_The Bridges--The Quarter of Santa Maria Novella_
"Sopra il bel fiume d'Arno alla gran villa."
--_Dante._
Outside the portico of the Uffizi four Florentine heroes--Farinata
degli Uberti, Piero Capponi, Giovanni delle Bande Nere, Francesco
Ferrucci--from their marble niches keep watch and ward over the river.
This Arno, which Lapo Gianni dreamed of as _balsamo fino_, is spanned
by four ancient and famous bridges, and bordered on both banks by the
Lungarno.
To the east is the Ponte Rubaconte--so called after the Milanese
Podesta, during whose term of office it was made--or Ponte alle
Grazie, built in 1237; it is mentioned by Dante in Canto xii. of the
_Purgatorio_, and is the only existing Florentine bridge which could
have actually felt the footsteps of the man who was afterwards to
tread scathless through the ways of Hell, "unbitten by its whirring
sulphur-spume." It has, however, been completely altered at various
periods. On this bridge a solemn reconciliation was effected between
Guelfs and Ghibellines on July 2, 1273, by Pope Gregory X. The Pope in
state, between Charles of Anjou and the Emperor Baldwin of
Constantinople, blessed his "reconciled" people from the bridge, and
afterwards laid the first stone of a church called San Gregorio della
Pace in the Piazza dei Mozzi, now destroyed. As soon as the Pope's
back was turned, Charles contrived that his work should be undone, and
the Ghibellines hounded again out of the city.[49]
[49] Opposite the bridge, at the beginning of the Via dei Benci, is
the palace of the old Alberti family; the remains of their loggia
stand further up the street, at the corner of the Borgo Santa Croce.
In all these streets, between the Lungarno della Borsa and the Borgo
dei Greci, there are many old houses and palaces; in the Piazza dei
Peruzzi the houses, formerly of that family and partly built in the
fourteenth century, follow the lines of the Roman amphitheatre--the
_Parlascio_ of the early Middle Ages. The Palazzo dei Giudici--in the
piazza of that name--was originally built in the thirteenth century,
though reconstructed at a later epoch.
Below the Ponte alle Grazie comes the Ponte Vecchio, the Bridge _par
excellence_; _il ponte_, or _il passo d'Arno_, as Dante calls it. More
than a mere bridge over a river, this Ponte Vecchio is a link in the
chain binding Florence to the Eternal City. A Roman bridge stood here
of old, and a Roman road may be said to have run across it; it heard
the tramp of Roman legionaries, and shook beneath the horses of
Totila's Gothic chivalry. This Roman bridge possibly lasted down to
the great inundation of 1333. The present structure, erected by Taddeo
Gaddi after 1360, with its exquisite framed pictures of the river and
city in the centre, is one of the most characteristic bits of old
Florence still remaining. The shops of goldsmiths and jewellers were
originally established here in the days of Cosimo I., for whom Giorgio
Vasari built the gallery that runs above to connect the two Grand
Ducal Palaces. Connecting the Porta Romana with the heart of the city,
the bridge has witnessed most of the great pageants and processions in
Florentine history. Popes and Emperors have crossed it in state;
Florentine generals, or hireling condottieri, at the head of their
victorious troops; the Piagnoni, bearing the miraculous Madonna of the
Impruneta to save the city from famine and pestilence; and
Savonarola's new Cyrus, Charles VIII., as conqueror, with lance
levelled. Across it, in 1515, was Pope Leo X. borne in his litter,
blessing the people to right and left, amidst the exultant cries of
_Palle, Palle!_ from the crowd, who had forgotten for the time all the
crimes of his house in their delight at seeing their countryman, the
son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, raised to the papal throne.
In Dante's day, what remained of the famous statue supposed of Mars,
_quella pietra scema che guarda il ponte_, "that mutilated stone which
guardeth the bridge," still stood here at the corner, probably at the
beginning of the present Lungarno Acciaiuoli. "I was of that city that
changed its first patron for the Baptist," says an unknown suicide in
the seventh circle of Hell, probably one of the Mozzi: "on which
account he with his art will ever make it sorrowful. And were it not
that at the passage of the Arno there yet remains some semblance of
him, those citizens, who afterwards rebuilt it on the ashes left by
Attila, would have laboured in vain." Here, as we saw in chapter i.,
young Buondelmonte was murdered in 1215, a sacrifice to Mars in the
city's "last time of peace," _nella sua pace postrema_.
[Illustration: THE PONTE VECCHIO]
Lower down comes the Ponte Santa Trinita, originally built in 1252;
and still lower the Ponte alla Carraia, built between 1218 and 1220 in
the days of Frederick II., for the sake of the growing commerce of the
Borgo Ognissanti. This latter bridge was originally called the Ponte
Nuovo, as at that time the only other bridge over the Arno was the
Ponte Vecchio. It was here that a terrible disaster took place on
May 1st, 1304--a strange piece of grim mediaeval jesting by the irony
of fate turned to still grimmer earnest. After a cruel period of
disasters and faction fights, there had come a momentary gleam of
peace, and it was determined to renew the pageants and festivities
that had been held in better days on May-day, "in the good time
passed, of the tranquil and good state of Florence," each contrada
trying to rival the other. What followed had best be told in the words
of Giovanni Villani, an eye-witness:--
"Amongst the others, the folk of the Borgo San Frediano, who had been
wont of yore to devise the newest and most diverse pastimes, sent out
a proclamation, that those who wished to know news of the other world
should be upon the Ponte alla Carraia and around the Arno on the day
of the calends of May. And they arranged scaffolds on the Arno upon
boats and ships, and made thereon the likeness and figure of Hell with
fires and other pains and torments, with men arrayed like demons,
horrible to behold, and others who bore the semblance of naked souls,
that seemed real persons; and they hurled them into those divers
torments with loud cries and shrieks and uproar, the which seemed
hateful and appalling to hear and to behold. Many were the citizens
that gathered here to witness this new sport; and the Ponte alla
Carraia, the which was then of wood from pile to pile, was so laden
with folk that it broke down in several places, and fell with the
people who were upon it, whereby many persons died there and were
drowned, and many were grieviously injured; so that the game was
changed from jest to earnest, and, as the proclamation had run, so
indeed did many depart in death to hear news of the other world, with
great mourning and lamentation to all the city, for each one thought
that he had lost son or brother."
The famous inundation of November 1333 swept away all the bridges,
excepting the Ponte Rubaconte. The present Ponte Santa Trinita and
Ponte alla Carraia were erected for Duke Cosimo I. by Bartolommeo
Ammanati, shortly after the middle of the sixteenth century.
Turning from the river at the Ponte Vecchio by the Via Por Sta. Maria,
we see on the right the old church of San Stefano, with a completely
modernised interior. Here in 1426 Rinaldo degli Albizzi and Niccolo da
Uzzano held a meeting of some seventy citizens, and Rinaldo proposed
to check the growing power of the populace by admitting the magnates
into the government and reducing the number of Arti Minori. Their plan
failed through the opposition of Giovanni dei Medici, who acquired
much popularity thereby. It should be remembered that it was not here,
as usually stated, but in the Badia, which was also dedicated to St.
Stephen, that Boccaccio lectured on Dante.
Right and left two very old streets diverge, the Via Lambertesca and
the Borgo Santissimi Apostoli, with splendid mediaeval towers. In the
former, at the angle of the Via di Por Santa Maria, are the towers of
the Girolami and Gherardini, round which there was fierce fighting in
the expulsion of the Ghibellines in 1266. Opposite, at the opening of
the Borgo Santissimi Apostoli, are the towers of the Baldovinetti (the
tower of San Zenobio) and of the Amidei--_la casa di che nacque il
vostro fleto_, as Cacciaguida puts it to Dante: "the house from which
your wailing sprang," whose feud with the Buondelmonti was supposed to
have originated the Guelf and Ghibelline factions in Florence. And
further down the Borgo Santissimi Apostoli, at the opening of the
Chiasso delle Misure, is the tall and stately tower of these
Buondelmonti themselves, who also had a palace on the opposite side of
the street.
The old church of the Santissimi Apostoli, in the Piazza del Limbo,
has an inscription on its facade stating that it was founded by
Charlemagne, and consecrated by Archbishop Turpin, with Roland and
Oliver as witnesses. It appears to have been built in the eleventh
century, and is the oldest church on this side of the Arno, with the
exception of the Baptistery. Its interior, which is well preserved, is
said to have been taken by Filippo Brunelleschi as the model for San
Lorenzo and Santo Spirito. In it is a beautiful Ciborium by Andrea
della Robbia, with monuments of some of the Altoviti family.
[Illustration: THE TOWER OF S. ZANOBI]
The Piazza Santa Trinita was a great place for social and other
gatherings in mediaeval and renaissance Florence. Here on the first of
May 1300, a dance of girls was being held to greet the calends of May
in the old Florentine fashion, when a band of mounted youths of the
Donati, Pazzi and Spini came to blows with a rival company of the
Cerchi and their allies; and thus the first blood was shed in the
disastrous struggle between the Bianchi and Neri. A few days later a
similar faction fight took place on the other side of the bridge, in
the Piazza Frescobaldi, on the occasion of a lady's funeral. The
great Palazzo Spini, opposite the church, was built at the end of the
thirteenth and beginning of the fourteenth century by Geri Spini, the
rich papal banker and one of the leaders of the "black" faction. Here
he received the Pope's ambassadors and made a great display of his
wealth and magnificence, as we gather from Boccaccio's _Decameron_,
which gives us an amusing story of his friendship with Cisti the
baker, and another of the witty repartees of Madonna Oretta, Geri's
wife, a lady of the Malaspina. When Charles of Valois entered Florence
in November 1301, Messer Geri entertained a portion of the French
barons here, while the Prince himself took up his quarters with the
Frescobaldi over the river; during that tumultuous period of
Florentine history that followed the expulsion of the Bianchi, Geri
was one of the most prominent politicians in the State.
Savonarola's processions of friars and children used to pass through
this piazza and over the bridge, returning by way of the Ponte
Vecchio. On the Feast of Corpus Christi, 1497, as the Blessed
Sacrament was being borne along, with many children carrying red
crosses, they were set upon by some of the Compagnacci. The story is
quaintly told by Landucci: "As the said procession was passing over
the Bridge of Santa Trinita, certain youths were standing to see it
pass, by the side of a little church which is on the bridge on the
right hand going towards Santo Spirito. Seeing those children with the
crosses, they said: 'Here are the children of Fra Girolamo.' And one
of them coming up to them, took one of these crosses and, snatching it
out of the hand of that child, broke it and threw it into the Arno, as
though he had been an infidel; and all this he did for hatred of the
Friar."
The column in the Piazza--taken from the Baths of Caracalla at
Rome--was set here by Duke Cosimo I., to celebrate his victory over
the heroic Piero Strozzi, _il maravigliosissimo bravo Piero Strozzi_
as Benvenuto Cellini calls him, in 1563. The porphyry statue of
Justice was set high up on this pedestal by the most unjust of all
rulers of Florence, the Grand Duke Francesco I., Cosimo's son. This
same piazza witnessed a not over friendly meeting of Leonardo da Vinci
and Michelangelo. Leonardo, at the time that he was engaged upon his
cartoon for the Sala del Maggior Consiglio, was walking in the square,
dressed in his usual sumptuous fashion, with a rose coloured tunic
reaching down to his knees; when a group of citizens, who were
discussing Dante, called him and asked him the meaning of a passage in
question. At that moment Michelangelo passed by, and Leonardo
courteously referred them to him. "Explain it yourself," said the
great sculptor, "you, who made the model of a horse to cast in bronze,
and could not cast it, and to your shame left it in the lurch."[50]
And he abruptly turned his back on the group, leaving Leonardo red
with either shame or anger.
[50] See Addington Symonds' _Michelangelo_. The horse in question was
the equestrian monument of Francesco Sforza.
The church of Santa Trinita was originally built in the Gothic style
by Niccolo Pisano, shortly after 1250, in the days of the Primo Popolo
and contemporaneously with the Palazzo del Podesta. It was largely
altered by Buontalenti in the last part of the sixteenth century, and
has been recently completely restored. It is a fine example of Italian
Gothic. In the interior, are a Mary Magdalene by Desiderio da
Settignano and a marble altar by Benedetto da Rovezzano; and also, in
one of the chapels of the right aisle, an Annunciation by Don
Lorenzo, one of his best works, with some frescoes, partly obliterated
and much "restored," by the same good Camaldolese monk.
But the great attraction of this church is the Sassetti Chapel next to
the sacristy, which contains a splendid series of frescoes painted in
1485 by Domenico Ghirlandaio. The altar piece is only a copy of the
original, now in the Accademia. The frescoes represent scenes from the
life of St. Francis, and should be compared with Giotto's simpler
handling of the same theme in the Bardi Chapel at Santa Croce. We have
the Saint renouncing the world, the confirmation of his rule by
Honorius, his preaching to the Soldan, his reception of the Stigmata,
his death and funeral (in which the life-like spectacled bishop
aroused Vasari's enthusiastic admiration), and the raising to life of
a child of the Sassetti family by an apparition of St. Francis in the
Piazza outside the church. The last is especially interesting as
giving us a picture of the Piazza in its former state, such as it
might have been in the Mayday faction fight, with the Spini Palace,
the older bridge, and the houses of the Frescobaldi beyond the river.
Each fresco is full of interesting portraits; among the spectators in
the consistory is Lorenzo the Magnificent; Ghirlandaio himself appears
in the death scene; and, perhaps, most interesting of all, if Vasari's
identification can be trusted, are the three who stand on the right
near the church in the scene of the resuscitation of the child. These
three are said to be Maso degli Albizzi, the founder of the party of
the Ottimati, those _nobili popolani_ who held the State before they
were eclipsed by the Medici; Agnolo Acciaiuoli, who was ruined by
adhering to Luca Pitti against Piero dei Medici; and that noblest of
all the Medicean victims, Palla Strozzi (_see_ chapter iii.). It
should, however, be remembered that Maso degli Albizzi had died
nearly seventy years before, and that not even Palla Strozzi can be
regarded as a contemporary portrait. The sacristy of this church was
founded by the Strozzi, and one of the house, Onofrio, lies buried
within it. Extremely fine, too, are the portraits of Francesco
Sassetti himself and his wife, kneeling below near the altar, also by
Ghirlandaio, who likewise painted the sibyls on the ceiling and the
fresco representing the sibyl prophesying of the Incarnation to
Augustus, over the entrance to the chapel. The sepulchral monuments of
Francesco and his wife are by Giuliano da San Gallo.
The famous Crucifix of San Miniato, which bowed its head to San
Giovanni Gualberto when he spared the murderer of his brother, was
transferred to Santa Trinita in 1671 with great pomp and ceremony, and
is still preserved here.
In June 1301 a council was held in the church by the leaders of the
Neri, nominally to bring about a concord with the rival faction, in
reality to entrap the Cerchi and pave the way for their expulsion by
foreign aid. Among the Bianchi present was the chronicler, Dino
Compagni; "desirous of unity and peace among citizens," and, before
the council broke up, he made a strong appeal to the more factious
members. "Signors," he said, "why would you confound and undo so good
a city? Against whom would you fight? Against your own brothers? What
victory shall ye have? Nought else but lamentation." The Neri answered
that the object of their council was merely to stop scandal and
establish peace; but it soon became known that there was a conspiracy
between them and the Conte Simone da Battifolle of the Casentino, who
was sending his son with a strong force towards Florence. Simone dei
Bardi (who had been the husband of Beatrice Portinari) appears to
have been the connecting link of the conspiracy, which the prompt
action of the Signoria checked for the present. The evil day, however,
was postponed, not averted.
Following the Via di Parione we reach the back of the Palazzo
Corsini--a large seventeenth century palace whose front is on the
Lungarno. Here is a large picture gallery, in which a good many of the
pictures are erroneously ascribed, but which contains a few more
important works. The two gems of the collection are Botticelli's
portrait of a Goldsmith (210), formerly ascribed to one of the
Pollaiuoli; and Luca Signorelli's tondo (157), of Madonna and Child
with St. Jerome and St. Bernard. A Madonna and Child with Angels and
the Baptist (162) by Filippino Lippi, or ascribed to him, is a
charming and poetical picture; but is not admitted by Mr Berenson into
his list of genuine works by this painter. The supposed cartoon for
Raphael's Julius II. is of very doubtful authenticity. The picture of
the martyrdom of Savonarola (292) is interesting and valuable as
affording a view of the Piazza at that epoch, but cannot be regarded
as an accurate historical representation of the event. That
seventeenth century reincarnation of Lorenzo di Credi, Carlo Dolci, is
represented here by several pictures which are above his usual level;
for instance, Poetry (179) is a really beautiful thing of its kind.
Among the other pictures is a little Apollo and Daphne (241), probably
an early work of Andrea del Sarto. The Raffaellino di Carlo who
painted the Madonna and Saints (200), is not to be confused with
Filippino's pupil, Raffaellino del Garbo.
In the Via Tornabuoni, the continuation of the Piazza Santa Trinita,
stands the finest of all Florentine palaces of the Renaissance, the
Palazzo Strozzi. It was begun in 1489 for the elder Filippo Strozzi,
with the advice and encouragement of Lorenzo the Magnificent, by
Benedetto da Maiano, and continued by Simone del Pollaiuolo (called
"Cronaca" from his yarning propensities), to whom the cornice and
court are due. It was finished for the younger Filippo Strozzi, the
husband of Clarice dei Medici, shortly before his fall, in the days of
Duke Alessandro. The works in iron on the exterior--lanterns,
torch-holders and the like, especially a wonderful _fanale_ at the
corner--are by Niccolo Grosso (called "Caparra" from his habit of
demanding payment in advance), and the finest things of their kind
imaginable. Filippo Strozzi played a curiously inconstant part in the
history of the closing days of the Republic. After having been the
most intimate associate of his brother-in-law, the younger Lorenzo, he
was instrumental first in the expulsion of Ippolito and Alessandro,
then in the establishment of Alessandro's tyranny; and finally,
finding himself cast by the irony of fate for the part of the last
Republican hero, he took the field against Duke Cosimo, only to find a
miserable end in a dungeon. One of his daughters, Luisa Capponi, was
believed to have been poisoned by order of Alessandro; his son, Piero,
became the bravest Italian captain of the sixteenth century and
carried on a heroic contest with Cosimo's mercenary troops.
[Illustration: ARMS OF THE STROZZI]
Down the Via della Vigna Nuova is another of these Renaissance
palaces, built for a similar noble family associated with the
Medici,--the Palazzo Rucellai. Bernardo Rucellai--who was not
originally of noble origin, but whose family had acquired what in
Florence was the real title to nobility, vast wealth in
commerce--married Nannina, the younger sister of Lorenzo the
Magnificent, and had this palace begun for him in 1460 by Bernardo
Rossellino from the design of Leo Battista Alberti,--to whom also the
Rucellai loggia opposite is due. More of Alberti's work for the
Rucellai may be seen at the back of the palace, in the Via della
Spada, where in the former church of San Pancrazio (which gave its
name to a _sesto_ in old Florence) is the chapel which he built for
Bernardo Rucellai in imitation of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem.
The Via delle Belle Donne--most poetically named of Florentine
streets--leads hence into the Piazza di Santa Maria Novella. On the
way, where five roads meet, is the Croce al Trebbio, with symbols of
the four Evangelists below the Crucifix. It marks the site of one of
St Peter Martyr's fiercest triumphs over the Paterini, one of those
"marvellous works" for which Savonarola, in his last address to his
friars, complains that the Florentines had been so ungrateful towards
his Order. But the story of the Dominicans of Santa Maria Novella is
not one of persecution, but of peace-making. They played at times as
noble a part in mediaeval Florence as their brethren of San Marco were
to do in the early Renaissance; and later, during the great siege,
they took up the work of Fra Girolamo, and inspired the people to
their last heroic defence of the Republic.
Opposite Santa Maria Novella is the Loggia di San Paolo, designed by
Brunelleschi, and erected in 1451, shortly after his death. The
coloured terracotta reliefs, by Andrea della Robbia, include two fine
portraits of governors of the hospital (not of the Della Robbia
themselves, as frequently stated). The relief in a lunette over the
door on the right, representing the meeting of St Francis and St
Dominic, is one of Andrea's best works:--
"L'un fu tutto serafico in ardore,
l'altro per sapienza in terra fue
di cherubica luce uno splendore.
Dell'un diro, pero che d'ambedue
si dice l'un pregiando, qual ch'uom prende,
perche ad un fine fur l'opere sue."[51]
[51] "The one was all seraphic in his ardour, the other by his
wisdom was on earth a splendour of cherubic light.
"Of one will I discourse, because of both the two he speaketh
who doth either praise, which so he will; for to one end
their works."
--Wicksteed's translation, _Paradiso_ xi.
In 1212, three years before the murder of Buondelmonte, the first band
of Franciscans had come to Florence, sent thither by St Francis
himself from Assisi. A few years later, at the invitation of a
Florentine merchant Diodato, who had built a chapel and house as an
act of restitution, St Dominic, from Bologna, sent the Blessed John of
Salerno with twelve friars to occupy this mission at Ripoli, about
three miles beyond where now stands the Gate of S. Niccolo. Thence
they extended their apostolic labours into the city, and when St
Dominic came, at the end of 1219, they had already made progress.
Finally they moved into the city--first to San Pancrazio, and at
length settled at Santa Maria tra le Vigne, a little church then
outside the walls, where B. Giovanni was installed by the Pope's
legate and the bishop in 1221. Before the church, in the present
piazza, St Peter Martyr, the "hammer of the heretics," fought the
Paterini with both spiritual and material arms. At last, the growth of
the order requiring larger room, on St Luke's day, 1278, Cardinal
Latino de' Frangipani laid here the first stone of Santa Maria
Novella.
Where once the little church of Our Lady among the Vines stood outside
the second circuit of the city's walls, rises now the finest Italian
Gothic church in Florence. Less than a year after it had been
commenced, the same Dominican cardinal who had laid the first stone
summoned a mass meeting in the Piazza, and succeeded in patching up a
temporary peace between Guelfs and Ghibellines, and among the Guelf
magnates themselves, 1279. This Cardinal Latino left a memory revered
in Florence, and Fra Angelico, in the picture now in our National
Gallery, placed him among the glorified saints attending upon the
resurrection of Our Lord. Some twenty years later, in November 1301, a
parliament was held within the still unfinished church, at which
another Papal peacemaker, the infamous Charles of Valois, in the
presence of the Priors of the Republic, the Podesta and the Captain,
the bishop and chief citizens, received the _balia_ to guard Florence
and pacify the Guelfs, and swore on the faith of the son of a king to
preserve the city in peace and prosperity. We have seen how he kept
his word. Santa Maria Novella, in 1304, was the centre of the sincere
and devoted attempts made by Boniface's successor, the sainted
Benedict XI., to heal the wounds of Florence; attempts in which,
throughout Italy, the Dominicans were his "angels of peace," as he
called his missioners. When the Republic finally fell into the hands
of Cosimo dei Medici in 1434, the exiled Pope Eugenius IV. was staying
in the adjoining monastery; it was here that he made his unsuccessful
attempt to mediate, and heard the bitter farewell words of Rinaldo
degli Albizzi: "I blame myself most of all, because I believed that
you, who had been hunted out of your own country, could keep me in
mine."
[Illustration: IN THE GREEN CLOISTERS, S. MARIA NOVELLA]
The church itself, striped tiger-like in black and white marble,
was constructed from the designs of three Dominican friars, Fra
Ristoro da Campi, Fra Sisto, and Fra Giovanni da Campi. Fra Giovanni
was a scholar or imitator of Arnolfo di Cambio, and the two former
were the architects who restored the Ponte alla Carraia and the Ponte
Santa Trinita after their destruction in 1269. The facade (with the
exception of the lower part, which belongs to the fourteenth century)
was designed by Leo Battista Alberti, whose friends the Rucellai were
the chief benefactors of this church; the lovely but completely
restored pointed arcades on the right, with niches for tombs and
armorial bearings, were designed by Brunelleschi. On the left, though
in part reduced to vile usage, there is a bit comparatively less
altered. The interior was completed soon after the middle of the
fourteenth century, when Fra Jacopo Passavanti--the author of that
model of pure Tuscan prose, _Lo Specchio della vera Penitenza_--was
Prior of the convent. The campanile is said to have been designed by
another Dominican, Fra Jacopo Talenti, the probable architect of the
so-called Spanish Chapel in the cloisters on the left of the church,
of which more presently.
During the great siege of Florence the mantle of Savonarola seemed to
have fallen upon the heroic Prior of Santa Maria Novella, Fra
Benedetto da Foiano. When the news of the alliance between Pope and
Emperor came to Florence, while all Bologna was in festa for the
coronation of the Emperor, Varchi tells us that Fra Benedetto
delivered a great sermon in the Sala del Maggior Consiglio, which was
thrown open to all who would come to hear; in which sermon he proved
from passages in the Old and New Testaments that Florence would be
delivered from all dangers, and then enjoy perpetual perfect felicity
in the liberty she so desired. With such grace and eloquence did he
speak, that the vast audience was moved to tears and to joy by turns.
At the end, "with ineffable gestures and words," he gave to the
Gonfaloniere, Raffaello Girolami, a standard upon one side of which
was a Christ victorious over the hostile soldiery, and upon the other
the red Cross of the Florentine Commune, saying: _Cum hoc et in hoc
vinces._ After the capitulation Malatesta Baglioni seized the friar
and sent him to Rome, where he was slowly starved to death in the
dungeon of Sant' Angelo.
The interior was thus not quite finished, when Boccaccio's seven
maidens met here on a Wednesday morning in early spring in that
terrible year of pestilence, 1348; yet we may readily picture to
ourselves the scene described in the introduction to the _Decameron_;
the empty church; the girls in their dark mourning garb, after hearing
Mass, seated together in a side chapel and gradually passing from
telling their beads to discussing more mundane matters; and then, no
sooner do three members of the other sex appear upon the scenes than a
sudden gleam of gladness lights up their faces, and even the plague
itself is forgotten. One of them, indeed, blushed; "she became all
crimson in the face through modesty," says Boccaccio, "because there
was one of their number who was beloved by one of these youths;" but
afterwards found no difficulty in rivalling the others in the
impropriety of her talk.
Entering the western portal, we find ourselves in a nave of rather
large proportions, somewhat dark but not without a glow from the
stained glass windows--adapted above all for preaching. As in Santa
Croce, it is cut across by a line of chapels, thus giving the whole a
T shape, and what represents the apse is merely a deeper and taller
recess behind the high altar. There is nothing much to interest us
here in the nave or aisles, save, by the side of the central door,
one of the very few extant works of Masaccio, a fresco representing
the Blessed Trinity adored by the Madonna and St. John, with two
kneeling donors--portraits of which no amount of restoration can
altogether destroy the truth and grandeur. The Annunciation, on the
opposite side of the door, is a mediocre fresco of the fourteenth
century. The Crucifix above is one of several works of the kind
ascribed to Giotto.
It will be best to take the chapels at the end of the nave and in the
transepts in the order into which they fall, as illustrating the
development of Florentine art.
On the right a flight of steps leads up into the Rucellai chapel
where, half concealed in darkness, hangs the famous picture once
supposed to mark the very birthday of Florentine painting. That
Cimabue really painted a glorious Madonna for this church, which was
worshipped by a king and hailed with acclamation by a rejoicing
people, is to be most firmly and devoutly held. Unfortunately, it
seems highly probable that this picture is not Cimabue's Madonna. It
is decidedly Sienese in character, and, as there is documentary
evidence that Duccio of Siena painted a Madonna for Santa Maria
Novella, and as the attendant Angels are in all respects similar to
those in Duccio's authenticated works, the picture is probably his. It
deserves all veneration, nevertheless, for it is a noble picture in
the truest sense of the word. In the same chapel is the monument of
the Dominican nun, the Beata Villana, by Bernardo Rossellino.
Crossing the church to the chapel in the left transept, the Strozzi
Chapel, we mount into the true atmosphere of the Middle Ages--into one
of those pictured theatres which set before us in part what Dante gave
in full in his _Commedia_. The whole chapel is dedicated to St. Thomas
Aquinas, the glory of the philosophy of the mediaeval world and, above
all, of the Dominican order, whose cardinal virtues are extolled in
allegorical fashion on the ceiling; but the frescoes are drawn from
the work of his greatest Florentine disciple, Dante Alighieri, in
whose poem Thomas mainly lives for the non-Catholic world. It contains
all Orcagna's extant work in painting. The altar piece, executed by
Andrea Orcagna in 1357, is the grandest of its kind belonging to the
Giottesque period. Its central motive, of the Saviour delivering the
keys to St. Peter and the Summa to St. Thomas, the spiritual and
philosophical regimens of the mediaeval world, is very finely rendered;
while the angelic choir is a foretaste of Angelico. Madonna presents
St. Thomas; the Baptist, St. Peter; Michael and Catherine are in
attendance upon the Queen of Heaven, Lawrence and Paul upon the
Precursor. The predella represents St. Peter walking upon the waves,
with on either side an episode in the life of St. Thomas and a miracle
of St. Lawrence. The frescoes are best seen on a very bright morning,
shortly before noon. The Last Judgment, by Andrea, shows the
traditional representation of the Angels with trumpets and with the
emblems of the Passion, wheeling round the Judge; and the dead rising
to judgment, impelled irresistibly to right or left even before the
sentence is pronounced. Above the one band, kneels the white-robed
Madonna in intercession--type of the Divine Mercy as in Dante; over
the others, at the head of the Apostles, is the Baptist who seems
appealing for judgment--type of the Divine Justice. This placing Mary
and St John opposite to each other, as in Dante's Rose of Paradise, is
typical of Florentine art; Santa Maria del Fiore and San Giovanni are,
as it were, inseparable. Among the blessed is Dante, gazing up in
fixed adoration at the Madonna, as when following St Bernard's prayer
at the close of his Vision; on the other side some of the faces of the
lost are a miracle of expression. The Hell on the right wall, by
Andrea's brother Leonardo, is more immediately taken from the
_Commedia_. The Paradise on the left, or, rather, the Empyrean
Heaven--with the faces _suadi di carita_, Angels and Saints absorbed
in vision and love of God--is by Andrea himself, and is more directly
pictorial than Dante's _Paradiso_ could admit. Christ and the Madonna
are enthroned side by side, whereas we do not actually see Him in
human form in the _Commedia_,--perhaps in accordance with that
reverence which impels the divine poet to make the name _Cristo_ rhyme
with nothing but itself. For sheer loveliness in detail, no other
fourteenth century master produced anything to compare with this
fresco; it may be said to mark the advent of a new element in Italian
art.
Thence we pass into the early Renaissance with Brunelleschi and
Ghiberti, with Ghirlandaio and Filippino Lippi. In the chapel to the
left of the choir hangs Filippo Brunelleschi's famous wooden Crucifix,
carved in friendly rivalry with Donatello. The rival piece,
Donatello's share in this sculptured _tenzone_, has been seen in Santa
Croce.
In the choir are frescoes by Domenico Ghirlandaio, and a fine brass by
Lorenzo Ghiberti. These frescoes were begun in 1486, immediately after
the completion of the Santa Trinita series, and finished in 1490; and,
though devoid of the highest artistic qualities, are eminently
characteristic of their epoch. Though representing scenes from the
life of the Madonna and the Baptist, this is entirely subordinated to
the portrait groups of noble Florentines and their ladies, introduced
as usually utterly uninterested spectators of the sacred events. As
religious pictures they are naught; but as representations of
contemporary Florentine life, most valuable. Hardly elsewhere shall
you see so fine a series of portraits of the men and women of the
early Renaissance; but they have other things to think of than the
Gospel history. Look at the scene of the Angel appearing to Zacharias.
The actual event is hardly noticed; hidden in the throng of citizens,
too busily living the life of the Renaissance to attend to such
trifles; besides, it would not improve their style to read St. Luke.
In the Visitation, the Nativity of the Baptist, the Nativity of the
Blessed Virgin, a fashionable beauty of the period sweeps in with her
attendants--and it is hardly uncharitable to suppose that, if not
herself, at least her painter thought more of her fine clothes than of
her devotional aspect. The portraits of the donors, Giovanni
Tornabuoni and his wife, are on the window wall. In the scene of the
expulsion of Joachim from the Temple, a group of painters stands
together (towards the window); the old cleanly-shaven man in a red hat
is Alessio Baldovinetti, Ghirlandaio's master; next to him, with a lot
of dark hair, dressed in a red mantle and blue vest, is Domenico
Ghirlandaio himself; his pupil and brother-in-law, Sebastiano
Mainardi, and his brother, David Ghirlandaio, are with him--the latter
being the figure with shoulder turned and hat on head. In the
apparition to Zacharias, among the numerous portraits, a group of four
half figures discussing at the foot of the history is of special
interest; three of them are said to represent Marsilio Ficino,
Cristoforo Landini, and Angelo Poliziano (in the middle, slightly
raising his hand); the fourth, turned to speak to Landini, is said by
Vasari to be a famous teacher of Greek, Demetrius, but now supposed to
be Gentile Becchi, a learned bishop of Arezzo. The stained glass was
designed by Filippino Lippi. Under the high altar rests the body of
the Blessed John of Salerno, the "Apostle of Florence," who brought
the first band of Dominicans to the city.
Less admired, but in some respects more admirable, are the frescoes by
Filippino Lippi in the chapel on the right of the choir, almost his
last works, painted about 1502, and very much injured by restoration.
The window is also from his design. The frescoes represent scenes from
the lives of St. John and St. Philip, and are remarkable for their
lavish display of Roman antiquities, in which they challenge
comparison with Andrea Mantegna. The scene of St. Philip exorcising
the dragon is especially fine. Observe how the characteristic
intensity of the school of Botticelli is shown in the way in which the
very statues take part in the action. Mars flourishes his broken
spear, his wolves and kites cower to him for protection from the
emissaries of the new faith, whose triumph is further symbolised in
the two figures above of ancient deities conquered by Angels. An
analogous instance will be found in Botticelli's famous Calumny in the
Uffizi. In this statue of Mars is seen the last rendering of the old
Florentine tradition of their _primo padrone_. Thus, perhaps, did the
new pagans of the Renaissance lovingly idealise "that mutilated stone
which guards the bridge."
The monument of the elder Filippo Strozzi, in the same chapel, is a
fine piece of work by Benedetto da Maiano, with a lovely tondo of the
Madonna and Child attended by Angels. And we should also notice
Giovanni della Robbia's fountain in the sacristy, before passing into
the cloisters.
Here in the cloisters we pass back again into more purely mediaeval
thought. Passing some early frescoes of the life of the Madonna--the
dream of Joachim, his meeting St. Anne, the Birth and Presentation of
the Blessed Virgin--which Ruskin believed to be by Giotto himself--we
enter to the left the delicious Green Cloisters; a pleasant lounging
place in summer. In the lunettes along the walls are frescoed scenes
from Genesis in _terra verde_, of which the most notable are by Paolo
Uccello--the Flood and the Sacrifice of Noah. Uccello's interests were
scientific rather than artistic. These frescoes are amazingly clever
exercises in the new art of perspective, the _dolce cosa_ as he called
it when his wife complained of his absorption; but are more curious
than beautiful, and hardly inspire us with more than mild admiration
at the painter's cleverness in poising the figure--which, we regret to
say, he intends for the Almighty--so ingeniously in mid air.
But out of these cloisters, on the right, opens the so-called Spanish
Chapel--the Cappella degli Spagnuoli--one of the rarest buildings in
Italy for the student of mediaeval doctrine. Here, as in the Strozzi
Chapel, we are in the grasp of the same mighty spirit that inspired
the _Divina Commedia_ and the _De Monarchia_, although the actual
execution falls far below the design. The chapel--designed by Fra
Jacopo Talenti in 1320--was formerly the chapter-house of the convent;
it seems to have acquired the title of Spanish Chapel in the days of
Duke Cosimo I., when Spaniards swarmed in Florence and were wont to
hold solemn festival here on St. James' day. The frescoes that cover
its ceiling and walls were executed about the middle of the fourteenth
century--according to Vasari by Simone Martini and Taddeo Gaddi,
though this seems highly doubtful. Their general design is possibly
due to Fra Jacopo Passavanti. They set forth the Dominican ideal, the
Church and the world as the Friars Preachers conceived of them, even
as Giotto's famous allegories at Assisi show us the same through
Franciscan glasses. While Orcagna painted the world beyond the grave
in honour of the Angelical Doctor, these artists set forth the present
world as it should be under his direction and that of his brothers,
the "hounds of the Lord," _domini canes_, who defended the _orto
cattolico_.
The vaulted roof is divided into four segments; and the picture in
each segment corresponds to a great fresco on the wall below. On the
wall opposite, as we enter, is represented the supreme event of the
world's history, from which all the rest starts and upon which the
whole hinges, the Passion of Christ, leading up to the Resurrection on
the roof above it. On the segment of the roof over the door is the
Ascension, and on the wall below was shown (now much damaged) how the
Dominicans received and carried out Christ's last injunction to His
disciples. In the left segment of the roof is the Descent of the Holy
Spirit; and beneath it, on the wall, the result of this outpouring
upon the world of intellect is shown in the triumph of Philosophy in
the person of Aquinas, its supreme mediaeval exponent. In the right
segment is the Ship of Peter; and, on the wall below, is seen how
Peter becomes a fisher of men, the triumph of his Church under the
guidance of the Dominicans. These two great allegorical frescoes--the
triumph of St. Thomas and the _civil briga_ of the Church--are thus a
more complete working out of the scheme set forth more simply by
Orcagna in his altar piece in the Strozzi Chapel above--the functions
delegated by Christ to Peter and St. Thomas--the power of the Keys and
the doctrine of the _Summa Theologica_.
In the centre of the philosophical allegory, St. Thomas Aquinas is
seated on a Gothic throne, with an open book in his hands bearing the
text from the Book of Wisdom with which the Church begins her lesson
in his honour: _Optavi, et datus est mihi sensus. Invocavi, et venit
in me spiritus sapientiae; et praeposui illam regnis et sedibus._[52]
Over his head hover seven Angels, invested with the emblems of the
three theological and four cardinal virtues; around him are seated the
Apostles and Prophets, in support of his doctrine; beneath his feet
heresiarchs are humbled--Sabellius and Arius, to wit--and even
Averrhoes, who "made the great comment," seems subdued. Below, in
fourteen little shrines, are allegorical figures of the fourteen
sciences which meet and are given ultimate form in his work, and at
the feet of each maiden sits some great exponent of the science. From
right to left, the seven liberal arts of the Trivium and Quadrivium
lead up to the Science of Numbers, represented on earth by Pythagoras;
from left to right, the earthly and celestial sciences lead up to
Dogmatic Theology, represented by Augustine.[53]
[52] "I desired, and understanding was given me. I prayed, and the
spirit of Wisdom came upon me; and I preferred her before kingdoms and
thrones."
[53] The identification of each science and its representative is
rather doubtful, especially in the celestial series. From altar to
centre, Grammar, Rhetoric, and Logic are represented by Aelius
Donatus, Cicero and Aristotle (or Zeno); Music, Astronomy, Geometry,
Arithmetic by Tubal Cain, Zoroaster (or Ptolemy), Euclid and
Pythagoras. From window to centre, Civil Law is represented by
Justinian, Canon Law by Innocent III., Philosophy apparently by
Boethius; the next four seem to be Contemplative, Moral, Mystical and
Dogmatic Theology, and their representatives Jerome, John of Damascus,
Basil and Augustine--but, with the exception of St. Augustine, the
identification is quite arbitrary. Possibly if the Logician is Zeno,
the Philosopher is not Boethius but Aristotle; the figure above,
representing Philosophy, holds a mirror which seems to symbolise the
divine creation of the cosmic Universe.
On the opposite wall is the Church militant and triumphant. Before
Santa Maria del Fiore, here symbolising the Church militant, sit the
two ideal guides of man, according to the dual scheme of Dante's _De
Monarchia_--the Pope and the Emperor. On either side are seated in a
descending line the great dignitaries of the Church and the Empire;
Cardinal and Abbot, King and Baron; while all around are gathered the
clergy and the laity, religious of every order, judges and nobles,
merchants and scholars, with a few ladies kneeling on the right, one
of whom is said to be Petrarch's Laura. Many of these figures are
apparently portraits, but the attempts at identification--such as that
of the Pope with Benedict XI., the Emperor with Henry VII.--are
entirely untrustworthy. The Bishop, however, standing at the head of
the clergy, is apparently Agnolo Acciaiuoli, Bishop of Florence; and
the French cavalier, in short tunic and hood, standing opposite to him
at the head of the laity (formerly called Cimabue), is said--very
questionably--to be the Duke of Athens. At the feet of the successors
of Peter and Caesar are gathered the sheep and lambs of Christ's fold,
watched over by the black and white hounds that symbolise the
Dominicans. On the right, Dominic urges on his watchdogs against the
heretical wolves who are carrying off the lambs of the flock; Peter
Martyr hammers the unbelievers with the weapon of argument alone;
Aquinas convinces them with the light of his philosophic doctrine. But
beyond is Acrasia's Bower of Bliss, a mediaeval rendering of what
Spenser hereafter so divinely sung in the second book of the _Faerie
Queene_. Figures of vice sit enthroned; while seven damsels, Acrasia's
handmaidens, dance before them; and youth sports in the shade of the
forbidden myrtles. Then come repentance and the confessional; a
Dominican friar (not one of the great Saints, but any humble priest of
the order) absolves the penitents; St Dominic appears again, and shows
them the way to Paradise; and then, becoming as little children, they
are crowned by the Angels, and St. Peter lets them through the gate
to join the Church Triumphant. Above in the Empyrean is the Throne of
the Lord, with the Lamb and the four mystical Beasts, and the Madonna
herself standing up at the head of the Angelic Hierarchies.
In the great cloisters beyond, the Ciompi made their headquarters in
1378, under their Eight of Santa Maria Novella; and, at the request of
their leaders, the prior of the convent sent some of his preachers to
furnish them with spiritual consolation and advice.
Passing through the Piazza--where marble obelisks resting on tortoises
mark the goals of the chariot races held here under Cosimo I. and his
successors, on the Eve of St. John--and down the Via della Scala, we
come to the former Spezeria of the convent, still a flourishing
manufactory of perfumes, liqueurs and the like, though no longer in
the hands of the friars. In what was once its chapel, are frescoes by
Spinello Aretino and his pupils, painted at the end of the Trecento,
and representing the Passion of Christ. They are inferior to
Spinello's work at Siena and on San Miniato, but the Christ bearing
the Cross has much majesty, and, in the scene of the washing of the
feet, the nervous action of Judas as he starts up is finely conceived.
The famous Orti Oricellari, the gardens of the Rucellai, lie further
down the Via della Scala. Here in the early days of the Cinquecento
the most brilliant literary circles of Florentine society met; and
there was a sort of revival of the old Platonic Academy, which had
died out with Marsilio Ficino. Machiavelli wrote for these gatherings
his discourses on Livy and his Art of War. Although their meetings
were mainly frequented by Mediceans, some of the younger members were
ardent Republicans; and it was here that a conspiracy was hatched
against the life of the Cardinal Giulio dei Medici, for which Jacopo
da Diacceto and one of the Alamanni died upon the scaffold. In later
days these Orti belonged to Bianca Cappello. At the corner of the
adjoining palace is a little Madonna by Luca della Robbia; and further
on, in a lunette on the right of the former church of San Jacopo in
Ripoli, there is a group of Madonna and Child with St. James and St.
Dominic, probably by Andrea della Robbia. In the Via di Palazzuolo,
the little church of San Francesco dei Vanchetoni contains two small
marble busts of children, exceedingly delicately modelled, supposed to
represent the Gesu Bambino and the boy Baptist; they are ascribed to
Donatello, but recent writers attribute them to Desiderio or
Rossellino.
In the Borgo Ognissanti, where the Swiss of Charles VIII. in 1494,
forcing their way into the city from the Porta al Prato, were driven
back by the inhabitants, are the church of Ognissanti and the
Franciscan convent of San Salvadore. The church and convent originally
belonged to the Frati Umiliati, who settled here in 1251, were largely
influential in promoting the Florentine wool trade, and exceedingly
democratic in their sympathies. Their convent was a great place for
political meetings in the days of Giano della Bella, who used to walk
in their garden taking counsel with his friends. After the siege they
were expelled from Florence, and the church and convent made over to
the Franciscans of the Osservanza, who are said to have brought hither
the habit which St. Francis wore when he received the Stigmata. The
present church was built in the second half of the sixteenth century,
but contains some excellent pictures and frescoes belonging to the
older edifice. Over the second altar to the right is a frescoed Pieta,
one of the earliest works of Domenico Ghirlandaio, with above it the
Madonna taking the Vespucci family under her protection--among them
Amerigo, who was to give his name to the new continent of America.
Further on, over a confessional, is Sandro Botticelli's St. Augustine,
the only fresco of his still remaining in Florence; opposite to it,
over a confessional on the left, is St. Jerome by Domenico
Ghirlandaio; both apparently painted in 1480. In the left transept is
a Crucifix ascribed to Giotto; Vasari tells us that it was the
original of the numerous works of this kind which Puccio Capanna and
others of his pupils multiplied through Italy. In the sacristy is a
much restored fresco of the Crucifixion, belonging to the Trecento.
Sandro Botticelli was buried in this church in 1510, and, two years
later, Amerigo Vespucci in 1512. In the former Refectory of the
convent is a fresco of the Last Supper, painted by Domenico
Ghirlandaio in 1480, and very much finer than his similar work in San
Marco. In the lunette over the portal of the church is represented the
Coronation of the Blessed Virgin, by Giovanni della Robbia.
The Borgo Ognissanti leads hence westward into the Via del Prato, and
through the Porta al Prato, one of the four gates of the third wall of
the city, begun by Arnolfo in 1284; now merely a mutilated torso of
Arnolfo's stately structure, left stranded in the prosaic wilderness
of the modern Viale. The fresco in the lunette is by Michele di
Ridolfo Ghirlandaio. Down towards the Arno a single tower remains from
the old walls, mutilated, solitary and degraded so as to look a mere
modern bit of masonry.
Beyond are the Cascine Gardens, stretching for some two miles between
the Arno and the Mugnone, delicious to linger in, and a sacred place
to all lovers of English poetry. For here, towards the close of 1819,
"in a wood that skirts the Arno, near Florence, and on a day when
that tempestuous wind, whose temperature is at once mild and
animating, was collecting the vapours which pour down the autumnal
rains," Shelley wrote the divinest of all English lyrics: the _Ode to
the West Wind_.
"Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
What if my leaves are falling like its own!
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, spirit fierce,
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!
Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth!
And, by the incantation of this verse,
Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawakened earth
The trumpet of a prophecy! O, wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?"
[Illustration: IN THE BOBOLI GARDENS]