1. On this day, of this month, the 20th of October, six hundred and
twenty-three years ago, the merchants and tradesmen of Florence met
before the church of Santa Croce; marched through the city to the palace
of their Podesta; deposed their Podesta; set over themselves, in his
place, a knight belonging to an inferior city; called him "Captain of
the People;" appointed under him a Signory of twelve Ancients chosen
from among themselves; hung a bell for him on the tower of the Lion,
that he might ring it at need, and gave him the flag of Florence to
bear, half white, and half red.
The first blow struck upon the bell in that tower of the Lion began
the tolling for the passing away of the feudal system, and began the
joy-peal, or carillon, for whatever deserves joy, in that of our modern
liberties, whether of action or of trade.
2. Within the space of our Oxford term from that day, namely, on the
13th of December in the same year, 1250, died, at Ferentino, in Apulia,
the second Frederick, Emperor of Germany; the second also of the two
great lights which in his lifetime, according to Dante's astronomy,
ruled the world,--whose light being quenched, "the land which was once
the residence of courtesy and valour, became the haunt of all men who
are ashamed to be near the good, or to speak to them."
"In sul paese chadice e po riga
solea valore e cortesia trovar si
prima che federigo Bavessi briga,
or puo sicuramente indi passarsi
per qualuuche lasciassi per vergogna
di ragionar co buoni, e appressarsi."
PURO., Cant. 16.
3. The "Paese che Adice e Po riga" is of course Lombardy; and might have
been enough distinguished by the name of its principal river. But Dante
has an especial reason for naming the Adige. It is always by the valley
of the Adige that the power of the German Caesars descends on Italy; and
that battlemented bridge, which doubtless many of you remember, thrown
over the Adige at Verona, was so built that the German riders might have
secure and constant access to the city. In which city they had their
first stronghold in Italy, aided therein by the great family of the
Montecchi, Montacutes, Mont-aigu-s, or Montagues; lords, so called, of
the mountain peaks; in feud with the family of the Cappelletti,--hatted,
or, more properly, scarlet-hatted, persons. And this accident of
nomenclature, assisted by your present familiar knowledge of the real
contests of the sharp mountains with the flat caps, or petasoi, of
cloud, (locally giving Mont Pilate its title, "Pileatus,") may in many
points curiously illustrate for you that contest of Frederick the Second
with Innocent the Fourth, which in the good of it and the evil alike,
represents to all time the war of the solid, rational, and earthly
authority of the King, and State, with the more or less spectral,
hooded, imaginative, and nubiform authority of the Pope, and Church.
4. It will be desirable also that you clearly learn the material
relations, governing spiritual ones,--as of the Alps to their clouds,
so of the plains to their rivers. And of these rivers, chiefly note the
relation to each other, first, of the Adige and Po; then of the Arno
and Tiber. For the Adige, representing among the rivers and fountains of
waters the channel of Imperial, as the Tiber of the Papal power, and the
strength of the Coronet being founded on the white peaks that look down
upon Hapsburg and Hohenzollern, as that of the Scarlet Cap in the marsh
of the Campagna, "quo tenuis in sicco aqua destituisset," the study of
the policies and arts of the cities founded in the two great valleys of
Lombardy and Tuscany, so far as they were affected by their bias to the
Emperor, or the Church, will arrange itself in your minds at once in
a symmetry as clear as it will be, in our future work, secure and
suggestive.
5. "Tenuis, in sicco." How literally the words apply, as to the native
streams, so to the early states or establishings of the great cities of
the world. And you will find that the policy of the Coronet, with its
tower-building; the policy of the Hood, with its dome-building; and
the policy of the bare brow, with its cot-building,--the three main
associations of human energy to which we owe the architecture of
our earth, (in contradistinction to the dens and caves of it,)--are
curiously and eternally governed by mental laws, corresponding to the
physical ones which are ordained for the rocks, the clouds, and the
streams.
The tower, which many of you so well remember the daily sight of, in
your youth, above the "winding shore" of Thames,--the tower upon
the hill of London; the dome which still rises above its foul and
terrestrial clouds; and the walls of this city itself, which has been
"alma," nourishing in gentleness, to the youth of England, because
defended from external hostility by the difficultly fordable streams of
its plain, may perhaps, in a few years more, be swept away as heaps of
useless stone; but the rocks, and clouds, and rivers of our country will
yet, one day, restore to it the glory of law, of religion, and of life.
6. I am about to ask you to read the hieroglyphs upon the architecture
of a dead nation, in character greatly resembling our own,--in laws
and in commerce greatly influencing our own;--in arts, still, from her
grave, tutress of the present world. I know that it will be expected of
me to explain the merits of her arts, without reference to the wisdom of
her laws; and to describe the results of both, without investigating the
feelings which regulated either. I cannot do this; but I will at once
end these necessarily vague, and perhaps premature, generalizations;
and only ask you to study some portions of the life and work of two men,
father and son, citizens of the city in which the energies of this great
people were at first concentrated; and to deduce from that study
the conclusions, or follow out the inquiries, which it may naturally
suggest.
7. It is the modern fashion to despise Vasari. He is indeed despicable,
whether as historian or critic,--not least in his admiration of Michael
Angelo; nevertheless, he records the traditions and opinions of his day;
and these you must accurately know, before you can wisely correct. I
will take leave, therefore, to begin to-day with a sentence from Vasari,
which many of you have often heard quoted, but of which, perhaps, few
have enough observed the value.
"Niccola Pisano finding himself under certain Greek sculptors who were
carving the figures and other intaglio ornaments of the cathedral of
Pisa, and of the temple of St. John, and there being, among many spoils
of marbles, brought by the Pisan fleet, [1] some ancient tombs, there
was one among the others most fair, on which was sculptured the hunting
of Meleager." [2]
[Footnote 1: "Armata." The proper word for a land army is "esercito."]
[Footnote 2: Vol. i., p. 60, of Mrs. Foster's English translation, to
which I shall always refer, in order that English students may compare
the context if they wish. But the pieces of English which I give are
my own direct translation, varying, it will be found, often, from Mrs.
Foster's, in minute, but not unimportant, particulars.]
Get the meaning and contents of this passage well into your minds. In
the gist of it, it is true, and very notable.
8. You are in mid thirteenth century; 1200-1300. The Greek nation has
been dead in heart upwards of a thousand years; its religion dead, for
six hundred. But through the wreck of its faith, and death in its heart,
the skill of its hands, and the cunning of its design, instinctively
linger. In the centuries of Christian power, the Christians are still
unable to build but under Greek masters, and by pillage of Greek
shrines; and their best workman is only an apprentice to the 'Graeculi
esurientes' who are carving the temple of St. John.
9. Think of it. Here has the New Testament been declared for 1200 years.
No spirit of wisdom, as yet, has been given to its workmen, except
that which has descended from the Mars Hill on which St. Paul stood
contemptuous in pity. No Bezaleel arises, to build new tabernacles,
unless he has been taught by Daedalus.
10. It is necessary, therefore, for you first to know precisely the
manner of these Greek masters in their decayed power; the manner
which Vasari calls, only a sentence before, "That old Greek manner,
blundering, disproportioned,"--Goffa, e sproporzionata.
"Goffa," the very word which Michael Angelo uses of Perugino. Behold,
the Christians despising the Dunce Greeks, as the Infidel modernists
despise the Dunce Christians. [1]
[Footnote 1: Compare "Ariadne Floreutina," § 46.]
11. I sketched for you, when I was last at Pisa, a few arches of the
apse of the duomo, and a small portion of the sculpture of the font of
the Temple of St. John. I have placed them in your rudimentary series,
as examples of "quella vecchia maniera Greca, goffa e sproporzionata."
My own judgment respecting them is,--and it is a judgment founded on
knowledge which you may, if you choose, share with me, after working
with me,--that no architecture on this grand scale, so delicately
skilful in execution, or so daintily disposed in proportion, exists
elsewhere in the world.