The Duomo III: A Ceremony and a Museum
The Scoppio del Carro--The Pazzi beneficent--Holy Saturday's
programme--April 6th, 1912--The flying palle--The nervous
pyrotechnist--The influence of noon--A little sister of the
Duomo--Donatello's cantoria--Luca della Robbia's cantoria.
In the last chapter we saw the Pazzi family as very black sheep,
although there are plenty of students of Florentine history who
hold that any attempt to rid Florence of the Medici was laudable. In
this chapter we see them in a kindlier situation as benefactors to
the city. For it happened that when Pazzo de' Pazzi, a founder of
the house, was in the Holy Land during the First Crusade, it was his
proud lot to set the Christian banner on the walls of Jerusalem, and,
as a reward, Godfrey of Boulogne gave him some flints from the Holy
Sepulchre. These he brought to Florence, and they are now preserved
at SS. Apostoli, the little church in the Piazza del Limbo, off the
Borgo SS. Apostoli, and every year the flints are used to kindle
the fire needed for the right preservation of Easter Day. Gradually
the ceremony enlarged until it became a spectacle indeed, which the
Pazzi family for centuries controlled. After the Pazzi conspiracy
they lost it and the Signoria took it over; but, on being pardoned,
the Pazzi again resumed.
The Carro is a car containing explosives, and the Scoppio is its
explosion. This car, after being drawn in procession through the
streets by white oxen, is ignited by the sacred fire borne to it by
a mechanical dove liberated at the high altar of the Duomo, and with
its explosion Easter begins. There is still a Pazzi fund towards the
expenses, but a few years ago the city became responsible for the
whole proceedings, and the ceremony as it is now given, under civic
management, known as the Scoppio del Cairo, is that which I saw on
Holy Saturday last and am about to describe.
First, however, let me state what had happened before the proceedings
opened in the Piazza del Duomo. At six o'clock mass began at
SS. Apostoli, lasting for more than two hours. At its close the
celebrant was handed a plate on which were the sacred flints, and these
he struck with a steel in view of the congregation, thus igniting a
taper. The candle, in an ancient copper porta fuoco surmounted by a
dove, was then lighted, and the procession of priests started off for
the cathedral with their precious flame, escorted by a civic guard
and various standard bearers. Their route was the Piazza del Limbo,
along the Borgo SS. Apostoli to the Via Por S. Maria and through
the Vacchereccia to the Piazza della Signoria, the Via Condotta, the
Via del Proconsolo, to the Duomo, through whose central doors they
passed, depositing the sacred burden at the high altar. I should add
that anyone on the route in charge of a street shrine had the right
to stop the procession in order to take a light from it; while at
SS. Apostoli women congregated with tapers and lanterns in the hope
of getting these kindled from the sacred flame, in order to wash
their babies or cook their food in water heated with the fire.
Meanwhile at seven o'clock the four oxen, which are kept in the
Cascine all the year round and do no other work, had been harnessed to
the car and had drawn it to the Piazza del Duomo, which was reached
about nine. The oxen were then tethered by the Pisano doors of the
Baptistery until needed again.
After some haggling on the night before, I had secured a seat on a
balcony facing Ghiberti's first Baptistery doors, for eleven lire, and
to this place I went at half-past ten. The piazza was then filling up,
and at a quarter to eleven the trams running between the Cathedral and
the Baptistery were stopped. In this space was the car. The present
one, which dates from 1622, is more like a catafalque, and unless one
sees it in motion, with the massive white oxen pulling it, one cannot
believe in it as a vehicle at all. It is some thirty feet high, all
black, with trumpery coloured-paper festoons (concealing fireworks)
upon it: trumpery as only the Roman Catholic Church can contrive. It
stood in front of the Duomo some four yards from the Baptistery gates
in a line with the Duomo's central doors and the high altar. The
doors were open, seats being placed on each side of the aisle the
whole distance, and people making a solid avenue. Down this avenue
were to come the clergy, and above it was to be stretched the line
on which the dove was to travel from the altar, with the Pazzi fire,
to ignite the car.
The space in front of the cathedral was cleared at about eleven,
and cocked hats and red-striped trousers then became the most
noticeable feature. The crowd was jolly and perhaps a little cynical;
picture-postcard hawkers made most of the noise, and for some reason
or other a forlorn peasant took this opportunity to offer for sale two
equally forlorn hedgehogs. Each moment the concourse increased, for it
is a fateful day and every one wants to know the issue: because, you
see, if the dove runs true, lights the car, and returns, as a good dove
should, to the altar ark, there will be a prosperous vintage and the
pyrotechnist who controls the sacred bird's movements will receive his
wages. But if the dove runs defectively and there is any hitch, every
one is dismayed, for the harvest will be bad and the pyrotechnist will
receive nothing. Once he was imprisoned when things went astray--and
quite right too--but the Florentines have grown more lenient.
At about a quarter past eleven a procession of clergy emerged from the
Duomo and crossed the space to the Baptistery. First, boys and youths
in surplices. Then some scarlet hoods, waddling. Then purple hoods,
and other colours, a little paunchier, waddling more, and lastly the
archbishop, very sumptuous. All having disappeared into the Baptistery,
through Ghiberti's second gates, which I never saw opened before, the
dove's wire was stretched and fastened, a matter needing much care;
and the crowds began to surge. The cocked hats and officers had the
space all to themselves, with the car, the firemen, the pyrotechnist
and the few privileged and very self-conscious civilians who were
allowed inside.
A curious incident, which many years ago might have been magnified
into a portent, occurred while the ecclesiastics were in the Artistry.
Some one either bought and liberated several air balloons, or the
string holding them was surreptitiously cut; but however it happened,
the balls escaped and suddenly the crowd sent up a triumphant yell. At
first I could see no reason for it, the Baptistery intervening,
but then the balls swam into our ken and steadily floated over
the cathedral out of sight amid tremendous satisfaction. And the
portent? Well, as they moved against the blue sky they formed
themselves into precisely the pattern of the palle on the Medici
escutcheon. That is all. But think what that would have meant in the
fifteenth century; the nods and frowns it would have occasioned; the
dispersal of the Medici, the loss of power, and all the rest of it,
that it would have presaged!
At about twenty to twelve the ecclesiastics returned and were
swallowed up by the Duomo, and then excitement began to be acute. The
pyrotechnist was not free from it; he fussed about nervously; he tested
everything again and again; he crawled under the car and out of it;
he talked to officials; he inspected and re-inspected. Photographers
began to adjust their distances; the detached men in bowlers looked
at their watches; the cocked hats drew nearer to the Duomo door. And
then we heard a tearing noise. All eyes were turned to the great door,
and out rushed the dove emitting a wake of sparks, entered the car
and was out again on its homeward journey before one realized what had
happened. And then the explosions began, and the bells--silent since
Thursday--broke out. How many explosions there were I do not know;
but they seemed to go on for ten minutes.
This is a great moment not only for the spectator but for all Florence,
for in myriad rooms mothers have been waiting, with their babies
on their knees, for the first clang of the belfries, because if a
child's eyes are washed then it is unlikely ever to have weak sight,
while if a baby takes its first steps to this accompaniment its legs
will not be bowed.
At the last explosion the pyrotechnist, now a calm man once more
and a proud one, approached the car, the firemen poured water on
smouldering parts, and the work of clearing up began. Then came
the patient oxen, their horns and hooves gilt, and great masses of
flowers on their heads, and red cloths with the lily of Florence
on it over their backs--much to be regretted since they obliterated
their beautiful white skins--and slowly the car lumbered off, and,
the cocked hats relenting, the crowd poured after it and the Scoppio
del Carro was over.
The Duomo has a little sister in the shape of the Museo di Santa
Maria del Fiore, or the Museo dell' Opera del Duomo, situated in the
Piazza opposite the apse; and we should go there now. This museum,
which is at once the smallest and, with the exception of the Natural
History Museum, the cheapest of the Florentine museums, for it
costs but half a lira, is notable for containing the two cantorie,
or singing galleries, made for the cathedral, one by Donatello and
one by Luca della Robbia. A cantoria by Donatello we shall soon see in
its place in S. Lorenzo; but that, beautiful as it is, cannot compare
with this one, with its procession of merry, dancing children, its
massiveness and grace, its joyous ebullitions of gold mosaic and blue
enamel. Both the cantorie--Donatello's, begun in 1433 and finished
in 1439, and Luca's, begun in 1431 and finished in 1438--fulfilled
their melodious functions in the Duomo until 1688, when they were
ruthlessly cleared away to make room for large wooden balconies to
be used in connexion with the nuptials of Ferdinand de' Medici and
the Princess Violante of Bavaria. In the year 1688 taste was at a low
ebb, and no one thought the deposed cantorie even worth preservation,
so that they were broken up and occasionally levied upon for cornices
and so forth. The fragments were collected and taken to the Bargello
in the middle of the last century, and in 1883 Signer del Moro, the
then architect of the Duomo (whose bust is in the courtyard of this
museum), reconstructed them to the best of his ability in their present
situation. It has to be remembered not only that, with the exception
of the figures, the galleries are not as their artists made them,
lacking many beautiful accessories, but that, as Vasari tells us,
Donatello deliberately designed his for a dim light. None the less,
they remain two of the most delightful works of the Renaissance and
two of the rarest treasures of Florence.
The dancing boys behind the small pillars with their gold chequering,
the brackets, and the urn of the cornice over the second pair
of pillars from the right, are all that remain of Donatello's own
handiwork. All else is new and conjectural. It is supposed that bronze
heads of lions filled the two circular spaces between the brackets
in the middle. But although the loss of the work as a whole is to be
regretted, the dancing boys remain, to be for ever an inspiration and
a pleasure. The Luca della Robbia cantoria opposite is not quite so
triumphant a masterpiece, but from the point of view of suitability it
is perhaps better. We can believe that Luca's children hymn the glory
of the Lord, as indeed the inscription makes them, whereas Donatello's
romp with a gladness that might easily be purely pagan. Luca's design
is more formal, more conventional; Donatello's is rich and free and
fluid with personality. The two end panels of Luca's are supplied in
the cantoria by casts; the originals are on the wall below and may
be carefully studied. The animation and fervour of these choristers
are unforgettable.
It is well, while enjoying Donatello's work, to remember that Prato
is only half an hour from Florence, and that there may be seen
the open-air pulpit, built on the corner of the cathedral, which
Donatello, with Michelozzo, his friend and colleague, made at the
same time that the cantoria was in progress, and which in its relief
of happy children is very similar, although not, I think, quite so
remarkable. It lacks also the peculiarly naturalistic effect gained
in the cantoria by setting the dancing boys behind the pillars, which
undoubtedly, as comparison with the Luca shows, assists realism. The
row of pillars attracts the eye first and the boys are thus thrown
into a background which almost moves.
Although the cantorie dominate the museum they must not be allowed to
overshadow all else. A marble relief of the Madonna and Children by
Agostino di Duccio (1418-1481) must be sought for: it is No. 77 and
the children are the merriest in Florence. Another memorable Madonna
and Child is No. 94, by Pagno di Lapo Portigiani (1406-1470), who has
interest for us in this place as being one of Donatello's assistants,
very possibly on this very cantoria, and almost certainly on the Prato
pulpit. Everything here, it must be remembered, has some association
with the Duomo and was brought here for careful preservation and that
whoever has fifty centimes might take pleasure in seeing it; but the
great silver altar is from the Baptistery, and being made for that
temple is naturally dedicated to the life of John the Baptist. Although
much of it was the work of not the greatest modellers in the second
half of the fourteenth century, three masters at least contributed
later: Michelozzo adding the statue of the Baptist, Pollaiuolo the
side relief depicting his birth, and Verrocchio that of his death,
which is considered one of the most remarkable works of this sculptor,
whom we are to find so richly represented at the Bargello. Before
leaving this room, look for 100^3, an unknown terra-cotta of the
Birth of Eve, which is both masterly and amusing, and 110^4, a very
lovely intaglio in wood. I might add that among the few paintings,
all very early, is a S. Sebastian in whose sacred body I counted no
fewer than thirty arrows; which within my knowledge of pictures of
this saint--not inconsiderable--is the highest number.
The next room is given to models and architectural plans and
drawings connected with the cathedral, the most interesting thing
being Brunelleschi's own model for the lantern. On the stairs are a
series of fine bas-reliefs by Bandinelli and Giovanni dell' Opera from
the old choir screen of the Duomo, and downstairs, among many other
pieces of sculpture, is a bust of Brunelleschi from a death-mask and
several beautiful della Robbia designs for lunettes over doors.