_The Accademia delle Belle Arti--The Santissima Annunziata--And other
Buildings_
"In Firenze, piu che altrove, venivano gli uomini perfetti in tutte
l'arti, e specialmente nella pittura."--_Vasari._
Turning southwards from the Piazza di San Marco into the Via Ricasoli,
we come to the _Accademia delle Belle Arti_, with its collection of
Tuscan and Umbrian pictures, mostly gathered from suppressed churches
and convents.
In the central hall, the Tribune of the David, Michelangelo's gigantic
marble youth stands under the cupola, surrounded by casts of the
master's other works. The young hero has just caught sight of the
approaching enemy, and is all braced up for the immortal moment.
Commenced in 1501 and finished at the beginning of 1504, out of a
block of marble over which an earlier sculptor had bungled, it was
originally set up in front of the Palazzo Vecchio on the Ringhiera, as
though to defend the great Palace of the People. It is supposed to
have taken five days to move the statue from the Opera del Duomo,
where Michelangelo had chiselled it out, to the Palace. When the
simple-minded Gonfaloniere, Piero Soderini, saw it, he told the artist
that the nose appeared to him to be too large; whereupon Michelangelo
mounted a ladder, pretended to work upon it for a few moments,
dropping a little marble dust all the time, which he had taken up with
him, and then turned round for approval to the Gonfaloniere, who
assured him that he had now given the statue life. This _gigante di
Fiorenza_, as it was called, was considerably damaged during the third
expulsion of the Medici in 1527, but retained its proud position
before the Palace until 1873.
On the right, as we approach the giant, is the _Sala del Beato
Angelico_, containing a lovely array of Fra Angelico's smaller
paintings. Were we to attempt to sum up Angelico's chief
characteristics in one word, that word would be _onesta_, in its early
mediaeval sense as Dante uses it in the _Vita Nuova_, signifying not
merely purity or chastity, as it came later to mean, but the outward
manifestation of spiritual beauty,--the _honestas_ of which Aquinas
speaks. A supreme expression of this may be found in the Paradise of
his Last Judgment (266), the mystical dance of saints and Angels in
the celestial garden that blossoms under the rays of the Sun of Divine
Love, and on all the faces of the blessed beneath the Queen of Mercy
on the Judge's right. The Hell is, naturally, almost a failure. In
many of the small scenes from the lives of Christ and His Mother, of
which there are several complete series here, some of the heads are
absolute miracles of expression; notice, for instance, the Judas
receiving the thirty pieces of silver, and all the faces in the
Betrayal (237), and, above all perhaps, the Peter in the Entry into
Jerusalem (252), on every line of whose face seems written: "Lord, why
can I not follow thee now? I will lay down my life for thy sake." The
Deposition from the Cross (246), contemplated by St. Dominic, the
Beata Villana and St. Catherine of Alexandria, appears to be an
earlier work of Angelico's. Here, also, are three great Madonnas
painted by the Friar as altar pieces for convent churches; the Madonna
and Child surrounded by Angels and saints, while Cosmas and Damian,
the patrons of the Medici, kneel at her feet (281), was executed in
1438 for the high altar of San Marco, and, though now terribly
injured, was originally one of his best pictures; the Madonna and
Child, with two Angels and six saints, Peter Martyr, Cosmas and
Damian, Francis, Antony of Padua, and Louis of Toulouse (265), was
painted for the convent of the Osservanza near Mugello,--hence the
group of Franciscans on the left; the third (227), in which Cosmas and
Damian stand with St. Dominic on the right of the Madonna, and St.
Francis with Lawrence and John the Divine on her left, is an inferior
work from his hand.
Also in this room are four delicious little panels by Lippo Lippi (264
and 263), representing the Annunciation divided into two compartments,
St. Antony Abbot and the Baptist; two Monks of the Vallombrosa, by
Perugino (241, 242), almost worthy of Raphael; and two charming scenes
of mediaeval university life, the School of Albertus Magnus (231) and
the School of St. Thomas Aquinas (247). These two latter appear to be
by some pupil of Fra Angelico, and may possibly be very early works of
Benozzo Gozzoli. In the first, Albert is lecturing to an audience,
partly lay and partly clerical, amongst whom is St. Thomas, then a
youthful novice but already distinguished by the halo and the sun upon
his breast; in the second, Thomas himself is now holding the
professorial chair, surrounded by pupils listening or taking notes,
while Dominicans throng the cloisters behind. On his right sits the
King of France; below his seat the discomforted Averrhoes humbly
places himself on the lowest step, between the heretics--William of
St. Amour and Sabellius.
From the left of the David's tribune, we turn into three rooms
containing masterpieces of the Quattrocento (with a few later works),
and appropriately named after Botticelli and Perugino.
In the _Sala prima del Botticelli_ is Sandro's famous _Primavera_, the
Allegory of Spring or the Kingdom of Venus (80). Inspired in part by
Poliziano's _stanze_ in honour of Giuliano dei Medici and his Bella
Simonetta, Botticelli nevertheless has given to his strange--not
altogether decipherable--allegory, a vague mysterious poetry far
beyond anything that Messer Angelo could have suggested to him.
Through this weirdly coloured garden of the Queen of Love, in "the
light that never was on sea or land," blind Cupid darts upon his
little wings, shooting, apparently at random, a flame-tipped arrow
which will surely pierce the heart of the central maiden of those
three, who, in their thin clinging white raiment, personify the
Graces. The eyes of Simonetta--for it is clearly she--rest for a
moment in the dance upon the stalwart Hermes, an idealised Giuliano,
who has turned away carelessly from the scene. Flora, "pranked and
pied for birth," advances from our right, scattering flowers rapidly
as she approaches; while behind her a wanton Zephyr, borne on his
strong wings, breaks through the wood to clasp Fertility, from whose
mouth the flowers are starting. Venus herself, the mistress of nature,
for whom and by whom all these things are done, stands somewhat sadly
apart in the centre of the picture; this is only one more of the
numberless springs that have passed over her since she first rose from
the sea, and she is somewhat weary of it all:--
"Te, dea, te fugiunt venti, te nubila caeli
Adventumque tuum, tibi suavis daedala tellus
Summittit flores, tibi rident aequora ponti
Placatumque nitet diffuso lumine caelum."[47]
[47] "Before thee, goddess, flee the winds, the clouds of heaven;
before thee and thy advent; for thee earth manifold in works puts
forth sweet-smelling flowers; for thee the levels of the sea do laugh
and heaven propitiated shines with outspread light" (Munro's
_Lucretius_).
This was one of the pictures painted for Lorenzo the Magnificent.
Botticelli's other picture in this room, the large Coronation of the
Madonna (73) with its predella (74), was commissioned by the Arte di
Por Sta. Maria, the Guild of Silk-merchants, for an altar in San
Marco; the ring of festive Angels, encircling their King and Queen, is
in one of the master's most characteristic moods. On either side of
the Primavera are two early works by Lippo Lippi; Madonna adoring the
Divine Child in a rocky landscape, with the little St. John and an old
hermit (79), and the Nativity (82), with Angels and shepherds, Jerome,
Magdalene and Hilarion. Other important pictures in this room are
Andrea del Sarto's Four Saints (76), one of his latest works painted
for the monks of Vallombrosa in 1528; Andrea Verrocchio's Baptism of
Christ (71), in which the two Angels were possibly painted by
Verrocchio's great pupil, Leonardo, in his youth; Masaccio's Madonna
and Child watched over by St. Anne (70), an early and damaged work,
the only authentic easel picture of his in Florence. The three small
predella pictures (72), the Nativity, the martyrdom of Sts. Cosmas and
Damian, St. Anthony of Padua finding a stone in the place of the dead
miser's heart, by Francesco Pesellino, 1422-1457, the pupil of Lippo
Lippi, are fine examples of a painter who normally only worked on this
small scale and whose works are very rare indeed. Francesco Granacci,
who painted the Assumption (68), is chiefly interesting as having
been Michelangelo's friend and fellow pupil under Ghirlandaio.
The _Sala del Perugino_ takes its name from three works of that master
which it contains; the great Vallombrosa Assumption (57), signed and
dated 1500, one of the painter's finest altar pieces, with a very
characteristic St. Michael--the Archangel who was by tradition the
genius of the Assumption, as Gabriel had been of the Annunciation; the
Deposition from the Cross (56); and the Agony in the Garden (53). But
the gem of the whole room is Lippo Lippi's Coronation of the Madonna
(62), one of the masterpieces of the early Florentine school, which he
commenced for the nuns of Sant' Ambrogio in 1441. The throngs of boys
and girls, bearing lilies and playing at being Angels, are altogether
delightful, and the two little orphans, that are being petted by the
pretty Florentine lady on our right, are characteristic of Fra
Filippo's never failing sympathy with child life. On the left two
admirably characterised monks are patronised by St. Ambrose, and in
the right corner the jolly Carmelite himself, under the wing of the
Baptist, is welcomed by a little Angel with the scroll, _Is perfecit
opus_. It will be observed that "poor brother Lippo" has dressed
himself with greater care for his celestial visit, than he announced
his intention of doing in Robert Browning's poem:--
"Well, all these
Secured at their devotion, up shall come
Out of a corner when you least expect,
As one by a dark stair into a great light,
Music and talking, who but Lippo! I!--
Mazed, motionless and moon-struck--I'm the man!
Back I shrink--what is this I see and hear?
I, caught up with my monk's things by mistake,
My old serge gown and rope that goes all round,
I, in this presence, this pure company!
Where's a hole, where's a corner for escape?
Then steps a sweet angelic slip of a thing
Forward, puts out a soft palm--'Not so fast!'
Addresses the celestial presence, 'Nay--
'He made you and devised you, after all,
'Though he's none of you! Could Saint John there draw--
'His camel-hair make up a painting-brush?
'We come to brother Lippo for all that,
'_Iste perfecit opus!_'"
Fra Filippo's Madonna and Child, with Sts. Cosmas and Damian, Francis
and Antony, painted for the Medicean chapel in Santa Croce (55), is an
earlier and less characteristic work. Over the door is St. Vincent
preaching, by Fra Bartolommeo (58), originally painted to go over the
entrance to the sacristy in San Marco--a striking representation of a
Dominican preacher of repentance and renovation, conceived in the
spirit of Savonarola, but terribly "restored." The Trinita (63) is one
of Mariotto Albertinelli's best works, but sadly damaged. The two
child Angels (61) by Andrea del Sarto, originally belonged to his
picture of the Four Saints, in the last room; the Crucifixion, with
the wonderful figure of the Magdalene at the foot of the Cross (65),
ascribed to Luca Signorelli, does not appear to be from the master's
own hand; Ghirlandaio's predella (67), with scenes from the lives of
Sts. Dionysius, Clement, Dominic, and Thomas Aquinas, belongs to a
great picture which we shall see presently.
The _Sala seconda del Botticelli_ contains three pictures ascribed to
the master, but only one is authentic--the Madonna and Child enthroned
with six Saints, while Angels raise the curtain over her throne or
hold up emblems of the Passion (85); it is inscribed with Dante's
line--
"Vergine Madre, Figlia del tuo Figlio."
The familiar Three Archangels (84), though attributed to Sandro, is
not even a work of his school. There is a charming little predella
picture by Fra Filippo (86), representing a miracle of San Frediano,
St. Michael announcing her death to the Blessed Virgin, and a friar
contemplating the mystery of the Blessed Trinity--pierced by the
"three arrows of the three stringed bow," to adopt Dante's phrase. The
Deposition from the Cross (98), was commenced by Filippino Lippi for
the Annunziata, and finished after his death in 1504 by Perugino, who
added the group of Maries with the Magdalene and the figure on our
right. The Vision of St. Bernard (97), by Fra Bartolommeo, is the
first picture that the Friar undertook on resuming his brush, after
Raphael's visit to Florence had stirred him up to new efforts;
commenced in 1506, it was left unfinished, and has been injured by
renovations. Here are two excellent paintings by Lorenzo di Credi (92
and 94), the former, the Adoration of the Shepherds, being his very
best and most perfectly finished work. High up are two figures in
niches by Filippino Lippi, the Baptist and the Magdalene (93 and 89),
hardly pleasing. The Resurrection (90), by Raffaellino del Garbo, is
the only authentic work in Florence of a pupil of Filippino's, who
gave great promise which was never fulfilled.
At the end of the hall are three Sale _dei Maestri Toscani_, from the
earliest Primitives down to the eighteenth century. Only a few need
concern us much.
The first room contains the works of the earlier masters, from a
pseudo-Cimabue (102), to Luca Signorelli, whose Madonna and Child with
Archangels and Doctors (164), painted for a church in Cortona, has
suffered from restoration. There are four genuine, very tiny pictures
by Botticelli (157, 158, 161, 162). The Adoration of the Kings (165),
by Gentile da Fabriano, is one of the most delightful old pictures in
Florence; Gentile da Fabriano, an Umbrian master who, through Jacopo
Bellini, had a considerable influence upon the early Venetian school,
settled in Florence in 1422, and finished this picture in the
following year for Santa Trinita, near which he kept a much frequented
bottega. Michelangelo said that Gentile had a hand similar to his
name; and this picture, with its rich and varied poetry, is his
masterpiece. The man wearing a turban, seen full face behind the third
king, is the painter himself. Kugler remarks: "Fra Angelico and
Gentile are like two brothers, both highly gifted by nature, both full
of the most refined and amiable feelings; but the one became a monk,
the other a knight." The smaller pictures surrounding it are almost
equally charming in their way--especially, perhaps, the Flight into
Egypt in the predella. The Deposition from the Cross (166), by Fra
Angelico, also comes from Santa Trinita, for which it was finished in
1445; originally one of Angelico's masterpieces, it has been badly
repainted; the saints in the frame are extremely beautiful, especially
a most wonderful St. Michael at the top, on our left; the man standing
on the ladder, wearing a black hood, is the architect, Michelozzo, who
was the Friar's friend, and may be recognised in several of his
paintings. The lunettes in the three Gothic arches above Angelico's
picture, and which, perhaps, did not originally belong to it, are by
the Camaldolese Don Lorenzo, by whom are also the Annunciation with
four Saints (143), and the three predella scenes (144, 145, 146).
Of the earlier pictures, the Madonna and Child adored by Angels (103)
is now believed to be the only authentic easel picture of Giotto's
that remains to us--though this is, possibly, an excess of scepticism.
Besides several works ascribed to Taddeo Gaddi and his son Agnolo, by
the former of whom are probably the small panels from Santa Croce,
formerly attributed to Giotto, we should notice the Pieta by Giovanni
da Milano (131); the Presentation in the Temple by Ambrogio Lorenzetti
(134), signed and dated 1342; and a large altarpiece ascribed to
Pietro Cavallini (157). The so-called Marriage of Boccaccio Adimari
with Lisa Ricasoli (147) is an odd picture of the social customs of
old Florence.
In the second room are chiefly works by Fra Bartolommeo and Mariotto
Albertinelli. By the Frate, are the series of heads of Christ and
Saints (168), excepting the Baptist on the right; they are frescoes
taken from San Marco, excepting the Christ on the left, inscribed
"Orate pro pictore 1514," which is in oil on canvas. Also by him are
the two frescoes of Madonna and Child (171, 173), and the splendid
portrait of Savonarola in the character of St. Peter Martyr (172), the
great religious persecutor of the Middle Ages, to whom Fra Girolamo
had a special devotion. By Albertinelli, are the Madonna and Saints
(167), and the Annunciation (169), signed and dated 1510. This room
also contains several pictures by Fra Paolino da Pistoia and the
Dominican nun, Plautilla Nelli, two pious but insipid artists, who
inherited Fra Bartolommeo's drawings and tried to carry on his
traditions. On a stand in the middle of the room, is Domenico
Ghirlandaio's Adoration of the Shepherds (195), from Santa Trinita, a
splendid work with--as Vasari puts it--"certain heads of shepherds
which are held a divine thing."
On the walls of the third room are later pictures of no importance or
significance. But in the middle of the room is another masterpiece by
Ghirlandaio (66); the Madonna and Child with two Angels, Thomas
Aquinas and Dionysius standing on either side of the throne, Dominic
and Clement kneeling. It is seldom, indeed, that this prosaic painter
succeeded in creating such a thinker as this Thomas, such a mystic as
this Dionysius; in the head of the latter we see indeed the image of
the man who, according to the pleasant mediaeval fable eternalised by
Dante, "in the flesh below, saw deepest into the Angelic nature and
its ministry."
* * * * *
In the Via Cavour, beyond San Marco, is the _Chiostro dello Scalzo_, a
cloister belonging to a brotherhood dedicated to St. John, which was
suppressed in the eighteenth century. Here are a series of frescoes
painted in grisaille by Andrea del Sarto and his partner, Francia
Bigio, representing scenes from the life of the Precursor, with
allegorical figures of the Virtues. The Baptism of Christ is the
earliest, and was painted by the two artists in collaboration, in 1509
or 1510. After some work for the Servites, which we shall see
presently, Andrea returned to this cloister; and painted, from 1515 to
1517, the Justice, St. John preaching, St. John baptising the people,
and his imprisonment. Some of the figures in these frescoes show the
influence of Albert Duerer's engravings. Towards the end of 1518,
Andrea went off to France to work for King Francis I.; and, while he
was away, Francia Bigio painted St. John leaving his parents, and St.
John's first meeting with Christ. On Andrea's return, he set to work
here again and painted, at intervals from 1520 to 1526, Charity, Faith
and Hope, the dance of the daughter of Herodias, the decollation of
St. John, and the presentation of his head, the Angel appearing to
Zacharias, the Visitation, and, last of all, the Birth of the Baptist.
The Charity is Andrea's own wife, Lucrezia, who at this very time, if
Vasari's story is true, was persuading him to break his promise to the
French King and to squander the money which had been intrusted to him
for the purchase of works of art.
The Via della Sapienza leads from San Marco into the _Piazza della
Santissima Annunziata_. In one of the houses on the left, now
incorporated into the Reale Istituto di Studi Superiori, Andrea del
Sarto and Francia Bigio lodged with other painters, before Andrea's
marriage; and here, usually under the presidency of the sculptor
Rustici, the "Compagnia del Paiuolo," an artists' club of twelve
members, met for feasting and disport.[48]
[48] See _Andrea del Sarto_, by H. Guinness in the _Great Masters_
series, and _G. F. Rustici_ in Vasari.
This Piazza was a great place for processions in old Florence. Here
stand the church of the _Santissima Annunziata_ and the convent of the
Servites, while the Piazza itself is flanked to right and left by
arcades originally designed by Brunelleschi. The equestrian statue of
the Grand Duke Ferdinand I. was cast by Giovanni da Bologna out of
metal from captured Turkish guns. The arcade on the right, as we face
the church, with its charming medallions of babies in swaddling
clothes by Andrea della Robbia, is a part of the Spedale degli
Innocenti or Hospital for Foundlings, which was commenced from
Brunelleschi's designs in 1421, during the Gonfalonierate of Giovanni
dei Medici; the work, which was eloquently supported in the Council of
the People by Leonardo Bruni, was raised by the Silk-merchants Guild,
the Arte di Por Santa Maria. On its steps the Compagnacci murdered
their first victim in the attack on San Marco. There is a picturesque
court, designed by Brunelleschi, with an Annunciation by Andrea della
Robbia over the door of the chapel, and a small picture gallery, which
contains nothing of much importance, save a Holy Family with Saints by
Piero di Cosimo. In the chapel, or church of Santa Maria degli
Innocenti, there is a masterpiece by Domenico Ghirlandaio, painted in
1488, an Adoration of the Magi (the fourth head on the left is the
painter himself), in which the Massacre of the Innocents is seen in
the background, and two of these glorified infant martyrs, under the
protection of the two St. Johns, are kneeling most sweetly in front of
the Madonna and her Child, for whom they have died, joining in the
adoration of the kings and the _gloria_ of the angelic choir.
The church of the Santissima Annunziata was founded in the thirteenth
century, but has been completely altered and modernised since at
different epochs. In summer mornings lilies and other flowers lie in
heaps in its portico and beneath Ghirlandaio's mosaic of the
Annunciation, to be offered at Madonna's shrine within. The entrance
court was built in the fifteenth century, at the expense of the elder
Piero dei Medici. The fresco to the left of the entrance, the Nativity
of Christ, is by Alessio Baldovinetti. Within the glass, to the left,
are six frescoes representing the life and miracles of the great
Servite, Filippo Benizzi; that of his receiving the habit of the order
is by Cosimo Rosselli (1476); the remaining five are early works by
Andrea del Sarto, painted in 1509 and 1510, for which he received a
mere trifle; in the midst of them is an indifferent seventeenth
century bust of their painter. The frescoes on the right, representing
the life of the Madonna, of whom this order claims to be the special
servants, are slightly later. The approach of the Magi and the
Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, the latter dated 1514, are among the
finest works of Andrea del Sarto; in the former he has introduced
himself and the sculptor Sansovino, and among the ladies in the latter
is his wife. Fifty years afterwards the painter Jacopo da Empoli was
copying this picture, when a very old lady, who was going into the
church to hear mass, stopped to look at his work, and then, pointing
to the portrait of Lucrezia, told him that it was herself. The
Sposalizio, by Francia Bigio, painted in 1513, was damaged by the
painter himself in a fit of passion at the meddling of the monks. The
Visitation, by Jacopo da Pontormo, painted in 1516, shows what
admirable work this artist could do in his youth, before he fell into
his mannered imitations of Michelangelo; the Assumption, painted
slightly later by another of Andrea's pupils, Rosso Fiorentino, is
less excellent.
Inside the church itself, on the left, is the sanctuary of Our Lady of
the Annunciation, one of the most highly revered shrines in Tuscany;
it was constructed from the designs of Michelozzo at the cost of the
elder Piero dei Medici to enclose the miraculous picture of the
Annunciation, and lavishly decorated and adorned by the Medicean Grand
Dukes. After the Pazzi conspiracy, Piero's son Lorenzo had a waxen
image of himself suspended here in thanksgiving for his escape. Over
the altar there is usually a beautiful little head of the Saviour, by
Andrea del Sarto. The little oratory beyond, with the Madonna's
mystical emblems on its walls, was constructed in the seventeenth
century.
In the second chapel from the shrine is a fresco by Andrea del
Castagno, which was discovered in the summer of 1899 under a copy of
Michelangelo's Last Judgment. It represents St. Jerome and two women
saints adoring the Blessed Trinity, and is characteristic of the _modo
terribile_ in which this painter conceived his subjects; the heads of
the Jerome and the older saint to our right are particularly powerful.
For the rest, the interior of this church is more gorgeous than
tasteful; and the other works which it contains, including the two
Peruginos, and some tolerable monuments, are third rate. The rotunda
of the choir was designed by Leo Battista Alberti and erected at the
cost of the Marquis of Mantua, whose descendant, San Luigi Gonzaga,
had a special devotion to the miraculous picture.
From the north transept, the cloisters are entered. Here, over the
door, is the Madonna del Sacco, an exceedingly beautiful fresco by
Andrea del Sarto, painted in 1525. St. Joseph, leaning upon the sack
which gives the picture its name, is reading aloud the Prophecies to
the Mother and Child whom they concern. In this cloister--which was
built by Cronaca--is the monument of the French knight slain at
Campaldino in 1289 (_see_ chapter ii.), which should be contrasted
with the later monuments of condottieri in the Duomo. Here also is the
chapel of St. Luke, where the Academy of Artists, founded under Cosimo
I., used to meet.
A good view of the exterior of the rotunda can be obtained from the
Via Gino Capponi. At the corner of this street and the Via del
Mandorlo is the house which Andrea del Sarto bought for himself and
his Lucrezia, after his return from France, and here he died in 1531,
"full of glory and of domestic sorrows." Lucrezia survived him for
nearly forty years, and died in 1570. Perhaps, if she had not made
herself so unpleasant to her husband's pupils and assistants, good
Giorgio Vasari--the youngest of them--might not have left us so dark a
picture of this beautiful Florentine.
The rather picturesque bit of ruin in the Via degli Alfani, at the
corner of the Via del Castellaccio, is merely a part of an oratory in
connection with Santa Maria degli Angioli, which Brunelleschi
commenced for Filippo Scolari, but which was abandoned. _Santa Maria
degli Angioli_ itself, a suppressed Camaldolese house, was of old one
of the most important convents in Florence. The famous poet, Fra
Guittone d'Arezzo, of whom Dante speaks disparagingly in the
_Commedia_ and in the _De Vulgari Eloquentia_, was instrumental in its
foundation in 1293. It was sacked in 1378 during the rising of the
Ciompi. This convent in the earlier portion of the fifteenth century
was a centre of Hellenic studies and humanistic culture, under Father
Ambrogio Traversari, who died at the close of the Council of Florence.
In the cloister there is still a powerful fresco by Andrea del
Castagno representing Christ on the Cross, with Madonna and the
Magdalene, the Baptist, St. Benedict and St. Romuald. The Romuald
especially, the founder of the order, is a fine life-like figure.
The _Spedale di Santa Maria Nuova_ was originally founded by Messer
Folco Portinari, the father of the girl who may have been Dante's
"Giver of Blessing," in 1287. Folco died in 1289, and is buried within
the church, which contains one of Andrea della Robbia's Madonnas. Over
the portal is a terracotta Coronation of the Madonna by Bicci di
Lorenzo, erected in 1424. The two frescoes, representing scenes in the
history of the hospital, are of the early part of the fifteenth
century; the one on the right was painted in 1424 by Bicci di Lorenzo.
In the Via Bufalini, Ghiberti had his workshop; in what was once his
house is now the picture gallery of the hospital. Here is the fresco
of the Last Judgment, commenced by Fra Bartolommeo in 1499, before he
abandoned the world, and finished by Mariotto Albertinelli. Among its
contents are an Annunciation by Albertinelli, Madonnas by Cosimo
Rosselli and Rosso Fiorentino, and a terracotta Madonna by
Verrocchio. The two pictures ascribed to Angelico and Botticelli are
not authentic. But in some respects more interesting than these
Florentine works is the triptych by the Fleming, Hugo Van der Goes,
painted between 1470 and 1475 for Tommaso Portinari, Messer Folco's
descendant; in the centre is the "Adoration of the Shepherds," with
deliciously quaint little Angels; in the side wings, Tommaso Portinari
with his two boys, his wife and their little girl, are guarded by
their patron saints. Tommaso Portinari was agent for the Medici in
Bruges; and, on the occasion of the wedding of Charles the Bold of
Burgundy with Margaret of York in 1468, he made a fine show riding in
the procession at the head of the Florentines.
[Illustration: THE CLOISTER OF THE INNOCENTI]
A little more to the east are the church and suppressed convent of
Santa Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi. In the church, which has a fine court
designed by Giuliano da San Gallo, is a Coronation of the Madonna by
Cosimo Rosselli; in the chapter-house of the convent is a Crucifixion
by Perugino, painted in the closing years of the Quattrocento, perhaps
the grandest of all his frescoes. In Ruskin's chapter on the
_Superhuman Ideal_, in the second volume of _Modern Painters_, he
cites the background of this fresco (together with Benozzo Gozzoli's
in the Palazzo Riccardi) as one of the most perfect examples of those
ideal landscapes of the religious painters, in which Perugino is
supreme: "In the landscape of the fresco in Sta. Maria Maddalena at
Florence there is more variety than is usual with him: a gentle river
winds round the bases of rocky hills, a river like our own Wye or Tees
in their loveliest reaches; level meadows stretch away on its opposite
side; mounds set with slender-stemmed foliage occupy the nearer
ground, and a small village with its simple spire peeps from the
forest at the bend of the valley."
Beyond is the church of Sant' Ambrogio, once belonging to the convent
of Benedictine nuns for whom Fra Lippo Lippi painted his great
Coronation of Madonna. The church is hardly interesting at present,
but contains an Assumption by Cosimo Rosselli, and, in the chapel of
the Blessed Sacrament, a marble tabernacle by Mino da Fiesole and a
fresco by Cosimo Rosselli painted in 1486, representing the legend of
a miraculous chalice with some fine Florentine portrait heads,
altogether above the usual level of Cosimo's work.
The Borgo la Croce leads hence to the Porta alla Croce, in the very
prosaic and modern Piazza Beccaria. This Porta alla Croce, the eastern
gate of Florence in the third walls, was commenced by Arnolfo di
Cambio in 1284; the frescoed Madonna in the lunette is by one of the
later followers of Ghirlandaio. Through this gate, on October 6th
1308, Corso Donati fled from Florence, after his desperate attempt to
hold the Piazza di San Piero Maggiore against the forces of the
Signoria. Following the Via Aretina towards Rovezzano, we soon reach
the remains of the Badia di San Salvi, where he was slain by his
captors--as Dante makes his brother Forese darkly prophesy in the
twenty-fourth canto of the _Purgatorio_. Four year later, in October
1312, the Emperor Henry VII. lay sick in the Abbey, while his army
ineffectually besieged Florence. Nothing remains to remind us of that
epoch, although the district is still called the Campo di Marte or
Campo di Arrigo. We know from Leonardo Bruni that Dante, although he
had urged the Emperor on to attack the city, did not join the imperial
army like many of his fellow exiles had done: "so much reverence did
he yet retain for his fatherland." In the old refectory of the Abbey
is Andrea del Sarto's Last Supper, one of his most admirable frescoes,
painted between 1525 and 1527, equally excellent in colour and design.
"I know not," writes Vasari, "what to say of this _Cenacolo_ that
would not be too little, seeing it to be such that all who behold it
are struck with astonishment." When the siege was expected in 1529,
and the defenders of the city were destroying everything in the
suburbs which could give aid or cover to the enemy, a party of them
broke down a wall in the convent and found themselves face to face
with this picture. Lost in admiration, they built up a portion of what
they had destroyed, in order that this last triumph of Florentine
painting might be secure from the hand of war.
* * * * *
On this side of the river, those walls of Florence which Lapo Gianni
would fain have seen _inargentate_--the third circle reared by Arnolfo
and his successors--have been almost entirely destroyed, and their
site marked by the broad utterly prosaic Viali. Besides the Porta alla
Croce, the Porta San Gallo and the Porta al Prato still stand, on the
north and west respectively. The Porta San Gallo was begun from
Arnolfo's design in 1284, but not finished until 1327; the fresco in
the lunette is by Michele di Ridolfo Ghirlandaio, Ridolfo's adopted
son. On July 21, 1304, the exiled Bianchi and Ghibellines made a
desperate attempt to surprise Florence through this gate, led by the
heroic young Baschiera della Tosa. In 1494, Piero dei Medici and his
brother Giuliano fled from the people through it; and in 1738 the
first Austrian Grand Duke, Francis II., entered by it. The triumphant
arch beyond, at which the lions of the Republic, to right and left of
the gate, appear to gaze with little favour, marked this latter
event.
These Austrian Grand Dukes were decidedly better rulers than the
Medici, to whom, by an imperial usurpation, they succeeded on the
death of Gian Gastone. Leopold I., Ferdinand III., Leopold II., were
tolerant and liberal-minded sovereigns, and under them Tuscany became
the most prosperous state in Italy: "a Garden of Paradise without the
tree of knowledge and without the tree of life." But, when the
Risorgimento came, their sway was found incompatible with the
aspirations of the Italians towards national unification; the last
Grand Duke, after wavering between Austria and young Italy, threw in
his lot with the former, and after having brought the Austrians into
Tuscany, was forced to abdicate. Thus Florence became the first
capital of Victor Emmanuel's kingdom.
In the Via di San Gallo is the very graceful Palazzo Pandolfini,
commenced in 1520 from Raphael's designs, on the left as we move
inwards from the gate. From the Via 27 Aprile, which joins the Via di
San Gallo, we enter the former convent of Sta. Appollonia. In what was
once its refectory is a fresco of the Last Supper by Andrea del
Castagno, with the Crucifixion, Entombment, and Resurrection. Andrea
del Castagno impressed his contemporaries by his furious passions and
savage intractability of temper, his quality of _terribilita_;
although we now know that Vasari's story that Andrea obtained the
secret of using oil as a vehicle in painting from his friend, Domenico
Veneziano, and then murdered him, must be a mere fable, since Domenico
survived Andrea by nearly five years. Rugged unadorned strength, with
considerable power of characterisation and great technical dexterity,
mark his extant works, which are very few in number. This _Cenacolo_
in the finest of them all; the figures are full of life and
character, although the Saviour is unpleasing and the Judas inclines
to caricature. The nine figures from the Villa Pandolfini, frescoes
transferred to canvas, are also his; Filippo Scolari, known as Pippo
Spano (a Florentine connected with the Buondelmonti, but Ghibelline,
who became Count of Temesvar and a great Hungarian captain), Farinata
degli Uberti, Niccolo Acciaiuoli (a Florentine who became Grand
Seneschal of the kingdom of Naples and founded the Certosa), the
Cumaean Sibyl, Esther, Queen Tomyris, Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio.
The two poets and Boccaccio are the least successful, since they were
altogether out of Andrea's line, but there must have been something
noble in the man to enable him so to realise Farinata degli Uberti, as
he stood alone at Empoli when all others agreed to destroy Florence,
to defend her to the last: _Colui che la difese a viso aperto._
A _Cenacolo_ of a very different character may be seen in the
refectory of the suppressed convent of Sant' Onofrio in the Via di
Faenza. Though showing Florentine influence in its composition, this
fresco is mainly Umbrian in character; from a half deciphered
inscription on the robe of one of the Apostles (which appears to have
been altered), it was once attempted to ascribe it to Raphael. It is
now believed to be partly the work of Perugino, partly that of some
pupil or pupils of his--perhaps Gerino da Pistoia or Giannicola Manni.
It has also been ascribed to Giovanni Lo Spagna and to Raffaellino del
Garbo. Morelli supposed it to be the work of a pupil of Perugino who
was inspired by a Florentine engraving of the fifteenth century, and
suggested Giannicola Manni. In the same street is the picturesque
little Gothic church of San Jacopo in Campo Corbolini.
[Illustration: A FLORENTINE SUBURB]
At the end of the Via Faenza--where once stood one of Arnolfo's
gates--we are out again upon the Viale, here named after Filippo
Strozzi. Opposite rises what was the great Medicean citadel, the
Fortezza da Basso, built by Alessandro dei Medici to overawe the city.
Michelangelo steadfastly refused, at the risk of his life, to have
anything to do with it. Filippo Strozzi is said to have aided
Alessandro in carrying out this design, and even to have urged it upon
him, although he was warned that he was digging his own grave. After
the unsuccessful attempt of the exiles to overthrow the
newly-established government of Duke Cosimo, while Baccio Valori and
the other prisoners were sent to be beheaded or hanged in the
Bargello, Filippo Strozzi was imprisoned here and cruelly tortured, in
spite of the devoted attempts of his children to obtain his release.
Here at length, in 1538, he was found dead in his cell. He was said to
have left a paper declaring that, lest he should be more terribly
tortured and forced to say things to prejudice his own honour and
inculpate innocent persons, he had resolved to take his own life, and
that he commended his soul to God, humbly praying Him, if He would
grant it no other good, at least to give it a place with that of Cato
of Utica. It is not improbable that the paper was a fabrication, and
that Filippo had been murdered by orders of the Duke.