Grand as was the idea I had formed in advance of the Palazzo Vecchio,
I must confess that the realization was still grander. When I saw that
mass of stone so strongly rooted in the ground, surmounted by its tower
that threatens the heavens like the arm of a Titan, the whole of old
Florence, with her Guelphs, her Ghibelines, her balie, her priors, her
lords, her guilds, her _condottieri_, her turbulent mobs and her
haughty aristocracy appeared to me as though I were about to take part
in the exiling of Cosmo the Elder, or in the execution of Salviati. In
fact, four centuries of history and art are there on the right, on the
left, in front and behind, surrounding you on all sides and speaking at
once with their stone, marble and bronze of Nicholas d’Uzzano, Orcagna,
Rinaldo d’Albizzi, Donatello, Pazzi, Raphael, Lorenzo de’ Medici,
Flaminius Vacca, Savonarola, John of Bologna, Cosmo I. and Michelangelo.
The whole world may be searched in vain for a spot that brings such
names together, without counting those I have omitted! and some of the
omissions include Baccio Bandinelli, Ammanato, and Benvenuto Cellini.
I should much like to reduce this magnificent chaos to some sort of
order and chronologically classify the great men, the great works and
the great memories, but that is impossible. When you arrive at this
wonderful square, you must go where the eye carries you, or where
instinct guides you.
What first engrosses the attention of the artist, the poet, or the
archæologist, is the sombre Palazzo Vecchio, still blazoned with the
ancient arms of the republic, amid which glitter on the azure, like
stars in the sky, those innumerable fleurs-de-lys sown along the road
to Naples by Charles of Anjou.
Florence was hardly free before she wanted to have a town hall as
an abode for a chief magistrate and a belfry for calling the people
together. When a community is constituted in the North, or a republic
established in the South, the desire for a town-hall and a belfry is
always the first operation of its will, and the satisfaction of that
desire the first proof of its existence.
Thus in 1298, that is to say only sixteen years after the Florentines
had conquered their constitution, Arnolfo di Lapo received from the
rulers the order to build a palace for them.
[Illustration: PALAZZO VECCHIO, ITALY.]
Arnolfo di Lapo had visited the site reserved for him and had prepared
his plans accordingly. But at the moment of laying the foundations of
his edifice, the people loudly forbade him to place a single stone upon
the spot where the house of Farinata des Uberti had stood. Arnolfo di
Lapo was forced to bow to this popular clamour; he pushed his edifice
back into a corner and left the accursed spot unoccupied. Even to
the present time neither stones nor trees have planted their roots
there and nothing has intruded for more than six centuries where Guelph
vengeance drove the plough and sowed with salt.
This palace was the residence of a standard-bearer and eight priors,
two for each quarter of the city; their charge lasted for sixty
days and during that time they lived together, eating at the same
table and not being able to leave their residence: that is to say,
they were almost prisoners. Each had two domestics to serve him and
there was always a notary at their orders ready to write down their
deliberations: he ate with them and was a prisoner like themselves. As
a recompense for the sacrifice of his time and liberty that each prior
made for the republic, he received ten pounds a day, or nearly seven
francs of our money. At that day, private parsimony ruled in public
economy, and the government thus found itself in a position to execute
great things in art and in war. Thence resulted its surname of the
Magnificent Republic.
You enter the Palazzo Vecchio by a door situated about a third
of the way along the front and find yourself in a little square
court, surrounded by a portico supported by nine columns of Lombard
architecture embellished with applied ornaments. In the centre of this
court is a fountain surmounted by a rococo Cupid holding a fish and
reposing on a porphyry basin. At the time of Ferdinand’s marriage this
portico was adorned with fresco paintings representing bird’s-eye views
of the cities of Germany.
On the first floor is the great Council Hall, executed by the orders
of the Republic and at Savonarola’s suggestion. A thousand citizens
could deliberate there at their ease. Cronaca was the architect, and he
pushed the work so rapidly that Savonarola used to say that the angels
served as his masons.
Cronaca had need of haste, for three years later Savonarola was to die
and thirty years afterwards the Republic was to fall.
Therefore this immense hall has retained nothing of that period but
its original form: all of its ornamentation belongs to the time of the
principality; its frescoes and ceiling are by Vasari; its pictures by
Cigoli, Ligozzi and Passegnano; and its statues by Michelangelo, Baccio
Bandinelli and John of Bologna.
All is to the great glory of Cosmo I.
In fact, Cosmo I. is one of those gigantic statues that history raises
like a pyramid to mark the limit where one era ends and another begins.
Cosmo I. is at the same time the Augustus and the Tiberius of Tuscany,
and this is so much the more true in that at the moment when Alexander
fell beneath the poniard of Lorenzino, Florence found herself in the
same situation as Rome was after Cæsar’s death: “There was no longer a
tyrant, but there was no longer any liberty.”
At fifteen years of age his character was already outlined and those
who approached him could form an idea of what he would be later. His
appearance was grave and even severe; he was slow to form familiar
relations and would seldom allow any familiarities; but when he
granted this double concession it was a proof of his friendship, and
his friendship was sure; nevertheless, even with his friends he was
discreet in all his actions and did not want any one to know what he
intended to do until it was done. The result was that he always seemed
to be seeking some end contrary to his real one, which always rendered
his answers brief and sometimes obscure.
This was Cosmo when he learnt the news of the assassination of
Alexander and the flight of Lorenzino; this flight left him without a
competitor for the princedom and therefore his measures were quickly
taken. He gathered together a few friends on whom he could depend,
mounted his horse, and set out for Florence.
Cosmo was rewarded for his confidence by the welcome that he
received: he entered the city amid the joyous acclamations of all the
inhabitants. Two days after, he was named chief and governor of the
republic on four conditions:
To dispense justice indifferently to the rich and to the poor.
Never to consent to restore the authority of Charles the Fifth.
To avenge the death of Duke Alexander.
To treat well Giulio and Giula, the natural children of the latter.
Cosmo accepted this species of charter with humility and the people
accepted Cosmo with enthusiasm.
But there happened to the new grand duke what happens to all men of
genius who are raised to power by revolution. On the lowest step of
the throne they receive laws, from the top step they impose them.
The position was difficult, particularly for a youth of eighteen. It
was necessary to fight external and internal foes at the same time; to
substitute a firm government, a single power and a durable will for all
those flabby or tyrannical governments, for all those powers that were
opposed and consequently destructive to one another, and for all those
wills which sometimes starting from above and sometimes from below
caused a perpetual ebb and flow of aristocracy and democracy upon which
it was impossible to establish anything solid and durable. And yet with
all that it was necessary so to manage the liberties of this people
that neither nobles, citizens, nor artisans might feel the master. In
fact it was necessary to manage this horse, that was still rebellious
under tyranny, with an iron hand beneath a silken glove.
Cosmo was in every respect the man needed to carry through such a work.
As dissimulating as Louis the Eleventh, passionate as Henry the Eighth,
brave as Francis the First, persevering as Charles the Fifth and
magnificent as Leo the Tenth, he had all the vices that make private
life sombre and all the virtues that make public life brilliant.
Therefore his family was unhappy and his people happy.
Cosmo was one of the most learned men of his time. Among other things
he knew a great number of plants and the places where they grew, where
they lived the longest, where they had the strongest scent, where they
produced the most beautiful flowers, or bore the finest fruits, and
what were their virtues for curing the diseases or wounds of men and
animals; then, as he was an excellent chemist, with the plants he made
waters, essences, oils, medicaments, and balms, and gave his remedies
to all who asked for them whether they were rich or poor, Tuscan
subjects or foreigners, inhabitants of Florence or any other part of
Europe. Cosmo loved and protected letters. In 1541 he founded the
Florentine Academy which he called his “very dear and happy Academy”:
Plutarch and Dante were read and commented on there. The sessions were
first held in the Via Larga Palace and afterwards, so that it might
have more ease and freedom, he gave it the great council-room in the
Palazzo Vecchio. After the fall of the republic this great hall had
become useless.
Cosmo was an artist and it was not his fault if he arrived at the
moment when great men were departing. Of all that brilliant galaxy
that had illuminated the reigns of Julius the Second and Leo the
Tenth, Michelangelo alone remained. He did everything he could to get
the latter: he sent a cardinal and an embassy offering him any sum of
money he might name, the title of senator and any office he wished; but
Paul the Third kept him and would not give him up. Then, in default
of the Florentine giant, he gathered together the best he could find.
Ammanato, his engineer, built for him the fine bridge of the Trinity
after the plans of Michelangelo, and carved for him the marble Neptune
in the Palazzo Vecchio Square. He made Baccio Bandinelli produce the
statues of Pope Clement the Seventh, Duke Alexander, Giovanni de’
Medici, his father, and his own statue; the Loggia of the Mercato
Nuovo and the choir of the Cathedral. Benvenuto Cellini was recalled
from France to cast his _Perseus_ in bronze, to carve agate cups
and to engrave gold medals for him. Then as there had been found in
the environs of Arezzo a lot of little bronze figures, some of which
lacked the head, others the hands, and others the feet, Cosmo cleaned
them himself and carefully removed the rust so that they might not be
damaged.
By means of his chemical researches, Cosmo, with Francesco Ferruci of
Fiesole, recovered the art of cutting porphyry, which had been lost
since Roman times.
Lastly, he brought together in the Via Larga and Pitti Palaces all the
pictures, statues and medals, whether ancient or modern, that had been
painted, carved, engraved or discovered in excavations by Cosmo the
Elder, Lorenzino, and Duke Alexander, and that had twice been pillaged
and dispersed:--first, when Charles VIII. passed through, and again at
the assassination of Duke Alexander by Lorenzino.
Therefore the praise of his contemporaries outweighed the blame of
posterity: the dark side of his life was lost in the brilliant side,
and people forget that this protector of art, science and literature
slew one son, poisoned one daughter and violated another.
We see then that there was something of both Augustus and Tiberius in
Cosmo I.
Now let us return to the hall of the Palazzo Vecchio. The picture, not
the most remarkable from an artistic point of view, but certainly the
most extraordinary as a recorded fact, is one by Ligozzi representing
the reception given by Boniface VIII. to twelve ambassadors of twelve
powers, who were all found to be Florentines; so incontestable
throughout the world was the political genius of the Magnificent
Republic during the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries.
These twelve ambassadors were:
Muciato Franzizi for the King of France.
Ugolino di Vicchio for the King of England.
Raniere Langru for the King of Bohemia.
Vermiglio Alfani for the King of the Germans.
Simone Rossi for Rasca.
Bernardo Ervai for the Lord of Verona.
Guicardo Bastai for the Khan of Tartary.
Manno Fronte for the King of Naples.
Guido Tabanca for the King of Sicily.
Lapo Farinata des Uberti for Pisa.
Gino di Dietaselvi for the lord of Camerino.
Bencivenni Folchi for the Grand Master of the Hospital of Jerusalem.
It was this strange gathering that made Boniface VIII. say that a fifth
element had come into the world, and that the Florentines constituted
this element.
The enormous frescoes that cover the walls, as well as all the pictures
on the ceiling, are by Vasari. The frescoes represent the wars of
the Florentines against Siena and Pisa. It was for the latter that
Michelangelo prepared those beautiful cartoons that disappeared without
any one knowing what had become of them.
In the other chambers of the palace, which are the living-rooms, there
are also a considerable number of paintings of almost the same period.
One exception is a charming little chapel by Rodolfo Guirlandaio, the
restrained and religious execution of which forms a strange contrast to
the facile and pagan painting of the beginning of the Decadence.
Entirely upset as it was by the arrangements of Cosmo I., the Palazzo
Vecchio yet materially preserves one memory of the Republic: this
is the Barberia Tower in which Cosmo the Elder was confined, and
at the door of which, later during the Pazzi conspiracy, the brave
standard-bearer, Cesare Petrucci, mounted guard with a spit. In this
tower, Cosmo the Elder spent what were certainly the four worst days of
his long life, the fear of being poisoned by his enemies preventing him
from taking any nourishment.