_The Baptistery, the Campanile, and the Duomo_
"There the traditions of faith and hope, of both the Gentile and
Jewish races, met for their beautiful labour: the Baptistery of
Florence is the last building raised on the earth by the
descendants of the workmen taught by Daedalus: and the Tower of
Giotto is the loveliest of those raised on earth under the
inspiration of the men who lifted up the tabernacle in the
wilderness. Of living Greek work there is none after the
Florentine Baptistery; of living Christian work, none so perfect
as the Tower of Giotto."--_Ruskin._
"Il non mai abbastanza lodato tempio di Santa Maria del
Fiore."--_Vasari._
To the west of the Piazza del Duomo stands the octagonal building of
black and white marble--"_l'antico vostro Batisteo_" as Cacciaguida
calls it to Dante--which, in one shape or another, may be said to have
watched over the history of Florence from the beginning. "It is," says
Ruskin, "the central building of Etrurian Christianity--of European
Christianity." Here, in old pagan times, stood the Temple of Mars,
with the shrine and sanctuary of the God of War. This was the
Cathedral of Florence during a portion at least of the early history
of the Republic, before the great Gothic building rose that now
overshadows it to the east.
Villani and other early writers all suppose that this present building
really was the original Temple of Mars, converted into a church for
St. John the Baptist. Villani tells us that, after the founding of
Florence by Julius Caesar and other noble Romans, the citizens of this
new Rome decided to erect a marvellous temple to the honour of Mars,
in thanksgiving for the victory which the Romans had won over the city
of Fiesole; and for this purpose the Senate sent them the best and
most subtle masters that there were in Rome. Black and white marble
was brought by sea and then up the Arno, with columns of various
sizes; stone and other columns were taken from Fiesole, and the temple
was erected in the place where the Etruscans of Fiesole had once held
their market:--
"Right noble and beauteous did they make it with eight faces, and when
they had done it with great diligence, they consecrated it to their
god Mars, who was the god of the Romans; and they had him carved in
marble, in the shape of a knight armed on horseback. They set him upon
a marble column in the midst of that temple, and him did they hold in
great reverence and adored as their god, what time Paganism lasted in
Florence. And we find that the said temple was commenced at the time
that Octavian Augustus reigned, and that it was erected under the
ascendency of such a constellation that it will last well nigh to
eternity."
There is much difference of opinion as to the real date of
construction of the present building. While some authorities have
assigned it to the eleventh or even to the twelfth century, others
have supposed that it is either a Christian temple constructed in the
sixth century on the site of the old Temple of Mars, or the original
Temple converted into Christian use. It has indeed been recently urged
that it is essentially a genuine Roman work of the fourth century,
very analogous in structure to the Pantheon at Rome, on the model of
which it was probably built. The little apse to the south-west--the
part which contains the choir and altar--is certainly of the twelfth
century. There was originally a round opening at the centre of the
dome--like the Pantheon--and under this opening, according to Villani,
the statue of Mars stood. It was closed in the twelfth century. The
dome served Brunelleschi as a model for the cupola of Santa Maria del
Fiore. The lantern was added in the sixteenth century. Although this
building, so sacrosanct to the Florentines, had been spared by the
Goths and Lombards, it narrowly escaped destruction at the hands of
the Tuscan Ghibellines. In 1249, when the Ghibellines, with the aid of
the Emperor Frederick II., had expelled the Guelfs, the conquerors
endeavoured to destroy the Baptistery by means of the tower called the
Guardamorto, which stood in the Piazza towards the entrance of the
Corso degli Adimari, and watched over the tombs of the dead citizens
who were buried round San Giovanni. This device of making the tower
fall upon the church failed. "As it pleased God," writes Villani,
"through the reverence and miraculous power of the blessed John, the
tower, when it fell, manifestly avoided the holy Church, and turned
back and fell across the Piazza; whereat all the Florentines wondered,
and the People greatly rejoiced."
At the close of the thirteenth century, in those golden days of
Dante's youth and early manhood, there were steps leading up to the
church, and it was surrounded by these tombs. Many of the latter seem
to have been old pagan sarcophagi adopted for use by the Florentine
aristocracy. Here Guido Cavalcanti used to wander in his solitary
musings and speculations--trying to find out that there was no God, as
his friends charitably suggested--and Boccaccio tells a most
delightful story of a friendly encounter between him and some young
Florentine nobles, who objected to his unsociable habits. In 1293,
Arnolfo di Cambio levelled the Piazza, removed the tombs, and
plastered the pilasters in the angles of the octagonal with slabs of
black and white marble of Prato, as now we see. The similar decoration
of the eight faces of the church is much earlier.
The interior is very dark indeed--so dark that the mosaics, which
Dante must in part have looked upon, would need a very bright day to
be visible. At present they are almost completely concealed by the
scaffolding of the restorers.[38] Over the whole church preside the
two Saints whom an earlier Florentine worshipper of Mars could least
have comprehended--the Baptist and the Magdalene. And the spirit of
Dante haunts it as he does no other Florentine building--_il mio bel
San Giovanni_, he lovingly calls it. "In your ancient Baptistery," his
ancestor tells him in the fifteenth Canto of the _Paradiso_, "I became
at once a Christian and Cacciaguida." And, indeed, the same holds true
of countless generations of Florentines--among them the keenest
intellects and most subtle hands that the world has known--all
baptised here. But it has memories of another kind. The shameful
penance of oblation to St. John--if Boccaccio's tale be true, and if
the letter ascribed to Dante is authentic--was rejected by him; but
many another Florentine, with bare feet and lighted candle, has
entered here as a prisoner in penitential garb. The present
font--although of early date--was placed here in the seventeenth
century, to replace the very famous one which played so large a part
in Dante's thoughts. Here had he been baptised--here, in one of the
most pathetic passages of the _Paradiso_, did he yearn, before death
came, to take the laurel crown:--
[38] The earliest of these mosaics are those in the tribune, executed
originally by a certain Fra Jacopo in the year 1225; those in the dome
are in part ascribed to Dante's contemporary, Andrea Tafi.
Se mai continga che il poema sacro,
al quale ha posto mano e cielo e terra,
si che m'ha fatto per piu anni macro,
vinca la crudelta, che fuor mi serra
del bello ovil, dov'io dormii agnello,
nimico ai lupi che gli danno guerra;
con altra voce omai, con altro vello
ritornero poeta, ed in sul fonte
del mio battesmo prendero il cappello;
pero che nella Fede, che fa conte
l'anime a Dio, quivi entra' io.[39]
[39]
Should it e'er come to pass that the sacred poem to which
both heaven and earth so have set hand, that it hath
made me lean through many a year,
should overcome the cruelty which doth bar me forth from
the fair sheepfold wherein I used to sleep, a lamb, foe to
the wolves which war upon it;
with changed voice now, and with changed fleece shall I
return, a poet, and at the font of my baptism shall I
assume the chaplet;
because into the Faith which maketh souls known of God,
'twas there I entered.
--Par. xxv. 1-11, _Wicksteed's translation_.
This ancient font, which stood in the centre of the church, appears to
have had round holes or _pozzetti_ in its outer wall, in which the
priests stood to baptise; and Dante tells us in the _Inferno_ that he
broke one of these _pozzetti_, to save a boy from being drowned or
suffocated. The boy saved was apparently not being baptised, but was
playing about with others, and had either tumbled into the font itself
or climbed head foremost into one of the _pozzetti_. When the divine
poet was exiled, charitable people said that he had done this from
heretical motives--just as they had looked with suspicion upon his
friend Guido's spiritual wanderings in the same locality.
[Illustration: THE BAPTISTERY]
Though the old font has gone, St. John, to the left of the high altar,
still keeps watch over all the Florentine children brought to be
baptised--to be made _conti_, known to God, and to himself in God.
Opposite to him is the great type of repentance after baptism, St.
Mary Magdalene, a wooden statue by Donatello. What a contrast is here
with those pagan Magdalenes of the Renaissance--such as Titian and
Correggio painted! Fearfully wasted and haggard, this terrible figure
of asceticism--when once the first shock of repulsion is got over--is
unmistakably a masterpiece of the sculptor; it is as though one of the
Penitential Psalms had taken bodily shape.
On the other side of the church stands the tomb of the dethroned Pope,
John XXIII., Baldassarre Cossa, one of the earliest works in the
Renaissance style, reared by Michelozzo and Donatello, 1424-1427, for
Cosimo dei Medici. The fallen Pontiff rests at last in peace in the
city which had witnessed his submission to his successful rival,
Martin V., and which had given a home to his closing days; here he
lies, forgetful of councils and cardinals:--
"After life's fitful fever he sleeps well."
The recumbent figure in bronze is the work of Donatello, as also the
Madonna and Child that guard his last slumber. Below, are Faith, Hope,
and Charity--the former by Michelozzo (to whom also the architectural
part of the monument is due), the two latter by Donatello. It is said
that Pope Martin V. objected to the inscription, "quondam papa," and
was answered in the words of Pilate: _quod scripsi, scripsi_.
* * * * *
But the glory of the Baptistery is in its three bronze gates, the
finest triumph of bronze casting. On November 6th, 1329, the consuls
of the Arte di Calimala, who had charge of the works of San Giovanni,
ordained that their doors should be of metal and as beautiful as
possible. The first of the three, now the southern gate opposite the
Bigallo (but originally the _porta di mezzo_ opposite the Duomo), was
assigned by them to Andrea Pisano on January 9th, 1330; he made the
models in the same year, as the inscription on the gate itself shows;
the casting was finished in 1336. Vasari's statement that Giotto
furnished the designs for Andrea is now entirely discredited. These
gates set before us, in twenty-eight reliefs, twenty scenes from the
life of the Baptist with eight symbolical virtues below--all set round
with lions' heads. Those who know the work of the earlier Pisan
masters, Niccolo and Giovanni, will at once perceive how completely
Andrea has freed himself from the traditions of the school of Pisa;
instead of filling the whole available space with figures on different
planes and telling several stories at once, Andrea composes his relief
of a few figures on the same plane, and leaves the background free.
There are never any unnecessary figures or mere spectators; the bare
essentials of the episode are set before us as simply as possible,
whether it be Zacharias writing the name of John or the dance of the
daughter of Herodias, which may well be compared with Giotto's
frescoes in Santa Croce. Most perfect of all are the eight figures of
the Virtues in the eight lower panels, and they should be compared
with Giotto's allegories at Padua. We have Hope winged and straining
upwards towards a crown, Faith with cross and sacramental cup, Charity
and Prudence, above; Fortitude, Temperance and Justice below; and
then, to complete the eight, Dante's favourite virtue, the maiden
Humility. The Temperance, with Giotto and Andrea Pisano, is not the
mere opposite of Gluttony, with pitcher of water and cup (as we may
see her presently in Santa Maria Novella); but it is the cardinal
virtue which, St. Thomas says, includes "any virtue whatsoever that
puts in practice moderation in any matter, and restrains appetite in
its tendency in any direction." Andrea Pisano's Temperance sits next
to his Justice, with the sword and scales; she too has a sword, even
as Justice has, but she is either sheathing it or drawing it with
reluctance.
The lovely and luxuriant decorative frieze that runs round this portal
was executed by Ghiberti's pupils in the middle of the fifteenth
century. Over the gate is the beheading of St. John the Baptist--two
second-rate figures by Vincenzo Danti.
The second or northern gate is more than three-quarters of a century
later, and it is the result of that famous competition which opened
the Quattrocento. It was assigned to Lorenzo Ghiberti in 1403, and he
had with him his stepfather Bartolo di Michele, and other assistants
(including possibly Donatello). It was finished and set up gilded in
April 1424, at the main entry between the two porphyry columns,
opposite the Duomo, whence Andrea's gate was removed. It will be
observed that each new gate was first put in this place of honour, and
then translated to make room for its better. The plan of Ghiberti's is
similar to that of Andrea's gate--in fact it is his style of work
brought to its ultimate perfection. Twenty-eight reliefs represent
scenes from the New Testament, from the Annunciation to the Descent of
the Holy Spirit, while in eight lower compartments are the four
Evangelists and the four great Latin Doctors. The scene of the
Temptation of the Saviour is particularly striking, and the figure of
the Evangelist John, the Eagle of Christ, has the utmost grandeur.
Over the door are three finely modelled figures representing St. John
the Baptist disputing with a Levite and a Pharisee--or, perhaps, the
Baptist between two Prophets--by Giovanni Francesco Rustici
(1506-1511), a pupil of Verrocchio's, who appears to have been
influenced by Leonardo da Vinci.
But in the third or eastern gate, opposite the Duomo, Ghiberti was to
crown the whole achievement of his life. Mr Perkins remarks: "Had he
never lived to make the second gates, which to the world in general
are far superior to the first, he would have been known in history as
a continuator of the school of Andrea Pisano, enriched with all those
added graces which belonged to his own style, and those refinements of
technique which the progress made in bronze casting had rendered
perfect."[40] In the meantime the laws of perspective had been
understood, and their science set forth by Brunelleschi; and when
Ghiberti, on the completion of his first gates, was in January 1425
invited by the consuls of the Guild (amongst whom was the great
anti-Medicean politician, Niccolo da Uzzano) to model the third doors,
he was full of this new knowledge. "I strove," he says in his
commentaries, "to imitate nature to the uttermost." The subjects were
selected for him by Leonardo Bruni--ten stories from the Old Testament
which, says Leonardo in his letter to Niccolo da Uzzano and his
colleagues, "should have two things: first and chiefly, they must be
illustrious; and secondly, they must be significant. Illustrious, I
call those which can satisfy the eye with variety of design;
significant, those which have importance worthy of memory." For the
rest, their main instructions to him were that he should make the
whole the richest, most perfect and most beauteous work imaginable,
regardless of time and cost.
[40] By these "second gates" are of course meant Ghiberti's second
gates: in reality the "third gates" of the Baptistery.
The work took more than twenty-five years. The stories were all
modelled in wax by 1440, when the casting of the bronze commenced;
the whole was finished in 1447, gilded in 1452--the gilding has
happily worn off from all the gates--and finally set up in June 1452,
in the place where Ghiberti's other gate had been. Among his numerous
assistants were again his stepfather Bartolo, his son Vittorio, and,
among the less important, the painters Paolo Uccello and Benozzo
Gozzoli.
The result is a series of most magnificent pictures in bronze.
Ghiberti worked upon his reliefs like a painter, and lavished all the
newly-discovered scientific resources of the painter's art upon them.
Whether legitimate sculpture or not, it is, beyond a doubt, one of the
most beautiful things in the world. "I sought to understand," he says
in his second commentary, that book which excited Vasari's scorn, "how
forms strike upon the eye, and how the theoretic part of graphic and
pictorial art should be managed. Working with the utmost diligence and
care, I introduced into some of my compositions as many as a hundred
figures, which I modelled upon different planes, so that those nearest
the eye might appear larger, and those more remote smaller in
proportion." It is a triumph of science wedded to the most exquisite
sense of beauty. Each of the ten bas-reliefs contains several motives
and an enormous number of these figures on different planes; which is,
in a sense, going back from the simplicity of Andrea Pisano to glorify
the old manner of Niccolo and Giovanni. In the first, the creation of
man, the creation of woman, and the expulsion from Eden are seen; in
the second, the sacrifice of Abel, in which the ploughing of Cain's
oxen especially pleased Vasari; in the third, the story of Noah; in
the fourth, the story of Abraham, a return to the theme in which
Ghiberti had won his first laurels,--the three Angels appearing to
Abraham have incomparable grace and loveliness, and the landscape in
bronze is a marvel of skill. In the fifth and sixth, we have the
stories of Jacob and Joseph, respectively; in the seventh and eighth,
of Moses and Joshua; in the ninth and tenth, of David and Solomon. The
latter is supposed to have been imitated by Raphael, in his famous
fresco of the School of Athens in the Vatican. The architectural
backgrounds--dream palaces endowed with permanent life in bronze--are
as marvellous as the figures and landscapes. Hardly less beautiful are
the minor ornaments that surround these masterpieces,--the wonderful
decorative frieze of fruits and birds and beasts that frames the
whole, the statuettes alternating with busts in the double border
round the bas-reliefs. It is the ultimate perfection of decorative
art. Among the statuettes a figure of Miriam, recalling an Angel of
Angelico, is of peculiar loveliness. In the middle of the whole, in
the centre at the lower corners of the Jacob and Joseph respectively,
are portrait busts of Lorenzo Ghiberti himself and Bartolo di Michele.
Vasari has said the last word:--
"And in very truth can it be said that this work hath its perfection
in all things, and that it is the most beautiful work of the world, or
that ever was seen amongst ancients or moderns. And verily ought
Lorenzo to be truly praised, seeing that one day Michelangelo
Buonarroti, when he stopped to look at this work, being asked what he
thought of it and if these gates were beautiful, replied: 'They are so
beautiful that they would do well for the Gates of Paradise.' Praise
verily proper, and spoken by one who could judge them."
The Baptism of Christ over the portal is an unattractive work by
Andrea Sansovino (circa 1505), finished by Vincenzo Danti. The Angel
is a seventeenth century addition. More interesting far, are the
scorched porphyry columns on either side of the gate; these were part
of the booty carried off by the Pisan galleys from Majorca in 1117,
and presented to the Florentines in gratitude for their having guarded
Pisa during the absence of the troops. Villani says that the Pisans
offered their allies the choice between these porphyry columns and
some metal gates, and that, on their choosing the columns, they sent
them to Florence covered with scarlet, but that some said that they
scorched them first for envy. It was between these columns that
Cavalcanti was lingering and musing when the gay cavalcade of Betto
Brunelleschi and his friends, in Boccaccio's novel, swooped down upon
him through the Piazza di Santa Reparata: "Thou, Guido, wilt none of
our fellowship; but lo now! when thou shalt have found that there is
no God, what wilt thou have done?"
From the gate which might have stood at the doors of Paradise, or at
least have guarded that sacred threshold by which Virgil and Dante
entered Purgatory, we cross to the tower which might fittingly have
sounded tierce and nones to the valley of the Princes. This
"Shepherd's Tower," according to Ruskin, is "the model and mirror of
perfect architecture." The characteristics of Power and Beauty, he
writes in the _Seven Lamps of Architecture_, "occur more or less in
different buildings, some in one and some in another. But all
together, and all in their highest possible relative degrees, they
exist, as far as I know, only in one building in the world, the
Campanile of Giotto."
Like Ghiberti's bronze gates, this exquisitely lovely tower of marble
has beauty beyond words: "That bright, smooth, sunny surface of
glowing jasper, those spiral shafts and fairy traceries, so white, so
faint, so crystalline, that their slight shapes are hardly traced in
darkness on the pallor of the eastern sky, that serene height of
mountain alabaster, coloured like a morning cloud, and chased like a
sea-shell." It was commenced by Giotto himself in 1334, when the first
stone was solemnly laid. When Giotto died in 1336, the work had
probably not risen above the stage of the lower series of reliefs.
Andrea Pisano was chosen to succeed him, and he carried it on from
1337 to 1342, finishing the first story and bringing it up to the
first of the three stories of windows; it will be observed that
Andrea, who was primarily a sculptor, unlike Giotto, made provision
for the presence of large monumental statues as well as reliefs in his
decorative scheme. Through some misunderstanding, Andrea was then
deprived of the work, which was intrusted to Francesco Talenti.
Francesco Talenti carried it on until 1387, making a general
modification in the architecture and decoration; the three most
beautiful windows, increasing in size as we ascend, with their
beautiful Gothic tracery, are his work. According to Giotto's original
plan, the whole was to have been crowned with a pyramidical steeple or
spire; Vasari says that it was abandoned "because it was a German
thing, and of antiquated fashion."
All around the base of the tower runs a wonderful series of
bas-reliefs on a very small scale, setting forth the whole history of
human skill under divine guidance, from the creation of man to the
reign of art, science, and letters, in twenty-seven exquisitely
"inlaid jewels of Giotto's." At each corner of the tower are three
shields, the red Cross of the People between the red lilies of the
Commune. "This smallness of scale," says Ruskin of these reliefs
"enabled the master workmen of the tower to execute them with their
own hands; and for the rest, in the very finest architecture, the
decoration of the most precious kind is usually thought of as a jewel,
and set with space round it--as the jewels of a crown, or the clasp of
a girdle." These twenty-seven subjects, with the possible exception of
the last five on the northern side, were designed by Giotto himself;
and are, together with the first bronze door, the greatest Florentine
work in sculpture of the first half of the fourteenth century. The
execution is, in the main, Andrea Pisano's; but there is a constant
tradition that some of the reliefs are from Giotto's own hand. Antonio
Pucci, in the eighty-fifth canto of his _Centiloquio_, distinctly
states that Giotto carved the earlier ones, _i primi intagli fe con
bello stile_, and Pucci was almost Giotto's contemporary. "Pastoral
life," "Jubal," "Tubal Cain," "Sculpture," "Painting," are the special
subjects which it is most plausible, or perhaps most attractive, to
ascribe to him.
On the western side we have the creation of Man, the creation of
Woman; and then, thirdly, Adam and Eve toiling, or you may call it the
dignity of labour, if you will--Giotto's rendering of the thought
which John Ball was to give deadly meaning to, or ever the fourteenth
century closed--
When Adam delved and Eve span,
Who was then the gentleman?
Then come pastoral life, Jabal with his tent, his flock and dog;
Jubal, the maker of stringed and wind instruments; Tubal Cain, the
first worker in metal; the first vintage, represented by the story of
Noah. On the southern side comes first Astronomy, represented by
either Zoroaster or Ptolemy. Then follow Building, Pottery, Riding,
Weaving, and (according to Ruskin) the Giving of Law. Lastly
Daedalus, symbolising, according to Ruskin, "the conquest of the
element of air"; or, more probably, here as in Dante (_Paradiso_
viii.), the typical mechanician. Next, on the eastern side, comes
Rowing, symbolising, according to Ruskin, "the conquest of the
sea"--very possibly intended for Jason and the Argo, a type adopted in
several places by Dante. The next relief, "the conquest of the earth,"
probably represents the slaying of Antaeus by Hercules, and symbolises
the "beneficent strength of civilisation, crushing the savageness of
inhumanity." Giotto uses his mythology much as Dante does--as
something only a little less sacred, and of barely less authority than
theology--and the conquest of Antaeus by Hercules was a solemn subject
with Dante too; besides a reference in the _Inferno_, he mentions it
twice in the _De Monarchia_ as a special revelation of God's judgment
by way of ordeal, and touches upon it again in the _Convivio, secondo
le testimonianze delle scritture_. Here Hercules immediately follows
the "conquest of the sea," as having, by his columns, set sacred
limits to warn men that they must pass no further (_Inferno_ xxvi.).
Brutality being thus overthrown, we are shown agriculture and
trade,--represented by a splendid team of ploughing bulls and a
horse-chariot, respectively. Then, over the door of the tower, the
Lamb with the symbol of Resurrection, perhaps, as Ruskin thinks, to
"express the law of Sacrifice and door of ascent to Heaven"; or,
perhaps, merely as being the emblem of the great Guild of wool
merchants, the Arte della Lana, who had charge of the cathedral works.
Then follow the representations of the arts, commencing with the
relief at the corner: Geometry, regarded as the foundation of the
others to follow, as being _senza macula d'errore e certissima_.
Turning the corner, the first and second, on the northern side,
represent Sculpture and Painting, and were possibly carved by Giotto
himself. The remaining five are all later, and from the hand of Luca
della Robbia, who perhaps worked from designs left by Giotto--Grammar,
which may be taken to represent Literature in general, Arithmetic, the
science of numbers (in its great mediaeval sense), Dialectics; closing
with Music, in some respects the most beautiful of the series,
symbolised in Orpheus charming beasts and birds by his strains, and
Harmony. "Harmony of song," writes Ruskin, "in the full power of it,
meaning perfect education in all art of the Muses and of civilised
life; the mystery of its concord is taken for the symbol of that of a
perfect state; one day, doubtless, of the perfect world."
Above this fundamental series of bas-reliefs, there runs a second
series of four groups of seven. They were probably executed by pupils
of Andrea Pisano, and are altogether inferior to those below--the
seven Sacraments on the northern side being the best. Above are a
series of heroic statues in marble. Of these the oldest are those less
easily visible, on the north opposite the Duomo, representing David
and Solomon, with two Sibyls; M. Reymond ascribes them to Andrea
Pisano. Those opposite the Misericordia are also of the fourteenth
century. On the east are Habakkuk and Abraham, by Donatello (the
latter in part by a pupil), between two Patriarchs probably by Niccolo
d'Arezzo, the chief sculptor of the Florentine school at the end of
the Trecento. Three of the four statues opposite the Baptistery are by
Donatello; figures of marvellous strength and vigour. It is quite
uncertain whom they are intended to represent (the "Solomon" and
"David," below the two in the centre, refer to the older statues which
once stood here), but the two younger are said to be the Baptist and
Jeremiah. The old bald-headed prophet, irreverently called the
_Zuccone_ or "Bald-head," is one of Donatello's masterpieces, and is
said to have been the sculptor's own favourite creation. Vasari tells
us that, while working upon it, Donatello used to bid it talk to him,
and, when he wanted to be particularly believed, he used to swear by
it: "By the faith that I bear to my Zuccone."
* * * * *
[Illustration: THE BIGALLO]
At the end of the Via Calzaioli, opposite the Baptistery, is that
little Gothic gem, the Loggia called the _Bigallo_, erected between
1352 and 1358, for the "Captains of Our Lady of Mercy," while Orcagna
was rearing his more gorgeous tabernacle for the "Captains of Our Lady
of Or San Michele." Its architect is unknown; his manner resembles
Orcagna's, to whom the work has been erroneously ascribed. The Madonna
is by Alberto Arnoldi (1361). The Bigallo was intended for the public
functions of charity of the foundling hospital, which was founded
under the auspices of the Confraternity of the Misericordia, whose
oratory is on the other side of the way. These Brothers of Mercy, in
their mysterious black robes hiding their faces, are familiar enough
even to the most casual visitor to Florence; and their work of succour
to the sick and injured has gone on uninterruptedly throughout the
whole of Florentine history.
* * * * *
In the last decade of the thirteenth century, when the People and
Commune of Florence were in an unusually peaceful state, after the
tumults caused by the reforms and expulsion of Giano della Bella had
subsided, the new Cathedral was commenced on the site of the older
church of Santa Reparata. The first stones and foundations were
blessed with great solemnity in 1296; and, in this golden age of the
democracy, the work proceeded apace, until in a document of April
1299, concerning the exemption of Arnolfo di Cambio from all taxation,
it is stated that "by reason of his industry, experience and genius,
the Commune and People of Florence from the magnificent and visible
beginning of the said work of the said church, commenced by the same
Master Arnolphus, hope to have a more beautiful and more honourable
temple than any other which there is in the regions of Tuscany."
But although the original design and beginning were undoubtedly
Arnolfo's, the troublous times that fell upon Florence appear to have
interrupted the work; and it was almost abandoned for lack of funds
until 1334, when Giotto was appointed capo-maestro of the Commune and
of the work of Santa Reparata, as it was still called. The Cathedral
was now in charge of the Arte della Lana, as the Baptistery was in
that of the Arte di Calimala. It is not precisely known what Giotto
did with it; but the work languished again after his death, until
Francesco Talenti was appointed capo-maestro, and, in July 1357, the
foundations were laid of the present church of Santa Maria del Fiore,
on a larger and more magnificent scale. Arnolfo's work appears to
have been partly destroyed, partly enlarged and extended. Other
capo-maestri carried on what Francesco Talenti had commenced, until,
in 1378, just at the end of mediaeval Florence, the fourth and last
great vault was closed, and the main work finished.
The completion of the Cathedral belongs to that intermediate epoch
which saw the decline of the great democracy and the dawn of the
Renaissance, and ran from 1378 to 1421, in which latter year the third
tribune was finished. Filippo Brunelleschi's dome or cupola, raised
upon a frieze or drum high above the three great semi-domes, with a
large window in each of the eight sides, was commenced in 1420 and
finished in 1434, the year which witnessed the establishment of the
Medicean regime in Florence. Vasari waxes most enthusiastic over this
work. "Heaven willed," he writes, "after the earth had been for so
many years without an excellent soul or a divine spirit, that Filippo
should leave to the world from himself the greatest, the most lofty
and the most beauteous construction of all others made in the time of
the moderns and even in that of the ancients." And Michelangelo
imitated it in St Peter's at Rome, turning back, as he rode away from
Florence, to gaze upon Filippo's work, and declaring that he could not
do anything more beautiful. Some modern writers have passed a very
different judgment. Fergusson says:--"The plain, heavy, simple
outlined dome of Brunelleschi acts like an extinguisher, crushing all
the lower part of the composition, and both internally and externally
destroying all harmony between the parts." Brunelleschi also designed
the Lantern, which was commenced shortly before his death (1446) and
finished in 1461. The palla or ball, which crowns the whole, was added
by Andrea Verrocchio. In the fresco in the Spanish Chapel of Santa
Maria Novella, you shall see the Catholic Church symbolised by the
earlier church of Santa Reparata; and, as the fresco was executed
before the middle of the fourteenth century, it apparently represents
the designs of Arnolfo and Giotto. Vasari, indeed, states that it was
taken from Arnolfo's model in wood. "From this painting," he says, "it
is obvious that Arnolfo had proposed to raise the dome immediately
over the piers and above the first cornice, at that point namely where
Filippo di Ser Brunellesco, desiring to render the building less
heavy, interposed the whole space wherein we now see the windows,
before adding the dome."[41]
[41] "There is only one point from which the size of the Cathedral of
Florence is felt; and that is from the corner of the Via de'
Balestrieri, opposite the south-east angle, where it happens that the
dome is seen rising instantly above the apse and transepts" (_Seven
Lamps_).
[Illustration: PORTA DELLA MANDORLA, DUOMO]
The Duomo has had three facades. Of the first facade, the facade of
Arnolfo's church before 1357, only two statues remain which probably
formed part of it; one of Boniface VIII. within the Cathedral, of
which more presently, and a statue of a Bishop in the sacristy. The
second facade, commenced in 1357, and still in progress in 1420, was
left unfinished, and barbarously destroyed towards the end of the
sixteenth century. A fresco by Poccetti in the first cloister of San
Marco, the fifth to the right of the entrance, representing the
entrance of St. Antoninus into Florence to take possession of his see,
shows this second facade. Some of the statues that once decorated it
still exist. The Boniface reappeared upon it from the first facade,
between St. Peter and St. Paul; over the principal gate was Our Lady
of the Flower herself, presenting her Child to give His blessing to
the Florentines--and this is still preserved in the Opera del
Duomo--by an unknown artist of the latter half of the fourteenth
century; she was formerly attended by Zenobius and Reparata, while
Angels held a canopy over her--these are lost. Four Doctors of the
Church, now mutilated and transformed into poets, are still to be seen
on the way to Poggio Imperiale--by Niccolo d'Arezzo and Piero di
Giovanni Tedesco (1396); some Apostles, probably by the latter, and
very fine works, are in the court of the Riccardi Palace. The last
statues made for the facade, the four Evangelists, of the first
fifteen years of the Quattrocento, are now within the present church,
in the chapels of the Tribune of St. Zenobius. There is a curious
tradition that Donatello placed Farinata degli Uberti on the facade;
and few men would have deserved the honour better. After the sixteenth
century the facade remained a desolate waste down to our own times.
The present facade, gorgeous but admirable in its way, was designed by
De Fabris, and finished between 1875 and 1887; the first stone was
laid by Victor Emmanuel in 1860. Thus has the United Italy of to-day
completed the work of the great Republic of the Middle Ages.
[Illustration: STATUE OF BONIFACE VIII.]
The four side gates of the Duomo are among the chief artistic
monuments of Florentine sculpture in the epoch that intervened between
the setting of Andrea Pisano and Orcagna, and the rising of Donatello
and Ghiberti. Nearer the facade, south and north, the two plainer and
earlier portals are always closed; the two more ornate and later, the
gate of the canons on the south and the gate of the Mandorla on the
north, are the ordinary entrances into the aisles of the cathedral.
Earliest of the four is the minor southern portal near the Campanile,
over which the pigeons cluster and coo. Our Lady of the Pigeons, in
the tympanum, is an excellent work of the school of Nino Pisano
(Andrea's son), rather later than the middle of the Trecento. The
northern minor portal is similar in style, with sculpture subordinated
to polychromatic decoration, but with beautiful twisted columns, of
which the two outermost rest upon grand mediaeval lions, who are helped
to bear them by delicious little winged _putti_. Third in order of
construction comes the chief southern portal, the Porta dei Canonici,
belonging to the last decade of the fourteenth century. The pilasters
are richly decorated with sculptured foliage and figures of animals in
the intervals between the leaves. In the tympanum above, the Madonna
and Child with two adoring Angels--statues of great grace and
beauty--are by Lorenzo di Giovanni d'Ambrogio, 1402. Above are Angels
bearing a tondo of the Pieta.
The Porta della Mandorla is one of the most perfect examples of
Florentine decorative sculpture that exists. M. Reymond calls it "le
produit le plus pur du genie florentin dans toute l'independance de sa
pensee." It was commenced by Giovanni di Ambrogio, the chief master of
the canons' gate; and finished by Niccolo da Arezzo, in the early
years of the fifteenth century. The decorations of its pilasters, with
nude figures amidst the conventional foliage between the angels with
their wings and scrolls, are already almost in the spirit of the
Renaissance. The mosaic over the door, representing the Annunciation,
was executed by Domenico Ghirlandaio in 1490. "Amongst modern masters
of mosaic," says Vasari, "nothing has yet been seen better than this.
Domenico was wont to say that painting is mere design, and that the
true painting for eternity is mosaic." The two small statues of
Prophets are the earliest works of Donatello, 1405-1406. Above is the
famous relief which crowns the whole, and from which the door takes
its name--the glorified Madonna of the Mandorla. Formerly ascribed to
Jacopo della Quercia, it is now recognised as the work of Nanni di
Banco, whose father Antonio collaborated with Niccolo da Arezzo on the
door. It represents the Madonna borne up in the Mandorla surrounded by
Angels, three of whom above are hymning her triumph. With a singularly
sweet yet majestic maternal gesture, she consigns her girdle to the
kneeling Thomas on the left; on the right among the rocks, a bear is
either shaking or climbing a tree. This work, executed slightly before
1420, is the best example of the noble manner of the fourteenth
century united to the technical mastery of the fifteenth. Though
matured late, it is the most perfect fruit of the school of Orcagna.
Nanni died before it was quite completed. The precise symbolism of
the bear is not easy to determine; it occurs also in Andrea Pisano's
relief of Adam and Eve labouring, on the Campanile. According to St.
Buonaventura, the bear is an emblem of Lust; according to the
Bestiaries, of Violence. The probability is that here it merely
represents the evil one, symbolising the Fall in the Adam and Eve
relief, and now implying that Mary healed the wound that Eve had dealt
the human race--_la piaga che Maria richiuse ed unse_.
The interior is somewhat bare, and the aisles and vaults are so
proportioned and constructed as to destroy much of the effect of the
vast size both of the whole and of the parts. The nave and aisles lead
to a great octagonal space beneath the dome, where the choir is
placed, extending into three polygonal apses, those to right and left
representing the transepts.
Over the central door is a fine but restored mosaic of the Coronation
of Madonna, by Giotto's friend and contemporary, Gaddo Gaddi, which is
highly praised by Vasari. On either side stand two great equestrian
portraits in fresco of condottieri, who served the Republic in
critical times; by Andrea del Castagno is Niccolo da Tolentino, who
fought in the Florentine pay with average success and more than
average fidelity, and died in 1435, a prisoner in the hands of Filippo
Maria Visconti; by Paolo Uccello is Giovanni Aguto, or John Hawkwood,
a greater captain, but of more dubious character, who died in 1394.
Let it stand to Hawkwood's credit that St Catherine of Siena once
wrote to him, _O carissimo e dolcissimo fratello in Cristo Gesu_. By
the side of the entrance is the famous statue, mutilated but
extraordinarily impressive, of Boniface VIII., ascribed by Vasari to
Andrea Pisano, but which is certainly earlier, and may possibly,
according to M. Reymond, be assigned to Arnolfo di Cambio himself. It
represents the terrible Pontiff in the flower of his age; hardly a
portrait, but an idealised rendering of a Papal politician, a _papa
re_ of the Middle Ages. Even so might he have looked when he received
Dante and his fellow-ambassadors alone, and addressed to them the
words recorded by Dino Compagni: "Why are ye so obstinate? Humble
yourselves before me. I tell you in very truth that I have no other
intention, save for your peace. Let two of you go back, and they shall
have my benediction if they bring it about that my will be obeyed."
As though in contrast with this worldly Pope, on the first pillars in
the aisles are pictures of two ideal pastors; on the left, St Zenobius
enthroned with Eugenius and Crescentius, by an unknown painter of the
school of Orcagna; on the right, a similar but comparatively modern
picture of St Antoninus giving his blessing. In the middle of the
nave, is the original resting-place of the body of Zenobius; here the
picturesque blessing of the roses takes place on his feast-day. The
right and left aisles contain some striking statues and interesting
monuments. First on the right is a statue of a Prophet (sometimes
called Joshua), an early Donatello, said to be the portrait of
Giannozzo Manetti, between the monuments of Brunelleschi and Giotto;
the bust of the latter is by Benedetto da Maiano, and the inscription
by Poliziano. Opposite these, in the left aisle, is a most life-like
and realistic statue of a Prophet by Donatello, said to be the
portrait of Poggio Bracciolini, between modern medallions of De Fabris
and Arnolfo. Further on, on the right, are Hezekiah by Nanni di Banco,
and a fine portrait bust of Marsilio Ficino by Andrea Ferrucci
(1520)--the mystic dreamer caught in a rare moment of inspiration, as
on that wonderful day when he closed his finished Plato, and saw young
Pico della Mirandola before him. Opposite them, on the left, are David
by Ciuffagni, and a bust of the musician Squarcialupi by Benedetto da
Maiano. On the last pillars of the nave, right and left, stand later
statues of the Apostles--St Matthew by Vincenzo de' Rossi, and St
James by Jacopo Sansovino.
Under Brunelleschi's vast dome--the effect of which is terribly marred
by miserable frescoes by Vasari and Zuccheri--are the choir and the
high altar. The stained glass in the windows in the drum is from
designs of Ghiberti, Donatello (the Coronation), and Paolo Uccello.
Behind the high altar is one of the most solemn and pathetic works of
art in existence--Michelangelo's last effort in sculpture, the
unfinished Deposition from the Cross; "the strange spectral wreath of
the Florence Pieta, casting its pyramidal, distorted shadow, full of
pain and death, among the faint purple lights that cross and perish
under the obscure dome of Santa Maria del Fiore."[42] It is a group of
four figures more than life-size; the body of Christ is received in
the arms of His mother, who sustains Him with the aid of St Mary
Magdalene and the standing Nicodemus, who bends over the group at the
back with a countenance full of unutterable love and sorrow. Although,
in a fit of impatience, Michelangelo damaged the work and allowed it
to be patched up by others, he had intended it for his own sepulchre,
and there is no doubt that the Nicodemus--whose features to some
extent are modelled from his own--represents his own attitude as death
approached. His sonnet to Giorgio Vasari is an expression of the same
temper, and the most precious commentary upon his work:--
[42] _Modern Painters_, vol. ii. "Of Imagination Penetrative."
Now hath my life across a stormy sea,
Like a frail bark reached that wide port where all
Are bidden, ere the final reckoning fall
Of good and evil for eternity.
Now know I well how that fond phantasy,
Which made my soul the worshipper and thrall
Of earthly art, is vain; how criminal
Is that which all men seek unwillingly.
Those amorous thoughts which were so lightly dressed,
What are they when the double death is nigh?
The one I know for sure, the other dread.
Painting nor sculpture now can lull to rest
My soul that turns to His great Love on high,
Whose arms, to clasp us, on the Cross were spread.
(_Addington Symonds' translation._)
The apse at the east end, or tribuna di San Zenobio, ends in the altar
of the Blessed Sacrament, which is also the shrine of Saint Zenobius.
The reliquary which contains his remains is the work of Lorenzo
Ghiberti, and was finished in 1446; the bronze reliefs set forth his
principal miracles, and there is a most exquisite group of those
flying Angels which Ghiberti realises so wonderfully. Some of the
glass in the windows is also from his design. The seated statues in
the four chapels, representing the four Evangelists, were originally
on the facade; the St. Luke, by Nanni di Banco, in the first chapel on
the right, is the best of the four; then follow St. John, a very early
Donatello, and, on the other side, St. Matthew by Ciuffagni and St.
Mark by Niccolo da Arezzo (slightly earlier than the others). The two
Apostles standing on guard at the entrance of the tribune, St. John
and St. Peter, are by Benedetto da Rovezzano. To right and left are
the southern and northern sacristies. Over the door of the southern
sacristy is a very beautiful bas-relief by Luca della Robbia,
representing the Ascension (1446), like a Fra Angelico in enamelled
terracotta; within the sacristy are two kneeling Angels also by Luca
(1448), practically his only isolated statues, of the greatest beauty
and harmony; and also a rather indifferent St. Michael, a late work of
Lorenzo di Credi. Over the door of the northern sacristy is the
Resurrection by Luca della Robbia (1443), perhaps his earliest extant
work in this enamelled terracotta. The bronze doors of this northern
sacristy are by Michelozzo and Luca della Robbia, assisted by Maso and
Giovanni di Bartolommeo, and were executed between 1446 and 1467. They
are composed of ten reliefs with decorative heads at the corners of
each, as in Lorenzo Ghiberti's work. Above are Madonna and Child with
two Angels; the Baptist with two Angels; in the centre the four
Evangelists, each with two Angels; and below, the four Doctors, each
with two Angels. M. Reymond has shown that the four latter are the
work of Michelozzo. Of Luca's work, the four Evangelists are later
than the two topmost reliefs, and are most beautiful; the Angels are
especially lovely, and there are admirable decorative heads between.
Within, are some characteristic _putti_ by Donatello.
The side apses, which represent the right and left transepts, guarded
by sixteenth century Apostles, and with frescoed Saints and Prophets
in the chapels by Bicci di Lorenzo, are quite uninteresting.
By the door that leads out of the northern aisle into the street, is a
wonderful picture, painted in honour of Dante by order of the State in
1465, by Domenico di Michelino, a pupil of Fra Angelico, whose works,
with this exception, are hardly identified. At the time that this was
painted, the authentic portrait of Dante still existed in the (now
lost) fresco at Santa Croce, so we may take this as a fairly probable
likeness; it is, at the same time, one of the earliest efforts to give
pictorial treatment to the _Purgatorio_. Outside the gates of Florence
stands Dante in spirit, clothed in the simple red robe of a
Florentine citizen, and wearing the laurel wreath which was denied to
him in life; in his left hand he holds the open volume of the _Divina
Commedia_, from which rays of burning light proceed and illumine all
the city. But it is not the mediaeval Florence that the divine singer
had known, which his ghost now revisits, but the Florence of the
Quattrocento--with the completed Cathedral and the cupola of
Brunelleschi rising over it, with the Campanile and the great tower of
the Palazzo della Signoria completed--the Florence which has just lost
Cosimo dei Medici, Pater Patriae, and may need fresh guidance, now
that great mutations are at hand in Italy. With his right hand he
indicates the gate of Hell and its antechamber; but it is not the
torments of its true inmates that he would bid the Florentines mark,
but the shameful and degrading lot of the cowards and neutrals, the
trimmers, who would follow no standard upon earth, and are now
rejected by Heaven and Hell alike; "the crew of caitiffs hateful to
God and to his enemies," who now are compelled, goaded on by hornets
and wasps, to rush for ever after a devil-carried ensign, "which
whirling ran so quickly that it seemed to scorn all pause." Behind,
among the rocks and precipices of Hell, the monstrous fiends of
schism, treason and anarchy glare through the gate, preparing to sweep
down upon the City of the Lily, if she heeds not the lesson. In the
centre of the picture, in the distance, the Mountain of Purgation
rises over the shore of the lonely ocean, on the little island where
rushes alone grow above the soft mud. The Angel at the gate, seated
upon the rock of diamond, above the three steps of contrition,
confession, and satisfaction, marks the brows of the penitent souls
with his dazzling sword, and admits them into the terraces of the
mountain, where Pride, Anger, Envy, Sloth, Avarice, Gluttony, and
Lust (the latter, in the purifying fire of the seventh terrace, merely
indicated by the flames on the right) are purged away. On the top of
the mountain Adam and Eve stand in the Earthly Paradise, which
symbolises blessedness of this life, the end to which an ideal ruler
is to lead the human race, and the state of innocence to which the
purgatorial pains restore man. Above and around sweep the spheres of
the planets, the lower moving heavens, from which the angelic
influences are poured down upon the Universe beneath their sway.
Thirteen years after this picture was painted, the Duomo saw Giuliano
dei Medici fall beneath the daggers of the Pazzi and their
confederates on Sunday, April 26th, 1478. The bell that rang for the
Elevation of the Host was the signal. Giuliano had been moving round
about the choir, and was standing not far from the picture of Dante,
when Bernardo Baroncelli and Francesco Pazzi struck the first blows.
Lorenzo, who was on the opposite side of the choir, beat off his
assailants with his sword and then fled across into the northern
sacristy, through the bronze gates of Michelozzo and Luca della
Robbia, which Poliziano and the Cavalcanti now closed against the
conspirators. The boy cardinal, Raffaello Sansoni, whose visit to the
Medicean brothers had furnished the Pazzi with their chance, fled in
abject terror into the other sacristy. Francesco Nori, a faithful
friend of the Medici, was murdered by Baroncelli in defending his
masters' lives; he is very probably the bare-headed figure kneeling
behind Giuliano in Botticelli's Adoration of the Magi in the
Uffizi.[43]
[43] The Duomo has fairer memories of the Pazzi, than this deed of
blood and treachery. Their ancestor at the Crusades had carried the
sacred fire from Jerusalem to Florence, and still, on Easter Eve, an
artificial dove sent from the high altar lights the car of fireworks
in the Piazza--the Carro dei Pazzi--in front of the church, in honour
of their name.
But of all the scenes that have passed beneath Brunelleschi's cupola,
the most in accordance with the spirit of Dante's picture are those
connected with Savonarola. It was here that his most famous and most
terrible sermons were delivered; here, on that fateful September
morning when the French host was sweeping down through Italy, he gazed
in silence upon the expectant multitude that thronged the building,
and then, stretching forth his hands, cried aloud in a terrible voice
the ominous text of Genesis: "Behold I, even I, do bring a flood of
waters upon the earth;" and here, too, the fatal riot commenced which
ended with the storming of the convent. And here, in a gentler vein,
the children of Florence were wont to await the coming of their father
and prophet. "The children," writes Simone Filipepi, "were placed all
together upon certain steps made on purpose for them, and there were
about three thousand of them; they came an hour or two before the
sermon; and, in the meanwhile, some read psalms and others said the
rosary, and often choir by choir they sang lauds and psalms most
devoutly; and when the Father appeared, to mount up into the pulpit,
the said children sang the _Ave Maris Stella_, and likewise the people
answered back, in such wise that all that time, from early morning
even to the end of the sermon, one seemed to be verily in Paradise."
The Opera del Duomo or Cathedral Museum contains, besides several
works of minor importance (including the Madonna from the second
facade), three of the great achievements of Florentine sculpture
during the fifteenth century; the two _cantorie_, or organ galleries,
of Donatello and Luca della Robbia; the silver altar for the
Baptistery, with the statue of the Baptist by Michelozzo, and reliefs
in silver by Antonio Pollaiuolo and Andrea Verrocchio, representing
the Nativity of the Baptist by the former, the dance of the daughter
of Herodias and the Decollation of the Saint by the latter.
The two organ galleries, facing each other and finished almost
simultaneously (about 1440), are an utter contrast both in spirit and
in execution. There is nothing specially angelic or devotional about
Donatello's wonderful frieze of dancing genii, winged boys that might
well have danced round Venus at Psyche's wedding-feast, but would have
been out of place among the Angels who, as the old mystic puts it,
"rejoiced exceedingly when the most Blessed Virgin entered the
Heavenly City." The beauty of rhythmic movement, the joy of living and
of being young, exultancy, _baldanza_--these are what they express for
us. Luca della Robbia's boys and girls, singing together and playing
musical instruments, have less exuberance and motion, but more grace
and repose; they illustrate in ten high reliefs the verses of the
psalm, _Laudate Dominum in sanctis ejus_, which is inscribed upon the
Cantoria; and those that dance are more chastened in their joy, more
in the spirit of David before the Ark. But all are as wrapt and
absorbed in their music, as are Donatello's in their wild yet
harmonious romp.
In detail and considered separately, Luca's more perfectly finished
groups, with their exquisite purity of line, are decidedly more lovely
than Donatello's more roughly sketched, lower and flatter bas-reliefs;
but, seen from a distance and raised from the ground, as they were
originally intended, Donatello's are decidedly more effective as a
whole. It is only of late years that the reliefs have been remounted
and set up in the way we now see; and it is not quite certain whether
their present arrangement, in all respects, exactly corresponds to
what was originally intended by the masters. It was in this building,
the Opera del Duomo, that Donatello at one time had his school and
studio; and it was here, in the early years of the Cinquecento, that
Michelangelo worked upon the shapeless mass of marble which became the
gigantic David.
[Illustration: CROSS OF THE FLORENTINE PEOPLE (FROM OLD HOUSE ON NORTH
SIDE OF DUOMO)]
[Illustration: ARMS OF THE MEDICI FROM THE BADIA AT FIESOLE.]