_The Palazzo Riccardi--San Lorenzo--San Marco._
Per molti, donna, anzi per mille amanti,
creata fusti, e d'angelica forma.
Or par che'n ciel si dorma,
s'un sol s'appropria quel ch'e dato a tanti.
(_Michelangelo Buonarroti_).
The Via dei Martelli leads from the Baptistery into the Via Cavour,
formerly the historical Via Larga. Here stands the great Palace of the
Medici, now called the Palazzo Riccardi from the name of the family to
whom the Grand Duke Ferdinand II. sold it in the seventeenth century.
The palace was begun by Michelozzo for Cosimo the Elder shortly before
his exile, and completed after his return, when it became in reality
the seat of government of the city, although the Signoria still kept
up the pretence of a republic in the Palazzo Vecchio. Here Lorenzo the
Magnificent was born on January 1st, 1449, and here the most brilliant
and cultured society of artists and scholars that the world had seen
gathered round him and his family.[44] Here, too, after the expulsion
of Lorenzo's mad son, Piero, in 1494, Charles VIII. of France was
splendidly lodged; here Piero Capponi tore the dishonourable treaty
and saved the Republic, and here Fra Girolamo a few days later
admonished the fickle king. On the return of the Medici, the Cardinal
Giovanni, the younger Lorenzo, and the Cardinal Giulio successively
governed the city here; until in 1527 the people drove out the young
pretenders, Alessandro and Ippolito, with their guardian, the Cardinal
Passerini. It was on this latter occasion that Piero's daughter,
Madonna Clarice, the wife of the younger Filippo Strozzi, was carried
hither in her litter, and literally slanged these boys and the
Cardinal out of Florence. She is reported, with more vehemence than
delicacy, to have told her young kinsmen that the house of Lorenzo dei
Medici was not a stable for mules. During the siege, the people wished
to entirely destroy the palace and rename the place the Piazza dei
Muli.
[44] It should be observed that Lorenzo was not specially called the
"Magnificent" by his contemporaries. All the more prominent members of
the Medicean family were styled _Magnifico_ in the same way.
After the restoration Alessandro carried on his abominable career
here, until, on January 5th, 1537, the dagger of another Lorenzo freed
the world from an infamous monster. Some months before, Benvenuto
Cellini came to the palace, as he tells us in his autobiography, to
show the Duke the wax models for his medals which he was making.
Alessandro was lying on his bed, indisposed, and with him was only
this Lorenzino or Lorenzaccio, _quel pazzo malinconico filosafo di
Lorenzino_, as Benvenuto calls him elsewhere. "The Duke," writes
Benvenuto, "several times signed to him that he too should urge me to
stop; upon which Lorenzino never said anything else, but: 'Benvenuto,
you would do best for yourself to stay.' To which I said that I wanted
by all means to return to Rome. He said nothing more, and kept
continually staring at the Duke with a most evil eye. Having finished
the medal and shut it up in its case, I said to the Duke: 'My Lord, be
content, for I will make you a much more beautiful medal than I made
for Pope Clement; for reason wills that I should do better, since that
was the first that ever I made; and Messer Lorenzo here will give me
some splendid subject for a reverse, like the learned person and
magnificent genius that he is.' To these words the said Lorenzo
promptly answered: 'I was thinking of nothing else, save how to give
thee a reverse that should be worthy of his Excellency.' The Duke
grinned, and, looking at Lorenzo, said: 'Lorenzo, you shall give him
the reverse, and he shall make it here, and shall not go away.'
Lorenzo replied hastily, saying: 'I will do it as quickly as I
possibly can, and I hope to do a thing that will astonish the world.'
The Duke, who sometimes thought him a madman and sometimes a coward,
turned over in his bed, and laughed at the words which he had said to
him. I went away without other ceremonies of leave-taking, and left
them alone together."
On the fatal night Lorenzino lured the Duke into his own rooms, in
what was afterwards called the Strada del Traditore, which was
incorporated into the palace by the Riccardi. Alessandro, tired out
with the excesses of the day, threw himself upon a bed; Lorenzino went
out of the room, ostensibly to fetch his kinswoman, Caterina Ginori,
whose beauty had been the bait; and he returned with the bravo
Scoroncocolo, with whose assistance he assassinated him. Those who saw
Sarah Bernhardt in the part of "Lorenzaccio," will not easily forget
her rendering of this scene. Lorenzino published an Apologia, in which
he enumerates Alessandro's crimes, declares that he was no true
offspring of the Medici, and that his own single motive was the
liberation of Florence from tyranny. He fled first to Constantinople,
and then to Venice, where he was murdered in 1547 by the agents of
Alessandro's successor, Cosimo I., who transferred the ducal residence
from the present palace first to the Palazzo Vecchio, and then across
the river to the Pitti Palace.
With the exception of the chapel, the interior of the Palazzo Riccardi
is not very suggestive of the old Medicean glories of the days of
Lorenzo the Magnificent. There is a fine court, surrounded with
sarcophagi and statues, including some of the old tombs which stood
round the Baptistery and among which Guido Cavalcanti used to linger,
and some statues of Apostles from the second facade of the Duomo.
Above the arcades are eight fine classical medallions by Donatello,
copied and enlarged from antique gems. The rooms above have been
entirely altered since the days when Capponi defied King Charles, and
Madonna Clarice taunted Alessandro and Ippolito; the large gallery,
which witnessed these scenes, is covered with frescoes by Luca
Giordano, executed in the early part of the seventeenth century. The
Chapel--still entirely reminiscent of the better Medici--was painted
by Benozzo Gozzoli shortly before the death of Cosimo the Elder, with
frescoes representing the Procession of the Magi, in a delightfully
impossible landscape. The two older kings are the Patriarch Joseph of
Constantinople, and John Paleologus, Emperor of the East, who had
visited Florence twenty years before on the occasion of the Council
(Benozzo, it must be observed, was painting them in 1459, after the
fall of Constantinople); the third is Lorenzo dei Medici himself, as a
boy. Behind follow the rest of the Medicean court, Cosimo himself and
his son, Piero, content apparently to be led forward by this mere lad;
and in their train is Benozzo Gozzoli himself, marked by the signature
on his hat. The picture of the Nativity itself, round which Benozzo's
lovely Angels--though very earthly compared with Angelico's--seem
still to linger in attendance, is believed to have been one by Lippo
Lippi, now at Berlin.
In the chapter _Of the Superhuman Ideal_, in the second volume of
_Modern Painters_, Ruskin refers to these frescoes as the most
beautiful instance of the supernatural landscapes of the early
religious painters:--
"Behind the adoring angel groups, the landscape is governed by the
most absolute symmetry; roses, and pomegranates, their leaves drawn to
the last rib and vein, twine themselves in fair and perfect order
about delicate trellises; broad stone pines and tall cypresses
overshadow them, bright birds hover here and there in the serene sky,
and groups of angels, hand joined with hand, and wing with wing, glide
and float through the glades of the unentangled forest. But behind the
human figures, behind the pomp and turbulence of the kingly procession
descending from the distant hills, the spirit of the landscape is
changed. Severer mountains rise in the distance, ruder prominences
and less flowery vary the nearer ground, and gloomy shadows remain
unbroken beneath the forest branches."
Among the manuscripts in the _Biblioteca Riccardiana_, which is
entered from the Via Ginori at the back of the palace, is the most
striking and plausible of all existing portraits of Dante. It is at
the beginning of a codex of the Canzoni (numbered 1040), and appears
to have been painted about 1436.
From the palace where the elder Medici lived, we turn to the church
where they, and their successors of the younger line, lie in death. In
the Piazza San Lorenzo there is an inane statue of the father of
Cosimo I., Giovanni delle Bande Nere, by Baccio Bandinelli. Here, in
June 1865, Robert Browning picked up at a stall the "square old yellow
Book" with "the crumpled vellum covers," which gave him the story of
_The Ring and the Book_:--
"I found this book,
Gave a lira for it, eightpence English just,
(Mark the predestination!) when a Hand,
Always above my shoulder, pushed me once,
One day still fierce 'mid many a day struck calm,
Across a square in Florence, crammed with booths,
Buzzing and blaze, noon-tide and market-time,
Toward Baccio's marble--ay, the basement ledge
O' the pedestal where sits and menaces
John of the Black Bands with the upright spear,
'Twixt palace and church--Riccardi where they lived,
His race, and San Lorenzo where they lie.
"That memorable day,
(June was the month, Lorenzo named the Square)
I leaned a little and overlooked my prize
By the low railing round the fountain-source
Close to the statue, where a step descends:
While clinked the cans of copper, as stooped and rose
Thick-ankled girls who brimmed them, and made place
For market men glad to pitch basket down,
Dip a broad melon-leaf that holds the wet,
And whisk their faded fresh."
[Illustration: THE TOMB OF GIOVANNI AND PIERO DEI MEDICI
BY ANDREA VERROCCHIO
(In San Lorenzo)]
The unsightly bare front of San Lorenzo represents several fruitless
and miserable years of Michelangelo's life. Pope Leo X. and the
Cardinal Giulio dei Medici commissioned him to make a new facade, in
1516, and for some years he consumed his time labouring among the
quarries of Carrara and Pietrasanta, getting the marble for it and for
the statues with which it was to be adorned. In one of his letters he
says: "I am perfectly disposed (_a me basta l'animo_) to make this
work of the facade of San Lorenzo so that, both in architecture and in
sculpture, it shall be the mirror of all Italy; but the Pope and the
Cardinal must decide quickly, if they want me to do it or not"; and
again, some time later: "What I have promised to do, I shall do by all
means, and I shall make the most beautiful work that was ever made in
Italy, if God helps me." But nothing came of it all; and in after
years Michelangelo bitterly declared that Leo had only pretended that
he wanted the facade finished, in order to prevent him working upon
the tomb of Pope Julius.
"The ancient Ambrosian Basilica of St. Lawrence," founded according to
tradition by a Florentine widow named Giuliana, and consecrated by St.
Ambrose in the days of Zenobius, was entirely destroyed by fire early
in the fifteenth century, during a solemn service ordered by the
Signoria to invoke the protection of St. Ambrose for the Florentines
in their war against Filippo Maria Visconti. Practically the only
relic of this Basilica is the miraculous image of the Madonna in the
right transept. The present church was erected from the designs of
Filippo Brunelleschi, at the cost of the Medici (especially Giovanni
di Averardo, who may be regarded as its chief founder) and seven other
Florentine families. It is simple and harmonious in structure; the
cupola, which is so visible in distant views of Florence, looking
like a smaller edition of the Duomo, unlike the latter, rests directly
upon the cross. This appears to be one of the modifications from what
Brunelleschi had intended.
The two pulpits with their bronze reliefs, right and left, are the
last works of Donatello; they were executed in part and finished by
his pupil, Bertoldo. The marble singing gallery in the left aisle
(near a fresco of the martyrdom of St. Lawrence, by Bronzino) is also
the joint work of Donatello and Bertoldo. In the right transept is a
marble tabernacle by Donatello's great pupil, Desiderio da Settignano.
Beneath a porphyry slab in front of the choir, Cosimo the Elder, the
Pater Patriae, lies; Donatello is buried in the same vault as his
great patron and friend. In the Martelli Chapel, on the left, is an
exceedingly beautiful Annunciation by Fra Filippo Lippi, a fine
example of his colouring (in which he is decidedly the best of all the
early Florentines); Gabriel is attended by two minor Angels, squires
waiting upon this great Prince of the Archangelic order, who are full
of that peculiar mixture of boyish high spirits and religious
sentiment which gives a special charm of its own to all that Lippo
does.
The _Sagrestia Vecchia_, founded by Giovanni di Averardo, was erected
by Brunelleschi and decorated by Donatello for Cosimo the Elder. In
the centre is the marble sarcophagus, adorned with _putti_ and
festoons, containing the remains of Giovanni and his wife Piccarda,
Cosimo's father and mother, by Donatello. The bronze doors (hardly
among his best works), the marble balustrade before the altar, the
stucco medallions of the Evangelists, the reliefs of patron saints of
the Medici and the frieze of Angels' heads are all Donatello's; also
an exceedingly beautiful terracotta bust of St. Lawrence, which is one
of his most attractive creations. In the niche on the left of the
entrance is the simple but very beautiful tomb of the two sons of
Cosimo, Piero and Giovanni--who are united also in Botticelli's
Adoration of the Magi as the two kings--and it serves also as a
monument to Cosimo himself; it was made by Andrea Verrocchio for
Lorenzo and Giuliano, Piero's sons. The remains of Lorenzo and
Giuliano rested together in this sacristy until they were translated
in the sixteenth century. In spite of a misleading modern inscription,
they were apparently not buried in their father's grave, and the
actual site of their former tomb is unknown. They now lie together in
the _Sagrestia Nuova_. The simplicity of these funereal monuments and
the _pietas_ which united the members of the family so closely, in
death and in life alike, are very characteristic of these earlier
Medicean rulers of Florence.
The cloisters of San Lorenzo, haunted by needy and destitute cats,
were also designed by Brunelleschi. To the right, after passing
Francesco da San Gallo's statue of Paolo Giovio, the historian, who
died in 1559, is the entrance to the famous Biblioteca Laurenziana.
The nucleus of this library was the collection of codices formed by
Niccolo Niccoli, which were afterwards purchased by Cosimo the Elder,
and still more largely increased by Lorenzo the Magnificent; after the
expulsion of Piero the younger, they were bought by the Friars of San
Marco, and then from them by the Cardinal Giovanni, who transferred
them to the Medicean villa at Rome. In accordance with Pope Leo's
wish, Clement VII. (then the Cardinal Giulio) brought them back to
Florence, and, when Pope, commissioned Michelangelo to design the
building that was to house them. The portico, vestibule and staircase
were designed by him, and, in judging of their effect, it must be
remembered that Michelangelo professed that architecture was not his
business, and also that the vestibule and staircase were intended to
have been adorned with bronzes and statues. It was commenced in 1524,
before the siege. Of the numberless precious manuscripts which this
collection contains, we will mention only two classical and one
mediaeval; the famous Pandects of Justinian which the Pisans took from
Amalfi, and the Medicean Virgil of the fourth or fifth century; and
Boccaccio's autograph manuscript of Dante's Eclogues and Epistles.
This latter codex, shown under the glass at the entrance to the
Rotunda, is the only manuscript in existence which contains Dante's
Epistles to the Italian Cardinals and to a Florentine Friend. In the
first, he defines his attitude towards the Church, and declares that
he is not touching the Ark, but merely turning to the kicking oxen who
are dragging it out of the right path; in the second, he proudly
proclaims his innocence, rejects the amnesty, and refuses to return to
Florence under dishonourable conditions. Although undoubtedly in
Boccaccio's handwriting, it has been much disputed of late years as to
whether these two letters are really by Dante. There is not a single
autograph manuscript, nor a single scrap of Dante's handwriting extant
at the present day.
* * * * *
From the Piazza Madonna, at the back of San Lorenzo, we enter a chilly
vestibule, the burial vault of less important members of the families
of the Medicean Grand Dukes, and ascend to the _Sagrestia Nuova_,
where the last male descendants of Cosimo the Elder and Lorenzo the
Magnificent lie. Although the idea of adding some such mausoleum to
San Lorenzo appears to have originated with Leo X., this New Sacristy
was built by Michelangelo for Clement VII., commenced while he was
still the Cardinal Giulio and finished in 1524, before the Library
was constructed. Its form was intended to correspond with that of
Brunelleschi's Old Sacristy, and it was to contain four sepulchral
monuments. Two of these, the only two that were actually constructed,
were for the younger Lorenzo, titular Duke of Urbino (who died in
1519, the son of Piero and nephew of Pope Leo), and the younger
Giuliano, Duke of Nemours (who died in 1516, the third son of the
Magnificent and younger brother of Leo). It is not quite certain for
whom the other two monuments were to have been, but it is most
probable that they were for the fathers of the two Medicean Popes,
Lorenzo the Magnificent and his brother the elder Giuliano, whose
remains were translated hither by Duke Cosimo I. and rediscovered a
few years ago. Michelangelo commenced the statues before the third
expulsion of the Medici, worked on them in secret while he was
fortifying Florence against Pope Clement before the siege, and
returned to them, after the downfall of the Republic, as the condition
of obtaining the Pope's pardon. He resumed work, full of bitterness at
the treacherous overthrow of the Republic, tormented by the heirs of
Pope Julius II., whose tomb he had been forced to abandon, suffering
from insomnia and shattered health, threatened with death by the
tyrant Alessandro. When he left Florence finally in 1534, just before
the death of Clement, the statues had not even been put into their
places.
Neither of the ducal statues is a portrait, but they appear to
represent the active and contemplative lives, like the Leah and Rachel
on the tomb of Pope Julius II. at Rome. On the right sits Giuliano,
holding the baton of command as Gonfaloniere of the Church. His
handsome sensual features to some extent recall those of the
victorious youth in the allegory in the Bargello. He holds his baton
somewhat loosely, as though he half realised the baseness of the
historical part he was doomed to play, and had not got his heart in
it. Opposite is Lorenzo, immersed in profound thought, "ghastly as a
tyrant's dream." What visions are haunting him of the sack of Prato,
of the atrocities of the barbarian hordes in the Eternal City, of the
doom his house has brought upon Florence? Does he already smell the
blood that his daughter will shed, fifty years later, on St.
Bartholomew's day? Here he sits, as Elizabeth Barrett Browning puts
it:--
"With everlasting shadow on his face,
While the slow dawns and twilights disapprove
The ashes of his long extinguished race,
Which never more shall clog the feet of men."
"It fascinates and is intolerable," as Rogers wrote of this statue. It
is, probably, not due to Michelangelo that the niches in which the
dukes sit are too narrow for them; but the result is to make the
tyrants seem as helpless as their victims, in the fetters of destiny.
Beneath them are four tremendous and terrible allegorical figures:
"those four ineffable types," writes Ruskin, "not of darkness nor of
day--not of morning nor evening, but of the departure and the
resurrection, the twilight and the dawn of the souls of men." Beneath
Lorenzo are Dawn and Twilight; Dawn awakes in agony, but her most
horrible dreams are better than the reality which she must face;
Twilight has worked all day in vain, and, like a helpless Titan, is
sinking now into a slumber where is no repose. Beneath Giuliano are
Day and Night: Day is captive and unable to rise, his mighty powers
are uselessly wasted and he glares defiance; Night is buried in
torturing dreams, but Michelangelo has forbidden us to wake her:--
"Grato mi e il sonno, e piu l'esser di sasso;
mentre che il danno e la vergogna dura,
non veder, non sentir, m'e gran ventura;
pero non mi destar; deh, parla basso!"[45]
[45] "Grateful to me is sleep, and more the being stone; while ruin
and shame last, not to see, not to feel, is great good fortune to me.
Therefore wake me not; ah, speak low!"
It will be remembered that it was for these two young men, to whom
Michelangelo has thus reared the noblest sepulchral monuments of the
modern world, that Leo X. desired to build kingdoms and that
Machiavelli wrote one of the masterpieces of Italian prose--the
_Principe_. Giuliano was the most respectable of the elder Medicean
line; in Castiglione's _Cortigiano_ he is an attractive figure, the
chivalrous champion of women. It is not easy to get a definite idea of
the character of Lorenzo, who, as we saw in chapter iv., was virtually
tyrant of Florence during his uncle's pontificate. The Venetian
ambassador once wrote of him that he was fitted for great deeds, and
only a little inferior to Caesar Borgia--which was intended for very
high praise; but there was nothing in him to deserve either
Michelangelo's monument or Machiavelli's dedication. He usurped the
Duchy of Urbino, and spent his last days in fooling with a jester. His
reputed son, the foul Duke Alessandro, lies buried with him here in
the same coffin.
Opposite the altar is the Madonna and Child, by Michelangelo. The
Madonna is one of the noblest and most beautiful of all the master's
works, but the Child, whom Florence had once chosen for her King, has
turned His face away from the city. A few years later, and Cosimo I.
will alter the inscription which Niccolo Capponi had set up on the
Palazzo Vecchio. The patron saints of the Medici on either side, Sts.
Cosmas and Damian, are by Michelangelo's pupils and assistants, Fra
Giovanni Angiolo da Montorsoli and Raffaello da Montelupo. Beneath
these statues lie Lorenzo the Magnificent and his brother, the elder
Giuliano. Their bodies were removed hither from the Old Sacristy in
1559, and the question as to their place of burial was finally set at
rest, in October 1895, by the discovery of their bodies. It is
probable that Michelangelo had originally intended the Madonna for the
tomb of his first patron, Lorenzo.
In judging of the general effect of this _Sagrestia Nuova_, which is
certainly somewhat cold, it must be remembered that Michelangelo
intended it to be full of statues and that the walls were to have been
covered with paintings. "Its justification," says Addington Symonds,
"lies in the fact that it demanded statuary and colour for its
completion." The vault was frescoed by Giovanni da Udine, but is now
whitewashed. In 1562, Vasari wrote to Michelangelo at Rome on behalf
of Duke Cosimo, telling him that "the place is being now used for
religious services by day and night, according to the intentions of
Pope Clement," and that the Duke was anxious that all the best
sculptors and painters of the newly instituted Academy should work
upon the Sacristy and finish it from Michelangelo's designs. "He
intends," writes Vasari, "that the new Academicians shall complete the
whole imperfect scheme, in order that the world may see that, while so
many men of genius still exist among us, the noblest work which was
ever yet conceived on earth has not been left unfinished." And the
Duke wants to know what Michelangelo's own idea is about the statues
and paintings; "He is particularly anxious that you should be assured
of his determination to alter nothing you have already done or
planned, but, on the contrary, to carry out the whole work according
to your conception. The Academicians, too, are unanimous in their
hearty desire to abide by this decision."[46]
[46] Given in Addington Symonds' _Life of Michelangelo_.
In the _Cappella dei Principi_, gorgeous with its marbles and mosaics,
lie the sovereigns of the younger line, the Medicean Grand Dukes of
Tuscany, the descendants of the great captain Giovanni delle Bande
Nere. Here are the sepulchral monuments of Cosimo I. (1537-1574); of
his sons, Francesco (1574-1587) and Ferdinand I. (1587-1609); and of
Ferdinand's son, grandson and great-grandson, Cosimo II. (1609-1621),
Ferdinand II. (1627-1670), Cosimo III. (1670-1723). The statues are
those of Ferdinand I. and Cosimo II.
Cosimo I. finally transformed the republic into a monarchy, created a
new aristocracy and established a small standing army, though he
mainly relied upon Spanish and German mercenaries. He conquered Siena
in 1553, and in 1570 was invested with the grand ducal crown by Pius
V.--a title which the Emperor confirmed to his successor. Although the
tragedy which tradition has hung round the end of the Duchess Eleonora
and her two sons has not stood the test of historical criticism, there
are plenty of bloody deeds to be laid to Duke Cosimo's account during
his able and ruthless reign. Towards the close of his life he married
his mistress, Cammilla Martelli, and made over the government to his
son. This son, Francesco, the founder of the Uffizi Gallery and of the
modern city of Leghorn, had more than his father's vices and hardly
any of his ability; his intrigue with the beautiful Venetian, Bianca
Cappello, whom he afterwards married, and who died with him, has
excited more interest than it deserves. The Cardinal Ferdinand, who
succeeded him and renounced the cardinalate, was incomparably the best
of the house--a man of magnanimous character and an enlightened
ruler. He shook off the influence of Spain, and built an excellent
navy to make war upon the Turks and Barbary corsairs. Cosimo II. and
Ferdinand II. reigned quietly and benevolently, with no ability but
with plenty of good intentions. Chiabrera sings their praises with
rather unnecessary fervour. But the wealth and prosperity of Tuscany
was waning, and Cosimo III., a luxurious and selfish bigot, could do
nothing to arrest the decay. On the death of his miserable and
contemptible successor, Gian Gastone dei Medici in 1737, the Medicean
dynasty was at an end.
Stretching along a portion of the Via Larga, and near the Piazza di
San Marco, were the famous gardens of the Medici, which the people
sacked in 1494 on the expulsion of Piero. The Casino Mediceo, built by
Buontalenti in 1576, marks the site. Here were placed some of
Lorenzo's antique statues and curios; and here Bertoldo had his great
art school, where the most famous painters and sculptors came to bask
in the sun of Medicean patronage, and to copy the antique. Here the
boy Michelangelo came with his friend Granacci, and here Andrea
Verrocchio first trained the young Leonardo. In this garden, too,
Angelo Poliziano walked with his pupils, and initiated Michelangelo
into the newly revived Hellenic culture. There is nothing now to
recall these past glories.
[Illustration: THE WELL OF S. MARCO]
The church of San Marco has been frequently altered and modernised,
and there is little now to remind us that it was here on August 1,
1489, that Savonarola began to expound the Apocalypse. Over the
entrance is a Crucifix ascribed by Vasari to Giotto. On the second
altar to the right is a much-damaged but authentic Madonna and Saints
by Fra Bartolommeo; that on the opposite altar, on the left, is a
copy of the original now in the Pitti Palace. There are some
picturesque bits of old fourteenth century frescoes on the left wall,
and beneath them, between the second and third altars, lie Pico della
Mirandola and his friend Girolamo Benivieni, and Angelo Poliziano. The
left transept contains the tomb and shrine of St Antoninus, the good
Dominican Archbishop of Florence, with statues by Giovanni da Bologna
and his followers, and later frescoes. In the sacristy, which was
designed by Brunelleschi, there is a fine bronze recumbent statue of
him. Antoninus was Prior of San Marco in the days of Angelico, and
Vasari tells us that when Angelico went to Rome, to paint for Pope
Eugenius, the Pope wished to make the painter Archbishop of Florence:
"When the said friar heard this, he besought his Holiness to find
somebody else, because he did not feel himself apt to govern people;
but that since his Order had a friar who loved the poor, who was most
learned and fit for rule, and who feared God, this dignity would be
much better conferred upon him than on himself. The Pope, hearing
this, and bethinking him that what he said was true, granted his
request freely; and so Fra Antonino was made Archbishop of Florence,
of the Order of Preachers, a man truly most illustrious for sanctity
and learning."
It was in the church of San Marco that Savonarola celebrated Mass on
the day of the Ordeal; here the women waited and prayed, while the
procession set forth; and hither the Dominicans returned at evening,
amidst the howls and derision of the crowd. Here, on the next evening,
the fiercest of the fighting took place. The attempt of the enemy to
break into the church by the sacristy door was repulsed. One of the
Panciatichi, a mere boy, mortally wounded, joyfully received the last
sacraments from Fra Domenico on the steps of the altar, and died in
such bliss, that the rest envied him. Finally the great door of the
church was broken down; Fra Enrico, a German, mounted the pulpit and
fired again and again into the midst of the Compagnacci, shouting with
each shot, _Salvum fac populum tuum, Domine_. Driven from the pulpit,
he and other friars planted their arquebusses beneath the Crucifix on
the high altar, and continued to fire. The church was now so full of
smoke that the friars could hardly continue the defence, until Fra
Giovacchino della Robbia broke one of the windows with a lance. At
last, when the Signoria threatened to destroy the whole convent with
artillery, Savonarola ordered the friars to go in procession from the
church to the dormitory, and himself, taking the Blessed Sacrament
from the altar, slowly followed them.
The convent itself, now officially the _Museo di San Marco_,
originally a house of Silvestrine monks, was made over to the
Dominicans by Pope Eugenius IV., at the instance of Cosimo dei Medici
and his brother Lorenzo. They solemnly took possession in 1436, and
Michelozzo entirely rebuilt the whole convent for them, mainly at the
cost of Cosimo, between 1437 and 1452. "It is believed," says Vasari,
"to be the best conceived and the most beautiful and commodious
convent of any in Italy, thanks to the virtue and industry of
Michelozzo." Fra Giovanni da Fiesole, as the Beato Angelico was
called, came from his Fiesolan convent, and worked simultaneously with
Michelozzo for about eight or nine years (until the Pope summoned him
to Rome in 1445 to paint in the Vatican), covering with his mystical
dreams the walls that his friend designed. That other artistic glory
of the Dominicans, Fra Bartolommeo, took the habit here in 1500,
though there are now only a few unimportant works of his remaining in
the convent. Never was there such a visible outpouring of the praying
heart in painting, as in the work of these two friars. And Antoninus
and Savonarola strove to make the spirit world that they painted a
living reality, for Florence and for the Church.
The first cloister is surrounded by later frescoes, scenes from the
life of St. Antoninus, partly by Bernardino Poccetti and Matteo
Rosselli, at the beginning of the seventeenth century. They are not of
great artistic value, but one, the fifth on the right of the entrance,
representing the entry of St. Antoninus into Florence, shows the old
facade of the Duomo. Like gems in this rather indifferent setting, are
five exquisite frescoes by Angelico in lunettes over the doors; St.
Thomas Aquinas, Christ as a pilgrim received by two Dominican friars,
Christ in the tomb, St. Dominic (spoilt), St. Peter Martyr; also a
larger fresco of St. Dominic at the foot of the Cross. The second of
these, symbolising the hospitality of the convent rule, is one of
Angelico's masterpieces; beneath it is the entrance to the Foresteria,
the guest-chambers. Under the third lunette we pass into the great
Refectory, with its customary pulpit for the novice reader: here,
instead of the usual Last Supper, is a striking fresco of St. Dominic
and his friars miraculously fed by Angels, painted in 1536 by Giovanni
Antonio Sogliani (a pupil of Lorenzo di Credi); the Crucifixion above,
with St. Catherine of Siena and St. Antoninus, is said to be by Fra
Bartolommeo. Here, too, on the right is the original framework by
Jacopo di Bartolommeo da Sete and Simone da Fiesole, executed in 1433,
for Angelico's great tabernacle now in the Uffizi.
Angelico's St. Dominic appropriately watches over the Chapter House,
which contains the largest of Fra Giovanni's frescoes and one of the
greatest masterpieces of religious art: the Crucifixion with the
patron saints of Florence, of the convent, and of the Medici, the
founders of the religious orders, the representatives of the zeal and
learning of the Dominicans, all gathered and united in contemplation
around the Cross of Christ. It was ordered by Cosimo dei Medici, and
painted about 1441. On our left are the Madonna, supported by the
Magdalene, the other Mary, and the beloved Disciple; the Baptist and
St. Mark, representing the city and the convent; St. Lawrence and St.
Cosmas (said by Vasari to be a portrait of Nanni di Banco, who died
twenty years before), and St. Damian. On our right, kneeling at the
foot of the Cross, is St. Dominic, a masterpiece of expression and
sentiment; behind him St. Augustine and St. Albert of Jerusalem
represent Augustinians and Carmelites; St. Jerome, St. Francis, St.
Bernard, St. John Gualbert kneel; St. Benedict and St. Romuald stand
behind them, while at the end are St. Peter Martyr and St. Thomas
Aquinas. All the male heads are admirably characterised and
discriminated, unlike Angelico's women, who are usually either merely
conventionally done or idealised into Angels. Round the picture is a
frieze of prophets, culminating in the mystical Pelican; below is the
great tree of the Dominican order, spreading out from St. Dominic
himself in the centre, with Popes Innocent V. and Benedict XI. on
either hand. The St. Antoninus was added later. Vasari tells us that,
in this tree, the brothers of the order assisted Angelico by obtaining
portraits of the various personages represented from different places;
and they may therefore be regarded as the real, or traditional,
likenesses of the great Dominicans. The same probably applies to the
wonderful figure of Aquinas in the picture itself.
Beyond is a second and larger cloister, surrounded by very inferior
frescoes of the life of St. Dominic, full of old armorial bearings and
architectural fragments arranged rather incongruously. Some of the
lunettes over the cells contain frescoes of the school of Fra
Bartolommeo. The Academy of the Crusca is established here, in what
was once the dormitory of the Novices. Connected with this cloister
was the convent garden. "In the summer time," writes Simone Filipepi,
"in the evening after supper, the Father Fra Girolamo used to walk
with his friars in the garden, and he would make them all sit round
him with the Bible in his hand, and here he expounded to them some
fair passage of the Scriptures, sometimes questioning some novice or
other, as occasion arose. At these meetings there gathered also some
fifty or sixty learned laymen, for their edification. When, by reason
of rain or other cause, it was not possible in the garden, they went
into the _hospitium_ to do the same; and for an hour or two one seemed
verily to be in Paradise, such charity and devotion and simplicity
appeared in all. Blessed was he who could be there." Shortly before
the Ordeal of Fire, Fra Girolamo was walking in the garden with Fra
Placido Cinozzi, when an exceedingly beautiful boy of noble family
came to him with a ticket upon which was written his name, offering
himself to pass through the flames. And thinking that this might not
be sufficient, he fell upon his knees, begging the Friar that he might
be allowed to undergo the ordeal for him. "Rise up, my son," said
Savonarola, "for this thy good will is wondrously pleasing unto God";
and, when the boy had gone, he turned to Fra Placido and said: "From
many persons have I had these applications, but from none have I
received so much joy as from this child, for which may God be
praised."
To the left of the staircase to the upper floor, is the smaller
refectory with a fresco of the Last Supper by Domenico Ghirlandaio,
not by any means one of the painter's best works.
On the top of the stairs we are initiated into the spirit of the place
by Angelico's most beautiful Annunciation, with its inscription,
_Virginis intacte cum veneris ante figuram, pretereundo cave ne
sileatur Ave_, "When thou shalt have come before the image of the
spotless Virgin, beware lest by negligence the Ave be silent."
On the left of the stairway a double series of cells on either side of
the corridor leads us to Savonarola's room. At the head of the
corridor is one of those representations that Angelico repeated so
often, usually with modifications, of St. Dominic at the foot of the
Cross. Each of the cells has a painted lyric of the life of Christ and
His mother, from Angelico's hand; almost each scene with Dominican
witnesses and auditors introduced,--Dominic, Aquinas, Peter Martyr, as
the case may be. In these frescoes Angelico was undoubtedly assisted
by pupils, from whom a few of the less excellent scenes may come;
there is an interesting, but altogether untrustworthy tradition that
some were executed by his brother, Fra Benedetto da Mugello, who took
the Dominican habit simultaneously with him and was Prior of the
convent at Fiesole. Taking the cells on the left first, we see the
_Noli me tangere_ (1), the Entombment (2), the Annunciation (3), the
Crucifixion (4), the Nativity (5), the Transfiguration (6), a most
wonderful picture. Opposite the Transfiguration, on the right wall of
the corridor, is a Madonna and Saints, painted by the Friar somewhat
later than the frescoes in the cells (which, it should be observed,
appear to have been painted on the walls before the cells were
actually partitioned off)--St. John Evangelist and St. Mark, the three
great Dominicans and the patrons of the Medici. Then, on the left, the
following cells contain the Mocking of Christ (7), the Resurrection
with the Maries at the tomb (8), the Coronation of the Madonna (9),
one of the grandest of the whole series, with St. Dominic and St.
Francis kneeling below, and behind them St. Benedict and St. Thomas
Aquinas, St. Peter Martyr and St. Paul the Hermit. The Presentation in
the Temple (10), and the Madonna and Child with Aquinas and Augustine
(11), are inferior to the rest.
The shorter passage now turns to the cells occupied by Fra Girolamo
Savonarola; one large cell leading into two smaller ones (12-14). In
the larger are placed three frescoes by Fra Bartolommeo; Christ and
the two disciples at Emmaus, formerly over the doorway of the
refectory, and two Madonnas--one from the Dominican convent in the
Mugnone being especially beautiful. Here are also modern busts of
Savonarola by Dupre and Benivieni by Bastianini. In the first inner
cell are Savonarola's portrait, apparently copied from a medal and
wrongly ascribed to Bartolommeo, his Crucifix and his relics, his
manuscripts and books of devotion, and, in another case, his hair
shirt and rosary, his beloved Dominican garb which he gave up on the
day of his martyrdom. In the inmost cell are the Cross which he is
said to have carried, and a copy of the old (but not contemporary)
picture of his death, of which the original is in the Corsini Palace.
The seven small cells on the right (15-21) were assigned to the
Juniors, the younger friars who had just passed through the Noviciate.
Each contains a fresco by Angelico of St. Dominic at the foot of the
Cross, now scourging himself, now absorbed in contemplation, now
covering his face with his hands, but in no two cases identical. Into
one of these cells a divine apparition was said to have come to one of
these youths, after hearing Savonarola's "most fervent and most
wondrous discourse" upon the mystery of the Incarnation. The story is
told by Simone Filipepi:--
"On the night of the most Holy Nativity, to a young friar in the
convent, who had not yet sung Mass, had appeared visibly in his cell
on the little altar, whilst he was engaged in prayer, Our Lord in the
form of a little infant even as when He was born in the stable. And
when the hour came to go into the choir for matins, the said friar
commenced to debate in his mind whether he ought to go and leave here
the Holy Child, and deprive himself of such sweetness, or not. At last
he resolved to go and to bear It with him; so, having wrapped It up in
his arms and under his cowl as best he could, all trembling with joy
and with fear, he went down into the choir without telling anyone.
But, when it came to his turn to sing a lesson, whilst he approached
the reading-desk, the Infant vanished from his arms; and when the
friar was aware of this, he remained so overwhelmed and almost beside
himself that he commenced to wander through the choir, like one who
seeks a thing lost, so that it was necessary that another should read
that lesson."
Passing back again down the corridor, we see in the cells two more
Crucifixions (22 and 23); the Baptism of Christ with Madonna as
witness (24), the Crucifixion (25); then, passing the great Madonna
fresco, the Mystery of the Passion (26), in one of those symbolical
representations which seem to have originated with the Camaldolese
painter, Don Lorenzo; Christ bound to the pillar, with St. Dominic
scourging himself and the Madonna appealing to us (27, perhaps by a
pupil); Christ bearing the Cross (28); two more Crucifixions (29 and
30), apparently not executed by Angelico himself.
At the side of Angelico's Annunciation opposite the stairs, we enter
the cell of St. Antoninus (31). Here is one of Angelico's most
beautiful and characteristic frescoes, Christ's descent into Hades:
"the intense, fixed, statue-like silence of ineffable adoration upon
the spirits in prison at the feet of Christ, side by side, the hands
lifted and the knees bowed, and the lips trembling together," as
Ruskin describes it. Here, too, is the death mask of Antoninus, his
portrait perhaps drawn from the death mask by Bartolommeo, his
manuscripts and relics; also a tree of saintly Dominicans, Savonarola
being on the main trunk, the third from the root.
The next cell on the right (32) has the Sermon on the Mount and the
Temptation in the Wilderness. In the following (33), also double,
besides the frescoed Kiss of Judas, are two minute pictures by Fra
Angelico, belonging to an earlier stage of his art than the frescoes,
intended for reliquaries and formerly in Santa Maria Novella. One of
them, the _Madonna della Stella_, is a very perfect and typical
example of the Friar's smaller works, in their "purity of colour
almost shadowless." The other, the Coronation of the Madonna, is less
excellent and has suffered from retouching. The Agony in the Garden
(in cell 34) contains a curious piece of mediaeval symbolism in the
presence of Mary and Martha, contemplation and action, the Mary being
here the Blessed Virgin. In the same cell is another of the
reliquaries from Santa Maria Novella, the Annunciation over the
Adoration of the Magi, with Madonna and Child, the Virgin Martyrs, the
Magdalene and St. Catherine of Siena below; the drawing is rather
faulty. In the following cells are the Last Supper (35), conceived
mystically as the institution of the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar,
with the Madonna alone as witness; the Deposition from the Cross (36);
and the Crucifixion (37), in which Dominic stands with out-stretched
arms.
Opposite on the right (38-39) is the great cell where Pope Eugenius
stayed on the occasion of the consecration of San Marco in 1442; here
Cosimo the Elder, Pater Patriae, spent long hours of his closing days,
in spiritual intercourse with St. Antoninus and after the latter's
death. In the outer compartment the Medicean saint, Cosmas, joins
Madonna and Peter Martyr at the foot of the Cross. Within are the
Adoration of the Magi and a Pieta, both from Angelico's hand, and the
former, one of his latest masterpieces, probably painted with
reference to the fact that the convent had been consecrated on the
Feast of the Epiphany. Here, too, is an old terracotta bust of
Antoninus, and a splendid but damaged picture of Cosimo himself by
Jacopo da Pontormo, incomparably finer than that artist's similarly
constructed work in the Uffizi. Between two smaller cells containing
Crucifixions, both apparently by Angelico himself (42-43--the former
with the Mary and Martha motive at the foot of the Cross), is the
great Greek Library, built by Michelozzo for Cosimo. Here Cosimo
deposited a portion of the manuscripts which had been collected by
Niccolo Niccoli, with additions of his own, and it became the first
public library in Italy. Its shelves are now empty and bare, but it
contains a fine collection of illuminated ritual books from suppressed
convents, several of which are, rather doubtfully, ascribed to
Angelico's brother, Fra Benedetto da Mugello.
It was in this library that Savonarola exercised for the last time his
functions of Prior of San Marco, and surrendered to the commissioners
of the Signoria, on the night of Palm Sunday, 1498. What happened had
best be told in the words of the Padre Pacifico Burlamacchi of the
same convent, Savonarola's contemporary and follower. After several
fictitious summonses had come:--
"They returned at last with the decree of the Signoria in writing, but
with the open promise that Fra Girolamo should be restored safe and
sound, together with his companions. When he heard this, he told them
that he would obey. But first he retired with his friars into the
Greek Library, where he made them in Latin a most beautiful sermon,
exhorting them to follow onwards in the way of God with faith, prayer,
and patience; telling them that it was necessary to go to heaven by
the way of tribulations, and that therefore they ought not in any way
to be terrified; alleging many old examples of the ingratitude of the
city of Florence in return for the benefits received from their Order.
As that of St. Peter Martyr who, after doing so many marvellous things
in Florence, was slain, the Florentines paying the price of his blood.
And of St. Catherine of Siena, whom many had sought to kill, after she
had borne so many labours for them, going personally to Avignon to
plead their cause before the Pope. Nor had less happened to St.
Antoninus, their Archbishop and excellent Pastor, whom they had once
wished to throw from the windows. And that it was no marvel, if he
also, after such sorrows and labourings, was paid at the end in the
same coin. But that he was ready to receive everything with desire and
happiness for the love of his Lord, knowing that in nought else
consisted the Christian life, save in doing good and suffering evil.
And thus, while all the bye-standers wept, he finished his sermon.
Then, issuing forth from the library, he said to those laymen who
awaited him: 'I will say to you what Jeremiah said: This thing I
expected, but not so soon nor so suddenly.' He exhorted them further
to live well and to be fervent in prayer. And having confessed to the
Father Fra Domenico da Pescia, he took the Communion in the first
library. And the same did Fra Domenico. After eating a little, he was
somewhat refreshed; and he spoke the last words to his friars,
exhorting them to persevere in religion, and kissing them all, he took
his last departure from them. In the parting one of his children said
to him: 'Father, why dost thou abandon us and leave us so desolate?'
To which he replied: 'Son, have patience, God will help you'; and he
added that he would either see them again alive, or that after death
he would appear to them without fail. Also, as he departed, he gave up
the common keys to the brethren, with so great humility and charity,
that the friars could not keep themselves from tears; and many of them
wished by all means to go with him. At last, recommending himself to
their prayers, he made his way towards the door of the library, where
the first Commissioners all armed were awaiting him; to whom, giving
himself into their hands like a most meek lamb, he said: 'I recommend
to you this my flock and all these other citizens.' And when he was in
the corridor of the library, he said: 'My friars, doubt not, for God
will not fail to perfect His work; and although I be put to death, I
shall help you more than I have done in life, and I will return
without fail to console you, either dead or alive.' Arrived at the
holy water, which is at the exit of the choir, Fra Domenico said to
him: 'Fain would I too come to these nuptials.' Certain of the laymen,
his friends, were arrested at the command of the Signoria. When the
Father Fra Girolamo was in the first cloister, Fra Benedetto, the
miniaturist, strove ardently to go with him; and, when the officers
thrust him back, he still insisted that he would go. But the Father
Fra Girolamo turned to him, and said: 'Fra Benedetto, on your
obedience come not, for I and Fra Domenico have to die for the love of
Christ.' And thus he was torn away from the eyes of his children."