The Bargello
Plastic art--Blood-soaked stones--The faithful
artists--Michelangelo--Italian custodians--The famous
Davids--Michelangelo's tondo--Brutus--Benedetto da
Rovezzano--Donatello's life-work--The S. George--Verrocchio--Ghiberti
and Brunelleschi and the Baptistery doors--Benvenuto Cellini--John of
Bologna--Antonio Pollaiuolo--Verrocchio again--Mino da Fiesole--The
Florentine wealth of sculpture--Beautiful ladies--The della
Robbias--South Kensington and the Louvre.
Before my last visit but one to Florence, plastic art was less
attractive to me than pictorial art. But now I am not sure. At
any rate when, here in England, I think of Florence, as so often
I do, I find myself visiting in imagination the Bargello before the
Uffizi. Pictures in any number can bewilder and dazzle as much as they
delight. The eye tires. And so, it is true, can a multiplicity of
antique statuary such as one finds at the Vatican or at the Louvre;
but a small collection of Renaissance work, so soft and human,
as at the Bargello, is not only joy-giving but refreshing too. The
soft contours soothe as well as enrapture the eye: the tenderness of
the Madonnas, the gentleness of the Florentine ladies and youths, as
Verrocchio and Mino da Fiesole, Donatello, and Pollaiuolo moulded them,
calm one where the perfection of Phidias and Praxiteles excites. Hence
the very special charm of the Bargello, whose plastic treasures are
comparatively few and picked, as against the heaped profusion of paint
in the Uffizi and the Pitti. It pairs off rather with the Accademia,
and has this further point in common with that choicest of galleries,
that Michelangelo's chisel is represented in both.
The Bargello is at the corner of the Via Ghibellina in the narrow
Via del Proconsolo--so narrow that if you take one step off the
pavement a tram may easily sweep you into eternity; so narrow also
that the real dignity of the Bargello is never to be properly seen,
and one thinks of it rather for its inner court and staircase and
its strong tower than for its massive façades. Its history is soaked
in blood. It was built in the middle of the thirteenth century as the
residence of the chief magistrate of the city, the Capitano del popolo,
or Podestà, first appointed soon after the return of the Guelphs in
1251, and it so remained, with such natural Florentine vicissitudes
as destruction by mobs and fire, for four hundred years, when, in
1574, it was converted into a prison and place of execution and the
head-quarters of the police, and changed its name from the Palazzo
del Podestà to that by which it is now known, so called after the
Bargello, or chief of the police.
It is indeed fortunate that no rioters succeeded in obliterating
Giotto's fresco in the Bargello chapel, which he painted probably in
1300, when his friend Dante was a Prior of the city. Giotto introduced
the portrait of Dante which has drawn so many people to this little
room, together with portraits of Corso Donati, and Brunetto Latini,
Dante's tutor. Whitewash covered it for two centuries. Dante's head
has been restored.
It was in 1857 that the Bargello was again converted, this time to its
present gracious office of preserving the very flower of Renaissance
plastic art.
Passing through the entrance hall, which has a remarkable collection of
Medicean armour and weapons, and in which (I have read but not seen)
is an oubliette under one of the great pillars, the famous court is
gained and the famous staircase. Of this court what can I say? Its
quality is not to be communicated in words; and even the photographs of
it that are sold have to be made from pictures, which the assiduous
Signor Giuliani, among others, is always so faithfully painting,
stone for stone. One forgets all the horrors that once were enacted
here--the execution of honourable Florentine patriots whose only
offence was that in their service of this proud and beautiful city they
differed from those in power; one thinks only of the soft light on the
immemorial walls, the sturdy graceful columns, the carved escutcheons,
the resolute steps, the spaciousness and stern calm of it all.
In the colonnade are a number of statues, the most famous of which
is perhaps the "Dying Adonis" which Baedeker gives to Michelangelo
but the curator to Vincenzo di Rossi; an ascription that would annoy
Michelangelo exceedingly, if it were a mistake, since Rossi was a
pupil of his enemy, the absurd Bandinelli. Mr. W.G. Waters, in his
"Italian Sculptors," considers not only that Michelangelo was the
sculptor, but that the work was intended to form part of the tomb of
Pope Julius. In the second room opposite the main entrance across the
courtyard, we come however to Michelangelo authentic and supreme,
for here are his small David, his Brutus, his Bacchus, and a tondo
of the Madonna and Child.
According to Baedeker the Bacchus and the David revolve. Certainly they
are on revolving stands, but to say that they revolve is to disregard
utterly the character of the Italian official. A catch holds each in
its place, and any effort to release this or to induce the custodian to
release it is equally futile. "Chiuso" (closed), he replies, and that
is final. Useless to explain that the backs of statues can be beautiful
as the front; that one of the triumphs of great statuary is its equal
perfection from every point; that the revolving stand was not made
for a joke but for a serious purpose. "Chiuso," he replies. The museum
custodians of Italy are either like this--jaded figures of apathy--or
they are enthusiasts. To each enthusiast there are ninety-nine of the
other, who either sit in a kind of stupor and watch you with sullen
suspicion, or clear their throats as no gentleman should. The result
is that when one meets the enthusiasts one remembers them. There is
a little dark fellow in the Brera at Milan whose zeal in displaying
the merits of Mantegna's foreshortened Christ is as unforgettable as
a striking piece of character-acting in a theatre. There is a more
reserved but hardly less appreciative official in the Accademia at
Bologna with a genuine if incommunicable passion for Guido Reni. And,
lastly, there is Alfred Branconi, at S. Croce, with his continual and
rapturous "It is faine! It is faine!" but he is a private guide. The
Bargello custodians belong to the other camp.
The fondness of sculptors for David as a subject is due to the fact
that the Florentines, who had spent so much of their time under
tyrants and so much of their blood in resisting them, were captivated
by the idea of this stripling freeing his compatriots from Goliath
and the Philistines. David, as I have said in my remarks on the
Piazza della Signoria, stood to them, with Judith, as a champion of
liberty. He was alluring also on account of his youth, so attractive
to Renaissance sculptors and poets, and the Florentines' admiration
was not diminished by the circumstance that his task was a singularly
light one, since he never came to close quarters with his antagonist
at all and had the Lord of Hosts on his side. A David of mythology,
Perseus, another Florentine hero, a stripling with what looked like
a formidable enemy, also enjoyed supernatural assistance.
David appealed to the greatest sculptors of all--to Michelangelo,
to Donatello, and to Verrocchio; and Michelangelo made two figures,
one of which is here and the other at the Accademia, and Donatello
two figures, both of which are here, so that, Verrocchio's example
being also here, very interesting comparisons are possible.
Personally I put Michelangelo's small David first; it is the one
in which, apart from its beauty, you can best believe. His colossal
David seems to me one of the most glorious things in the world; but it
is not David; not the simple, ruddy shepherd lad of the Bible. This
David could obviously defeat anybody. Donatello's more famous David,
in the hat, upstairs, is the most charming creature you ever saw,
but it had been far better to call him something else. Both he and
Verrocchio's David, also upstairs, are young tournament nobles rather
than shepherd lads who have slung a stone at a Philistine bully. I see
them both--but particularly perhaps Verrocchio's--in the intervals of
strife most acceptably holding up a lady's train, or lying at her feet
reading one of Boccaccio's stories; neither could ever have watched
a flock. Donatello's second David, behind the more famous one, has
more reality; but I would put Michelangelo's smaller one first. And
what beautiful marble it is--so rich and warm!
One point which both Donatello's and Verrocchio's David emphasizes
is the gulf that was fixed between the Biblical and religious
conception of the youthful psalmist and that of these sculptors of the
Renaissance. One can, indeed, never think of Donatello as a religious
artist. Serious, yes; but not religious, or at any rate not religious
in the too common sense of the word, in the sense of appertaining
to a special reverential mood distinguished from ordinary moods of
dailiness. His David, as I have said, is a comely, cultured boy,
who belongs to the very flower of chivalry and romance. Verrocchio's
is akin to him, but he has less radiant mastery. Donatello's David
might be the young lord; Verrocchio's, his page. Here we see the new
spirit, the Renaissance, at work, for though religion called it into
being and the Church continued to be its patron, it rapidly divided
into two halves, and while the painters were bringing all their
genius to glorify sacred history, the scholars were endeavouring to
humanize it. In this task they had no such allies as the sculptors,
and particularly Donatello, who, always thinking independently and
vigorously, was their best friend. Donatello's David fought also more
powerfully for the modern spirit (had he known it) than ever he could
have done in real life with such a large sword in such delicate hands;
for by being the first nude statue of a Biblical character, he made
simpler the way to all humanists in whatever medium they worked.
Michelangelo was not often tender. Profoundly sad he could be: indeed
his own head, in bronze, at the Accademia, might stand for melancholy
and bitter world-knowledge; but seldom tender; yet the Madonna and
Child in the circular bas-relief in this ground-floor room have
something very nigh tenderness, and a greatness that none of the
other Italian sculptors, however often they attempted this subject,
ever reached. The head of Mary in this relief is, I think, one of the
most beautiful things in Florence, none the less so for the charming
head-dress which the great austere artist has given her. The Child
is older than is usual in such groups, and differs in another way,
for tiring of a reading lesson, He has laid His arm upon the book:
a pretty touch.
Michelangelo's Bacchus, an early work, is opposite. It is a remarkable
proof of his extraordinary range that the same little room should
contain the David, the Madonna, the Brutus, and the Bacchus. In
David one can believe, as I have said, as the young serious stalwart
of the Book of Kings. The Madonna, although perhaps a shade too
intellectual--or at any rate more intellectual and commanding than
the other great artists have accustomed us to think of her--has a
sweet gravity and power and almost domestic tenderness. The Brutus
is powerful and modern and realistic; while Bacchus is steeped in the
Greek spirit, and the little faun hiding behind him is the very essence
of mischief. Add to these the fluid vigour of the unfinished relief
of the Martyrdom of S. Andrew, No. 126, and you have five examples of
human accomplishment that would be enough without the other Florentine
evidences at all--the Medici chapel tombs and the Duomo Pieta.
The inscription under the Brutus says: "While the sculptor was carving
the statue of Brutus in marble, he thought of the crime and held
his hand"; and the theory is that Michelangelo was at work upon this
head at Rome when, in 1537, Lorenzino de' Medici, who claimed to be
a modern Brutus, murdered Alessandro de' Medici. But it might easily
have been that the sculptor was concerned only with Brutus the friend
of Cæsar and revolted at his crime. The circumstance that the head
is unfinished matters nothing. Once seen it can never be forgotten.
Although Michelangelo is, as always, the dominator, this room has
other possessions to make it a resort of visitors. At the end is a
fireplace from the Casa Borgherini, by Benedetto da Rovezzano, which
probably has not an equal, although the pietra serena of which it is
made is a horrid hue; and on the walls are fragments of the tomb of
S. Giovanni Gualberto at Vallombrosa, designed by the same artist but
never finished. Benedetto (1474-1556) has a peculiar interest to the
English in having come to England in 1524 at the bidding of Cardinal
Wolsey to design a tomb for that proud prelate. On Wolsey's disgrace,
Henry VIII decided that the tomb should be continued for his own bones;
but the sculptor died first and it was unfinished. Later Charles I cast
envious eyes upon it and wished to lie within it; but circumstances
deprived him too of the honour. Finally, after having been despoiled
of certain bronze additions, the sarcophagus was used for the remains
of Nelson, which it now holds, in St. Paul's crypt. The Borgherini
fireplace is a miracle of exquisite work, everything having received
thought, the delicate traceries on the pillars not less than the
frieze. The fireplace is in perfect condition, not one head having
been knocked off, but the Gualberto reliefs are badly damaged, yet
full of life. The angel under the saint's bier in No. 104 almost moves.
In this room look also at the beautiful blades of barley on the
pillars in the corner close to Brutus, and the lovely frieze by an
unknown hand above Michelangelo's Martyrdom of S. Andrew, and the
carving upon the two niches for statues on either side of the door.
The little room through which one passes to the Michelangelos may
well be lingered in. There is a gravely fine floor-tomb of a nun
to the left of the door--No. 20--which one would like to see in its
proper position instead of upright against the wall; and a stone font
in the middle which is very fine. There is also a beautiful tomb by
Giusti da Settignano, and the iron gates are worth attention.
From Michelangelo let us ascend the stairs, past the splendid gates,
to Donatello; and here a word about that sculptor, for though we
meet him again and again in Florence (yet never often enough) it is
in the upper room in the Bargello that he is enthroned. Of Donatello
there is nothing known but good, and good of the most captivating
variety. Not only was he a great creative genius, equally the first
modern sculptor and the sanest, but he was himself tall and comely,
open-handed, a warm friend, humorous and of vigorous intellect. A
hint of the affection in which he was held is obtained from his name
Donatello, which is a pet diminutive of Donato--his full style being
Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi. Born in 1386, four years before
Fra Angelico and nearly a century after Giotto, he was the son of a
well-to-do wool-comber who was no stranger to the perils of political
energy in these times. Of Donatello's youth little is known, but it is
almost certain that he helped Ghiberti with his first Baptistery doors,
being thirteen when that sculptor began upon them. At sixteen he was
himself enrolled as a sculptor. It was soon after this that, as I have
said in the first chapter, he accompanied his friend Brunelleschi,
who was thirteen years his senior, to Rome; and returning alone he
began work in Florence in earnest, both for the cathedral and campanile
and for Or San Michele. In 1425 he took into partnership Michelozzo,
and became, with him, a protégé of Cosimo de' Medici, with whom both
continued on friendly terms for the rest of their lives. In 1433 he
was in Rome again, probably not sorry to be there since Cosimo had
been banished and had taken Michelozzo with him. On the triumphant
return of Cosimo in 1434 Donatello's most prosperous period began;
for he was intimate with the most powerful man in Florence, was
honoured by him, and was himself at the useful age of forty-four.
Of Donatello as an innovator I have said something above, in
considering the Florentine Davids, but he was also the inventor of
that low relief in which his school worked, called rilievo stiacciato,
of which there are some excellent examples at South Kensington. In
Ghiberti's high relief, breaking out often into completely detached
figures, he was also a master, as we shall see at S. Lorenzo. But his
greatest claim to distinction is his psychological insight allied
to perfect mastery of form. His statues were not only the first
really great statues since the Greeks, but are still (always leaving
Michelangelo on one side as abnormal) the greatest modern examples
judged upon a realistic basis. Here in the Bargello, in originals and
in casts, he may be adequately appreciated; but to Padua his admirers
must certainly go, for the bronze equestrian statue of Gattamelata is
there. Donatello was painted by his friend Masaccio at the Carmine,
but the fresco has perished. He is to be seen in the Uffizi portico,
although that is probably a fancy representation; and again on a tablet
in the wall opposite the apse of the Duomo. The only contemporary
portrait (and this is very doubtful) is in a picture in the Louvre
given to Uccello--a serious, thoughtful, bearded face with steady,
observant eyes: one of five heads, the others being Giotto, Manetti,
Brunelleschi, and Uccello himself.
Donatello, who never married, but lived for much of his life with his
mother and sister, died at a great age, cared for both by Cosimo de'
Medici and his son and successor Piero. He was buried with Cosimo
in S. Lorenzo. Vasari tells us that he was free, affectionate, and
courteous, but of a high spirit and capable of sudden anger, as when
he destroyed with a blow a head he had made for a mean patron who
objected to its very reasonable price. "He thought," says Vasari,
"nothing of money, keeping it in a basket suspended from the ceiling,
so that all his workmen and friends took what they wanted without
saying anything." He was as careless of dress as great artists have
ever been, and of a handsome robe which Cosimo gave him he complained
that it spoiled his work. When he was dying his relations affected
great concern in the hope of inheriting a farm at Prato, but he told
them that he had left it to the peasant who had always toiled there,
and he would not alter his will.
The Donatello collection in the Bargello has been made representative
by the addition of casts. The originals number ten: there is also
a cast of the equestrian statue of Gattemalata at Padua, which is,
I suppose, next to Verrocchio's Bartolommeo Colleoni at Venice, the
finest equestrian statue that exists; heads from various collections,
including M. Dreyfus' in Paris, although Dr. Bode now gives that
charming example to Donatello's pupil Desiderio; and various
other masterpieces elsewhere. But it is the originals that chiefly
interest us, and first of these in bronze is the David, of which I
have already spoken, and first of these in marble the S. George. This
George is just such a resolute, clean, warlike idealist as one dreams
him. He would kill a dragon, it is true; but he would eat and sleep
after it and tell the story modestly and not without humour. By a
happy chance the marble upon which Donatello worked had light veins
running through it just where the head is, with the result that the
face seems to possess a radiance of its own. This statue was made for
Or San Michele, where it used to stand until 1891, when the present
bronze replica that takes its place was made. The spirited marble
frieze underneath it at Or San Michele is the original and has been
there for centuries. It was this S. George whom Ruskin took as the
head and inspiration of his Saint George's Guild.
The David is interesting not only in itself but as being the first
isolated statue of modern times. It was made for Cosimo de' Medici,
to stand in the courtyard of the Medici palace (now the Riccardi),
and until that time, since antiquity, no one had made a statue to
stand on a pedestal and be observable from all points. Hitherto modern
sculptors had either made reliefs or statues for niches. It was also
the first nude statue of modern times; and once again one has the
satisfaction of recognizing that the first was the best. At any rate,
no later sculptor has made anything more charming than this figure,
or more masterly within its limits.
After the S. George and the bronze David, the two most memorable things
are the adorable bronze Amorino in its quaint little trousers--or
perhaps not Amorino at all, since it is trampling on a snake,
which such little sprites did not do--and the coloured terra-cotta
bust called Niccolò da Uzzano, so like life as to be after a while
disconcerting. The sensitiveness of the mouth can never have been
excelled. The other originals include the gaunt John the Baptist with
its curious little moustache, so far removed from the Amorino and so
admirable a proof of the sculptor's vigilant thoughtfulness in all
he did; the relief of the infant John, one of the most animated of
the heads (the Baptist at all periods of his life being a favourite
with this sculptor); three bronze heads, of which those of the Young
Gentleman and the Roman Emperor remain most clearly in my mind. But
the authorship of the Roman Emperor is very doubtful. And lastly the
glorious Marzocco--the lion from the front of the Palazzo Vecchio,
firmly holding the Florentine escutcheon against the world. Florence
has other Donatellos--the Judith in the Loggia de' Lanzi, the figures
on Giotto's campanile, the Annunciation in S. Croce, and above all
the cantoria in the Museum of the Cathedral; but this room holds most
of his strong sweet genius. Here (for there are seldom more than two
or three persons in it) you can be on terms with him.
After the Donatellos we should see the other Renaissance sculpture. But
first the Carrand collection of ivories, pictures, jewels, carvings,
vestments, plaquettes, and objets d'art, bequeathed to Florence
in 1888. Everything here is good and worth examination. Among the
outstanding things is a plaquette, No. 393, a Satyr and a Bacchante,
attributed to Donatello, under the title "Allegory of Spring," which
is the work of a master and a very riot of mythological imagery. The
neighbouring plaquettes, many of them of the school of Donatello,
are all beautiful.
We now find the sixth salon, to see Verrocchio's David, of which I have
already spoken. This wholly charming boy, a little nearer life perhaps
than Donatello's, although not quite so radiantly distinguished,
illustrates the association of Verrocchio and Leonardo as clearly
as any of the paintings do; for the head is sheer Leonardo. At the
Palazzo Vecchio we saw Verrocchio's boy with the dolphin--that happy
bronze lyric--and outside Or San Michele his Christ and S. Thomas, in
Donatello and Michelozzo's niche, with the flying cherubim beneath. But
as with Donatello, so with Verrocchio, one must visit the Bargello
to see him, in Florence, most intimately. For here are not only his
David, which once known can never be forgotten and is as full of the
Renaissance spirit as anything ever fashioned, whether in bronze,
marble, or paint, but--upstairs--certain other wonderfully beautiful
things to which we shall come, and, that being so, I would like here
to say a little about their author.
Verrocchio is a nickname, signifying the true eye. Andrea's real name
was de' Cioni; he is known to fame as Andrea of the true eye, and since
he had acquired this style at a time when every eye was true enough,
his must have been true indeed. It is probable that he was a pupil
of Donatello, who in 1435, when Andrea was born, was forty-nine, and
in time he was to become the master of Leonardo: thus are the great
artists related. The history of Florentine art is practically the
history of a family; one artist leads to the other--the genealogy
of genius. The story goes that it was the excellence of the angel
contributed by Leonardo to his master's picture of the Baptism of
Christ (at the Accademia) which decided Verrocchio to paint no more,
just as Ghiberti's superiority in the relief of Abraham and Isaac
drove Brunelleschi from sculpture. If this be so, it accounts for the
extraordinarily small number of pictures by him. Like many artists
of his day Verrocchio was also a goldsmith, but he was versatile
above most, even when versatility was a habit, and excelled also as
a musician. Both Piero de' Medici and Lorenzo employed him to design
their tournament costumes; and it was for Lorenzo that he made this
charming David and the boy and the dolphin. His greatest work of all
is the bronze equestrian statue of Bartolommeo Colleoni in Venice, the
finest thing of its kind in the world, and so glorious and exciting
indeed that every city should have a cast of it in a conspicuous
position just for the good of the people. It was while at work upon
this that Verrocchio died, at the age of fifty-three. His body was
brought from Venice by his pupil Lorenzo di Credi, who adored him,
and was buried in S. Ambrogio in Florence. Lorenzo di Credi painted his
portrait, which is now in the Uffizi--a plump, undistinguished-looking
little man.
In the David room are also the extremely interesting rival bronze
reliefs of Abraham sacrificing Isaac, which were made by Ghiberti and
Brunelleschi as trials of skill to see which would win the commission
to design the new gates of the Baptistery, as I have told earlier in
this book. Six competitors entered for the contest; but Ghiberti's and
Brunelleschi's efforts were alone considered seriously. A comparison
of these two reliefs proves that Ghiberti, at any rate, had a finer
sense of grouping. He filled the space at his disposal more easily
and his hand was more fluent; but there is a very engaging vivacity
in the other work, the realistic details of which are so arresting
as to make one regret that Brunelleschi had for sculpture so little
time. In S. Maria Novella is that crucifix in wood which he carved for
his friend Donatello, but his only other sculptured work in Florence is
the door of his beautiful Pazzi chapel in the cloisters of S. Croce. Of
Ghiberti's Baptistery gates I have said more elsewhere. Enough here
to add that the episode of Abraham and Isaac does not occur in them.
This little room also has a Cassa Reliquiaria by Ghiberti, below a fine
relief by Bertoldo, Michelangelo's master in sculpture, representing
a battle between the Romans and the Barbarians; cases of exquisite
bronzes; the head, in bronze (No. 25), of an old placid, shrewd woman,
executed from a death-mask, which the photographers call Contessina
de' Bardi, wife of Cosimo de' Medici, by Donatello, but which cannot
be so, since the sculptor died first; heads of Apollo and two babies,
over the Ghiberti and Brunelleschi competition reliefs; a crucifixion
by Bertoldo; a row of babies representing the triumph of Bacchus; and
below these a case of medals and plaquettes, every one a masterpiece.
The next room, Sala VII, is apportioned chiefly between Cellini
and Gian or Giovanni da Bologna, the two sculptors who dominate the
Loggia de' Lanzi. Here we may see models for Cellini's Perseus in
bronze and wax and also for the relief of the rescue of Andromeda,
under the statue; his Cosimo I, with the wart (omitted by Bandinelli
in the head downstairs, which pairs with Michelangelo's Brutus);
and various smaller works. But personally I find that Cellini will
not do in such near proximity to Donatello, Verrocchio, and their
gentle followers. He was, of course, far later. He was not born (in
1500) until Donatello had been dead thirty-four years, Mino da Fiesole
sixteen years, Desiderio da Settignano thirty-six years, and Verrocchio
twelve years. He thus did not begin to work until the finer impulses
of the Renaissance were exhausted. Giovanni da Bologna, although he,
it is true, was even later (1524-1608), I find more sympathetic; while
Landor boldly proclaimed him superior to Michelangelo. His "Mercury,"
in the middle of the room, which one sees counterfeited in all the
statuary shops of Florence, is truly very nearly light as air. If ever
bronze floated, this figure does. His cherubs and dolphins are very
skilful and merry; his turkey and eagle and other animals indicate
that he had humility. John of Bologna is best known at Florence by
his Rape of the Sabines and Hercules and Nessus in the Loggia de'
Lanzi; but the Boboli gardens have a fine group of Oceanus and river
gods by him in the midst of a lake. Before leaving this room look at
the relief of Christ in glory (No. 35), to the left of the door, by
Jacopo Sansovino, a rival of Michelangelo, which is most admirable,
and at the case of bronze animals by Pietro Tacca, John of Bologna's
pupil, who made the famous boar (a copy of an ancient marble) at
the Mercato Nuovo and the reliefs for the pediment of the statue of
Cosimo I (by his master) in the Piazza della Signoria. But I believe
that the most beautiful thing in this room is the bronze figure for
the tomb of Mariano Sozzino by Lorenzo di Pietro.
Before we look at the della Robbias, which are in the two large rooms
upstairs, let us finish with the marble and terra-cotta statuary in
the two smaller rooms to the left as one passes through the first
della Robbia room. In the first of them, corresponding to the room
with Verrocchio's David downstairs, we find Verrocchio again, with
a bust of Piero di Lorenzo de' Medici (whom Botticelli painted in
the Uffizi holding a medal in his hand) and a most exquisite Madonna
and Child in terra-cotta from S. Maria Nuova. (This is on a hinge,
for better light, but the official skies will fall if you touch
it.) Here also is the bust of a young warrior by Antonio Pollaiuolo
(1429-1498) who was Verrocchio's closest rival and one of Ghiberti's
assistants for the second Baptistery doors. His greatest work is at
Rome, but this bust is indescribably charming, and the softness of the
boy's contours is almost of life. It is sometimes called Giuliano de'
Medici. Other beautiful objects in the room are the terra-cotta Madonna
and Child by Andrea Sansovino (1460-1529), Pollaiuolo's pupil, which
is as radiant although not so domestically lovely as Verrocchio's;
the bust by Benedetto da Maiano (1442-1497) of Pietro Mellini, that
shrewd and wrinkled patron of the Church who presented to S. Croce
the famous pulpit by this sculptor; an ancient lady, by the door,
in coloured terra-cotta, who is thought to represent Monna Tessa, the
nurse of Dante's Beatrice; and certain other works by that delightful
and prolific person Ignoto Fiorentino, who here, and in the next room,
which we now enter, is at his best.
This next priceless room is chiefly memorable for Verrocchio and
Mino da Fiesole. We come to Verrocchio at once, on the left, where
his relief of the death of Francesca Pitti Tornabuoni (on a tiny
bed only half as long as herself) may be seen. This poor lady, who
died in childbirth, was the wife of Giovanni Tornabuoni, and he it
was who employed Ghirlandaio to make the frescoes in the choir of
S. Maria Novella. (I ought, however, to state that Miss Cruttwell,
in her monograph on Verrocchio, questions both the subject and the
artist.) Close by we have two more works by Verrocchio--No. 180, a
marble relief of the Madonna and Child, the Madonna's dress fastened
by the prettiest of brooches, and She herself possessing a dainty sad
head and the long fingers that Verrocchio so favoured, which we find
again in the famous "Gentildonna" (No. 181) next it--that Florentine
lady with flowers in her bosom, whose contours are so exquisite and
who has such pretty shoulders.
Near by is the little eager S. John the Baptist as a boy by Antonio
Rossellino (1427-1478), and on the next wall the same sculptor's
circular relief of the Madonna adoring, in a border of cherubs.
In the middle is the masterpiece of Jacopo Sansovino (1486-1570): a
Bacchus, so strangely like a genuine antique, full of Greek lightness
and grace. And then we come back to the wall in which the door is,
and find more works from the delicate hand of Mino da Fiesole, whom
we in London are fortunate in being able to study as near home as at
the Victoria and Albert Museum. Of Mino I have said more both at the
Badia and at Fiesole. But here I might remark again that he was born
in 1431 and died in 1484, and was the favourite pupil of Desiderio
da Settignano, who was in his turn the favourite pupil of Donatello.
In the little church of S. Ambrogio we have seen a tablet to the
memory of Mino, who lies there, not far from the grave of Verrocchio,
whom he most nearly approached in feeling, although their ideal type of
woman differed in everything save the slenderness of the fingers. The
Bargello has both busts and reliefs by him, all distinguished and
sensitive and marked by Mino's profound refinement. The Madonna and
Child in No. 232 are peculiarly beautiful and notable both for high
relief and shallow relief, and the Child in No. 193 is even more
charming. For delicacy and vivacity in marble portraiture it would
be impossible to surpass the head of Rinaldo della Luna; and the two
Medicis are wonderfully real. Everything in Mino's work is thoughtful
and exquisite, while the unusual type of face which so attracted him
gives him freshness too.
This room and that next it illustrate the wealth of fine sculptors
which Florence had in the fifteenth century, for the works by the
unknown hands are in some cases hardly less beautiful and masterly than
those by the known. Look, for example, at the fleur-de-lis over the
door; at the Madonna and Child next it, on the right; at the girl's
head next to that; at the baby girl at the other end of the room;
and at the older boy and his pendant. But one does not need to come
here to form an idea of the wealth of good sculpture. The streets
alone are full of it. Every palace has beautiful stone-work and an
escutcheon which often only a master could execute--as Donatello
devised that for the Palazzo Pazzi in the Borgo degli Albizzi. On the
great staircase of the Bargello, for example, are numbers of coats
of arms that could not be more beautifully designed and incised.
In the room leading from that which is memorable for Pollaiuolo's
youth in armour is a collection of medals by all the best medallists,
beginning, in the first case, with Pisanello. Here are his Sigismondo
Malatesta, the tyrant of Rimini, and Isotta his wife; here also is
a portrait of Leon Battista Alberti, who designed and worked on the
cathedral of Rimini as well as upon S. Maria Novella in Florence. On
the other side of this case is the medal commemorating the Pazzi
conspiracy. In other cases are pretty Italian ladies, such as Julia
Astalla, Lucrezia Tornabuoni, with her hair in curls just as in
Ghirlandaio's frescoes, Costanza Rucellai, Leonora Altoviti, Maria
Poliziano, and Maria de' Mucini.
And so we come to the della Robbias, without whose joyous, radiant
art Florence would be only half as beautiful as she is. Of these
exquisite artists Luca, the uncle, born in 1400, was by far the
greatest. Andrea, his nephew, born in 1435, came next, and then
Giovanni. Luca seems to have been a serious, quiet man who would
probably have made sculpture not much below his friend Donatello's had
not he chanced on the discovery of a means of colouring and glazing
terra-cotta. Examples of this craft are seen all over Florence both
within doors and out, as the pages of this book indicate, but at the
Bargello is the greatest number of small pieces gathered together. I
do not say there is anything here more notable than the Annunciation
attributed to Andrea at the Spedale degli Innocenti, while of course,
for most people, his putti on the façade of that building are the
della Robbia symbol; nor is there anything finer than Luca's work
at Impruneta; but as a collection of sweetness and gentle domestic
beauty these Bargello reliefs are unequalled, both in character and in
volume. Here you see what one might call Roman Catholic art--that is,
the art which at once gives pleasure to simple souls and symbolizes
benevolence and safety--carried out to its highest power. Tenderness,
happiness, and purity are equally suggested by every relief here. Had
Luca and Andrea been entrusted with the creation of the world it
would be a paradise. And, as it is, it seems to me impossible but
that they left the world sweeter than they found it. Such examples
of affection and solicitude as they were continually bringing to the
popular vision must have engendered kindness.
I have noted as especially beautiful in the first room Nos. 4,
6, 12, 23, by Andrea; and 10 and 21, by Luca. These, by the
way, are the Bargello ascriptions, but the experts do not always
agree. Herr Bode, for example, who has studied the della Robbias with
passionate thoroughness, gives the famous head of the boy, which is
in reproduction one of the best-known works of plastic art, to Luca;
but the Bargello director says Andrea. In Herr Bode's fascinating
monograph, "Florentine Sculptors of the Renaissance," he goes very
carefully into the differences between the uncle and the nephew,
master and pupil. In all the groups, for example, he says that Luca
places the Child on the Madonna's left arm, Andrea on the right. In
the second room I have marked particularly Nos. 21, 28, and 31,
by Luca, 28 being a deeper relief than usual, and the Madonna not
adoring but holding and delighting in one of the most adorable of
Babies. Observe in the reproduction of this relief in this volume--
how the Mother's fingers sink into the child's flesh. Luca was the
first sculptor to notice that. No. 31 is the lovely Madonna of the
Rose Bower. But nothing gives me more pleasure than the boy's head of
which I have just spoken, attributed to Andrea and also reproduced
here. The "Giovane Donna" which pairs with it has extraordinary
charm and delicacy too. I have marked also, by Andrea, Nos. 71 and
76. Giovanni della Robbia's best is perhaps No. 15, in the other room.
One curious thing that one notes about della Robbia pottery is its
inability to travel. It was made for the church and it should remain
there. Even in the Bargello, where there is an ancient environment,
it loses half its charm; while in an English museum it becomes hard
and cold. But in a church to which the poor carry their troubles,
with a dim light and a little incense, it is perfect, far beyond
painting in its tenderness and symbolic value. I speak of course
of the Madonnas and altar-pieces. When the della Robbias worked for
the open air--as in the façade of the Children's Hospital, or at the
Certosa, or in the Loggia di San Paolo, opposite S. Maria Novella,
where one may see the beautiful meeting of S. Francis and S. Dominic,
by Andrea--they seem, in Italy, to have fitness enough; but it would
not do to transplant any of these reliefs to an English façade. There
was once, I might add, in Florence a Via della Robbia, but it is now
the Via Nazionale. I suppose this injustice to the great potters came
about in the eighteen-sixties, when popular political enthusiasm led
to every kind of similar re-naming.
In the room leading out of the second della Robbia room is a collection
of vestments and brocades bequeathed by Baron Giulio Franchetti, where
you may see, dating from as far back as the sixth century, designs
that for beauty and splendour and durability put to shame most of the
stuffs now woven; but the top floor of the Museo Archeologico in the
Via della Colonna is the chief home in Florence of such treasures.
There are other beautiful things in the Bargello of which I have said
nothing--a gallery of mediaeval bells most exquisitely designed, from
famous steeples; cases of carved ivory; and many of such treasures as
one sees at the Cluny in Paris. But it is for its courtyard and for the
Renaissance sculpture that one goes to the Bargello, and returns again
and again to the Bargello, and it is for these that one remembers it.
On returning to London the first duty of every one who has drunk
deep of delight in the Bargello is to visit that too much neglected
treasure-house of our own, the Victoria and Albert Museum at South
Kensington. There may be nothing at South Kensington as fine as the
Bargello's finest, but it is a priceless collection and is superior
to the Bargello in one respect at any rate, for it has a relief
attributed to Leonardo. Here also is an adorable Madonna and laughing
Child, beyond anything in Florence for sheer gaiety if not mischief,
which the South Kensington authorities call a Rossellino but Herr
Bode a Desiderio da Settignano. The room is rich too in Donatello
and in Verrocchio, and altogether it makes a perfect footnote to the
Bargello. It also has within call learned gentlemen who can give
intimate information about the exhibits, which the Bargello badly
lacks. The Louvre and the Kaiser Friedrich Museum in Berlin--but
particularly the Kaiser Friedrich since Herr Bode, who has such
a passion for this period, became its director--have priceless
treasures, and in Paris I have had the privilege of seeing the little
but exquisite collection formed by M. Gustave Dreyfus, dominated by
that mirthful Italian child which the Bargello authorities consider to
be by Donatello, but Herr Bode gives to Desiderio. At the Louvre, in
galleries on the ground floor gained through the Egyptian sculpture
section and opened very capriciously, may be seen the finest of
the prisoners from Michelangelo's tomb for Pope Julius; Donatello's
youthful Baptist; a Madonna and Children by Agostino di Duccio, whom
we saw at the Museum of the Cathedral; an early coloured terra-cotta
by Luca della Robbia, and No. 316, a terra-cotta Madonna and Child
without ascription, which looks very like Rossellino.
In addition to originals there are at South Kensington casts of many
of the Bargello's most valuable possessions, such as Donatello's
and Verrocchio's Davids, Donatello's Baptist and many heads, Mino
da Fiesole's best Madonna, Pollaiuolo's Young Warrior, and so forth;
so that to loiter there is most attractively to recapture something
of the Florentine feeling.