FLORENCE OF TO-DAY
It was while I was in Florence that a light was thrown on an industry
of which I had previously known little and which impressed me much.
Brooding over the almost endless treasures of the city, I ambled into
the Strozzi Palace one afternoon, that perfect example of Florentine
palatial architecture, then occupied by an exposition of objects of
art, reproductions and originals purporting to be the work of an
association of Italian artists. After I had seen, cursorily, most of
the treasures in the Palazzo Strozzi, I encountered a thing which I had
long heard of but never seen,--an organization for the reproduction,
the reduplication, of all the wonders of art, and cheaply, too. The
place was full of marbles of the loveliest character, replicas of
famous statues in the Vatican, the Louvre, the Uffizi, and elsewhere;
and in many instances, also, copies of the great pictures. There was
beautiful furniture imitated, even as to age, from many of the Italian
palaces, the Riccardi, Albizzi, Pazzi, Pitti, Strozzi, and others;
and as for garden-fittings--fountains, fauns, cupids, benches, metal
gateways, pergolas, and the like, they were all present. They were
marvelous reproductions from some of the villas, with the patina of age
upon them, and I thought at first that they were original. I was soon
undeceived, for I had not been there long, strolling about, when an
attendant brought and introduced to me a certain Prof. Ernesto Jesuram,
a small, dark, wiry man with clear, black, crowlike eyes who made clear
the whole situation.
The markets of the world, according to Mr. Jesuram, a Jew, were being
flooded with cheap imitations of every truly worthy object of art,
from Italian stone benches to landscapes by Corot or portraits by
Frans Hals--masquerading as originals; and it had been resolved by
this Association of Italian Artists that this was unfair, not only to
the buyer and the art-loving public generally, but also to the honest
craftsman who could make an excellent living reproducing, frankly,
copies of ancient works of merit at a nominal price, if only they
were permitted to copy them. Most, in fact all of them, could make
interesting originals but in many cases they would lack that trait of
personality which makes all the difference between success and failure;
whereas they could perfectly reproduce the masterpieces of others and
that, too, for prices with which no foreigner could compete. So they
had banded themselves together, determined to do better work, and sell
more cheaply than the fly-by-night rascals who were confounding and
degrading all good art and to say frankly to each and all: “Here is a
perfect reproduction of a very lovely thing. Do you want it at a very
low cost?” or, “We will make for you an exact copy of anything that you
see and admire and wish to have and we will make it so cheaply that you
cannot afford to dicker with doubtful dealers who sell you imitations
_as originals_ and charge you outrageous prices.”
I have knocked about sufficiently in my time in the showy chambers of
American dealers and elsewhere to know that there is entirely too much
in what was told me.
The wonder of Florence grew a little under the Professor’s quiet
commercial analysis, for after exhausting this matter of reproducing so
cheaply, we proceeded to a discussion of the present conditions of the
city.
“It’s very different commercially from anything in America or the
north of Europe,” he said, “or even the north of Italy, for as yet we
have scarcely anything in the way of commerce here. We still build in
the fashion they used five hundred years ago--narrow streets and big
cornices in order to keep up the atmosphere of the city, for we are
not strong enough commercially yet to go it alone, and besides I don’t
think the Italians will ever be different. They are an easy-going
race. They don’t need the American “two dollars a day” to live on.
Fifty centimes will do. For one thousand dollars (five thousand lire)
you can rent a palace here for a year and I can show you whole floors
overlooking gardens that you can rent for seventeen dollars a month. We
have a garden farther out that we use as a workshop here in Florence,
in the heart of the city, which we rent for four hundred dollars a
year.”
“What about the Italian’s idea of progress? Isn’t he naturally
constructive?” I asked Mr. Jesuram.
“Rarely the Italian. Not at this date. We have many Jews and
Germans here who are doing well, and foreign capital is building
street-railways. I think the Italians will have to be fused with
another nation to experience a new birth. The Germans are mixing with
them. If they ever get as far south as Sicily, Italy will be made over;
the Germans themselves will be made over. I notice that the Italians
and Germans get along well together.”
I thought of the age-long wars between the Teutons and the Italians
from the fifth to the twelfth century, but those days are over. They
can apparently mingle in peace now, as I saw here and farther north.
It was also while I was in Florence that I first became definitely and
in an irritated way conscious of a certain aspect of travel which no
doubt thousands of other travelers have noted for themselves but of
which, nevertheless, I feel called upon to speak.
I could never come in to the breakfast table either there, or at Rome,
or in Venice, or Milan, without encountering a large company of that
peculiarly American brand of sightseers, not enormously rich, of no
great dignity, but comfortable and above all enormously pleased with
themselves. I could never look at any of this tribe, comfortably
clothed, very pursy and fussy, without thinking what a far cry it
is from the temperament which makes for art or great originality
to the temperament which makes for normality--the great, so-called
sane, conservative mass. God spare me! I’ll admit that for general
purposes, the value of breeding, trading, rearing of children in
comfort, producing the living atmosphere of life in which we “find”
ourselves and from which art, by the grace of great public occasions
may rise, people of this type are essential. But seen individually,
dissociated from great background masses, they are--but let me not go
wild. Viewed from the artistic angle, the stress of great occasions,
great emotion, great necessities, they fall into such pigmy weaknesses,
almost ridiculous. Here abroad they come so regularly, Pa and Ma. Pa
infrequently, and a little vague-looking from overwork and limited
vision of soul; Ma not infrequently, a little superior, vain, stuffy,
envious, dull and hard. I never see such a woman as that but my gorge
rises a little. The one idea of a pair like this, particularly of the
mother, is the getting her children (if there be any) properly married,
the girls particularly, and in this phase of family politics Pa has
obviously little to say. Their appearance abroad, accompanied by Henry
and George, Junior, and Mary and Anabel, is for--I scarcely know what.
It is so plain on the face of it that no single one of them has the
least inkling of what he is seeing. I sat in a carriage with two of
them in Rome, viewing the ruins of the Via Appia, and when we reached
the tomb of Cæcilia Metella I heard:
“Oh, yes. There it is. What was _she_, anyhow? He was a Roman general,
I think, and _she_ was his wife. His house was next door and he built
this tomb here so she would be near him. Isn’t it wonderful? Such a
nice idea!”
So far as I could make out from watching this throng the principal idea
was to be able to say that they had been abroad. Poor old Florence! Its
beauty and its social significance passed unrecognized. Art, so far
as I could judge from the really unmoved spectators present, was for
crazy people. The artist was some weird, spindling, unfortunate fool,
a little daft perhaps, but tolerable for a strange furore he seemed to
have created. Great men made and used him. He was, after his fashion,
a servant. The objectionable feature of a picture like Botticelli’s
“Spring” would be the nudity of the figures! From a Rubens or a nude
Raphael we lead brash, unctuous, self-conscious Mary away in silence.
If we encounter, perchance, quite unexpectedly a “Leda” by Michelangelo
or a too nude “Assumption” by Bronzino, we turn away in disgust. Art
must be limited to conventional theories and when so limited is not
worth much anyhow.
It was amazing to see them strutting in and out, their good clothes
rustling, an automobile in waiting, noisily puffing the while they
gather aimless “impressions” wherewith to browbeat their neighbors.
George and Henry and Mary and Anabel, protesting half the time or in
open rebellion, are duly led to see the things which have been the most
enthusiastically recommended, be they palaces or restaurants.
I often wondered what it was--the best--which these people got out
of their trip abroad. The heavy Germans I saw I always suspected of
having solid Teutonic understanding and appreciation of everything;
the English were uniformly polite, reserved, intelligent, apparently
discriminating. But these Americans! If you told them the true story
of Antinous, whose head I saw them occasionally admiring; or forced
upon them the true details of the Borgias, the Sforzas, the Medici,
or even the historical development of Art, they would fly in horror.
They have no room in their little crania for anything save their own
notions,--the standards of the Methodist Church at Keokuk. I think,
sometimes, perhaps it is because we are all growing to a different
standard, trying to make life something different from what it has
always been, or appeared to be, that all the trouble comes about. Time
will remedy that. Life,--its heavy, interminable processes,--will
break any theory. I conceive of life as a blind goddess, pouring from
separate jars, one of which she holds in each hand, simultaneously, the
streams of good and evil, which mingling, make this troubled existence,
flowing ever onward to the sea.
It was also while I was at Florence that I finally decided to change
my plan and visit Venice. “It is a city without a disappointment,” a
publisher-friend of mine had one time assured me, with the greatest
confidence. And so, here at Florence, on this first morning, I altered
my plans; I changed my ticket at Thomas Cook’s and crowded Venice in
between Florence and Milan. I gave myself a stay of four days, deciding
to lengthen it if I chose.
I really think that every traveler of to-day owes a debt of gratitude
to Thomas Cook & Sons. I never knew, until I went abroad what an
accommodation the offices of this concern are. Your mail is always
courteously received and cared for; your routes and tickets are changed
and altered at your slightest whim; your local bank is their cash-desk
and the only advisers you have, if you are alone and without the native
tongue at your convenience, are their clerks and agents at the train.
It does not make any difference to me that that is their business and
that they make a profit. In a foreign city where you are quite alone
you would grant them twice the profit for this courtesy. And it was
my experience, in the slight use I made of their service, that their
orders and letters of advice were carefully respected and that when you
came conducted by Thomas Cook, whether you took the best or the worst,
you were politely and assiduously looked after.
One of the most amusing letters that I received while abroad was from
this same publisher-friend who wanted me to go to Venice. Not so long
before I left Rome, he had arrived with his wife, daughter, and a
young girl friend of his daughter whose first trip abroad they were
sponsoring. At a luncheon they had given me, the matter of seeing the
Pope had come up and I mentioned that I had been so fortunate as to
find some one who could introduce me, and that it was just possible,
if they wished it, that my friend would extend his courtesy to them.
The young girls in particular were eager, but I was not sure. I left
Rome immediately afterward, writing to my British correspondent,
bespeaking his interest in their behalf, and at the same time to my
publisher-friend that I was doing so. As an analysis of girlhood
vagaries, keen and clever, read his letter:
_My Dear Dreiser_:
The young woman who thinks she wants to see the Pope goes under
the name of Margaret,--but I wouldn’t try very hard to bring it
about, because if Margaret went, my daughter would want to go,
and if Margaret and my daughter went, my wife would feel out in
the cold. (The old man can stand it.)
Margaret’s motives are simply childish curiosity, possibly
combined with a slight desire to give pleasure to the Holy
Father.
But don’t try to get that Papal interview for Margaret unless
you can get it for all the ladies. You will introduce a serpent
into my paradise.
No serpent was introduced because I couldn’t get the interview.
And the cells and cloister of San Marco,--shall I ever forget them?
I went there on a spring morning (spring in Italy) when the gleaming
light outside filled the cloister with a cool brightness, and studied
the frescoes of Fra Angelico and loitered between the columns of the
arches in the cloister proper, meditating upon the beauty of the things
here gathered. Really, Italy is too beautiful. One should be a poet
in soul, insatiable as to art, and he should linger here forever.
Each poorest cell here has a small fresco by Fra Angelico, and the
refectory, the chapter house, and the foresteria are filled with large
compositions, all rich in that symbolism which is only wonderful
because of the art-feeling of the master. I lingered in the cells,
the small chambers once occupied by Savonarola, and meditated on the
great zealot’s imaginings. In a way his dream of the destruction of the
Papacy came true. Even as he preached, the Reformation was at hand,
only he did not know it. Martin Luther was coming. The black cross was
over Rome! And also true was his thought that the end of the old order
in Italy had come. It surely had. Never afterwards was it quite the
same and never would it be so again. And equally true was his vision
of the red cross over Jerusalem, for never was the simple humanism of
Jesus so firmly based in the minds of men as it is to-day, though all
creeds and religious theories totter wearily to their ruin. Savonarola
was destroyed, but not his visions or his pleas. They are as fresh and
powerful to-day, as magnetic and gripping, as are any that have been
made in history.
It was the same with the Bargello, the tombs of the Medici, San Miniato
and the basilica and monastery at Fiesole. That last, with the wind
singing in the cypresses, a faint mist blowing down the valley of the
Arno, all Florence lying below and the lights of evening beginning
to appear, stands fixed and clear in my mind. I saw it for the last
time the evening before I left. I sat on a stone bench overlooking a
wonderful prospect, rejoicing in the artistic spirit of Italy which
has kept fresh and clean these wonders of art, when I was approached
by a brown Dominican, his feet and head bare, his body stout and
comfortable. He asked for alms! I gave him a lira for the sake of
Savonarola who belonged to his order and--because of the spirit of
Italy, that in the midst of a changing, commercializing world still
ministers to these shrines of beauty and keeps them intact and
altogether lovely.
One last word and I am done. I strolled out from Santa Croce one
evening a little confused by the charm of all I had seen and wondering
how I could best bestow my time for the remaining hours of light. I
tried first to find the house of Michelangelo which I fancied was
somewhere in the vicinity, but not finding it, came finally to the
Arno which I followed upstream. The evening was very pleasant, quite
a sense of spring in the air and of new-made gardens, and I overcame
my disappointment at having failed to accomplish my original plan. I
passed new streets, wider than the old ones in the heart of the city,
with street lamps, arc-lights, modern awnings and a trolley-car running
in the distance. Presently I came to a portion of the Arno lovelier
than any I had yet seen. Of course the walls through which it flows in
the city had disappeared and in their place came grass-covered banks
with those tall thin poplars I had so much admired in France. The
waters were a “Nile green” at this hour and the houses, collected in
small groups, were brown, yellow, or white, with red or brown roofs and
brown or green shutters. The old idea of arches with columns and large
projecting roofs still persisted in these newer, outlying houses and
made me wonder whether Florence might not, after all, always keep this
characteristic.
As I went farther out the houses grew less frequent and lovely
bluish-black hills appeared. There was a smoke-stack in the distance,
just to show that Florence was not dead to the idea of manufacturing,
and beyond in a somewhat different direction the dome of the
cathedral,--that really impressive dome.
Some men were fishing in the stream from the bank, apparently catching
nothing. I noticed the lovely cypresses of the South in the distance,
the large villas on the hills, and here and there clumps of those tall,
slender trees of France, not conspicuous elsewhere on my journey.
In one place I noticed the largest display of washing I have ever seen,
quite the largest,--a whole field of linen, no less, hung out to dry;
and in another place some slow-moving men cutting wood.
It was very warm, very pleasant, slightly suggestive of rain, with
the smoke going up straight, and after a while when the evening
church-bells were beginning to ring, calling to each other from vale
and hill, my sense of springtime and pleasant rural and suburban
sweetness was complete.
Laughter carried I noticed, in some peculiar, echoing way. The music of
the bells was essentially quieting. I had no sense of Florence, old
or new, but just spring, hope, new birth. And as I turned back after
a time I knew I had acquired a different and very precious memory of
Florence--something that would last me years and years. I should always
think of the Arno as it looked this evening--how safe and gracious and
still. I should always hear the voices in laughter, and the bells; I
should always see the children playing on the green banks, quite as
I used to play on the Wabash and the Tippecanoe; and their voices in
Italian were no less sweet than our childish voices. I had a feeling
that somehow the spirit of Italy was like that of America, and that
somehow there is close kinship between us and Italy, and that it was
not for nothing that an Italian discovered America or that Americans,
of all people, have apparently loved Italy most and rivaled it most
closely in their periods of greatest achievement.