Boboli Gardens—Buondelmonte—Ponte Vecchio—Santa Croce—Palazzo
Borgo—Tombs—Michael Angelo’s monument—Died the year Galileo was
born—Machiavelli—Alfieri—Galileo dying the year in which Newton
was born—Chapel of the Pazzi—San Lorenzo—Monument of Cosmo, Pater
Patriæ—Michael Angelo’s Day and Night—Contradictory
employments—His reply to a verse addressed to his statue—Cappella
de’ Principi—Santa Maria Novella—Cimabue’s Virgin—Cappella de’
Spagnuoli—Portraits of Petrarch and Laura—Turned out by a
friar—Pietre Dure—Our guide again—Sarcophagus of the Gran
Duchessa—Shut up in a private oratory—Let out by a
priest—Cascine—Palazzo Vecchio—Small tower-chamber prison of
Cosmo—Savonarola—His prediction of Lorenzo’s death—The
confession—The anathema—Trial by fire—The heavy rain—Savonarola
executed—The Appennines—Birthplace of the Maréchale d’Ancre—Tre
Maschere—Fog—Rain—Lojano—Crosses—Bologna—Grizzle’s attack on
the kitchen—Miss Kemble—Modena—The ducal stable—The stuffed
charger—Parma—The five saints canonized in May—Their claims to
canonization.
Spent the afternoon again in the delightful Boboli garden: its surface
is extremely irregular, and its eminences command fine views; the hill,
on which is built the Casino, looks down on Florence, bounded by her
Appennines, and seen hence with her domes and old towers to best
advantage. We sat a long time admiring on the stone steps which lead to
the garden below; burning and cloudless, the day and the sky were
Italian, and being a festival, the bells of the numerous churches were
in motion, and their music came mellowed up the height, note below
note, most enchantingly, bringing with it a feeling of calm and
soothing more than belongs to silence.
On our way to the hotel, we crossed the Ponte Vecchio, still covered
with the old shops, in one of which worked Benvenuto Cellini. To this
bridge attaches a romantic story:—In the year 1215, the dispute
between pope and emperor (each finding partizans among the Florentine
nobility) had scattered a powder-train, which waited but a spark to
ignite and desolate the city. The adventure I am about to tell served
as torch to spring the mine. The heir of the noble house of
Buondelmonte had affianced himself to a daughter of the Amidei, noble
also. He was young and very handsome. Riding through the streets some
days after his promise made, he passed under the windows of the Donati
mansion, at one of which stood its lady with her youthful heiress by
her side, who was surpassingly lovely. The mother spoke to Buondelmonte
reproachfully: “You have made an unworthy election,” she said; “the
hand of this maiden was destined for you.” Whether his first choice had
been merely one of interest, or proceeded from an attachment rather
fancied than felt, I cannot say; but this Juliet driving forth the
memory of the Rosalind, falling in love at first sight, Buondelmonte
breathed the most passionate vows, and, disclaiming all other ties,
swore that she only should be his bride. As this was an offence not to
be pardoned, the Amidei family held council as to its punishment; other
nobles, friendly to them, and indignant at their injury, being present
also. “Shall we merely dishonour him by a blow, or shall we wound him?”
was the question; but Mosca of Lamberti said, gloomily, “Neither, for
he must die!”
The morning of Easter-day, Lamberto degli Amidei, this Mosca de’
Lamberti and others, informed that Buondelmonte was to make an
excursion on the opposite shore of the Arno, waited his passage at the
head of the Ponte Vecchio, where at that time stood a statue of Mars.
The young man soon appeared, attired in white robes, and mounted on a
superb courser caparisoned with white also. As he arrived near the
statue’s pedestal, they rushed upon him, and dragged him from his
horse. Mosca Lamberti and Amidei forced him down into the dust and
slaughtered him. This was the rallying word: for the murder was hardly
perpetrated, when the whole city rose in arms, and divided in two
factions: those of Buondelmonte’s party bearing the Guelph banner;
those of the Uberti and Amidei fighting beneath the Ghibelline.
Thus the first demonstration of their differences of opinion rose from
a private quarrel, as through their bloody feuds in after times,
private interests and private vengeance found a mask under the names of
pope and emperor.
To Santa Croce this morning. The unfinished façade of the church,
destined to be cased in marble, (a work which was begun and abandoned,)
closes at its extremity the Piazza where in republican days were
spectacles given and rejoicings made. On the right of this melancholy
square is the Palazzo Borgo, with its exterior still exhibiting the
faded frescoes, which, executed by the best artists of the time, among
the rest Giovanni di San Giovanni, were completed in twenty-seven days.
The good drawing may be distinguished still; the colours will soon have
wholly disappeared. The church is remarkable as containing, besides
some fine paintings, the tombs or cenotaphs of some of the greatest of
Florence. On the right hand entering, (opposite the inscription on the
column to the memory of Francesco Neri, murdered in the cathedral the
day young Julian perished,) is the monument to Michael Angelo, whose
remains the citizens of Rome, where he died, were anxious to keep
possession of after his death, as they had been proud of his presence
during his life; but which Florence, loth to yield, seized by
stratagem, for the corpse of her glorious child was transported to his
birthplace in a case destined for merchandise. He died in 1564, the
year in which Galileo was born; the sarcophagus raised over his ashes
is surmounted by his bust, and round it weep the figures of Sculpture,
Painting and Architecture. The monument which follows this is by Ricci,
and dedicated to Dante’s memory, though not raised above his corpse,
which Ravenna refused to the ungrateful city. It is a stiff assemblage
of colossal figures, the best being that of Poetry, leaning her head on
the arm which rests on the cenotaph and dropping the wreath from her
hand. Italy stands bolt upright folded in a blanket, and with a tower
on her head, one arm stretched upward, the other holding a sceptre,
resembling the pole of a French bed. Dante’s figure surmounts the
monument heavily and ungracefully, and seated in an arm-chair, looking
down on the personages who weep for his loss. A contrast to this is the
noble tomb of Victor Alfieri, the work of Canova. The medallion
containing his likeness is placed on the sarcophagus, and over it
stoops and weeps Italy with the grace of a goddess, and the sorrow of
his love; it was erected at the expense of the Countess of Albany.
Opposite is the white marble pulpit, whose compartments exhibit the
sculptured story of St. Francis, by Benedetto da Maiano; the small
figures below are those of Faith, Hope, Charity, Force and Justice, and
it is difficult to see anything more beautiful. The next mausoleum is
that to the memory of Nicholas Machiavelli, with its fine and perhaps
unmerited epitaph, “Tantonomini nullum par eulogium, Machiavelli”—the
extraordinary man of whom it remains undecided, whether he wrote to
corrupt or warn; who poor, and having a family to provide for, retired
in an insignificant village, passed his mornings in superintending his
labourers, in taking birds by the net, or in the study of Petrarch and
Dante, and his evenings in the composition of the works which remain to
his shame or his honour. Near the entrance door on the left hand is the
tomb of Galileo, his bust surmounting the funereal urn, the figures of
Geometry and Astronomy standing at either side: all honour paid to the
memory of the man whose life was calumniated, and whose person
persecuted; who, destined when young to the study of medicine, followed
alone, and despite his father’s will, that of mathematics, till arrived
at the sixth book of Euclid, transported with the utility of his
beloved science, he sought his parent, confessed his progress, and
implored him to oppose it no farther; whose success conducted him
before the tribunal of the Inquisition to abjure there, and on his
knees, when aged seventy, the “error of his doctrine, which affirmed
the motion of the earth, and the heresy of which he had been guilty;”
who murmured, as he arose from a position more humiliating to his
ignorant judges than to himself, “E pur si muove;” and who died blind
eight years after, in 1642, the year in which Newton was born.
A door beside the church, and on the Place, opens on a corridor, paved
and lined with tombstones, forming one side of the cloister, to which,
at the extremity of this open funereal gallery, a flight of steps leads
down under the monument elevated against the wall, the ancient marble
sarcophagus, on which lies the figure of a bishop in his robes, while
on the side is carved the Resurrection: it is the tomb of Gaston della
Torre, head of the Guelph faction, son of Conrad lord of Milan. The
elegant chapel with its cupola and Corinthian columns was raised by
command of the Pazzi family, on the design of Brunelleschi. Crossing
this cloister, with its well and cabbage garden in the centre, I pushed
open the door of a second like itself, similar even to the cabbage
crop, but consecrated to the sole use of the friars; for above another
door, which shuts in a staircase leading within the convent, was
inscribed in large letters, “Silenzium;” so that fearing to disturb the
invisible brethren, we went away, and to the church of San Lorenzo,
less remarkable for its own beauty than the tombs of its sagrestia by
Michael Angelo, and its Cappella de’ Principi separated from it by an
iron grating only; a rich homage offered to corruption. We had already
gone thither at an undue hour, and to-day also mass was being
performed, and the crowd of Florentine poor, whose pious filthiness one
fears to approach, kneeling over the floor. We determined on waiting
patiently, and stood, fearing to disturb the service, quietly examining
the pavement stone, which between the high altar and the Chapel of the
Princes is the monument of Cosmo, Pater Patriæ: it bears a simple
inscription, indicating that he was so named by a public decree, lived
75 years, and lies below.
A good natured priest, who just then crossed the church with some
Italian ladies, seeing we were strangers, made us a sign to follow,
which we obeyed; and notwithstanding the just commenced ceremonial, he
took the office of cicerone, and led the way into the new sacristy, so
is called that built during Clement the Seventh’s pontificate, and
after Michael Angelo’s designs. On the right hand on entering is the
tomb of Julian of Medicis, duke of Nemours, the warrior above seated in
a niche, the celebrated figures of Day and Night couched on the
monument. Opposite is the mausoleum of Lorenzo, duke of Urbino, himself
in his niche likewise; a similar tomb below bearing the figures of
Twilight and Aurora. The face of Twilight is unfinished. They were the
nightly task of the sculptor, when employed by day on the
fortifications of San Miniato; by a strange contradiction in the
character of an honourable man, the first destined to retard the
success of the Medici, the last to establish their fame. It was he who,
in reply to a verse addressed to his statue of Night, wrote the four
lines of melancholy beauty, which prove his feeling for his country:—
Grateful to me, to sleep, to be of stone.
Ever while sorrow and while shame shall last,
The lack of sight and sense is happiness,
Therefore awake me not! I pray speak low.
The Madonna and Child are also the work of Michael Angelo. In this
sacristy were laid the mortal remains of the Medicean family—in 1791
transported hence to the subterranean church. Our new friend, the old
priest, led the way to the Cappella, which is built above, of octagon
shape, with walls and pilasters of precious marbles, ornamented with
the arms of the chief cities of the state, executed in “Pietre Dure,”
and with the perfection which belongs to the Florentine art; lapis
lazuli, verd antique, porphyry, and mother of pearl, and oriental
alabaster, with the jaspers of Cyprus and Sicily, for materials. Of the
six sarcophagi, constructed in Egyptian granite and green jasper of
Corsica, some bear pillows of red jasper, which the weight of the
jewelled crowns they carry seems to have pressed down; while in the
niches over others are the gilded bronze statues of those who lie
below; that of Cosmo by John of Bologna. The painting of the dome is
now in progress, and seems rather gaudy than good. The priest led us
thence to the old sacristy, built before the church itself; its
architect was Brunelleschi, and in its centre is a mausoleum, by
Donatello, to the memory of two Medici.
We took leave of our kind guide here, going, as he had advised, to
Santa Maria Novella—famous, as its architecture was so prized by
Michael Angelo. Hollowed in the wall, which joins its façade, are
niches, which the Italians call sepulchres, and which served for
pillories to expose the condemned prisoners of the Inquisition, when
the members of its tribunal were Dominican friars. The church is
divided into three aisles, whose arches diminish as they recede, giving
it an appearance of extent it does not possess in reality. In one of
its chapels is an ancient picture of the Virgin and Child, surrounded
with Angels, by Cimabue, so prized at the period of its execution,
that, having been exhibited like a treasure to Charles of Anjou, it was
borne in procession to the place it now occupies.
Having examined the monuments and pictures, some deserving of far more
attention than is yielded in a flying visit like ours, we passed out
from the church by a door of the left hand aisle, into a cloister once
a cemetery; for round the walls, still covered with faded frescoes, and
under our feet, were old inscriptions and gravestones, and in the
centre, among cabbages and high grass, which partly conceal it, an
ancient tomb. The windows of the fine chapel, which, in 1566, received
the name of Cappella degli Spagnuoli, look beneath the arches of the
cloister on this desolate view. It was ceded to the Spaniards, then
filling places at court, and occupied in commerce. The workmen,
employed in placing ornaments for some festival, good-naturedly desired
we would enter to view the frescoes of its walls. Some are by Memmi,
who was the friend of Petrarch, and among the figures of his
composition has placed him beside a knight of Rhodes; and his fair
Laura, conversing with some seated females, and representing “The
Will”—(la Volontà)—is distinguished by a small flame which burns on
her breast, and a green vest scattered over with violets.
Near the portal, by which we had issued from the church, there is an
arched corridor, leading to another cloister, now encumbered with
rubbish. Following down it a few steps, we passed before several low
portals, apparently of underground prisons, and a curious little
chapel, hollowed in the wall, and going to ruin; for on this side,
lumber, and accumulated filth, and a company of oxen, who were tied to
the pillars, eating hay, stopped our further progress; and my curiosity
being yet unsatisfied, and in search of the second cloister described
by guide-books, we returned to and quitted the church once more, and
from its entrance on the Place passed into a court, where a comfortable
looking friar in white was watching the arrival of some casks. As his
occupation was sufficiently worldly, I thought his presence no
hindrance, and was about to penetrate on forbidden ground, when he
called me back with “Non è permesso, signora,” not uttered, however,
with the due horror of a Dominican, but laughing with all his heart.
We had still some time for sight seeing, and therefore proceeded
towards the manufacture of “Pietre Dure” at the Belli Arti, having
carried away from the Cappella an admiration of their beauty, which
made us desire to see the work in progress. As we walked along the
street in which it stands, a gentleman accosted us, and, looking up, we
saw the good-natured old priest again. “In all the years he had lived
in Florence,” he said, “he had never visited the manufactory, and as
our questions concerning it had excited his curiosity, he was going
thither now;” and he offered us his aid and company, which we gladly
accepted, and found him even more efficient as a guide than before, and
more agreeable as a companion also, for this second meeting placed us
on the footing of old acquaintances.
A workman conducted us to the laboratories, the stores of precious
stones and marbles, and through the various rooms containing specimens
of the art, proving its progress and present perfection; for the
wreaths of fruit and flowers imitate the cunning hand of nature so
well, with their brilliant tints and delicate shadows, as to outdo
painting. The composition and grouping are due to the best artists of
Florence, and the stones so chosen as to simulate lights and shadows.
There are some fine productions of the manufactory at the Palazzo
Pitti, but none to be compared to a table I saw here, whose execution
occupied, to the best of my recollection, seven years. A very small
one, which I should have wished to possess, was to be sold for five
thousand crowns—its wreath of fruit and flowers inserted in a slab of
porphyry. The grapes were each one an amethyst; the currants cornelian;
the corn flowers lapis lazuli. The workmen employed in filing the
stones to the necessary size and form looked pale and weary over their
work. At sixty years old they retire pensioned. The work which, though
not the most beautiful, our friend the abbé considered most curious
from its difficulty of execution, is the sarcophagus in porphyry,
(destined for the Cappella dei Principi, and to be placed over the
remains of the Gran Duchessa,) inasmuch as the hard substance has been
wrought to as extraordinary perfection as if it were soft alabaster.
Thirty men worked at this twelve hours a-day during five years. We
parted with regret from the abbé: as we are to leave Florence so soon,
to attempt to cultivate his acquaintance now would be useless. I think
I told you D—— has found here letters which recall us to Paris with
as little delay as possible. We mentioned this to the priest, and also
our intention of returning next winter; and he desired us to seek him
then at San Lorenzo, which he inhabited, and where we should easily
find him out by asking for Padre Francesco. We had still several hours
to dispose of, and we set forward to our daily haunt, the Galleria, but
passed on our way the old prison, and turned into its picturesque
court, with its walls covered with carved blazonries, and its heavy,
uncovered stair leading to the upper stories. Fronting the street, and
from the dark wall of this gloomy building, hangs the ponderous gallows
chain.
Unfortunately for our visit to the museum, there stands, on a Place
near, a large church and convent, comparatively of modern date, as it
appears to have been built in Louis the Fourteenth’s time. Possessed
with the passion of sight-seeing, though there seemed to be nothing
curious about this, I proposed going in for five minutes, and doing so
by the central door, we found our way to an oratory, wherein we had
certainly no right to enter. It was clean and modern, and having walked
round it and discovered that to do so had been time lost, I turned to
leave it by the same door, to the discontent of D——, who was tired
and had seated himself on a bench, but, arrived at it, I found that we
were destined to a repose longer than might be desirable, for we were
certainly in the private chapel of the monastery, and the monks
(unconscious of company) had barred and double locked, silently, but
securely, all manner of egress—this and the half dozen other doors
which we tried in vain; succeeding only so far as to arrive in a closed
corridor, and at a grating through whose bars we could contemplate a
little desolate yard of the convent, into which nobody came. The
churches of Florence are usually closed from one to three, but how long
our imprisonment here was to last was uncertain, and when an hour had
passed we began to think it would prove an unpleasant sleeping chamber.
Luckily for us, however, a young pale priest came gently in from the
convent, and kneeled down to pray before the altar, so absorbed in his
devotion as not to observe our presence during his prayer, and very
nearly to escape us when it was ended; for as he was gliding away with
downcast eyes, I had barely time to accost him, and say, like the
starling, “I can’t get out,” whereupon he delivered us by unlocking
door after door with his master-key, and stood watching our retreat, in
wonder as to how we got in.
This evening to the Cascine—the promenade to which the Florentines are
constant as the Parisians to the Bois de Boulogne. It has long alleys
of finer trees, and better ground for riding than the latter, and a
prospect of the hills which rise round Florence.
We crossed the light suspended bridge to return by the opposite shore.
The view back to the city is, saving that from the Boboli gardens, the
best of Florence; and that down the river the most picturesque of the
Arno.
As we passed Huband’s stables on our road to the hôtel, I paid a visit
to Fanny. The horses are well taken care of, but the stables confined
and crowded. Fanny, who had been left alone longer than she approved
of, had gnawed her cord asunder, and eaten up all the oats destined for
the day’s provender of both.
Our table d’hôte party is an agreeable one. Among the rest, I found the
first day a lady and her family whom I met at the Simplon Inn, and who
told me there a story, not at all encouraging to lonely travellers like
ourselves, of a journey which a few years back she had made hither with
her father, and during which their carriage had been stopped by robbers
who rifled it, held loaded muskets to their breasts, and tore from her
neck the gold chain she wore. To-day, by a strange chance, there was
seated next me a lady who, some years ago, before we either were
married, I had often met in Paris ball-rooms, and now the widow of an
officer who was taken prisoner and absolutely torn in pieces at
Algiers. She is here alone with a pale child, whose extreme cleverness
and delicacy would make me tremble, as it does her. His soul seems too
near the surface, and his hollow cough predicts that his mother will
not change her mourning.
One more tale of Florentine history ere we depart from Florence, and I
tell it without remorse, having spared you the tourist’s usual
criticism of her statues and paintings, and description of churches. I
have even passed over that of the Palazzo Vecchio, and our wanderings
therein one day, when in search of a guide, and bidden to go whither we
pleased by the sentinel below, we mounted stair after stair, and roamed
through long suites of apartments till chance brought us to a corridor
whose tribunes look down on the noble council chamber, ornamented by
Cosmo the First’s order when, in 1540, he came to inhabit the palace,
and painted in oils and fresco by Vasari and other artists. It is a
pity that this fine hall should be crooked, which it is so excessively
as to injure its effect to the most careless eyes. Round it are fine
groups and statues by John of Bologna and Bandinelli; among the former
that by Michael Angelo, destined for the mausoleum of Pope Julius the
Second, and left unfinished when the artist died; and among the last
the statue of John of the Black Bands, the invincible father of Duke
Cosmo, the same whose pedestal still remains in an angle of the place
of San Lorenzo, which it was destined to occupy. I spare you a
lengthened account of this and of the saloons of Cosmo the Ancient—of
Lorenzo the Magnificent—of John the Invincible—of the Pontiffs Leo
the Tenth and Clement the Seventh, on whose walls are painted by Vasari
the principal events of the reigns or lives of each. I even pass over
the small chamber in the Torre della Vacca, which was the prison of
Cosmo, Pater Patriæ, when Rinaldo of Albizzi, his rival, conspired
against him, but could not obtain his condemnation, and whence he
departed to pass a year in exile at Venice—a short reverse, forerunner
of a constant prosperity, lasting even as it was deserved, till he
died, aged seventy-five years.
The extraordinary man whose story I would recall to you is Savonarola,
who was born at Ferrara in 1452, and who Nicolo ended his life on the
gibbet in the old piazza at Florence. When very young he was remarkable
for his austere habits and singular character. The theological works of
St. Thomas of Acquin were his habitual study, and one which he seldom
quitted, save for poetical composition, a pastime of which he was
passionately fond. A vision seen or fancied by him decided his vocation
when two and twenty, though he had before refused to take orders, not
choosing, he said, to clothe himself with ecclesiastical dignities, and
belong to the world when he had affected to quit it. He took the habit
of Dominican and repaired to Bologna, where his talents were soon
recognised.
By the advice of Pic de la Mirandole he was recalled to Florence by
Lorenzo de’ Medici, and arrived there he preached publicly against the
scandalous conduct of layman and ecclesiastic, for Alexander the Sixth
at this time occupied the papal chair, and his example had been but too
accurately followed. A republican in principles, inflexible in his
proud independence, he gave a proof of it in 1490, when he was named
prior of San Marco. It was the custom that one so promoted should
present himself before Lorenzo, recognizing him as chief of the
republic, and asking favour and protection. Though the Dominicans
implored, and Lorenzo demanded, Savonarola refused this mark of
condescension; he said that God, not Lorenzo, had elected him prior. At
another period Lorenzo requested him, through the medium of some
Florentine citizens, to forbear the announcement of coming misfortune
to Florence, where such prediction ever created troubles and aroused
the disaffected; but Savonarola, far from obeying, foretold on the
contrary, that Lorenzo himself would shortly die. This prophecy was
verified the 9th of April, 1492; and it is said that Lorenzo, feeling
himself dying, chose the prior for confessor, notwithstanding the
slight respect he had shown him hitherto, and Savonarola, having heard
his penitent, on three conditions promised him absolution: first, that
he should make oath that he was a true believer, which Lorenzo did;
secondly, that he should restitute all which he might have acquired
unfairly; he answered he would consider of it; and lastly, that he
should restore to Florence her liberty, and to the Florentine
government its popular form; and to this third condition Lorenzo the
Magnificent made no reply, but turned in his bed with his back to
Savonarola.
After the death of Lorenzo and the exile of Pietro his son, the prior,
more and more violent in his attacks on the church, and particularly on
its chief, the infamous Borgia, drew down on himself the latter’s
excommunication, which however his nuncio, fearful of entering the
town, posted without the walls at San Miniato. Savonarola despised his
censure, declared its non-validity, and published his famous work
entitled the “Triumph of Faith,” which conduct, acting on the
inflammable city, divided it into two factions, the one for democracy
and Savonarola, the other devoted to the house and policy of the Medici.
Of the two monks who defended his opinions, and who perished beside
him, the most ardent was Domenico of Pescia, who at one period took his
place as preacher during the days which preceded the carnival, and
those which ushered in Lent. Though less eloquent than his master, he
yet, by his energetic preaching, persuaded his hearers to seek and
sacrifice among their possessions such as to these ascetics seemed too
worldly, and calculated to withdraw them from a severe and religious
life. Domenico formed into regiments the little boys of the several
districts, ordering that they should march from house to house to make
a collection for the poor, at the same time with that for the Anathema,
so he styled the objects of luxury, or works of art, which, according
to him, lay under the curse of God. During three days the young boys
gathered their harvest of faded gala dresses and female ornaments, of
cards, dice and musical instruments, and on the first day of the
carnival, formed of them a pile in the shape of a pyramid before the
Palazzo Vecchio. This ceremony completed, there being among the devoted
objects many precious manuscripts and the works of Boccaccio, the
children were conducted to the cathedral where they heard mass, and
after their meal, being attired in white garments and crowned with
olive, and bearing small red crosses in their hands, they sought the
church once more, deposed there the money collected for the poor, and
again forming in procession, arrived on the Piazza del Palazzo Vecchio,
lisping Italian hymns; and when the chant was ended, the four children
who headed the four troops advanced with lighted torches and solemnly
fired the pyramid, whose flame ascended to the sound of trumpets. The
next year (1498) Savonarola in person headed the procession, and this
time the pile was composed of objects so valuable, marble statues and
precious paintings, and illuminated manuscripts, among the latter one
of Petrarch, that a military guard was posted round to keep off
robbers. These unusual ceremonies exasperated the Florentine clergy; a
Franciscan at Santa Croce preached to prove the prior’s excommunication
valid; Domenico from his pulpit loudly contradicted him, asserting the
necessity of reform in the church, and offering himself (by submitting
to trial by fire) to prove the truth against their adversary.
The Franciscan accepted the challenge: the 7th of April, 1498, was the
day appointed, and the burning pile was raised opposite the old palace.
Domenico arrived wearing priestly robes and ornaments and carrying the
cross, preceded and followed by long files of Dominicans chanting
psalms as they advanced, Savonarola marching before them. The
Franciscans, on the contrary, approached without pomp and in silence,
headed by the lay brother, whom Domenico’s adversary, losing courage
when the day of judgment came, had substituted to go (in his place)
through the trial of fire. The parties in presence, a dispute arose;
the Franciscans not choosing that Domenico should enter the flames
wearing his priestly habit, or carrying the holy sacrament, as was the
will of Savonarola. The contest growing angry, an hour passed without
ending it, and evening closing there fell a heavy rain, which put to
flight the two champions and disappointed the multitude assembled there
to be amused by their torture. The next day, however, Savonarola’s
enemies, who felt themselves protected by the Florentine government,
took up arms and attacked the convent of San Marco, in which Savonarola
and his two disciples were. The monks defended themselves stoutly, for
the attack commenced during vespers, and not till dark did the
assailants get possession of their persons and drag them to the public
prisons. The government now took the affair into its own hands; and
Savonarola, accused of uttering prophecies not inspired, but founded on
private opinions and interpretations of the Scriptures, and with a view
to force the convocation of a council general, which should reform the
church, was tortured and tried by delegates of the monster Pope
Alexander, and condemned with the two brethren to be hanged on the
Piazza del Palazzo Vecchio, now del Gran Duca, their bodies burned and
their ashes scattered. The gibbet was planted opposite the palace, in
the precise place where some months before they had held their strange
carnival. Brought thither, their firmness did not for a moment forsake
them; they looked on, while the preparations were made, in silence;
when their bodies were consumed, their remains were collected in a cart
and flung into the Arno.
Montecarelli.
Left Florence this morning to come hither. The weather has been cold
since our passage, and last night the snow fell heavily. The air is a
contrast to that of the city, whose burning sun and biting musquitoes I
am however glad to turn my back on. The Appennines appear to less
advantage beneath the grey sky than when we crossed them in sunshine,
and the Villa Borghese more sad in its desolate grandeur, and saddest
of all looked the public cemetery, where the grave-diggers were
occupied in opening the deep fosses to which each night brings inmates:
it is a large open space, without tomb or tree, saving the few cypress,
which outside the wall shade the priests’ melancholy dwelling.
We paused to take a last look of Florence and also of Fiesole, which on
our right, as we ascended, crowns its hill, more ancient than Florence,
and most interesting as the birthplace of the parvenue Leonora Galigai
Maréchale d’Ancre, whose fate and fortunes have been celebrated by the
first writer of France, the radiance of whose fancy has shone over
history without falsifying its colours.
We saw and passed the Tre Maschere, having received unfavourable
accounts of its hosts, and returned here to our former inn with the
evergoing pump beneath our bedroom, and the stable with fern for
litter, and horned cattle for inmates. Notwithstanding bribes, which,
like other instigators to action, fail in Italy, our horses were
neglected so long, that in my quality of interpreter, I proceeded to
scold the inattentive groom, and so found favour in the eyes of the
master, the two personages being comprehended in one, and his
attachment to his own, which inhabited another stable, having made him
postpone the care of ours. Among his favourites he showed me a horse
from whose long white tail one lock had been severed, the Italian said
in malice, by some person who had thus chosen to annoy him, and whom,
could he have discovered, he would have punished with his knife. I
assure you his look and gesture were sufficiently expressive to guard
the hair of his horse’s head henceforward. Having looked in on ours in
their uneasy sleeping chamber, in and out of which the oxen seemed to
be all night driven, and from whose roof swung, above the dry fern, the
lamp at which all the carters our fellow travellers came to light their
pipes, proving their reliance on the care of Providence, as they take
none themselves, the safety of these places being a miracle, I passed
an hour walking up and down before the door, under a moon which sailed
in skies whose blue certainly does not belong to our climates, lighting
the lone inn and chestnut trees surrounding it, till she predicted bad
weather by taking to herself a halo.
Up at candlelight and off by daybreak, with the cold tramontana for
companion, growing so violent by degrees, that I did not feel quite
tranquil at its increase as we approached the duke’s guardian wall, and
the dense fog came sweeping by and over us. Fanny dislikes wind, and
sometimes hesitated to advance, and we went on silent and shivering,
with hardly energy to look back on the view, from this place so
beautiful, of hills and plains behind, over which rain and mist were
disputing empire. As we advanced, the mist thickened and the rain fell,
and the waterproofs did not deserve the name they bore, and we passed
Pietra Mala, hardly knowing it again in its changed aspect, and seeing
nothing but the peaks of the crags rising coldly out of the fog, and
ragged herdsmen, with their drenched cattle, and a few of the large
birds of prey with grey backs and black wings, peculiar to this region.
As I was riding a few yards before D——, a woman, who saw me pass,
came rushing out of a decent cottage, having first caught from its
cradle her baby. Not seeing the manœuvre as D—— did, I gave her some
silver, thinking her a poor traveller with a crying infant. They are
the most clever of all beggars.
At last we arrived at Filigare, and paid four pauls for the horses, and
to the satellites of custom-house and passport office _buone mani_
innumerable. The smallest donations are, however, thankfully received;
they pocket half pauls. Till within a short distance of Lojano the rain
continued to fall mercilessly. The rude wooden crosses, which we had
before noticed here and there, hid in wild nooks or on the brow of the
precipice, and which, with the sun shining on them, looked like emblems
of Quiet and Consolation, seemed now only memorials and warnings. “Pray
do those denote the death of any one on the spot where they stand?” I
asked an Italian, thinking, as I did so, his face and appearance
perfectly suited to a bandit. “Sicuro,” said the man. “And did they die
violently? were they murdered?” “Possibile,” said my friend with
perfect indifference, as he walked away. The weather cleared just so
long, ere we reached our resting-place, as left time for our horses to
dry. Drenched ourselves, we gladly took refuge in the clean quiet
apartment of the Pellegrino, under which there is, thank heaven! no
pump. I had remained up and writing a letter to Paris, when I was
roused by a crack and loud exclamation from D——, who had gone to
rest, but whose place of repose had sunk suddenly under him, there
being not a single screw in the bedstead. While he once more rose and
dressed himself, I set forth along corridors, and up one steep stair
and down two: for as the new house has been tacked on to the old, the
way is sufficiently intricate. At last, guided by a noise like the
witches’ sabbath, I arrived at the kitchen door, and, opening it, found
myself in a place and company which called to memory the cave in Gil
Blas, there being about thirty present,—drinking, screaming, singing,
half hid in the fumes of tobacco, with their wild-looking, handsome
figures, grouped round the dirty tables or blazing hearth. As I opened
the door, the shouts and songs ceased, and, with Italian civility, all
got up and closed round to know what I wanted; so, having desired the
padrone to follow, I made my retreat as soon as possible, followed by
our host, who was, it seemed, aware that his bedstead lacked all
apparatus to hold it together, but had imagined it might last till
morning.
Oct. 20th.
Left Lojano in a fog, dense and yellow, which concealed all objects ten
yards off,—hearing, not seeing, the approach of travellers and
waggons, and D—— hailing them for our safety and theirs. Fanny was
frightened and vicious; the road melancholy, as oxen and pedestrians,
and now and then an English carriage, issued from the mist close at our
side, and were swallowed in it the next moment. It was not till we had
descended some miles that the fog diminished, and then, after exciting
many delusive hopes, showing through it the sun like a paler moon,
yielding between its discoloured waves, peeps into the valley, and
again floating like smoke before our faces, we fairly left it behind,
issuing into blue sky and sunshine, knowing their value from privation
of them. The horses knew the pilgrims’ house, but Grizzle made a
violent effort to enter the kitchen instead of the stable. Our amiable
hostess had chosen her most pleasant apartment, and exerted all her
French talent in cookery in the dishes she had noticed to please us
before.
A moonlight night at Bologna, such as this, is impressive in its
beauty, with the light streaming down its monastic streets, and the
deep shadow of its pillared arcades. Miss Adelaide Kemble, who is also
lodged at La Pace with her father, sang in her apartments till a crowd,
collected beneath her windows, silenced her with its bravas. The
Italians will not believe her to be English, and her appearance
justifies their opinion, as she has the dark eyes of their country,
with features in the style of those of Mrs. Siddons.
21st.
To Modena: a burning day. Arrived there and my dress changed, I
requested the landlady’s pretty daughter to be my guide, as it was
advisable to strive to obtain some news of our baggage, so long
missing, that we begin to be resigned to its loss and to travelling
with little beside the linen our horses carry. Having discovered, with
some difficulty, the spedizioniere, who is the correspondent of our
Commissionnaire de Roulage, I found that our trunks, having followed
ourselves across the broken Simplon on mules’ backs, have now been
stopped by torrents likely to impede our passage also. Modena is a
miniature of a fine city, with a handsome ducal palace and pretty
gardens, an Accademmia delle Belle Arti, and other public buildings.
The palace is large and handsome; the favourite apartments of the
duchess, who is very pious, communicating with the convent, and opening
on a private corridor, by which she can reach the adjacent church
unobserved. The tribune she occupies is so arranged as almost to
conceal her presence, glazed and heavily barred like a convent grate.
The duke’s theatre (for he is extremely fond of theatricals) joins
another part of the Palazzo, and his splendid stables are opposite and
on the garden side. My guide said it was one of the sights of Modena,
and as she insisted on entering, and the sentinel made room to let us
pass, in we went. It is a fine building, with arched and groined roof,
the horses ranged down either side, all of the duke’s own breed, and
some of them superb animals. The roan charger of the last duke stands
stuffed and under a glass case at the extremity. There stood near us a
personage, a head groom I imagine, who, I am sure, will preserve for a
day or two a high opinion of my sagacity.
“I suppose you have a hundred horses here,” I said to him. To which he
replied, “Cent uno!” with a look of admiring wonder which would better
have suited the word Miracolo!
The cathedral is near the inn; we could see from our windows part of
its curious façade and its high old tower. The former somewhat
resembles that of the cathedral at Placentia, having portico on
portico, and strange beasts for supporters. Its interior is more
striking: flights of steps lead up to the elevated choir, others
conduct to the half subterranean church below, where, among numberless
light pillars with strange capitals, is the tomb of St. Geminiano, the
patron saint of Modena. The monument of the last duke is on the left
hand of the choir, and handsome; and in the body of the church are
various altar-pieces of carved wood and marble, covered with saints and
madonnas, deserving more attention than I had time to pay.
22nd.
To Parma; oppressively warm. Bought some grapes of a boy, who, when we
had paid him what he asked, four times their value, demanded buona
mano. Suffered much from the heat, though we started early: for, having
given orders that our horses should not, according to custom, be driven
to drink in the cold yard at daybreak, the hostler disobeyed, and Fanny
informed us of their delinquency by screaming her shrill neigh till she
woke us, and D—— proceeded to restore her to her stall, and I to
prepare for our journey. Passed again the dark old fortress of Rubiera,
and fed our horses before reaching Reggio. We would gladly have found
refreshment for ourselves, but it was out of the question, the stable
being the cleanest part of the premises. Bad as was La Paone at Parma,
we returned there on account of our horses; but Parma being intricate
in its wanderings, we were puzzled to find it. Fanny’s sagacity did not
fail even here; she led the way to the alley in which it stands, and
walked straight into the inn yard.
We went out this beautiful evening to buy whips at the shop of the most
civil of all saddlers, nearly opposite the Posta, now the best inn. As
I passed a bookseller’s shop, I saw in the window a pamphlet,
containing the lives of the five saints canonized in the month of May
of this year, 1839, and the ceremonies which took place at Rome. As
they were often the subject of conversation during our stay at
Florence, I stopped and bought it, and spent an hour in its study, in
this most desolate of all uncurtained chambers.
The five saints were named—
Sant’ Alfonso Maria de’ Liguori,
Francesco di Gironimo Giovanni,
Giuseppe della Croce,
Pacifico da San Severino, and
Veronica Giuliani Cappucina.
Alfonso Maria was born in 1696, presented by his mother to San
Francesco di Girolamo, who predicted that her son deserved more than
common care, being destined to become a bishop, to perform for the good
of the church great and marvellous things, and to live to the age of
ninety years. It seems he was a wondrous child; and when he grew to
man’s estate, considering studies and fatigues, and maladies, to which
he was subject, insufficient to mortify the flesh, he added thereto
flagellation, wounds, chains, and hunger: “So that,” the pamphlet says,
“the Lord God, being pleased with this self-devoted victim, who offered
himself up an incessant sacrifice to divine glory, chose to render him
illustrious by gratuitous gifts of prophecy, of insight into the human
heart, of being present in _two places at a time_, and of the working
of frequent miracles.”
Francesco di Gironimo was born in 1642, and of him and his impressive
preaching his chronicler says, “To all this greater credit was given,
on account of the appearance of St. Francis, bodily, in divers places
at the same time; of the power he had of curing the sick; of his
multiplying victuals miraculously, and (last and greatest) on account
of the speech of an infamous woman, whose soul having been, suddenly
and still impenitent, borne to the divine presence, was interrogated by
the saint, who said ‘Where art thou?’ to which she replied, ‘I am in
hell!’”
San Giovanni Giuseppe was, like the other two, of noble blood, born in
1654. It is said, that eminent in the practice of all virtues, but most
particularly of that of humility, during sixty-four years he wore on
his bare skin a single tunic, so joined and pieced, that from it he
received the nickname of Father Hundred Patches, Padre Cento Pezze. He
wore beneath it an iron cross, garnished with sharp nails. At last,
having suffered from a stroke of apoplexy, he passed five days in quiet
contemplation before he died, at the close of which, fixing his eyes on
the image so dear to him of the holy Virgin, and remembering, to his
great comfort, how that very Mary had many times spoken to him, and, on
one anniversary of the Saviour’s birthday, had placed him in his arms
that he might caress him, he died; commencing his triumph in paradise
in the year 1734.
Santo Pacifico da San Severino, when but four years old, was accustomed
to mix ashes with the bread of his breakfast, and to say, with a taste
of paradise (gusto di Paradiso), that it was good. Grown up, he passed,
safe and sound and dry-footed, over the swollen river Menacchia. The
brute creatures were submissive to him as to Adam, yet innocent; and
the gift of working miracles was accorded to him. He died 1790.
Veronica Cappucina was born in 1660. When a baby at the breast, though
habitually requiring much nourishment, three days of the week she
refrained from swallowing more than a few mouthsfull of milk. When
hardly six months old, one Trinity Sunday, she sprang from her mother’s
arms to the ground, on which she walked with a firm step; but very
little older, she admonished with grave words a man in the
market-place, being herself in her nurse’s arms, and prevented an
injustice of which he was about to be guilty; and at this time she
enjoyed the familiarity of the child Jesus and of the Virgin, and
several times it happened that the Holy Child visited to console her
when she wept, and days there were in which the sainted mother
consigned the blessed Jesus to her innocent arms, predicting her
spiritual union with him. When she grew up, she was now inclosed in
prison, now suffered under accusation of practising magic arts; but the
only sorrow which cast her down was the feeling abandoned by her
celestial Spouse when he failed to comfort her, as was his wont, and
this tormented her more bitterly than the worst adversity, and forced
her to utter _loving complaints_. She died 1727. The pamphlet is
entitled, “Descrizione del Ceremoniale e Cenni sulla Vita de cinque
Beati canonizzati dal Sommo Pontefice Gregorio XVI, l’anno 1839;” and I
have literally translated the above passages, though belief in them
would seem impossible in our time.