Or San Michele and the Palazzo Vecchio
The little Bigallo--The Misericordia--Or San Michele--Andrea
Orcagna--The Tabernacle--Old Glass--A company of stone
saints--Donatello's S. George--Dante conferences--The Guilds of
Florence--The Palazzo Vecchio--Two Towers--Bandinelli's group--The
Marzocco--The Piazza della Signoria--Orcagna's Loggia--Cellini
and Cosimo--The Perseus--Verrocchio's dolphin--The Great Council
Hall--Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo's cartoons--Bandinelli's
malice--The Palazzo Vecchio as a home--Two cells and the bell of
independence.
Let us now proceed along the Via Calzaioli (which means street of
the stocking-makers), running away from the Piazza del Duomo to
the Piazza della Signoria. The fascinatingly pretty building at
the corner, opposite Pisano's Baptistery doors, is the Bigallo,
in the loggia of which foundling children used to be displayed in
the hope that passers-by might pity them sufficiently to make them
presents or even adopt them; but this custom continues no longer. The
Bigallo was designed, it is thought, by Orcagna, and it is worth the
minutest study.
The Company of the Bigallo, which is no longer an active force, was
one of the benevolent societies of old Florence. But the greatest
of these societies, still busy and merciful, is the Misericordia,
whose head-quarters are just across the Via Calzaioli, in the piazza,
facing the campanile, a company of Florentines pledged at a moment's
notice, no matter on what they may be engaged, to assist in any
charitable work of necessity. For the most part they carry ambulances
to the scenes of accident and perform the last offices for the dead
in the poorer districts. When on duty they wear black robes and
hoods. Their headquarters comprise a chapel, with an altar by Andrea
della Robbia, and a statue of the patron saint of the Misericordia,
S. Sebastian. But their real patron saint is their founder, a common
porter named Pietro Borsi. In the thirteenth century it was the custom
for the porters and loafers connected with the old market to meet
in a shelter here and pass the time away as best they could. Borsi,
joining them, was distressed to find how unprofitable were the hours,
and he suggested the formation of a society to be of some real use,
the money to support it to be obtained by fines in payment for oaths
and blasphemies. A litter or two were soon bought and the machinery
started. The name was the Company of the Brothers of Mercy. That was
in 1240 to 1250. To-day no Florentine is too grand to take his part,
and at the head of the porter's band of brethren is the King.
Passing along the Via Calzaioli we come on the right to a noble square
building with statues in its niches--Or San Michele, which stands on
the site of the chapel of San Michele in Orto. San Michele in Orto,
or more probably in Horreo (meaning either in the garden or in the
granary), was once part of a loggia used as a corn market, in which
was preserved a picture by Ugolino da Siena representing the Virgin,
and this picture had the power of working miracles. Early in the
fourteenth century the loggia was burned down but the picture was
saved (or quickly replaced), and a new building on a much larger and
more splendid scale was made for it, none other than Or San Michele,
the chief architect being Taddeo Gaddi, Giotto's pupil and later
the constructor of the Ponte Vecchio. Where the picture then was, I
cannot say--whether inside the building or out--but the principal use
of the building was to serve as a granary. After 1348, when Florence
was visited by that ravaging plague which Boccaccio describes in
such gruesome detail at the beginning of the "Decameron" and which
sent his gay company of ladies and gentlemen to the Villa Palmieri
to take refuge in story telling, and when this sacred picture was
more than commonly busy and efficacious, it was decided to apply
the enormous sums of money given to the shrine from gratitude in
beautifying the church still more, and chiefly in providing a casket
worthy of holding such a pictorial treasure. Hence came about the
noble edifice of to-day.
A man of universal genius was called in to execute the tabernacle:
Andrea Orcagna, a pupil probably of Andrea Pisano, and also much
influenced by Giotto, whom though he had not known he idolized,
and one who, like Michelangelo later, was not only a painter and
sculptor but an architect and a poet. Orcagna, or, to give him his
right name, Andrea di Cione, for Orcagna was an abbreviation of
Arcagnolo, flourished in the middle of the fourteenth century. Among
his best-known works in painting are the Dantesque frescoes in the
Strozzi chapel at S. Maria Novella, and that terrible allegory of
Death and Judgment in the Campo Santo at Pisa, in which the gay riding
party come upon the three open graves. Orcagna put all his strength
into the tabernacle of Or San Michele, which is a most sumptuous,
beautiful and thoughtful shrine, yet owing to the darkness of the
church is almost invisible. Guides, it is true, will emerge from the
gloom and hold lighted tapers to it, but a right conception of it is
impossible. The famous miraculous picture over the altar is notable
rather for its properties than for its intrinsic beauty; it is the
panels of the altar, which contain Orcagna's most exquisite work,
representing scenes in the life of the Virgin, with emblematical
figures interspersed, that one wishes to see. Only the back, however,
can be seen really well, and this only when a door opposite to it--in
the Via Calzaioli--is opened. It should always be open, with a grille
across it, that passers-by might have constant sight of this almost
unknown Florentine treasure. It is in the relief of the death of the
Virgin on the back that--on the extreme right--Orcagna introduced
his own portrait. The marble employed is of a delicate softness, and
Orcagna had enough of Giotto's tradition to make the Virgin a reality
and to interest Her, for example, as a mother in the washing of Her
Baby, as few painters have done, and in particular, as, according
to Ruskin, poor Ghirlandaio could not do in his fresco of the birth
of the Virgin Herself. It was Orcagna's habit to sign his sculpture
"Andrea di Cione, painter," and his paintings "Andrea di Cione,
sculptor," and thus point his versatility. By this tabernacle, by
his Pisan fresco, and by the designs of the Loggia de' Lanzi and the
Bigallo (which are usually given to him), he takes his place among
the most interesting and various of the forerunners of the Renaissance.
Within Or San Michele you learn the secret of the stoned-up windows
which one sees with regret from without. Each, or nearly each, has
an altar against it. What the old glass was like one can divine from
the lovely and sombre top lights in exquisite patterns that are left;
that on the centre of the right wall of the church, as one enters,
having jewels of green glass as lovely as any I ever saw. But blues,
purples, and reds predominate.
The tabernacle apart, the main appeal of Or San Michele is the statuary
and stone-work of the exterior; for here we find the early masters
at their best. The building being the head-quarters of the twelve
Florentine guilds, the statues and decorations were commissioned by
them. It is as though our City companies should unite in beautifying
the Guildhall. Donatello is the greatest artist here, and it was
for the Armourers that he made his S. George, which stands now, as
he carved it in marble, in the Bargello, but has a bronze substitute
in its original niche, below which is a relief of the slaying of the
dragon from Donatello's chisel. Of this glorious S. George more will
be said later. But I may remark now that in its place here it instantly
proves the modernity and realistic vigour of its sculptor. Fine though
they be, all the other statues of this building are conventional;
they carry on a tradition of religious sculpture such as Niccolò
Pisano respected, many years earlier, when he worked at the Pisan
pulpit. But Donatello's S. George is new and is as beautiful as a
Greek god, with something of real human life added.
Donatello (with Michelozzo) also made the exquisite border of the
niche in the Via Calzaioli façade, in which Christ and S. Thomas now
stand. He was also to have made the figures (for the Merchants' Guild)
but was busy elsewhere, and they fell to Verrocchio, of whom also we
shall have much to see and say at the Bargello, and to my mind they
are the most beautiful of all. The John the Baptist (made for the
Cloth-dealers), also on this façade, is by Ghiberti of the Baptistery
gates. On the façade of the Via de' Lamberti is Donatello's superb
S. Mark (for the Joiners), which led to Michelangelo's criticism that
he had never seen a man who looked more virtuous, and if S. Mark
were really like that he would believe all his words. "Why don't
you speak to me?" he also said to this statue, as Donatello had
said to the Zuccone. Higher on this façade is Luca della Robbia's
famous arms of the Silk-weavers, one of the perfect things. Luca
also made the arms of the Guild of Merchants, with its Florentine
fleur-de-lis in the midst. For the rest, Ghiberti's S. Stephen,
and Ghiberti and Michelozzo's S. Matthew, on the entrance wall,
are the most remarkable. The blacksmith relief is very lively and
the blacksmith's saint a noble figure.
The little square reliefs let into the wall at intervals
are often charming, and the stone-work of the windows is very
lovely. In fact, the four walls of this fortress church are almost
inexhaustible. Within, its vaulted roof is so noble, its proportions
so satisfying. One should often sit quietly here, in the gloom,
and do nothing.
The little building just across the way was the Guild House of the
Arte della Lana, or Wool-combers, and is now the head-quarters of
the Italian Dante Society, who hold a conference every Thursday
in the large room over Or San Michele, gained by the flying
buttress-bridge. The dark picture on the outer wall is the very
Madonna to which, when its position was at the Mercato Vecchio,
condemned criminals used to pray on their way to execution.
Before we leave Or San Michele and the Arte della Lana, a word on
the guilds of Florence is necessary, for at a period in Florentine
history between, say, the middle of the thirteenth century and the
beginning of the fifteenth, they were the very powerful controllers
of the domestic affairs of the city; and it is possible that it would
have been better for the Florentines had they continued to be so. For
Florence was essentially mercantile and the guilds were composed of
business men; and it is natural that business men should know better
than noblemen what a business city needed. They were divided into
major guilds, chief of which were the woollen merchants--the Arte
della Lana--and the silk merchants--the Calimala--and it was their
pride to put their riches at the city's service. Thus, the Arte della
Lana had charge of the building of the cathedral. Each of the major
guilds provided a Prior, and the Priors elected the Signoria, who
governed the city. It is one of the principal charges that is brought
against Cosimo de' Medici that he broke the power of the guilds.
Returning to the Via Calzaioli, and turning to the right, we come
very quickly to the Piazza della Signoria, and see before us,
diagonally across it, the Loggia de' Lanzi and the Palazzo Vecchio,
with the gleaming, gigantic figure of Michelangelo's David against
the dark gateway. This, more than the Piazza del Duomo, is the centre
of Florence.
The Palazzo Vecchio was for centuries called the Signoria, being the
home of the Gonfalonier of Florence and the Signoria who assisted
his councils. It was begun by Arnolfo, the architect of the Duomo and
S. Croce, at the end of the thirteenth century, that being, as we have
seen, a period of great prosperity and ambition in Florence, but many
alterations and additions were made--by Michelozzo, Cronaca, Vasari,
and others--to bring it to what it now is. After being the scene
of many riots, executions, and much political strife and dubiety,
it became a ducal palace in 1532, and is now a civic building and
show-place. In the old days the Palazzo had a ringhiera, or platform,
in front of it, from which proclamations were made. To know what
this was like one has but to go to S. Trinità on a very fine morning
and look at Ghirlandaio's fresco of the granting of the charter to
S. Francis. The scene, painted in 1485, includes not only the Signoria
but the Loggia de' Lanzi (then the Loggia dell' Orcagna)--both before
any statues were set up.
Every façade of the Palazzo Vecchio is splendid. I cannot say which
I admire more--that which one sees from the Loggia de' Lanzi, with
its beautiful coping of corbels, at once so heavy and so light, with
coloured escutcheons between them, or that in the Via de' Gondi, with
its fine jumble of old brickwork among the stones. The Palazzo Vecchio
is one of the most resolute and independent buildings in the world;
and it had need to be strong, for the waves of Florentine revolt were
always breaking against it. The tower rising from this square fortress
has at once grace and strength and presents a complete contrast to
Giotto's campanile; for Giotto's campanile is so light and delicate and
reasonable and this tower of the Signoria so stern and noble. There
is a difference as between a beautiful woman and a powerful man. In
the functions of the two towers--the dominating towers of Florence--is
a wide difference also, for the campanile calls to prayer, while for
years the sombre notes of the great Signoria bell--the Vacca--rang out
only to bid the citizens to conclave or battle or to sound an alarm.
It was this Vacca wich (with others) the brave Piero Capponi
threatened to ring when Charles VIII wished, in 1494, to force a
disgraceful treaty on the city. The scene was the Medici Palace in
the Via Larga. The paper was ready for signature and Capponi would
not sign. "Then I must bid my trumpets blow," said Charles. "If you
sound your trumpets," Capponi replied, "we will ring our bells;"
and the King gave way, for he knew that his men had no chance in this
city if it rose suddenly against them.
But the glory of the Palazzo Vecchio tower--afer its proportions--is
that brilliant inspiration of the architect which led him, so to
speak, to begin again by setting the four columns on the top of the
solid portion. These pillars are indescribably right: so solid
and yet so light, so powerful and yet so comely. Their duty was
to support the bells, and particularly the Vacca, when he rocked
his gigantic weight of green bronze to and fro to warn the city.
Seen from a distance the columns are always beautiful; seen close
by they are each a tower of comfortable strength. And how the wind
blows through them from the Apennines!
The David on the left of the Palazzo Vecchio main door is only a copy.
The original stood there until 1873, when, after three hundred and
sixty-nine years, it was moved to a covered spot in the Accademia,
as we shall there see and learn its history. If we want to know what
the Palazzo Vecchio looked like at the time David was placed there,
a picture by Piero di Cosimo in our National Gallery tells us, for
he makes it the background of his portrait of Ferrucci, No. 895.
The group on the right represents Hercules and Cacus, [5] and
is by Baccio Bandinelli (1485-1560), a coarse and offensive man,
jealous of most people and particularly of Michelangelo, to whom,
but for his displeasing Pope Clement VII, the block of marble from
which the Hercules was carved would have been given. Bandinelli in
his delight at obtaining it vowed to surpass that master's David,
and those who want to know what Florence thought of his effort should
consult the amusing and malicious pages of Cellini's Autobiography.
On its way to Bandinelli's studio the block fell into the Arrio, and
it was a joke of the time that it had drowned itself to avoid its fate
at the sculptor's hands. Even after he had half done it, there was a
moment when Michelangelo had an opportunity of taking over the stone
and turning it into a Samson, but the siege of Florence intervened,
and eventually Bandinelli had his way and the hideous thing now on
view was evolved.
The lion at the left end of the façade is also a copy, the original
by Donatello being in the Bargello, close by; but the pedestal is
Donatello's original. This lion is the Marzocco, the legendary guardian
of the Florentine republic, and it stood here for four centuries and
more, superseding one which was kissed as a sign of submission by
thousands of Pisan prisoners in 1364. The Florentine fleur-de-lis on
the pediment is very beautiful. The same lion may be seen in iron on
his staff at the top of the Palazzo Vecchio tower, and again on the
Bargello, bravely flourishing his lily against the sky.
The great fountain with its bronze figures at this corner is by
Bartolommeo Ammanati, a pupil of Bandinelli, and the statue of Cosimo
I is by Gian Bologna, who was the best of the post-Michelangelo
sculptors and did much good work in Florence, as we shall see at the
Bargello and in the Boboli Gardens. He studied under Michelangelo
in Rome. Though born a Fleming and called a Florentine, his great
fountain at Bologna, which is really a fine thing, has identified his
fame with that city. Had not Ammanati's design better pleased Cosimo
I, the Bologna fountain would be here, for it was designed for this
piazza. Gian's best-known work is the Flying Mercury in the Bargello,
which we have seen, on mantelpieces and in shop windows, everywhere;
but what is considered his masterpiece is over there, in the Loggia de'
Lanzi, the very beautiful building on the right of the Palazzo, the
"Rape of the Sabines," a group which, to me, gives no pleasure. The
bronze reliefs under the Cosimo statue--this Cosimo being, of course,
far other than Cosimo de' Medici, Father of his Country: Cosimo
I of Tuscany, who insisted upon a crown and reigned from 1537 to
1575--represents his assumption of rule on the death of Alessandro in
1537; his triumphant entry into Siena when he conquered it and absorbed
it; and his reception of the rank of Grand Duke. Of Cosimo (whom we
met in Chapter V) more will be said when we enter the Palazzo Vecchio.
Between this statue and the Loggia de' Lanzi is a bronze tablet let
into the paving which tells us that it was on this very spot, in 1498,
that Savonarola and two of his companions were put to death. The
ancient palace on the Duomo side of the piazza is attributed in
design to Raphael, who, like most of the great artists of his time,
was also an architect and was the designer of the Palazzo Pandolfini
in the Via San Gallo, No. 74. The Palazzo we are now admiring for
its blend of massiveness and beauty is the Uguccione, and anybody
who wishes may probably have a whole floor of it to-day for a few
shillings a week. The building which completes the piazza on the
right of us, with coats of arms on its façade, is now given to the
Board of Agriculture and has been recently restored. It was once
a Court of Justice. The great building at the opposite side of the
piazza, where the trams start, is a good example of modern Florentine
architecture based on the old: the Palazzo Landi, built in 1871 and
now chiefly an insurance office. In London we have a more attractive
though smaller derivative of the great days of Florentine building,
in Standen's wool shop in Jermyn Street.
The Piazza della Signoria has such riches that one is in danger of
neglecting some. The Palazzo Vecchio, for example, so overpowers
the Loggia de' Lanzi in size as to draw the eye from that perfect
structure. One should not allow this to happen; one should let
the Palazzo Vecchio's solid nobility wait awhile and concentrate
on the beauty of Orcagna's three arches. Coming so freshly from his
tabernacle in Or San Michele we are again reminded of the versatility
of the early artists.
This structure, originally called the Loggia de' Priori or Loggia
d'Orcagna, was built in the fourteenth century as an open place for
the delivery of proclamations and for other ceremonies, and also as
a shelter from the rain, the last being a purpose it still serves. It
was here that Savonarola's ordeal by fire would have had place had it
not been frustrated. Vasari also gives Orcagna the four symbolical
figures in the recesses in the spandrels of the arches. The Loggia,
which took its new name from the Swiss lancers, or lanzi, that Cosimo
I kept there--he being a fearful ruler and never comfortable without a
bodyguard--is now a recognized place of siesta; and hither many people
carry their poste-restante correspondence from the neighbouring post
office in the Uffizi to read in comfort. A barometer and thermometer
are almost the only novelties that a visitor from the sixteenth
century would notice.
The statuary is both old and new; for here are genuine antiques once
in Ferdinand I's Villa Medici at Rome, and such modern masterpieces
as Donatello's Judith and Holofernes, Cellini's Perseus, and Gian
Bologna's two muscular and restless groups. The best of the antiques
is the Woman Mourning, the fourth from the end on the left, which is
a superb creation.
Donatello's Judith, which gives me less pleasure than any of his work,
both in the statue and in the relief, was commissioned for Cosimo
de' Medici, who placed it in the courtyard or garden of the Medici
palace--Judith, like David, by her brave action against a tyrant,
being a champion of the Florentine republic. In 1495, after Cosimo's
worthless grandson Piero de' Medici had been expelled from Florence
and the Medici palace sacked, the statue was moved to the front of the
Palazzo Vecchio, where the David now is, and an inscription placed
on it describing it as a warning to all enemies of liberty. This
position being needed for Michelangelo's David, in 1506, Judith was
moved to the Loggia to the place where the Sabine group now is. In
1560 it took up its present position.
Cellini's Perseus will not quite do, I think, after Donatello and
Verrocchio; but few bronzes are more famous, and certainly of none
has so vivacious and exciting a story been written as Cellini's own,
setting forth his disappointments, mortifications, and pride in
connexion with this statue. Cellini, whatever one may think of his
veracity, is a diverting and valuable writer, and the picture of
Cosimo I which he draws for us is probably very near the truth. We
see him haughty, familiar, capricious, vain, impulsive, clear-sighted,
and easily flattered; intensely pleased to be in a position to command
the services of artists and very unwilling to pay. Cellini was a blend
of lackey, child, and genius. He left Francis I in order to serve
Cosimo and never ceased to regret the change. The Perseus was his
greatest accomplishment for Cosimo, and the narrative of its casting
is terrific and not a little like Dumas. When it was uncovered in its
present position all Florence flocked to the Loggia to praise it; the
poets placed commendatory sonnets on the pillars, and the sculptor
peacocked up and down in an ecstasy of triumph. Then, however, his
troubles once more began, for Cosimo had the craft to force Cellini
to name the price, and we see Cellini in an agony between desire for
enough and fear lest if he named enough he would offend his patron.
The whole book is a comedy of vanity and jealousy and Florentine
vigour, with Courts as a background. It is good to read it; it is
good, having read it, to study once again the unfevered resolute
features of Donatello's S. George. Cellini himself we may see among
the statues under the Uffizi and again in the place of honour (as a
goldsmith) in the centre of the Ponte Vecchio. Looking at the Perseus
and remembering Donatello, one realizes that what Cellini wanted was
character. He had temperament enough but no character. Perseus is
superb, commanding, distinguished, and one doesn't care a fig for it.
On entering the Palazzo Vecchio we come instantly to one of the most
charming things in Florence--Verrocchio's fountain--which stands
in the midst of the courtyard. This adorable work--a little bronze
Cupid struggling with a spouting dolphin--was made for Lorenzo de'
Medici's country villa at Careggi and was brought here when the
palazzo was refurnished for Francis I, Cosimo I's son and successor,
and his bride, Joanna of Austria, in 1565. Nothing could better
illustrate the accomplishment and imaginative adaptability of the great
craftsmen of the day than the two works of Verrocchio that we have
now seen: the Christ and S. Thomas at Or San Michele, in Donatello
and Michelozzo's niche, and this exquisite fountain splashing water
so musically. Notice the rich decorations of the pillars of this
courtyard and the rich colour and power of the pillars themselves. The
half-obliterated frescoes of Austrian towns on the walls were made to
prevent Joanna from being homesick, but were more likely, one would
guess, to stimulate that malady. In the left corner is the entrance
to the old armoury, now empty, with openings in the walls through
which pieces might be discharged at various angles on any advancing
host. The groined ceiling could support a pyramid.
The Palazzo Vecchio's ground floor is a series of thoroughfares in
which people are passing continually amid huge pillars and along
dark passages; but our way is up the stone steps immediately to the
left on leaving the courtyard where Verrocchio's child eternally
smiles, for the steps take us to that vast hall designed by Cronaca
for Savonarola's Great Council, which was called into being for the
government of Florence after the luckless Piero de' Medici had been
banished in 1494. Here much history was made. As to its structure
and its architect, Vasari, who later was called in to restore it,
has a deal to say, but it is too technical for us. It was built
by Simone di Pollaiuolo, who was known as Cronaca (the Chronicler)
from his vivid way of telling his adventures. Cronaca (1454-1508),
who was a personal friend and devotee of Savonarola, drew up his plan
in consultation with Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo (although then
so young: only nineteen or twenty) and others. Its peculiarity is that
it is one of the largest rooms in existence without pillars. From the
foot of the steps to the further wall I make it fifty-eight paces,
and thirty wide; and the proportions strike the eye as perfect. The
wall behind the steps is not at right angles with the other--and this
must be as peculiar as the absence of pillars.
Once there were to be paintings here by the greatest of all, for
masters no less than Leonardo and Michelangelo were commissioned to
decorate it, each with a great historical painting: a high honour
for the youthful Michelangelo. The loss of these works is one of
the tragedies of art. Leonardo chose for his subject the battle of
Anghiari, an incident of 1440 when the Florentines defeated Piccinino
and saved their Republic from the Milanese and Visconti. But both
the cartoon and the fresco have gone for ever, and our sense of loss
is not diminished by reading in Leonardo's Thoughts on Painting the
directions which he wrote for the use of artists who proposed to paint
battles: one of the most interesting and exciting pieces of writing in
the literature of art. Michelangelo's work, which never reached the
wall of the room, as Leonardo's had done, was completed as a cartoon
in 1504 to 1506 in his studio in the hospital of the dyers in Sant'
Onofrio, which is now the Via Guelfa. The subject was also military:
an incident in the long and bitter struggle between Florence and Pisa,
when Sir John Hawkwood (then in the pay of the Pisans, before he came
over finally to the Florentines) attacked a body of Florentines who
were bathing in the river. The scene gave the young artist scope both
for his power of delineating a spirited incident and for his drawing
of the nude, and those who saw it said of this work that it was finer
than anything the painter ever did. While it was in progress all
the young artists came to Sant' Onofrio to study it, as they and its
creator had before flocked to the Carmine, where Masaccio's frescoes
had for three-quarters of a century been object-lessons to students.
What became of the cartoon is not definitely known, but Vasari's
story is that Bandinelli, the sculptor of the Hercules and Cacus
outside the Palazzo, who was one of the most diligent copyists of the
cartoon after it was placed in a room in this building, had the key
of the door counterfeited, and, obtaining entrance during a moment
of tumult, destroyed the picture. The reasons given are: (1, and a
very poor one) that he desired to own the pieces; (2) that he wished
to deprive other and rival students of the advantage of copying it;
(3) that he wanted Leonardo to be the only painter of the Palazzo to
be considered; and (4, and sufficient) that he hated Michelangelo. At
this time Bandinelli could not have been more than eighteen. Vasari's
story is uncorroborated.
Leonardo's battle merely perished, being done in some fugitive medium;
and the walls are now covered with the works of Vasari himself
and his pupils and do not matter, while the ceiling is a muddle
of undistinguished paint. There are many statues which also do not
matter; but at the raised end is Leo X, son of Lorenzo the Magnificent,
and the first Medici Pope, and at the other a colossal modern statue
of Savonarola, who was in person the dominating influence here for
the years between 1494 and 1497; who is to many the central figure
in the history of this building; and whose last night on earth was
spent with his companions in this very room. But to him we come in
the chapter on S. Marco.
Many rooms in the Palazzo are to be seen only on special occasions,
but the great hall is always accessible. Certain rooms upstairs,
mostly with rich red and yellow floors, are also visible daily, all
interesting; but most notable is the Salle de Lys, with its lovely blue
walls of lilies, its glorious ceiling of gold and roses, Ghirlandaio's
fresco of S. Zenobius, and the perfect marble doorway containing
the wooden doors of Giuliano and Benedetto da Maiano, with the heads
of Dante and Petrarch in intarsia. Note the figures of Charity and
Temperance in the doorway and the charming youthful Baptist.
In Eleanor of Toledo's dining-room there are some rich and elaborate
green jugs which I remember very clearly and also the ceiling of her
workroom with its choice of Penelope as the presiding genius. Both
Eleanor's chapel and that in which Savonarola prayed before his
execution are shown.
But the most popular room of all with visitors--and quite naturally--is
the little boudoiresque study of Francis I, with its voluptuous
ladies on the ceiling and the secret treasure-room leading from it,
while on the way, just outside the door, is a convenient oubliette
into which to push any inconvenient visitor.
The loggia, which Mr. Morley has painted from the Via Castellani,
is also always accessible, and from it one has one of those pleasant
views of warm roofs in which Florence abounds.
One of the most attractive of the smaller rooms usually on view is
that one which leads from the lily-room and contains nothing but
maps of the world: the most decorative things conceivable, next to
Chinese paintings. Looking naturally for Sussex on the English map,
I found Winchelsey, Battel, Rye, Lewes, Sorham, Arônde, and Cicestra.
From the map-room a little room is gained where the debates in
the Great Council Hall might be secretly overheard by interested
eavesdroppers, but in particular by Cosimo I. A part of the cornice
has holes in it for this purppse, but on regaining the hall itself
I found that the disparity in the pattern was perfectly evident even
to my eye, so that every one in those suspicious days must have been
aware of the listener.
The tower should certainly be ascended--not only for the view
and to be so near the bells and the pillars, but also for historic
associations. After a little way we come to the cell where Cosimo de'
Medici, later to be the Father of his Country, was imprisoned, before
that exile which ended in recall and triumph in 1433. This cell,
although not exactly "a home from home," is possible. What is to be
said of that other, some thousands of steps (as it seems) higher,
where Savonarola was kept for forty days, varied only by intervals
of torture? For Savonarola's cell, which is very near the top, is
nothing but a recess in the wall with a door to it. It cannot be
more than five feet wide and eight feet long, with an open loophole
to the wind. If a man were here for forty days and then pardoned his
life would be worth very little. A bitter eyrie from which to watch
the city one had risked all to reform. What thoughts must have been
his in that trap! What reviews of policy! What illuminations as to
Florentine character!