The Carmine and San Miniato
The human form divine and waxen--Galileo--Bianca Capella--A
faithful Grand Duke--S. Spirito--The Carmine--Masaccio's place
in art--Leonardo's summary--The S. Peter frescoes--The Pitti
side--Romola--A little country walk--The ancient wall--The Piazzale
Michelangelo--An evening prospect--S. Miniato--Antonio Rossellino's
masterpiece--The story of S. Gualberto--A city of the dead--The
reluctant departure.
The Via Maggio is now our way, but first there is a museum which
I think should be visited, if only because it gave Dickens so much
pleasure when he was here--the Museo di Storia Naturale, which is
open three days a week only and is always free. Many visitors to
Florence never even hear of it and one quickly finds that its chief
frequenters are the poor. All the better for that. Here not only is
the whole animal kingdom spread out before the eye in crowded cases,
but the most wonderful collection of wax reproductions of the human
form is to be seen. These anatomical models are so numerous and so
exact that, since the human body does not change with the times,
a medical student could learn everything from them in the most
gentlemanly way possible. But they need a strong stomach. Mine,
I confess, quailed before the end.
The hero of the Museum is Galileo, whose tomb at S. Croce we have seen:
here are preserved certain of his instruments in a modern, floridly
decorated Tribuna named after him. Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) belongs
rather to Pisa, where he was born and where he found the Leaning Tower
useful for experiments, and to Rome, where in 1611 he demonstrated
his discovery of the telescope; but Florence is proud of him and it
was here that he died, under circumstances tragic for an astronomer,
for he had become totally blind.
The frescoes in the Tribuna celebrate other Italian scientific
triumphs, and in the cases are historic telescopes, astrolabes,
binoculars, and other mysteries.
The Via Maggio, which runs from Casa Guidi to the Ponte Trinita, and
at noon is always full of school-girls, brings us by way of the Via
Michelozzo to S. Spirito, but by continuing in it we pass a house of
great interest, now No. 26, where once lived the famous Bianca Capella,
that beautiful and magnetic Venetian whom some hold to have been so
vile and others so much the victim of fate. Bianca Capella was born in
1543, when Francis I, Cosimo I's eldest son, afterwards to play such a
part in her life, was two years of age. While he was being brought up
in Florence, Bianca was gaining loveliness in her father's palace. When
she was seventeen she fell in love with a young Florentine engaged
in a bank in Venice, and they were secretly married. Her family
were outraged by the mésalliance and the young couple had to flee
to Florence, where they lived in poverty and hiding, a prize of 2000
ducats being offered by the Capella family to anyone who would kill
the husband; while, by way of showing how much in earnest they were,
they had his uncle thrown into prison, where he died.
One day the unhappy Bianca was sitting at her window when the young
prince Francis was passing: he looked up, saw her, and was enslaved on
the spot. (The portraits of Bianca do not, I must admit, lay emphasis
on this story. Titian's I have not seen; but there is one by Bronzino
in our National Gallery--No. 650--and many in Florence.) There was,
however, something in Bianca's face to which Francis fell a victim, and
he brought about a speedy meeting. At first Bianca repulsed him; but
when she found that her husband was unworthy of her, she returned the
Prince's affection. (I am telling her story from the pro-Bianca point
of view: there are plenty of narrators on the other side.) Meanwhile,
Francis's official life going on, he married that archduchess Joanna
of Austria for whom the Austrian frescoes in the Palazzo Vecchio were
painted; but his heart remained Bianca's and he was more at her house
than in his own. At last, Bianca's husband being killed in some fray,
she was free from the persecution of her family and ready to occupy
the palace which Francis hastened to build for her, here, in the Via
Maggio, now cut up into tenements at a few lire a week. The attachment
continued unabated when Francis came to the throne, and upon the death
of his archduchess in 1578 Bianca and he were almost immediately,
but privately, married, she being then thirty-five; and in the next
year they were publicly married in the church of S. Lorenzo with every
circumstance of pomp; while later in the same year Bianca was crowned.
Francis remained her lover till his death, which was both dramatic
and suspicious, husband and wife dying within a few hours of each
other at the Medici villa of Poggia a Caiano in 1587. Historians
have not hesitated to suggest that Francis was poisoned by his wife;
but there is no proof. It is indeed quite possible that her life
was more free of intrigue, ambition and falsehood, than that of any
one about the court at that time; but the Florentines, encouraged by
Francis's brother Ferdinand I, who succeeded him, made up their minds
that she was a witch, and few things in the way of disaster happened
that were not laid to her charge. Call a woman a witch and everything
is possible. Ferdinand not only detested Bianca in life and deplored
her fascination for his brother, but when she died he refused to allow
her to be buried with the others of the family; hence the Chapel of
the Princes at S. Lorenzo lacks one archduchess. Her grave is unknown.
The whole truth we shall never know; but it is as easy to think of
Bianca as a harmless woman who both lost and gained through love as
to picture her as sinister and scheming. At any rate we know that
Francis was devoted to her with a fidelity and persistence for which
Grand Dukes have not always been conspicuous.
S. Spirito is one of Brunelleschi's solidest works. Within it resembles
the city of Bologna in its vistas of brown and white arches. The
effect is severe and splendid; but the church is to be taken rather
as architecture than a treasury of art, for although each of its
eight and thirty chapels has an altar picture and several have fine
pieces of sculpture--one a copy of Michelangelo's famous Pieta in
Rome--there is nothing of the highest value. It was in this church
that I was asked alms by one of the best-dressed men in Florence;
but the Florentine beggars are not importunate: they ask, receive or
are denied, and that is the end of it.
The other great church in the Pitti quarter is the Carmine, and here
we are on very sacred ground in art--for it was here, as I have had
occasion to say more than once in this book, that Masaccio painted
those early frescoes which by their innovating boldness turned the
Brancacci chapel into an Academy. For all the artists came to study
and copy them: among others Michelangelo, whose nose was broken by
the turbulent Torrigiano, a fellow-student, under this very roof.
Tommaso di Ser Giovanni, or Masaccio, the son of a notary, was born
in 1402. His master is not known, but Tommaso Fini or Masolino,
born in 1383, is often named. Vasari states that as a youth Masaccio
helped Ghiberti with his first Baptistery doors; and if so, the fact
is significant. But all that is really known of his early life is
that he went to Rome to paint a chapel in S. Clemente. He returned,
apparently on hearing that his patron Giovanni de' Medici was in
power again. Another friend, Brunelleschi, having built the church
of S. Spirito in 1422, Masaccio began to work there in 1423, when he
was only twenty-one.
Masaccio's peculiar value in the history of painting is his early
combined power of applying the laws of perspective and representing
human beings "in the round". Giotto was the first and greatest
innovator in painting--the father of real painting; Masaccio was the
second. If from Giotto's influence a stream of vigour had flowed such
as flowed from Masaccio's, there would have been nothing special to
note about Masaccio at all. But the impulse which Giotto gave to art
died down; some one had to reinvigorate it, and that some one was
Masaccio. In his remarks on painting, Leonardo da Vinci sums up the
achievements of the two. They stood out, he says, from the others
of their time, by reason of their wish to go to life rather than to
pictures. Giotto went to life, his followers went to pictures; and
the result was a decline in art until Masaccio, who again went to life.
From the Carmine frescoes came the new painting. It is not that walls
henceforth were covered more beautifully or suitably than they had
been by Giotto's followers; probably less suitably very often; but
that religious symbolism without much relation to actual life gave
way to scenes which might credibly have occurred, where men, women
and saints walked and talked much as we do, in similar surroundings,
with backgrounds of cities that could be lived in and windows that
could open. It was this revolution that Masaccio performed. No doubt
if he had not, another would, for it had to come: the new demand was
that religion should be reconciled with life.
It is generally supposed that Masaccio had Masolino as his ally in
this wonderful series; and a vast amount of ink has been spilt over
Masolino's contributions. Indeed the literature of expert art criticism
on Florentine pictures alone is of alarming bulk and astonishing in
its affirmations and denials. The untutored visitor in the presence
of so much scientific variance will be wise to enact the part of
the lawyer in the old caricature of the litigants and the cow, who,
while they pull, one at the head and the other at the tail, fills
his bucket with milk. In other words, the plain duty of the ordinary
person is to enjoy the picture.
Without any special knowledge of art one can, by remembering the
early date of these frescoes, realize what excitement they must have
caused in the studios and how tongues must have clacked in the Old
Market. We have but to send our thoughts to the Spanish chapel at
S. Maria Novella to realize the technical advance. Masaccio, we see,
was peopling a visible world; the Spanish chapel painters were merely
allegorizing, as agents of holiness. The Ghirlandaio choir in the same
church would yield a similar comparison; but what we have to remember
is that Ghirlandaio painted these frescoes in 1490, sixty-two years
after Masaccio's death, and Masaccio showed him how.
It is a pity that the light is so poor and that the frescoes have
not worn better; but their force and dramatic vigour remain beyond
doubt. The upper scene on the left of the altar is very powerful: the
Roman tax collector has asked Christ for a tribute and Christ bids
Peter find the money in the mouth of a fish. Figures, architecture,
landscape, all are in right relation; and the drama is moving, without
restlessness. This and the S. Peter preaching and distributing alms
are perhaps the best, but the most popular undoubtedly is that below
it, finished many years after by Filippino Lippi (although there are
experts to question this and even substitute his amorous father), in
which S. Peter, challenged by Simon Magus, resuscitates a dead boy,
just as S. Zenobius used to do in the streets of this city. Certain
more modern touches, such as the exquisite Filippino would naturally
have thought of, may be seen here: the little girl behind the boy,
for instance, who recalls the children in that fresco by the same
hand at S. Maria Novella in which S. John resuscitates Drusiana. In
this Carmine fresco are many portraits of Filippino's contemporaries,
including Botticelli, just as in the scene of the consecration of
the Carmine which Masaccio painted in the cloisters, but which has
almost perished, he introduced Brancacci, his employer, Brunelleschi,
Donatello, some of whose innovating work in stone he was doing in
paint, Giovanni de' Medici and Masolino. The scanty remains of this
fresco tell us that it must have been fine indeed.
Masaccio died at the early age of twenty-six, having suddenly
disappeared from Florence, leaving certain work unfinished. A strange
portentous meteor in art.
The Pitti side of the river is less interesting than the other,
but it has some very fascinating old and narrow streets, although
they are less comfortable for foreigners to wander in than those,
for example, about the Borgo SS. Apostoli. They are far dirtier.
From the Pitti end of the Ponte Vecchio one can obtain a most charming
walk. Turn to the left as you leave the bridge, under the arch made by
Cosimo's passage, and you are in the Via de' Bardi, the backs of whose
houses on the river-side are so beautiful from the Uffizi's central
arches, as Mr. Morley's picture shows. At the end of the street is
an archway under a large house. Go through this, and you are at the
foot of a steep, stone hill. It is really steep, but never mind. Take
it easily, and rest half-way where the houses on the left break and
give a wonderful view of the city. Still climbing, you come to the
best gate of all that is left--a true gate in being an inlet into a
fortified city--that of S. Giorgio, high on the Boboli hill by the
fort. The S. Giorgio gate has a S. George killing a dragon, in stone,
on its outside, and the saint painted within, Donatello's conception
of him being followed by the artist. Parsing through, you are in the
country. The fort and gardens are on one side and villas on the other;
and a great hill-side is in front, covered with crops. Do not go on,
but turn sharp to the left and follow the splendid city wall, behind
which for a long way is the garden of the Villa Karolath, one of the
choicest spots in Florence, occasionally tossing its branches over the
top. This wall is immense all the way down to the Porta S. Miniato,
and two of the old towers are still standing in their places upon
it. Botticini's National Gallery picture tells exactly how they looked
in their heyday. Ivy hangs over, grass and flowers spring from the
ancient stones, and lizards run about. Underneath are olive-trees.
It was, by the way, in the Via de' Bardi that George Eliot's
Romola lived, for she was of the Bardi family. The story, it may be
remembered, begins on the morning of Lorenzo the Magnificent's death,
and ends after the execution of Savonarola. It is not an inspired
romance, and is remarkable almost equally for its psychological
omissions and the convenience of its coincidences, but it is an
excellent preparation for a first visit in youth to S. Marco and the
Palazzo Vecchio, while the presence in its somewhat naive pages of
certain Florentine characters makes it agreeable to those who know
something of the city and its history. The painter Piero di Cosimo,
for example, is here, straight from Vasari; so also are Cronaca, the
architect, Savonarola, Capparo, the ironsmith, and even Machiavelli;
while Bernardo del Nero, the gonfalonier, whose death sentence
Savonarola refused to revise, was Romola's godfather.
The Via Guicciardini, which runs from the foot of the Via de' Bardi
to the Pitti, is one of the narrowest and busiest Florentine streets,
with an undue proportion of fruit shops overflowing to the pavement
to give it gay colouring. At No. 24 is a stable with pillars and
arches that would hold up a pyramid. But this is no better than most
of the old stables of Florence, which are all solid vaulted caverns
of immense size and strength.
From the Porta Romana one may do many things--take the tram,
for example, for the Certosa of the Val d'Ema, which is only some
twenty minutes distant, or make a longer journey to Impruneta, where
the della Robbias are. But just now let us walk or ride up the long
winding Viale Macchiavelli, which curves among the villas behind the
Boboli Gardens, to the Piazzale Michelangelo and S. Miniato.
The Piazzale Michelangelo is one of the few modern tributes of Florence
to her illustrious makers. The Dante memorial opposite S. Croce is
another, together with the preservation of certain buildings with
Dante associations in the heart of the city; but, as I have said more
than once, there is no piazza in Florence, and only one new street,
named after a Medici. From the Piazzale Michelangelo you not only
have a fine panoramic view of the city of this great man--in its
principal features not so vastly different from the Florence of his
day, although of course larger and with certain modern additions,
such as factory chimneys, railway lines, and so forth--but you can see
the remains of the fortifications which he constructed in 1529, and
which kept the Imperial troops at bay for nearly a year. Just across
the river rises S. Croce, where the great man is buried, and beyond,
over the red roofs, the dome of the Medici chapel at S. Lorenzo shows
us the position of the Biblioteca Laurenziana and the New Sacristy,
both built by him. Immediately below us is the church of S. Niccolo,
where he is said to have hidden in 1529, when there was a hue and
cry for him. In the middle of this spacious plateau is a bronze
reproduction of his David, and it is good to see it, from the cafe
behind it, rising head and shoulders above the highest Apennines.
S. Miniato, the church on the hill-top above the Piazzale Michelangelo,
deserves many visits. One may not be too greatly attached to marble
façades, but this little temple defeats all prejudices by its radiance
and perfection, and to its extraordinary charm its situation adds. It
crowns the hill, and in the late afternoon--the ideal time to visit
it--is full in the eye of the sun, bathed in whose light the green
and white façade, with miracles of delicate intarsia, is balm to the
eyes instead of being, as marble so often is, dazzling and cold.
On the way up we pass the fine church of S. Salvatore, which Cronaca
of the Palazzo Vecchio and Palazzo Strozzi built and Michelangelo
admired, and which is now secularized, and pass through the gateway of
Michelangelo's upper fortifications. S. Miniato is one of the oldest
churches of Florence, some of it eleventh century. It has its name
from Minias, a Roman soldier who suffered martyrdom at Florence under
Decius. Within, one does not feel quite to be in a Christian church,
the effect partly of the unusual colouring, all grey, green, and gold
and soft light tints as of birds' bosoms; partly of the ceiling,
which has the bright hues of a Russian toy; partly of the forest
of great gay columns; partly of the lovely and so richly decorated
marble screen; and partly of the absence of a transept. The prevailing
feeling indeed is gentle gaiety; and in the crypt this is intensified,
for it is just a joyful assemblage of dancing arches.
The church as a whole is beautiful and memorable enough; but
its details are wonderful too, from the niello pavement, and
the translucent marble windows of the apse, to the famous tomb of
Cardinal Jacopo of Portugal, and the Luca della Robbia reliefs of the
Virtues. This tomb is by Antonio Rossellino. It is not quite of the
rank of Mino's in the Badia; but it is a noble and beautiful thing
marked in every inch of it by modest and exquisite thought. Vasari
says of Antonio that he "practised his art with such grace that
he was valued as something more than a man by those who knew him,
who well-nigh adored him as a saint". Facing it is a delightful
Annunciation by Alessio Baldovinetti, in which the angel declares the
news from a far greater distance than we are accustomed to; and the
ceiling is made an abode of gladness by the blue and white figures
(designed by Luca della Robbia) of Prudence and Chastity, Moderation
and Fortitude, for all of which qualities, it seems, the Cardinal was
famous. In short, one cannot be too glad that, since he had to die,
death's dart struck down this Portuguese prelate while he was in
Rossellino's and Luca's city.
No longer is preserved here the miraculous crucifix which, standing
in a little chapel in the wood on this spot, bestowed blessing and
pardon--by bending towards him--upon S. Giovanni Gualberto, the founder
of the Vallombrosan order. The crucifix is now in S. Trinita. The saint
was born in 985 of noble stock and assumed naturally the splendour and
arrogance of his kind. His brother Hugo being murdered in some affray,
Giovanni took upon himself the duty of avenging the crime. One Good
Friday he chanced to meet, near this place, the assassin, in so narrow
a passage as to preclude any chance of escape; and he was about to kill
him when the man fell on his knees and implored mercy by the passion of
Christ Who suffered on that very day, adding that Christ had prayed on
the cross for His own murderers. Giovanni was so much impressed that he
not only forgave the man but offered him his friendship. Entering then
the chapel to pray and ask forgiveness of all his sins, he was amazed
to see the crucifix bend down as though acquiescing and blessing, and
this special mark of favour so wrought upon him that he became a monk,
himself shaving his head for that purpose and defying his father's
rage, and subsequently founded the Vallombrosan order. He died in 1073.
I have said something of the S. Croce habit and the S. Maria Novella
habit; but I think that when all is said the S. Miniato habit is
the most important to acquire. There is nothing else like it; and
the sense of height is so invigorating too. At all times of the year
it is beautiful; but perhaps best in early spring, when the highest
mountains still have snow upon them and the neighbouring slopes are
covered with tender green and white fruit blossom, and here the violet
wistaria blooms and there the sombre crimson of the Judas-tree.
Behind and beside the church is a crowded city of the Florentine
dead, reproducing to some extent the city of the Florentine living,
in its closely packed habitations--the detached palaces for the rich
and the great congeries of cells for the poor--more of which are
being built all the time. There is a certain melancholy interest in
wandering through these silent streets, peering through the windows
and recognizing over the vaults names famous in Florence. One learns
quickly how bad modern mortuary architecture and sculpture can be,
but I noticed one monument with some sincerity and unaffected grace:
that to a charitable Marchesa, a friend of the poor, at the foot of
whose pedestal are a girl and baby done simply and well.
Better perhaps to remain on the highest point and look at the
city beneath. One should try to be there before sunset and watch
the Apennines turning to a deeper and deeper indigo and the city
growing dimmer and dimmer in the dusk. Florence is beautiful from
every point of vantage, but from none more beautiful than from this
eminence. As one reluctantly leaves the church and passes again
through Michelangelo's fortification gateway to descend, one has,
framed in its portal, a final lovely Apennine scene.
Historical Chart of Florence and Europe, 1296-1564
Artists' Dates.
1300 (c.) Taddeo Gaddi born (d. 1366)
1302 (c.) Cimabue died (b. c. 1240)
1308 (c.) Andrea Orcagna born (d. 1368)
1310 Arnolfo di Cambio died (b. 1232 ?)
1333 Spinello Aretino born (d. 1410)
1336 Giotto died (b. 1276 ?)
1344 Simone Martini died (b. 1283)
1348 Andrea Pisano died (b. 1270)
1356 Lippo Memmi died
1366 Taddeo Gaddi died (b. c. 1300)
1368 Andrea Orcagna died
1370 (c.) Lorenzo Monaco born (d. 1425)
Gentile da Fabriano born
(d. 1450)
1371 Jacopo della Quercia born (d. 1438)
1377 Filippo Brunelleschi born (d. 1446)
1378 Lorenzo Ghiberti born (d. 1455)
1386 (?) Donatello born (d. 1466)
1387 Fra Angelico born (d. 1455)
1391 Michelozzo born (d. 1472)
1396 (?) Andrea del Castagno born (d. 1457)
1397 Paolo Uccello born (d. 1475)
1399 or 1400 Luca della Robbia born (d. 1482)
1401 or 1402 Masaccio born (d. 1428?)
1405 Leon Battista Alberti born (d. 1472)
1406 Lippo Lippi born (d. 1469)
1409 Bernardo Rossellino born (d. 1464)
1410 Spinello Aretino died
1415 Piero della Francesca born (d. 1492)
1420 Benozzo Gozzoli born (d. 1498)
1425 Il Monaco died
Alessio Baldovinetti born
(d. 1499)
1427 Antonio Rossellino born (d. 1478)
1428 (?) Masaccio died
1428 Desiderio da Settignano born (d. 1464)
1429 (?) Giovanni Bellini born (d. 1516)
Antonio Pollaiuolo born
(d. 1498)
1430 Cosimo Tura died
1431 Andrea Mantegna born (d. 1506)
1432 (?) Mina da Fiesole born (d. 1484)
1435 Andrea Verrocchio born (d. 1488)
Andrea della Robbia born
(d. 1525)
1438 Melozzo da Forli born (d. 1494)
1439 Cosimo Rosselli born (d. 1507)
1441 Luca Signorelli born (d. 1523)
1442 Benedetto da Maiano born (d. 1497)
1444 Sandro Botticelli born (d. 1510)
1446 Brunelleschi died
Perugino born (d. 1523 or 24)
Francesco Botticini born
(d. 1498)
1449 Domenico Ghirlandaio born (d. 1494)
1450 Gentile da Fabriano died
1452 Leonardi da Vinci born (d. 1519)
1455 Ghiberti died
Fra Angelico died
1456 Lorenzo di Credi born (d. 1537)
1457 Cronaca born (d. 1508 or 9)
Filippino Lippi born (d. 1504)
Andrea del Castagno died
1462 Piero di Cosimo born (d. 1521)
1463 or 4 Desiderio da Settignano died
1464 Bernardo Rossellino died
1466 Donatello died
1469 Giovanni della Robbia born (d. 1529)
Lippo Lippi died
1472 Michelozzo died
Alberti died
1474 Benedetto da Rovezzano born (d. 1556)
Rustici born (d. 1554)
Mariotto Albertinelli born
(d. 1515)
1475 Fra Bartolommeo born (d. 1517)
Michelangelo Buonarroti born
(d. 1564)
1477 Titian born (d. 1576)
Giorgione born (d. 1510)
1478 Antonio Rossellino died
1482 Francia Bigio born (d. 1523)
Guicciardini born (d. 1540)
1483 Raphael born (d. 1520)
Ridolfo Ghirlandaio born
(d. 1561)
1484 Mino da Fiesole died
1485 Sebastiano del Piombo born (d. 1547)
1486 Jacopo Sansovino born (d. 1570)
1486 or 7 Andrea del Sarto born (d. 1531)
1488 Verrocchio died
Baccio Bandinelli born
(d. 1560)
1492 Piero della Francesco died
1494 Jacopo da Pontormo born (d. 1556)
Correggio born (d. 1534)
Domenico Ghirlandaio died
Melozzo da Forli died
1497 Benedetto da Maiano died
Benozzo Gozzoli died
1498 Antonio Pollaiuolo died
Francesco Botticini died
1499 Alessio Baldovinetti died
1500 Benvenuto Cellini born (d. 1572)
1502 Angelo Bronzino born (d. 1572)
1504 Filippino Lippi died
1506 Mantegna died
1507 Cosimo Rosselli died
1508 Cronaca died
1510 Botticelli died
Giorgione died
1511 Vasari born (d. 1574)
1515 Albertinelli died
1516 Giovanni Bellini died
1517 Fra Bartolommeo died
1518 Tintoretto born (d. 1594)
1519 Leonardo da Vinci died
1520 Raphael died
1521 Piero di Cosimo died
1523 Signorelli died
Perugino died
1524 Giovanni da Bologna born (d. 1608)
1525 Andrea della Robbia died
Francia Bigio died
1528 Paolo Veronese born (d. 1588)
Federigo Baroccio born
(d. 1612)
1529 Giovanni della Robbia died
1531 Andrea del Sarto died
1534 Correggio died
1537 Credi died
1547 Sebastiano del Piombo died
1554 Rustici died
1556 Pontormo died
Benedetto da Rovezzano died
1560 Baccio Bandinelli died
1561 Ridolfo Ghirlandaio died
1564 Michael Angelo died
Some Important Florentine Dates
1296 Foundations of the Duomo consecrated
1298 Palazzo Vecchio commenced by Arnolfo
di Cambio
1300 Beginning of the feuds of the Bianchi
and Xeri
Guido Cavalcanti died
1302 Dante exiled, Jan. 27
1304 Petrarch born (d. 1374)
1308 Death of Corso Donati
1312 Siege of Florence by Henry VII
1313 Boccaccio born (d. 1375)
1321 Dante died Sept. 14 (b. 1265)
1333 Destructive floods
1334 Foundations of the Campanile laid
1337 Or San Michele begun
1339 Andrea Pisano's gates finished
1348 Black Death of the Decameron
Giovanni Villani died
(b. 1275 c.)
1360 Giovanni de' Medici (di Bicci) born
1365 (c) Ponte Vecchio rebuilt by Taddeo Gaddi
1374 Petrarch died
1375 Boccaccio died
1376 Loggia de' Lanzi commenced
1378 Salvestro de' Medici elected
Gonfaloniere
1389 Cosimo de' Medici (Pater Patrise) born
1390 War with Milan
1394 Sir John Hawkwood died
1399 Competition for Baptistery Gates
1416 Piero de' Medici (il Gottoso) born
1421 Purchase of Leghorn by Florence
Giovanni de' Medici elected
Gonfaloniere
Spedale degli Innocenti
commenced
1424 Ghiberti's first gate set up
1429 Giovanni de' Medici died
1432 Niccolo da Uzzano died
1433 Marsilio Ficino born
Cosimo de' Medici banished,
Oct. 3
1434 Cosimo returned to power, Sept. 29
Banishment of Albizzi and
Strozzi
1435 Francesco Sforza visited Florence
1436 Brunelleschi's dome completed
The Duomo consecrated
1439 Council of Florence
Gemisthos Plethon in Florence
1440 Cosimo occupied the Medici Palace
1449 Lorenzo de' Medici (the Magnificent
born)
1452 Ghiberti's second gates set up
Savonarola born
1454 Politian born
1463 Pico della Mirandola born
1464 Cosimo de' Medici died and was
succeeded by Piero
1466 Luca Pitti's Conspiracy
1469 Lorenzo's Tournament, Feb.
Lorenzo's Marriage to Clarice
Orsini, June
Death of Piero, Dec.
Niccolò Machiavelli born
1471 Piero de' Medici, son of Lorenzo, born
Visit of Galeazzo Sforza
to Florence
Cennini's Press established
in Florence
1474 Ariosto born
1475 Giuliano's Tournament
1478 Pazzi Conspiracy
Giuliano murdered
1479 Lorenzo's Mission to Naples
1492 Lorenzo the Magnificent died
Piero succeeded
1494 Charles VIII invaded Italy
Piero banished
Charles VIII in Florence. Sack of
Medici Palace
Florence governed by General Council
Savonarola in power
Politian died
Pico della Mirandola died
1497 Francesco Valori elected Gonfaloniere
Piero attempted to return to Florence
1498 Savonarola burnt
1499 Marsilio Ficino died
Amerigo Vespucci reached America
1503 Death of Piero di Medici
1512 Cardinal Giovanni and Giuliano, Duke of
Nemours, reinstated in Florence
Great Council abolished
1519 Cardinal Giulio de' Medici in power
Catherine de' Medici born
1524 Ippolito and Alessandro de' Medici in power
1526 Death of Giovanni delle Bande Nere
1527 Ippolito and Alessandro left Florence
1528 Machiavelli died
1529-30 Siege of Florence
1530 Capitulation of Florence
1531 Alessandro de' Medici declared Head of Republic
1537 Cosimo de' Medici made Ruler of Florence
Battle of Montemurlo
Lorenzino assassinated
in Venice
1539 Cosimo married Eleanor di Toledo and moved
to Palazzo Vecchio
1553 Cosimo occupied the Pitti Palace
1564 Galileo Galilei born
Popes.
Boniface VIII
1303 Benedict XI
1305 Clement V
1316 John XXII
1334 Benedict XII
1337 Boniface VIII
1342 Clement VI
1352 Innocent VI
1362 Urban V
1370 Gregory XI
1378 Urban VI
1389 Boniface IX
1404 Innocent VII
1406 Gregory XII
1409 Alex. V
1410 John XXIII
1417 Martin V
1431 Eugenius IV
1447 Nicolas V
1455 Calixtus III
1458 Pius II
1464 Paul II
1471 Sixtus IV
1484 Innocent VIII
1492 Alex. VI
1503 Pius III
Julius II
1513 Leo X
1522 Hadrian VI
1523 Clement VII
1534 Paul III
1550 Julius III
1555 Marcellus II
Paul IV
1559 Pius IV
French Kings.
Philip IV
1314 Louis X
1316 John I
Philip V
1322 Charles IV
1328 Philip VI
Philip
1350 John II
1364 Charles V
1380 Charles VI
1422 Charles VII
1461 Louis XI
1483 Charles VIII
1498 Louis XII
1515 Francis I
1547 Henry II
1559 Francis II
1560 Charles IX
English Kings.
Edward I
1307 Edward II
1327 Edward III
1377 Richard II
1422 Charles VII
1461 Edward IV
1483 Edward V
Richard III
1485 Henry VII
1509 Henry VIII
1547 Edward VI
1553 Mary
1558 Elizabeth
Milan.
1310 Matteo Visconti
1322 Galeazzo Visconti
1328
1329 Azzo Visconti
1339 Luchino and Giovanni Visconti
1349 Giovanni Visconti
1354 Matteó Bernabò Galeazzo
1378 Gian Galeazzo Visconti
1402 Gian Maria Visconti
1412 Filippo Maria Visconti
1447...1450 Francesco Sforza
1466 Galeazzo Sforza
1476 Gian Galeazzo Sforza (Ludovico Sforza Regent)
1495 Ludovico Sforza
1499 Ludovico exiled
Some Important General Dates
1298 Battle of Falkirk
1306 Coronation of Bruce
1314 Battle of Bannockburn
1324 (?) John Wyclif born
1337 Froissart born (d. 1410?)
1339 Beginning of the Hundred Years' War
1346 Battle of Crécy
1347 Rienzi made Tribune of Rome
Edward III took Calais
1348-9 Black Death in England
1348 S. Catherine of Siena born
1356 Battle of Poictiers
1362 First draft of Piers Plowman
1379 Thomas à Kempis born
1381 Wat Tyler's Rebellion
1400 Geoffrey Chaucer died
1414 Council of Constance
1428 Siege of Orléans
1431 Joan of Arc burnt
1435 (c.) Hans Meinling born
1450 John Gutenburg printed at Mainz
Jack Cade's Insurrection
1453 Fall of Constantinople
1455 Beginning of the Wars of the Roses
1467 Erasmus born (d. 1528)
1470 (c.) Mabuse born (d. 1555)
1471 Albert Dürer born (d. 1528)
Caxton's Press established in
Westminster
1476 Chevalier Bayard born
1482 Hugo van der Goes died
1483 Rabelais born (d. 1553)
Martin Luther born
Murder of the Princes in
the Tower
1491 Ignatius Loyola born
1492 America discovered by Christopher Columbus
1494 Lucas van Leyden born (d. 1533)
1505 John Knox born (d. 1582)
1509 Calvin born
1516 More's Utopia published
1519 First Voyage round the world
(Ferd. Magellan)
1519-21 Conquest of Mexico
1520 Field of the Cloth of Gold
1527 Brantôme born (d. 1614)
1528 Albert Dürer died
1531-2 Conquest of Peru
1533 Montaigne born (d. 1592)
1535 Henry VIII became Supreme Head of the Church
1537 Sack of Rome
1544 Torquato Tasso born
1553 Edmund Spenser born
1554 Execution of Lady Jane Grey
Sir Philip Sidney born
1555-6 Ridley, Latimer, Cranmer burnt
1558 Calais recaptured by the French
1564 Shakespeare born
NOTES
[1] One of Brunelleschi's devices to bring before the authorities
an idea of the dome he projected, was of standing an egg on end,
as Columbus is famed for doing, fully twenty years before Columbus
was born.
[2] It was Charles V who said of Giotto's Campanile that it ought to
be kept in a glass case.
[3] Hence its new name: Loggia de' Lanzi.
[4] In the Victoria and Albert Museum at South Kensington are casts
of the two Medici on the tombs and also the Madonna and Child. They
are in the great gallery of the casts, together with the great David,
two of the Julian tomb prisoners, the Bargello tondo and the Brutus.
[5] Cacus, the son of Vulcan and Medusa, was a famous robber who
breathed fire and smoke and laid waste Italy. He made the mistake,
however, of robbing Hercules of some cows, and for this Hercules
strangled him.
[6] "Thick as leaves in Vallombrosa" has come to be the form of
words as most people quote them. But Milton wrote ("Paradise Lost,"
Book I. 300-304):--
"He called
His legions, angel-forms, who lay entranced
Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks
In Vallombrosa where the Etrurian shades,
High over-arched, embower."
Wordsworth, by the way, when he visited Vallombrosa with Crabb Robinson
in 1837, wrote an inferior poem there, in a rather common metre,
in honour of Milton's association with it.
[7] 27 April, 1859, the day that the war with Austria was proclaimed.
[8] In "A Dictionary of Saintly Women".
[9] The position of easel pictures in the Florentine galleries often
changes.