ITALIAN ARCHITECTURE IN THE POEMS OF BROWNING.
I. GENERAL STATEMENT.--Twenty-five poems of Robert Browning make some
reference, brief or extended, to an Italian work of architecture. Two
architects, as such, are mentioned in _Old Pictures in Florence_.
They are Giotto (1267-1337), the original designer of the Florentine
Campanile, and Taddeo Gaddi (c. 1300-c. 1366), his successor. In the
twenty-five poems, about fifty-eight Italian buildings are named,
not all of them important architecturally. Of these, almost exactly
one-third are in Florence, and one or two less than another third are
in Rome. Venice and Asolo claim mention of five and six respectively;
but all the remaining towns must content themselves with a mention
of one, two, or three buildings. The entire number of works of
architecture is divided between twelve towns: Venice, Verona, Bassano,
Rome, Florence, Passagno, Asolo, Padua, Fano, Bagni di Lucca, Arezzo
and Siena.
There are two apparent reasons why the number of buildings named at
Rome and Florence is exceptionally large: first, the former city has
been the historical and political center of Italy ever since the
beginning, and the latter is the art center of the world; second,
Browning spent a considerable amount of time in Rome, both in 1844,
during his second trip to Italy, and in his visits of 1853 and 1854,
while Florence was his home for fifteen years.
The number of ecclesiastical buildings is something more than one-half
of the entire list; while the remaining ones are about equally divided
between those for state use and private buildings of a secular
character. Considering the large number of beautiful churches and
cathedrals in Italy, the result so far as these are concerned is in
entire accordance with one’s expectations. St. Mark’s, St. Peter’s, the
Vatican, and the Florentine Duomo, all buildings of world interest,
lead in the number of times they receive mention.
II. SOURCE OF BROWNING’S KNOWLEDGE.--Browning had seen almost all if
not every one of the Italian buildings he introduces in his poems. He
knew whereof he wrote. _Sordello_, published in 1840, is concerned
with the cities of Venice, Bassano, Verona, Rome, and Florence; but
the references to the last two are very slight. The first three cities
he had visited in his trip of 1838, along with his “delicious Asolo”,
which became the scene of _Pippa Passes_, in 1841. Ferrara formed a
very large part of the setting in _Sordello_, also; but no particular
buildings in it are described. _A Toccata of Galuppi’s_, 1855, refers
to St. Mark’s in Venice. _Old Pictures in Florence_, with its distinct
Florentine setting, was given to the world after Browning had lived in
that city for nine years. Doubtless its Campanile, which he mentions in
the poem, was at that time as familiar to him as any building of his
native land. _By the Fireside_ (with reference to the chapel in the
gorge) was written either during the visit of the Brownings to Bagni
di Lucca in 1853, or shortly after it, and was published in 1855. Near
Bagni di Lucca is the scene of the story. There is the same relation
between architectural subject and personal observation in _The Boy
and the Angel_ (Rome), 1842; _The Italian in England_ (Padua), 1845;
_In a Gondola_ (Venice), 1842; _The Statue and the Bust_ (Florence),
1855; _Luria_ (Florence), 1846; _Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day_ (Rome),
1850; _Fra Lippo Lippi_ (Florence), 1855; _The Bishop orders his Tomb_
(Rome), 1845; _Bishop Blougram’s Apology_ (Rome), 1855; _One Word More_
(Florence), 1855; _Abt Vogler_ (Rome), 1864; _Pacchiarotto_ (Siena),
1876. Padua and Venice were visited in 1838, Rome in 1844, Florence in
1846, if not sooner, and Siena in 1850.
_The Ring and the Book_ is an interesting example of Browning’s
procedure in the case of an architectural work he wished to introduce.
Florence and Rome, more particularly the latter, are concerned with
the whole action of the poem, while Arezzo is utilized in a minor way.
By this time (1864-68) Browning had long been familiar with Florence
and Rome. However, the poem was written in England; and a letter to
Frederick Leighton, October 17, 1864, asks him if he will go into the
Church of San Lorenzo, in the Corso, look at it carefully, and describe
it to Browning. Browning asks particularly about the arrangement
of the building, nave, pillars, the number of altars, and the
‘Crucifixion’ over the altar, by Guido, and adds that he does not care
for the outside. This church Browning uses more than any other in _The
Ring and the Book_, making it the scene of the baptism and the marriage
of Pompilia, as well as the place to which the dead bodies were taken.
Mr. Kenyon tells us that the poet was always accustomed to visualize
a scene completely and to keep it constantly before him mentally as
he wrote. It was his general rule to use only buildings which he had
seen, even when he refers to them very slightly; and in this case, he
wrote to inquire about one which he had seen, but of which he did not
have a perfectly clear mental image. The only possible exception to the
personal observation of a building to be poetically described is in the
case of the Pieve, at Arezzo. The Pieve is described in considerable
detail; and so far as can be learned, the poet probably did not visit
it. The Brownings had planned to visit it in September, 1847, on
their way to Rome. But this trip, in connection with which Arezzo is
mentioned, was abandoned. Later trips were made to Rome, however, and
it is very possible that Arezzo was made a stopping place on one of
them, and the Pieve, after all, was not an exception to the general
rule.
III. IMPORTANCE OF ARCHITECTURE IN THE POEMS.--When the amount of
architecture Browning introduces is first considered, it seems
remarkably large. But such conclusion could be reached only by failing
to take into consideration the manner in which the references are
employed. About ten of the buildings he names, including those at
Asolo and a few others, are of no importance whatever, from either an
architectural or a historical standpoint. Most of the remaining ones
are discussed in histories of architecture or mentioned in guide books,
and a considerable number of them are of importance architecturally.
But with very few exceptions, Browning does not employ them for the
sake of their architecture; and cared very little whether they were
architecturally good or bad. He usually had a story to tell; and for
that story a location was necessary. Often he used such buildings as
had been significant in the original events on which he based his poem.
There are, to be sure, numerous instances in which the particular
church or castle he names suits the tone of the story just a trifle
better than anything else he could have found. In _Sordello_, for
example, he constructed an imaginary castle, Goito, which both
harmonized with the character of Sordello and influenced his life,
since it was the home of his youth. An excellent example of a building
chosen to illustrate the theme of the story is _The Bishop orders his
Tomb at St. Praxed’s Church_. Perhaps no such tomb as the Bishop’s ever
existed, exactly as described in the poem; but if it had, St. Praxed
(Santa Prassede) with its ornate beauty was exactly suited to be its
location.
_The Ring and the Book_ and _The Statue and the Bust_ are both
excellent examples of poems in which the buildings were already
selected for Browning by the stories on which he based his poems.
Examples of buildings chosen for harmony, such as those in _Sordello_
and _The Bishop orders his Tomb_, are rather exceptional cases.
Browning’s poetic architecture, for the most part, may be grouped in
three divisions--(1) buildings already chosen for him by the story
which he wished to embody in a poem, (2) buildings chosen by himself,
to harmonize with the tone of the story, (3) buildings used for setting
with no regard whatever for architectural qualities. The last division
is by far the largest. Or, to classify more broadly, there are two ways
in which he uses architecture--(1) for the sake of an emotional value,
of which there is one example, and (2) for the sake of background
effects, to which practically all the other instances belong.
IV. COMPARISON WITH OTHER WRITERS.--Wordsworth has several poems--for
example, _Old Abbeys_, _In the Cathedral at Cologne_, _Inside of King’s
College Chapel_--that within a short space and in a lyrical fashion
deal with architecture in a highly appreciative manner. Somewhat
similar examples from Byron are the _Elegy on Newstead Abbey_ and the
familiar _Sonnet on Chillon_. But Browning, whose writings contain few
poems of lyric or descriptive subjectivity, did not devote himself to
any such effusions over inanimate objects. His only description of
architecture as something appealing to the emotion and imagination of
man is contained in a few lines of a very long poem, _Christmas-Eve
and Easter-Day_. The speaker is searching for religious truth and
finds himself, in his visit to the homeland of Catholicism, viewing
St. Peter’s at Rome. Then follows that wonderfully comprehensive
description--
“And what is this that rises propped,
With pillars of prodigious girth?
Is it really on the earth,
This miraculous Dome of God?
Has the angel’s measuring-rod
Which numbered cubits, gem from gem,
’Twixt the gates of the New Jerusalem,
Meted it out,--and what he meted,
Have the sons of men completed?
--Binding, ever as he bade,
Columns in the colonnade,
With arms wide open to embrace
The entry of the human race ...”
But even in this instance, Browning, before his description is
finished, cannot content himself with mere abstract statements of
beauty divorced from human life. He turns to the builders--the people,
and to the purpose--service to humanity.
In the only poem of Browning which deals with an architect at all,
(_Old Pictures in Florence_, in which Giotto is considered at some
length), the discussion is from the standpoint of the architect’s aim,
his partial achievement, and the relation his work, when it is finally
finished, will have to the people of his city; not from the standpoint
of any technical interest in the art.
V. ARCHITECTURE AND PERSONALITY.--With all his mention of Italian works
of architecture, then, Browning’s primary object was never the abstract
beauty of that art itself. He has far less treatment of it, from an
abstract standpoint, than many another English writer who has scarcely
gone outside his native land for material. A building, as a building!
What was there in it related to personality as that expressed itself in
the struggles of the soul? And, therefore, what could there be in it to
concern Robert Browning?