke of Milan (30). Sandro Botticelli's Calumny
(1182) is supposed to have been painted as a thankoffering to a friend
who had defended him from the assaults of slanderous tongues; it is a
splendid example of his dramatic intensity, the very statues in their
niches taking part in the action. The subject--taken from Lucian's
description of a picture by Apelles of Ephesus--was frequently painted
by artists of the Renaissance, and there is a most magnificent drawing
of the same by Andrea Mantegna at the British Museum, which was copied
by Rembrandt. On the judgment-seat sits a man with ears like those of
Midas, into which Ignorance and Suspicion on either side ever whisper.
Before him stands Envy,--a hideous, pale, and haggard man, seeming
wasted by some slow disease. He is making the accusation and leading
Calumny, a scornful Botticellian beauty, who holds in one hand a torch
and with the other drags her victim by the hair to the judge's feet.
Calumny is tended and adorned by two female figures, Artifice and
Deceit. But Repentance slowly follows, in black mourning habit; while
naked Truth--the Botticellian Venus in another form--raises her hand
in appeal to the heavens.
The rather striking portrait of a painter (1163) is usually supposed
to be Andrea Verrocchio, by Lorenzo di Credi, his pupil and successor;
Mr Berenson, however, considers that it is Perugino and by Domenico
Ghirlandaio. On the opposite wall are two very early Botticellis,
Judith returning from the camp of the Assyrians (1156) and the finding
of the body of Holofernes (1158), in a scale of colouring differing
from that of his later works. The former is one of those pictures
which have been illumined for us by Ruskin, who regards it as the only
picture that is true to Judith; "The triumph of Miriam over a fallen
host, the fire of exulting mortal life in an immortal hour, the purity
and severity of a guardian angel--all are here; and as her servant
follows, carrying indeed the head, but invisible--(a mere thing to be
carried--no more to be so much as thought of)--she looks only at her
mistress, with intense, servile, watchful love. Faithful, not in these
days of fear only, but hitherto in all her life, and afterwards for
ever." Walter Pater has read the picture in a different sense, and
sees in it Judith "returning home across the hill country, when the
great deed is over, and the moment of revulsion come, and the olive
branch in her hand is becoming a burden."
The portrait of Andrea del Sarto by himself (280) represents him in
the latter days of his life, and was painted on a tile in 1529, about
a year before his death, with some colours that remained over after he
had finished the portrait of one of the Vallombrosan monks; his wife
kept it by her until her death. The very powerful likeness of an old
man in white cap and gown (1167), a fresco ascribed to Masaccio, is
more probably the work of Filippino Lippi. The famous Head of Medusa
(1159) must be seen with grateful reverence by all lovers of English
poetry, for it was admired by Shelley and inspired him with certain
familiar and exceedingly beautiful stanzas; but as for its being a
work of Leonardo da Vinci, it is now almost universally admitted to be
a comparatively late forgery, to supply the place of the lost Medusa
of which Vasari speaks. The portrait (1157), also ascribed to
Leonardo, is better, but probably no more authentic. Here is a most
dainty little example of Fra Bartolommeo's work on a small scale
(1161), representing the Circumcision and the Nativity, with the
Annunciation in grisaille on the back. Botticelli's St. Augustine
(1179) is an early work, and, like the Judith, shows his artistic
derivation from Fra Lippo Lippi, to whom indeed it was formerly
ascribed. His portrait of Piero di Lorenzo dei Medici (1154), a
splendid young man in red cap and flowing dark hair, has been already
referred to in chapter iii.; it was formerly supposed to be a likeness
of Pico della Mirandola. It was painted before Piero's expulsion from
Florence, probably during the life-time of the Magnificent, and
represents him before he degenerated into the low tyrannical
blackguard of later years; he apparently wishes to appeal to the
memory of his great-grandfather Cosimo, whose medallion he holds, to
find favour with his unwilling subjects. The portraits of Duke
Cosimo's son and grandchild, Don Garzia and Donna Maria (1155 and
1164), by Bronzino, should be noted. Finally we have the famous
picture of Perseus freeing Andromeda, by Piero di Cosimo (1312). It is
about the best specimen of his fantastic conceptions to be seen in
Florence, and the monster itself is certainly a triumph of a somewhat
unhealthy imagination nourished in solitude on an odd diet.
In the second room are larger works of the great Tuscans. The
Adoration of the Magi (1252) is one of the very few authentic works of
Leonardo; it was one of his earliest productions, commenced in 1478,
and, like so many other things of his, never finished. The St.
Sebastian (1279) is one of the masterpieces of that wayward Lombard or
rather Piedmontese--although we now associate him with Siena--who
approached nearest of all to the art of Leonardo, Giovanni Antonio
Bazzi, known still as Sodoma. Ridolfo Ghirlandaio's Miracles of
Zenobius (1277 and 1275) are excellent works by a usually second-rate
master. The Visitation with its predella, by Mariotto Albertinelli
(1259), painted in 1503, is incomparably the greatest picture that Fra
Bartolommeo's wild friend and fellow student ever produced, and one in
which he most nearly approaches the best works of Bartolommeo himself.
"The figures, however," Morelli points out, "are less refined and
noble than those of the Frate, and the foliage of the trees is
executed with miniature-like precision, which is never the case in the
landscapes of the latter." Andrea del Sarto's genial and kindly St.
James with the orphans (1254), is one of his last works; it was
painted to serve as a standard in processions, and has consequently
suffered considerably. Bronzino's Descent of Christ into Hades (1271),
that "heap of cumbrous nothingnesses and sickening offensivenesses,"
as Ruskin pleasantly called it, need only be seen to be loathed. The
so-called Madonna delle Arpie, or our Lady of the Harpies, from the
figures on the pedestal beneath her feet (1112), is perhaps the finest
of all Andrea del Sarto's pictures; the Madonna is a highly idealised
likeness of his own wife Lucrezia, and some have tried to recognise
the features of the painter himself in the St. John:--
"You loved me quite enough, it seems to-night.
This must suffice me here. What would one have?
In heaven, perhaps, new chances, one more chance--
Four great walls in the New Jerusalem
Meted on each side by the Angel's reed,
For Leonard, Rafael, Agnolo and me
To cover--the three first without a wife,
While I have mine! So--still they overcome
Because there's still Lucrezia,--as I choose."
The full-length portrait of Cosimo the Elder (1267), the Pater
Patriae (so the flattery of the age hailed the man who said that a
city destroyed was better than a city lost), was painted by Pontormo
from some fifteenth century source, as a companion piece to his
portrait here of Duke Cosimo I. (1270). The admirable portrait of
Lorenzo the Magnificent by Vasari (1269) is similarly constructed from
contemporary materials, and is probably the most valuable thing that
Vasari has left to us in the way of painting. The unfinished picture
by Fra Bartolommeo (1265), representing our Lady enthroned with St.
Anne, the guardian of the Republic, watching over her and interceding
for Florence, while the patrons of the city gather round for her
defence, was intended for the altar in the Sala del Maggior Consiglio
of the Palazzo Vecchio; it is conceived in something of the same
spirit that made the last inheritors of Savonarola's tradition and
teaching fondly believe that Angels would man the walls of Florence,
rather than that she should again fall into the hands of her former
tyrants, the Medici. The great Madonna and Child with four Saints and
two Angels scattering flowers, by Filippino Lippi (1268), was painted
in 1485 for the room in the Palazzo Vecchio in which the Otto di
Pratica held their meetings. The Adoration of the Magi (1257), also by
Filippino Lippi, painted in 1496, apart from its great value as a work
of art, has a curious historical significance; the Magi and their
principal attendants, who are thus pushing forwards to display their
devotion to Our Lady of Florence and the Child whom the Florentines
were to elect their King, are the members of the younger branch of the
Medici, who have returned to the city now that Piero has been
expelled, and are waiting their chance. See how they have already
replaced the family of the elder Cosimo, who occupy this same
position in a similar picture painted some eighteen years before by
Sandro Botticelli, Filippino's master. At this epoch they had
ostentatiously altered their name of Medici and called themselves
Popolani, but were certainly intriguing against Fra Girolamo. The old
astronomer kneeling to our extreme left is the elder Piero Francesco,
watching the adventurous game for a throne that his children are
preparing; the most prominent figure in the picture, from whose head a
page is lifting the crown, is Pier Francesco's son, Giovanni, who will
soon woo Caterina Sforza, the lady of Forli, and make her the mother
of Giovanni delle Bande Nere; and the precious vessel which he is to
offer to the divine Child is handed to him by the younger Pier
Francesco, the father of Lorenzaccio, that "Tuscan Brutus" whose
dagger was to make Giovanni's grandson, Cosimo, the sole lord of
Florence and her empire.[30]
[30] See the Genealogical Table in Appendix. The elder Pier Francesco
was dead many years before this picture was painted. It was for his
other son, Lorenzo, that Sandro Botticelli drew his illustrations of
the _Divina Commedia_.
Granacci's Madonna of the Girdle (1280), over the door, formerly in
San Piero Maggiore, is a good example of a painter who imitated most
of his contemporaries and had little individuality. On easels in the
middle of the room are (3452) Venus, by Lorenzo di Credi, a
conscientious attempt to follow the fashion of the age and handle a
subject quite alien to his natural sympathies--for Lorenzo di Credi
was one of those who sacrificed their studies of the nude on
Savonarola's pyre of the Vanities; and (3436) an Adoration of the
Magi, a cartoon of Sandro Botticelli's, coloured by a later hand,
marvellously full of life in movement, intense and passionate, in
which--as though the painter anticipated the Reformation--the
followers of the Magi are fighting furiously with each other in their
desire to find the right way to the Stable of Bethlehem!
The third room of the Tuscan School contains some of the truest
masterpieces of the whole collection. The Epiphany, by Domenico
Ghirlandaio (1295), painted in 1487, is one of that prosaic master's
best easel pictures. The wonderful Annunciation (1288), in which the
Archangel has alighted upon the flowers in the silence of an Italian
twilight, with a mystical landscape of mountains and rivers, and
far-off cities in the background, may possibly be an early work of
Leonardo da Vinci, to whom it is officially assigned, but is ascribed
by contemporary critics to Leonardo's master, Andrea Verrocchio. The
least satisfactory passage is the rather wooden face and inappropriate
action of the Madonna; Leonardo would surely not have made her, on
receiving the angelic salutation, put her finger into her book to keep
the place. After Three Saints by one of the Pollaiuoli (1301) and two
smaller pictures by Lorenzo di Credi (1311 and 1313), we come to Piero
della Francesca's grand portraits of Federigo of Montefeltro, Duke of
Urbino, and his wife, Battista Sforza (1300); on the reverse, the Duke
and Duchess are seen in triumphal cars surrounded with allegorical
pageantry. Federigo is always, as here, represented in profile,
because he lost his right eye and had the bridge of his nose broken in
a tournament. The three predella scenes (1298) are characteristic
examples of the minor works of Piero's great pupil, Luca Signorelli of
Cortona.
On the opposite wall are four Botticellian pictures. The Magnificat
(1267 _bis_)--Sandro's most famous and familiar tondo--in which the
Madonna rather sadly writes the Magnificat, while Angels cluster round
to crown their Queen, to offer ink and book, or look into the thing
that she has written, while the Dove hovers above her, is full of the
haunting charm, the elusive mystery, the vague yearning, which makes
the fascination of Botticelli to-day. She already seems to be
anticipating the Passion of that Child--so unmistakably divine--who is
guiding her hand. The Madonna of the Pomegranate (1289) is a somewhat
similar, but less beautiful tondo; the Angel faces, who are said to be
idealised portraits of the Medicean children, have partially lost
their angelic look. The Fortitude (1299) is one of Sandro's earliest
paintings, and its authenticity has been questioned; she seems to be
dreading, almost shrinking from some great battle at hand, of which no
man can foretell the end. The Annunciation (1316) is rather
Botticellian in conception; but the colouring and execution generally
do not suggest the master himself. Antonio Pollaiuolo's Prudence
(1306) is a harsh companion to Sandro's Fortitude. The tondo (1291) of
the Holy Family, by Luca Signorelli, is one of his best works in this
kind; the colouring is less heavy than is usual with him, and the
Child is more divine. Of the two carefully finished Annunciations by
Lorenzo di Credi (1314, 1160), the latter is the earlier and finer.
Fra Filippo's little Madonna of the Sea (1307), with her happy
boy-like Angel attendants, is one of the monk's most attractive and
characteristic works; perhaps the best of all his smaller pictures.
And we have left to the last Fra Angelico's divinest dream of the
Coronation of the Madonna in the Empyrean Heaven of Heavens (1290),
amidst exultant throngs of Saints and Angels absorbed in the Beatific
Vision of Paradise. It is the pictorial equivalent of Bernard's most
ardent sermons on the Assumption of Mary and of the mystic musings of
John of Damascus. Here are "the Angel choirs of Angelico, with the
flames on their white foreheads waving brighter as they move, and the
sparkles streaming from their purple wings like the glitter of many
suns upon a sounding sea, listening in the pauses of alternate song,
for the prolonging of the trumpet blast, and the answering of psaltery
and cymbal, throughout the endless deep, and from all the star shores
of heaven."[31]
[31] _Modern Painters_, vol. ii.
SALA DI MAESTRI DIVERSI ITALIANI.
In the small room which opens out of the Tribune, on the opposite side
to these three Tuscan rooms, are two perfect little gems of more
northern Italian painting. Mantegna's Madonna of the Quarries (1025),
apart from its nobility of conception and grand austerity of
sentiment, is a positive marvel of minute drawing with the point of
the _pennello_. Every detail in the landscape, with the winding road
up to the city on the hill, the field labourers in the meadow, the
shepherds and travellers, on the left, and the stone-cutterss among
the caverns on the right, preparing stone for the sculptors and
architects of Florence and Rome, is elaborately rendered with
exquisite delicacy and finish. It was painted at Rome in 1488, while
Mantegna was working on his frescoes (now destroyed) for Pope Innocent
VIII. in a chapel of the Vatican. The other is a little Madonna and
Child with two Angels playing musical instruments, by Correggio
(1002), a most exquisite little picture in an almost perfect state of
preservation, formerly ascribed to Titian, but entirely characteristic
of Correggio's earliest period when he was influenced by Mantegna and
the Ferrarese.
Beyond are the Dutch, Flemish, German, and French pictures which do
not come into our present scope--though they include several excellent
works as, notably, a little Madonna by Hans Memlinc and two Apostles
by Albert Duerer. The cabinet of the gems contains some of the
treasures left by the Medicean Grand Dukes, including work by Cellini
and Giovanni da Bologna.
SCUOLA VENETA.
Crossing the short southern corridor, with some noteworthy ancient
sculptury, we pass down the long western corridor. Out of this open
first the two rooms devoted to the Venetian school. In the first, to
seek the best only, are Titian's portraits of Francesco Maria della
Rovere, third Duke of Urbino, and Eleonora Gonzaga, his duchess (605
and 599), painted in 1537. A triptych by Mantegna (1111)--the
Adoration of the Kings, between the Circumcision and the Ascension--is
one of the earlier works of the great Paduan master; the face of the
Divine Child in the Circumcision is marvellously painted. The Madonna
by the Lake by Giovanni Bellini (631), also called the Allegory of the
Tree of Life, is an exceedingly beautiful picture, one of Bellini's
later works. Titian's Flora (626), an early work of the master,
charming in its way, has been damaged and rather overpraised. In the
second room, are three works by Giorgione; the Judgment of Solomon and
the Ordeal of Moses (630 and 621), with their fantastic costumes and
poetically conceived landscapes, are very youthful works indeed; the
portrait of a Knight of Malta (622) is more mature, and one of the
noblest of Venetian portraits. Florence thus possesses more authentic
works of this wonderful, almost mythical, Venetian than does Venice
herself. Here, too, is usually--except when it is in request
elsewhere for the copyist--Titian's Madonna and Child with the boy
John Baptist, and the old Antony Abbot, leaning on his staff and
watching the flower play (633)--the most beautiful of Titian's early
Giorgionesque Madonnas.
[Illustration: VENUS
BY SANDRO BOTTICELLI]
SALA DI LORENZO MONACO.
The following passage leads to the Sala di Lorenzo Monaco, the room
which bears the name of the austere monk of Camaldoli, and, hallowed
by the presence of Fra Angelico's Madonna, seems at times almost to
re-echo still with the music of the Angel choir; but to which the
modern worshipper turns to adore the Venus of the Renaissance rising
from the Sea. For here is Sandro Botticelli's famous Birth of Venus
(39), the most typical picture of the Quattrocento, painted for
Lorenzo dei Medici and in part inspired by certain lines of Angelo
Poliziano. But let all description be left to the golden words of
Walter Pater in his _Renaissance_:--
"At first, perhaps, you are attracted only by a quaintness of design,
which seems to recall all at once whatever you have read of Florence
in the fifteenth century; afterwards you may think that this
quaintness must be incongruous with the subject, and that the colour
is cadaverous or at least cold. And yet, the more you come to
understand what imaginative colouring really is, that all colour is no
mere delightful quality of natural things, but a spirit upon them by
which they become expressive to the spirit, the better you will like
this peculiar quality of colour; and you will find that quaint design
of Botticelli's a more direct inlet into the Greek temper than the
works of the Greeks themselves, even of the finest period. Of the
Greeks as they really were, of their difference from ourselves, of
the aspects of their outward life, we know far more than Botticelli,
or his most learned contemporaries; but for us long familiarity has
taken off the edge of the lesson, and we are hardly conscious of what
we owe to the Hellenic spirit. But in pictures like this of
Botticelli's you have a record of the first impression made by it on
minds turned back towards it, in almost painful aspiration, from a
world in which it had been ignored so long; and in the passion, the
energy, the industry of realisation, with which Botticelli carries out
his intention, is the exact measure of the legitimate influence over
the human mind of the imaginative system of which this is the central
myth. The light is indeed cold--mere sunless dawn; but a later painter
would have cloyed you with sunshine; and you can see the better for
that quietness in the morning air each long promontory, as it slopes
down to the water's edge. Men go forth to their labours until the
evening; but she is awake before them, and you might think that the
sorrow in her face was at the thought of the whole long day of love
yet to come. An emblematical figure of the wind blows hard across the
grey water, moving forward the dainty-lipped shell on which she sails,
the sea 'showing his teeth' as it moves in thin lines of foam, and
sucking in, one by one, the falling roses, each severe in outline,
plucked off short at the stalk, but embrowned a little, as
Botticelli's flowers always are. Botticelli meant all that imagery to
be altogether pleasurable; and it was partly an incompleteness of
resources, inseparable from the art of that time, that subdued and
chilled it; but his predilection for minor tones counts also; and what
is unmistakable is the sadness with which he has conceived the goddess
of pleasure, as the depositary of a great power over the lives of
men."
In this same room are five other masterpieces of early Tuscan
painting. Don Lorenzo's Coronation of the Madonna (1309), though
signed and dated 1413, may be regarded as the last great altar-piece
of the school of Giotto and his followers. It has been terribly
repainted. The presence in the most prominent position of St. Benedict
and St. Romuald in their white robes shows that it was painted for a
convent of Camaldolese monks. The predella, representing the Adoration
of the Magi and scenes from the life of St. Benedict, includes a very
sweet little picture of the last interview of the saint with his
sister Scholastica, when, in answer to her prayers, God sent such a
storm that her brother, although unwilling to break his monastic rule,
was forced to spend the night with her. "I asked you a favour," she
told him, "and you refused it me; I asked it of Almighty God, and He
has granted it to me." In Browning's poem, Don Lorenzo is one of the
models specially recommended to Lippo Lippi by his superiors:--
"You're not of the true painters, great and old;
Brother Angelico's the man, you'll find;
Brother Lorenzo stands his single peer;
Fag on at flesh, you'll never make the third."
The Madonna and Child with St. Francis and St. John Baptist, St.
Zenobius and St. Lucy (1305), is one of the very few authentic works
by Domenico Veneziano, one of the great innovators in the painting of
the fifteenth century.
Sandro Botticelli's Adoration of the Magi (1286), painted for Santa
Maria Novella, is enthusiastically praised by Vasari. It is not a very
characteristic work of the painter's, but contains admirable portraits
of the Medici and their court. The first king, kneeling up alone
before the Divine Child, is Cosimo the Elder himself, according to
Vasari, "the most faithful and animated likeness of all now known to
exist of him"; the other two kings are his two sons, Piero il Gottoso
in the centre, Giovanni di Cosimo on the right. The black-haired youth
with folded hands, standing behind Giovanni, is Giuliano, who fell in
the Pazzi conspiracy. On the extreme left, standing with his hands
resting upon the hilt of his sword, is Lorenzo the Magnificent, who
avenged Giuliano's death; behind Lorenzo, apparently clinging to him
as though in anticipation or recollection of the conspiracy, is Angelo
Poliziano. The rather sullen-looking personage, with a certain dash of
sensuality about him, on our extreme right, gazing out of the picture,
is Sandro himself. This picture, which was probably painted slightly
before or shortly after the murder of Giuliano, has been called "the
Apotheosis of the Medici"; it should be contrasted with the very
different Nativity, now in the National Gallery, which Sandro painted
many years later, in 1500, and which is full of the mystical
aspirations of the disciples of Savonarola.
The Madonna and Child with Angels, two Archangels standing guard and
two Bishops kneeling in adoration (1297), is a rich and attractive
work by Domenico Ghirlandaio. Fra Angelico's Tabernacle (17), Madonna
and Child with the Baptist and St. Mark, and the famous series of
much-copied Angels, was painted for the Guild of Flax-merchants, whose
patron was St. Mark. The admirable Predella (1294) represents St. Mark
reporting St. Peter's sermons, and St. Mark's martyrdom, together with
the Adoration of the Magi.
* * * * *
Passing down the corridor, we come to the entrance to the passage
which leads across the Ponte Vecchio to the Pitti Palace. There are
some fine Italian engravings on the way down. The halls of the
Inscriptions and Cameos contain ancient statues as well, including the
so-called dying Alexander, and some of those so over-praised by
Shelley. Among the pictures in the Sala del Baroccio, is a very genial
lady with a volume of Petrarch's sonnets, by Andrea del Sarto (188).
Here, too, are some excellent portraits by Bronzino; a lady with a
missal (198); a rather pathetic picture of Eleonora of Toledo, the
wife of Cosimo I., with Don Garzia--the boy with whom Cellini used to
romp (172); Bartolommeo Panciatichi (159); Lucrezia Panciatichi (154),
a peculiarly sympathetic rendering of an attractive personality.
Sustermans' Galileo (163) is also worth notice. The Duchess Eleonora
died almost simultaneously with her sons, Giovanni and Garzia, in
1562, and there arose in consequence a legend that Garzia had murdered
Giovanni, and had, in his turn, been killed by his own father, and
that Eleonora had either also been murdered by the Duke or died of
grief. Like many similar stories of the Medicean princes, this appears
to be entirely fictitious.
The Hall of Niobe contains the famous series of statues representing
the destruction of Niobe and her children at the hands of Apollo and
Artemis. They are Roman or Graeco-Roman copies of a group assigned by
tradition to the fourth century B.C., and which was brought from Asia
Minor to Rome in the year 35 B.C. The finest of these statues is that
of Niobe's son, the young man who is raising his cloak upon his arm as
a shield; he was originally protecting a sister, who, already pierced
by the fatal arrow, leaned against his knee as she died.
In a room further on there is an interesting series of miniature
portraits of the Medici, from Giovanni di Averardo to the family of
Duke Cosimo. Six of the later ones are by Bronzino.
At the end of the corridor, by Baccio Bandinelli's copy of the
Laocooen, are three rooms containing the drawings and sketches of the
Old Masters. It would take a book as long as the present to deal
adequately with them. Many of the Florentine painters, who were always
better draughtsmen than they were colourists, are seen to much greater
advantage in their drawings than in their finished pictures. Besides a
most rich collection of the early men and their successors, from
Angelico to Bartolommeo, there are here several of Raphael's cartoons
for Madonnas and two for his St. George and the Dragon; many of the
most famous and characteristic drawings of Leonardo da Vinci (and it
is from his drawings alone that we can now get any real notion of this
"Magician of the Renaissance"); and some important specimens of
Michelangelo. Here, too, is Andrea Mantegna's terrible Judith,
conceived in the spirit of some Roman heroine, which once belonged to
Vasari and was highly valued by him. It is dated 1491, and should be
compared with Botticelli's rendering of the same theme.