CHAPTER IX.
TheDuomo—Its interior—Michael Angelo’s farewell—Vasari—Congress of artists convoked—A dome of pumice stone—Brunelleschiturned out as a madman—The egg—His colleagueGhiberti—His feigned illness—The difficulties divided—Height of the dome—Giotto—TheCampanile—Pietro Farnese—His gilded mule—Dante—Condemned to be burned at the stake—Peter of Toledo—Conrad the traitor—The sacristy—ThePazzi—Julian murdered—Salviati hanged in his cardinal’s robes—Seventy executions—The artist nicknamed Andrea of the Hanged—The Baptistery—The withered elm restored—The story of Joseph—John the Twenty-third from pirate become pope—Palazzo Riccardi—Gardens of Lorenzo—Michael Angelo—TheStrada del Traditore—Lorenzino—The Duke Alessandro—Made unpopular through his vices—The plot—Anecdote told byBenvenuto Cellini—The rendezvous—The murder—Lorenzino assassinated in turn—The Galleria—ThePalazzo Pitti—Cosmo—His sons’ quarrel—The eldest killed by his brother—The father’s revenge—His wife poisoned—Duke Francesco andBianca Capello—Her story and death.
October 13th.
Went to theDuomoto hear the celebration of high mass, which was not performed at the principal altar, now under repair, but in one of the side chapels. The effect of the cathedral is grand from its immensity. Divided intothree aisles, the octagon choir, surrounded by its marble balustrade, is placed beneath the dome, with which it corresponds, and the spaces, octagon also, on either side, form the cross, each containing, as well as that behind the choir, five chapels. Though richly ornamented with paintings and stained glass, and the marble statues of prophet and apostle; though the unfinished figure of Pity, behind the high altar, is the work of Michael Angelo; the pavement round the choir laid after his designs; the frescoes of its cupola by Vasari; it yet disappointed me, seen after theDuomoof Milan. The construction of this church, namedSanta Maria del Fiorefrom the lily, the arms of Florence, occupied a space of one hundred and sixty-nine years; it had been commenced in 1298, and the year 1417 arrived before any of its successive architects had raised a stone of that cupola, to which Michael Angelo said, when, before quitting Florence to build that of St. Peter’s at Rome, he paid it a farewell visit: “Adieu, I am going to build your likeness, not your equal!”
In Vasari’s Life ofFilippo Brunelleschi, he gives interesting details of the struggles to persuade, and the success when permitted to act, of this extraordinary man. He was a Florentine, but residing in Rome, and appreciated there at the time of which I speak; andthe members of the “Opera del Duomo,” weary of their architect’s indecision, agreed to summon him; and the syndics of the woollen trade, who supplied the funds, offered to his consideration all the difficulties of execution which had been presented to themselves.Brunelleschianswered vaguely: he said, “That as the temple was dedicated to God and to the Virgin, there was little doubt of their conferring on him who was destined to conclude this great work the science and invention necessary;” and added, he doubted not if himself were concerned, that he might find resources and master obstacles. He advised that they should convoke at Florence a congress of the most skilful artists of Italy, France, and Germany, and confide the direction to the ablest when all should have given counsel. He forbore, however, to bestow his own, evaded making the models demanded of him, and returned to Rome, where he passed the next three years in the most arduous studies, all tending to the solving of this problem. In 1420 there met, as he had advised, a company of foreign and Tuscan artists at Florence, andBrunelleschileft Rome to join them. The meeting was held in the church, the members of the “Opera,” the syndics of the woollen trade, and the principal citizens being present; and it was amusing to hear the strangepropositions made. Some spoke of constructing the dome of pumice-stone, for the sake of its lightness; a number adopted the idea of supporting its centre by a pillar like the pole of a tent. Several advised the first raising within the church a mountain of earth, mingled with coins of small value, so that when the dome should be built over it, the multitude would gladly free the church of its presence on account of that of the money.Brunelleschialone condemned all plans proposed, asserting the necessity of a double roof; and following up his own idea, without explaining the manner of its execution, entering into minute details, and not comprehended by the assembly; till at last, after having been several times prayed to retire, and refusing to depart, the consul’s pages laid hands on him, and pushed him forth as a madman. Still undiscouraged, he resolved on persuading separately the consul, and some of the members and more enlightened citizens, and persevering till he succeeded, it was decided that the choice to be made should lie between himself and the foreign architects; and another meeting was convoked for the purpose of hearing their arguments for the last time.
It was then that took place the famous dispute, which had an egg for subject. The rivals ofBrunelleschidesired that he, as theyhad done, should exhibit plans and models. The Florentine refused, but he dared them to stand an egg upright on the marble table, saying, that he who should succeed in so doing could certainly raise the cupola also. Each attempted the feat vainly, andBrunelleschi, his turn come, quietly striking one end of the egg against the table, it stood erect on its cracked shell. Those present exclaimed, “We could all have done as much;” andBrunelleschianswered, “Very true, and you could raise the dome if you had my model!”
The syndics were henceforth decided, but the annoyance of the artist was not yet over. It was agreed that his work should proceed to a certain height, with a promise only of continuing if it so far satisfied. When this first condition was fulfilled,Lorenzo Ghiberti, who had attained celebrity by the bronze doors of the Baptistery, was named his colleague—having powerful protectors in Florence; andBrunelleschi, in vexation and fury, had almost abandoned an enterprise whose difficulties were thus to remain, while its glory would vanish. Determined on ridding himself of his coadjutor, he, after a time, pretended illness, and, instead of arriving to superintend as usual, remained in his bed, complaining of pains in his side—submitting to frictions and remedies. The master workmen applied fordirections toGhiberti, who answered that they must wait his colleague’s recovery, as he could issue no order singly, and evaded confessing that he neither knewBrunelleschi’splans, nor had seen his model.
The latter’s malady proving obstinate, the workmen repaired to his bedside, but obtained neither orders nor satisfaction; for he turned to the wall, saying, “Have you notGhiberti, and can he not work a little in turn?” As it was vain to urge him farther, they departed, as he desired, to seek his fellow architect, but as time went on, and a stop was decidedly put to the building, the workmen began, as he had hoped, to murmur, and to doubtGhiberti’scapacity, and at last resolved on going in a body toBrunelleschi’slodgings, to make known to him the cessation of the work, the disorder ensuing onGhiberti’signorance, and the unhappy consequences to them who were poor, and dependent on their exertions for the support of themselves and their families.
“Wherefore isGhibertiidle?” asked the mock patient; “have you not him to issue all needful directions?”
“He can do nought without you,” said the workmen.
“Ah,” rejoinedBrunelleschi, “without his co-operationIcould proceed very well.”
At last, weary of idleness, urged by hisfriends, who had whispered abroad the cause of his malady, and represented that he would more easily free himself ofGhibertiby recommencing his labours, and proving his colleague’s ignorance of architecture, he returned to his post of director, but seeing that his patron’s support retainedGhibertiin office, notwithstanding what had past, he resolved on forcing his retreat through his humiliation. “I might have died in my late illness,” he said, “and had I done so, you have stillGhiberti, whom heaven preserve to you; but as our salary is shared equally, may it please you that our labours be divided also, in order that each of us may prove his anxiety for the republic’s glory. There are now two difficulties to overcome—the construction of scaffoldings, solid and convenient, and adapted for the labours to be prosecuted within and without the dome, and the establishing the chain of masonry which is to bind together the eight sides of the cupola; let him choose one of these, leaving the other to me.”
Not daring to refuse,Ghibertidecided on the latter as most easy of performance, and relying on the cupola of St. John as a pattern, and the master masons for advisers. The scaffoldings ofBrunelleschi, entirely different from any used before, were so happily invented, and ably executed, that their models werepreserved in the cathedral stores.Ghibertihad established the stonework on one of the eight sides; but his colleague, visiting it in company of the members of theOpera del Duomo, on his return analyzed its construction,—pointed out its defects,—proved its want of solidity,—and said, in conclusion, thatGhiberti’sbuilding and salary should be alike put a stop to.
The latter was, however, not discontinued; butBrunelleschi, thenceforward, was sole director of the works. Observing that the higher they rose, the more time his masons lost, he imagined the constructing of small houses of refreshment on the dome itself, and thus prevented their long absences. The height of the dome, from the cathedral floor to the ball, is three hundred and twenty-seven feet, and the whole was terminated twenty years afterBrunelleschi’sdeath, and in conformity with his designs.
I saw with regret that some of the best statues, those of Florentine saints which ornament the lateral aisles, are incarta pesta; theSan Giovanni Gualberto,who holds a cross, and whose expression and execution are alike beautiful, is crumbling away.
On the right hand, entering the church, is the portrait in marble ofBrunelleschi, sculptured by his scholar; and near it that ofGiotto,the painter and sculptor, the architect of the Campanile, and the labourer’s son, whose genius was first guessed by the artist Cimabue, when crossing the fields on foot he found him, then a shepherd boy, occupied in tracing on a stone the figure of one of his lambs. He took him to Florence, where he became his pupil, soon leaving far behind both his master and all the artists who had, till then, enjoyed celebrity,—studying nature, which they had neglected, and grace, which they had misunderstood. He was celebrated in the verse of his contemporary and friend Dante, whose tomb he afterwards decorated when the poet died in exile. The Campanile was commenced in 1334, and thebas reliefsand the statues which ornament the interior of the edifice are in greater part the work ofGiotto’sown chisel, and the remainder executed after his designs.
Beyond his andBrunelleschi’sportrait, and the mausoleum of a Florentine bishop, there is placed, above a side portal of the edifice, a monument in honour ofPietro Farnese, captain of the Florentines, which has, at first sight, a ludicrous effect, the equestrian statue being highly gilded; but the animal, which the warrior bestrides, meek-faced and long-eared. Chosen by the Florentines for their general against the forces of Pisa, the 11th of May, 1363, he led an army against theirs; and hishorse killed under him, the sole charger found disposable was an ignoble mule, mounted on which he gained the victory, took prisoner the Pisan general, and the greater part of his army. The 19th of June following, seized by plague, which then desolated Tuscany, he died the same night, deeply regretted by the Florentines.
Near the transept, but on the left hand, is the portrait of Dante byOrcagna,with a sketch of his triple kingdom, and a view of Florence: it is curious as painted in 1430, at the suggestion of a Franciscan monk, who in the church gave lectures on the Divina Commedia. This strange old painting recalls an eventful story; his fame predicted at his birth, in 1265, by the astrologer Brunetto Latini; his love awakened at nine years of age for the Beatrice, who was his dream through life; his bravery as a soldier and ability as an ambassador, and his banishment,—for Charles ofAnjou,entering Florence, finding Dante of theBianchiparty, (which he had espoused, says his biographer, principally because the wife, whom he had married and parted from, belonged to that of the Neri,) he issued against him two sentences, which still exist,—the first condemning to spoliation and exile, the last to be burned at the stake with his friends and adherents; a wanderer over a world whoseadmiration could not compensate for absence from his country; in 1304, in company of his fellow exiles, striving and failing to force a way thither; everywhere received kindly, but wearying his hosts by the proud temper which misfortune soured, or by the very fact of being unfortunate,—for in the company of women he was gay and gentle, though bitterness of retort has been reproached to him by those who provoked it: misunderstood through life, his history is concluded in the verse of Byron:—
“Ungrateful Florence! Dante sleeps afar.”
Above a side door of this lateral aisle is the monument of Peter of Toledo, vice-king of Naples, and father of Eleonora of Toledo, the broken-hearted or the murdered wife of the first duke Cosmo; and nearer the principal entrance, still on the left hand as we face the altar, there is a marble mausoleum, distinguished by a cross, from whose extremities spring lilies, and placed between two eagles. It is believed to contain the ashes of Conrad, the traitor-son of that Emperor Henry the Fourth, who at Canossa was the penitent and victim of Pope Gregory the Seventh, and the Countess Matilda; urged to treason against his father by Urban the Second, Gregory’s successor, and after eight years of civil war,dying despised for the revolt which the court of Rome had instigated, and for the calumnies which he had promulgated against his father as excuse for his unnatural rebellion.
In the octagon space, to the left of the choir, is theSagrestia de’ Canonici,that which once shelteredLorenzo de’ Medicifrom the fury of his foemen, thePazzi. They had determined on crushing a power which the Pitti had attempted, but vainly, to extinguish in the person of his father Pietro.
Sixtusthe Fourth was personally his enemy, and with his assent was obtained the co-operation of the archbishop of Florence,Francesco Salviati. Two fêtes were given by the conspirators: the first atFiesole,the second at Florence,—to which the Medici were invited; but Julian each time failed to come. The day and place at last appointed were the 26th of April, 1478, in the cathedral; and the moment that of the elevation of the host, as the brothers never failed to attend high mass on Sundays, and it was difficult to be certain of their presence together, and off their guard, elsewhere. Thecondottiere Montesiccowas charged with the murder of Lorenzo; Bandini and Francesco Pazzi with that of young Julian, and no circumstance of the plot having transpired, its success seemed certain. When, however, the mercenary soldier had been informedof the time chosen, in horror excited by the sacrilege, not the murder, he refused the part assigned him, and yielded its performance to two priests less scrupulous.Francesco Salviatiwas to remain near the old palace, to take instant possession on receiving news of the brothers’ death. Giacopo Pazzi, drawn into the conspiracy against his will, was commissioned to call the citizens to arms, and proclaim their freedom. Mass had begun, and Lorenzo was present; but Julian had not appeared, and Francis Pazzi and Bandini went to seek him, and accompanied him to the cathedral, conversing with him gaily as they went along, and, arrived there, Francis Pazzi embraced the young man with seeming amity, but to assure himself that he wore beneath his peaceful attire no cuirass which would interrupt the passage of steel. The moment arrived, Bandini, who stood ready, plunged his dagger into young Julian’s breast, who staggered a few steps and fell; but Francis Pazzi, rushing upon him also, inflicted so deep a wound on his own thigh, as incapacitated him for further effort. The priests attacked Lorenzo, but Maffei only succeeded in slightly wounding him in the throat; and drawing his sword and defending himself gallantly, he fought retreating, till succour came, and the assassins fled, and took refuge with his friends in thesagrestia, where Bandini, who, having murdered Francis Neri, as well as Julian, advanced to try his firmer hand against Lorenzo’s life, could not reach him. Meanwhile the Archbishop Salviati, proceeding to take possession of the palace with his thirty followers, and Giacopo Pazzi, arriving on the public square with a hundred men-at-arms, found the Medici party too strong, were taken or fled. The former, in his cardinal’s robes, withFrancis Poggio,the historian’s son, was hanged from the windows of the palace; and Francis, who had dragged himself home, and striven to mount his horse, but, weak from pain and loss of blood, had sunk down on his bed, was brought thither, half clothed as he was, and suspended by the archbishop’s side. His doom inflicted with haste and carelessness, death did not immediately follow, and in his prolonged agonies he gnawed the breast of his neighbour.
Torn in pieces by the infuriated populace, or flung from the castle-battlement; or by the hand of the executioner, there perished seventy persons. Giacopo Pazzi, who had escaped, was taken in the mountains, brought back to Florence, and hanged also. Only the pope’s nephew, the Cardinal Riario, who, too young to be made privy to the plot, had been conducted to the city and the cathedral to lure the Medici more surely thither, was sparedto appease the pontiff, having first suffered insult and injury; but Paul the Fourth, nevertheless, placed Florence under interdict for the violent death of her archbishop, Salviati. Vasari mentions that the artist,Andrea del Castagnowas selected to fulfill the decree issued,—bearing, that all who had taken part in the conspiracy should be represented, with the ignominy they merited, on the façade of the old palace. Andrea, being under obligation to the Medici, executed this painting with so much energy and truth, representing all the personages hanged by the feet, but in varied and admirable attitudes, that his work awakened the curiosity of the town and the enthusiasm of connoisseurs, while it bestowed on him the nickname of “Andrew of the Hanged.”
From theDuomowe went to the Baptistery, entering by the northern door, which, as well as that facing the cathedral, is the work ofGhiberti, and opposite which is the little pillar of St. Zanobi, recalling a miracle his ashes performed when they were transported toSanta Maria del Fiore:—The bier touched by accident a withered elm, which then occupied the place since yielded to the column, and its dead branches were instantly covered with leaves!! Above these celebrated doors are bronze statues of remarkable workmanship.It was in the year 1293 that the edifice was encrusted with marble, at the expense of the shopkeepers of Florence, who were its patrons; and youngArnolfo di Lapo,entrusted with the restoration, also agreed to preserve and employ all ornaments and sacred fragments he should find at his disposal: and this may account for the irregularities within, for the mingling of Composite with Corinthian architecture, and the difference existing in the sixteen granite columns which, ranged within the circle, support the terrace carried round the temple. Between these pillars are the figures of the twelve apostles, and two statues representing Natural and Revealed Religion, the former very beautiful, in carta pesta. The mosaics of the dome were chiefly executed byGiotto’spupils, and are admired for their execution. I think I never saw anything more horrid than the Last Judgment, a representation of which fills a large circle in the part of the dome immediately above the high altar, and its fine group in white marble of St. John supported by angels, and ascending to heaven. The Saviour (so the artist has named an ignoble figure of gigantic size) is placed between the elect and the damned, which last a devil of extraordinary shape is employed in thrusting down his large throat whole, with an eagerness which threatens indigestion.
The story of Joseph occupies another compartment; the creation of the world and the deluge, and the life of John the Baptist, fill the remainder, making sad burlesque of serious things. The tomb, which, entering at the northern door, is on the right hand (its statue of gilded bronze representing the buried pontiff, and thebasso relievobearing the three Cardinal Virtues), is that of John the Twenty-third; his name was Balthazar Cossa, a Neapolitan of noble family, but scanty fortune, and in his youth a pirate. Abandoning the sea, and the trade it offered him, ambitious, clever, and bold, he became an ecclesiastic, found means to introduce himself to Boniface the Ninth, and, obtaining his favour, was by him made cardinal and his legate at Bologna.
His conduct was scandalous and tyrannical, and discontented the successor of Boniface; yet the imperious legate resisted, and with success, the papal power; and Alexander the Fifth, to whom, when opposed to Ladislas, king of Naples, he rendered great services, received him into favour and intimacy. Theci-devantcorsair was nevertheless suspected of poisoning his benefactor in his impatience to take his seat. He was crowned at Bologna, as John the Twenty-third, in 1410; but Ladislas first menaced Rome, next, in perfidy, recognisedJohn as pope; but when the latter, believing in his sincerity, had allowed his best troops to depart thence, made his entry during the night; and John, laying aside his sacred character, found barely time left him to mount his horse and escape towards Florence.
Though Ladislas was shortly after poisoned by his mistress, the tiara remained ill secured on the brow of the pope. A council-general was assembled at Constance; a list of important accusations presented against him; and finally, having fled in disguise from Constance, been delivered up by the duke of Austria, (forced to the act by the EmperorSigismund,) he found himself obliged to ratify the sentence which declared him to have caused scandal to the church, and deposed him from his dignity, forbidding the faithful to obey him.
Martin the Fifth being elected in his place, John sought him at Florence, and, on his knees, both implored pardon and fully ratified the act of abdication. Martin received him kindly, and created him dean of the Sacred College. The short time which intervened between this circumstance and his death, he spent in retirement and literary pursuits, for he wrote verses of some elegance, referring to his gone-by greatness and solitary close. He died in 1419, about six months after, and fromhis friend Cosmo de’ Medici received a splendid burial.
Continuing our walk, we passed before thePalazzo Riccardi,now the Public Library, built, in 1430, on the designs of Michelozzo, by Cosmo, father of his country, and sold to the Riccardi family by the Grand Duke Ferdinand the Second. Nearly opposite the Baptistery, on the northern side, in the time of Lorenzo the Magnificent, its gardens were filled with the fine antiques which have since formed the Florentine Gallery, and then drew within the sphere of the owner’s liberality the young sculptors of Florence. The most famous among these was Michael Angelo, whose noble name, for he was a descendant of the family of Canossa, is well nigh forgotten in that his genius ennobled more. Born in 1474, in the territory of Arezzo, his father, Buonarotti Simoni, opposed his taste for the arts, till he recognized that the natural bent of his son’s mind was too decided to be thwarted, and Michael Angelo, who, fearing his father’s severity, had worked assiduously, but in secret, was placed as a pupil with the Ghirlandai, the most celebrated painters of the time.
In the year 1489, Michael Angelo, then about fifteen, wandering over Florence with his friend Granacci, was by him introduced into the gardens of the Medici. To study therich antiques it contained, he abandoned the workshop of Ghirlandaio, and it was here that, at that early age, he executed, from a mutilated antique, the head of the Fawn, now admired in the galleria, supplying in his copy, which surpassed the original, the parts wanting, and adding details whose truth belonged to himself only.
It was this juvenile work which awakened Lorenzo’s wonder. He said jestingly to the boy, “You have made your fawn old, and yet his teeth are perfect; do you not know, that to old people some are always wanting?”
The duke had hardly departed, when he broke away a tooth with his chisel, and hollowed the gum so that it appeared to have dropped from age.
On Lorenzo’s return, noticing the alteration, and admiring the youth’s intelligence, he assigned him apartments in his palace, treated him as his own son, and continued to protect him till he died. During this time, four years, he had profited by the society of learned men and artists, who frequented the Medici palace, and by the instructions of Angelo Poliziano, then entrusted with the education of Lorenzo’s son, Pietro, who, profiting by them less than his young comrade, was the puerile successor of a great father.
Michael Angelo was eighteen years of agewhen his friend died. Feeling his loss deeply, he quitted the Medici palace, and returned to his own home, where he shut himself up, alone and inactive, during several days, and then, finding by chance a block of marble, which had long lain exposed to wind and rain, he produced from it a Hercules. During the severe winter which ensued, he yielded to the childish wish of Pietro, and lost his time by making statues of snow, not through the complaisance of a flatterer, but such feeling of love to the dead as excuses the failings of the living representative. He was again lodged in thePalazzo, now Riccardi; but the Medici family, in consequence of Pietro’s conduct, was driven from Florence, and the artist thought it wise for a time to depart also, and did not again inhabit the palace, which had been the home of his boyhood.
In the year 1715, Francisco Riccardi enlarged the palace considerably, without altering its architecture—enclosing within its walls theStrada del Traditore, so named fromLorenzino de’ Medici,the murderer of Duke Alessandro. On the site his house had occupied were constructed the stables. The close of Alessandro’s life forms one of the darkest portions of Florentine history.
An instrument in the hands of Charles the Fifth, the emperor; by him chosen to ruleFlorence, to prepare its possession by Austria; a bastard of the Medici, as being son of Lorenzo, duke of Urbino, and an African woman, whom it is said he poisoned that she might no longer witness to his base birth; he was one-and-twenty when, accompanied by the emperor’s delegate and the imperial decree, which named him chief of the state, he entered Florence.
Gay and clever, popular for a time with the people on account of these qualities, and losing their favour through a depravity of conduct which did not even respect the barrier of their convent walls, he excited the indignation of the republican party, as well by his vices as by his tyranny and system of espionage, which in their houses, as well as in the streets, made it dangerous for the citizens to hold communication by word or sign.
Louisa Strozzi, the young daughter of Filippo, chief of this powerful family, had not escaped insult from Alessandro’s companions: he himself, it was thought, had singled out, as another victim, this noble lady, who shortly after died poisoned. It was in the father’s palace that the discontented assembled nightly.
Lorenzo, named, from his slight figure and delicate features, Lorenzino, belonged to the legitimate branch of the Medici and the republican party of Florence. He was a poet,and had written works which ranked among the best of his time,—but still more a politician; and devoted to the study of antiquity, his admiration centered on those who had freed their country from a tyrant; and resolved to imitate them he confided his intentions to none, resting on the strength of his single arm.
To become more surely the intimate and friend of Alessandro, he plunged into all kinds of dissipation with more ardour than himself. The young student, with his pale features and melancholy habits, became the minister of the duke’s pleasures, and day and night his companion; till Alessandro, the most suspicious of princes, placed in the traitor who dogged his steps a confidence so boundless, that he replied to one who, noticing the strange change in his flatterer’s character, bade him beware: “If I were obliged to leave Florence, I would confide the care of mine interests to Lorenzino.”
Near the houses of the duke and his confidant, lived a fair lady, the wife of Leonardo Ginori, who as yet had evaded stratagems and resisted bribes. Alessandro confided his love to Lorenzino, and said that his last hope rested on him; and Lorenzino promised to serve him, and assured him of success.
Some time before,Benvenuto Cellini, whohimself tells the circumstance, had asked an audience of the duke, to show the coin on which, by his order, he had engraved his portrait, and ask leave to finish his work in Rome.
The reverse of the medal was yet undesigned, and the duke, unwilling his artist should depart, desired Lorenzino (present as usual) would advise him to stay. The young man obeyed; and Benvenuto, having argued for the necessity of his repairing to Rome, where his workshop was, suddenly turning to the favourite, added, “And you, my lord, who are both learned and witty, will you not supply a reverse for this coin?”
“I was at that moment,” said Lorenzino gravely, “thinking of such a one as might be worthy of his excellency.”
The duke said, smiling, “Give it him, Lorenzo, and he will remain.”
“I will,” replied the favourite, with a sarcastic expression of countenance; “as soon as to do so lies in my power, and I hope it will astonish the world.”
Alessandro laughed, and Benvenuto departed.
The 6th of January, 1537, Lorenzino informed the duke, that Caterina Ginori had promised to meet him that night, but not at the palace. She had chosen for greatersecresy the favourite’s house, to which a private passage, constructed by Alessandro’s command, led from the ducal residence. Masked, and holding his sword in his hand, but not having beneath his cloak the cuirass which he constantly wore by day to protect him from his suspected Florentines, the duke arrived at the place of rendezvous; and Lorenzino quitting him to seek the lady, he stretched himself on a couch to await his return—his weapon laid on his pillow, but the sword knot so twisted by Lorenzino’s hand, that to draw it forth was impossible. The assassin lingered some time: he had placed as watch on the duke a man in whom he could confide, named Scoroucoucolo; and he staid to prepare him for a murder without revealing who was to be the victim. Returning softly to the chamber, they saw that the duke slept, and Lorenzino, profiting by the opportunity, plunged his sword in his body. The duke sprang up notwithstanding, and, seizing a footstool for shield against his enemy, rushed towards the door, but Scoroucoucolo struck him with his knife on the cheek, and Alessandro, dropping the footstool, sprang furiously not on him, but on Lorenzino. “Traitor,” he shouted, and these were the sole words he spoke, “traitor, I did not expect this from thee.” Lorenzino, weak of body, inferior in strength to his antagonist, even thoughwounded, by a violent effort forced him back upon the couch, and held his hand on his mouth to stifle his cries, but he felt the impossibility of ending his fearful work alone; and while Alessandro in his struggles bit his thumb so violently as almost to sever it from his hand, he called to Scoroucoucolo for aid, and the bravo cut the duke’s throat, while Lorenzino exerted his last strength in holding him down; but, recognising him when the deed was done, he had well nigh fallen from fear. He followed Lorenzino, who fled first to Bologna, and then to Venice, to join Filippo Strozzi: forgetting his interest in the republic in his private fears; proving himself throughout a coward; and having wandered long, evading the snares laid for him, died at last the death he merited by the swords of two Florentine soldiers of Alessandro’s guard, assassins also.
To-day and every day we have visited the Galleria with its collection of statues and paintings, which would alone make a pilgrimage to Florence an enjoyment not to be forgotten; but though even the enthusiasm of guide-books could not here succeed in cooling mine, though we offered, like the rest, our quota of homage to the “Venus of the tribune,” acknowledging that no copy conveyed an idea of her perfection, and no praise could exaggerate it; though we have lingeredbefore the marks of the immortality of those who have long been dust, and brought away recollections which summon back as the loadstone iron, you will not expect a description of all which has been so often criticised before both ill and well, and in either case can convey no definite ideas on the subject. On the splendid collection of thePalazzo> Pittithe same reasons make me silent also, for one must write either a mere catalogue of names or a volume, and both would weary; though it contains the battles of Salvator Rosa and his conspiracy of Catiline, and Guido’s Cleopatra and theMadonna della Seggiolaof Raphael, and the Fates of Michael Angelo with their purity of outline and coldness of colouring, perhaps resembling the painter’s disposition and life, and the productions of Titian and Vandyck and Paul Veronese and others, not unworthy of being companions of these, forming a mass of precious things, among which there is not one counterfeit. I found the fine suites of rooms occupied by them, always full of students, to whom the grand duke’s liberal feelings afford every facility for improvement in their art. Yesterday afternoon we passed in the Boboli gardens, which fine old trees and irregularity of ground render, if less majestic, far more beautiful than those of Versailles, which took them for model. Itwas in the year 1418, that Luca Pitti purchased for about £230 sterling of that time, the ground on which the palace was constructed; destined, at the ruin of that rich and proud family, to be sold to the Medici, but to retain its original name, rather in token of the downfall of the first possessors than of the modesty of the last. Its purchaser wasCosmo de’ Medici,son of John of the black bands, elected duke after the murder of Alexander, and husband of the unfortunate Eleonora of Toledo, who died of grief for the loss of her slaughtered sons, or, as some records assert, by the duke’s hand also. Cosmo united in his person qualities the most opposite, patient as a botanist in the Boboli gardens which himself had planted; a laborious chemist, methodical even to minutiæ in the sciences which were his amusement; calm as persevering, yet a man of terrible and uncontrolled passions, who assassinated a nobleman in his own halls and with his own hand, and, in the four first years of his reign, condemned to death by default four hundred and thirty emigrants, placing a price on the heads of five and thirty. In 1562, during the hunting season, he had gone to enjoy this amusement, which, notwithstanding his severe and sombre disposition, he preferred, to the castle of Rosignano in the Maremma, an unhealthy part of the state ofSienna. While there, the two youths, one aged nineteen, the other but fifteen years, died suddenly, and their mother a day or two after. An attempt was made to persuade the Florentines that the pestilential air of the country, marshy and unwholesome, had produced the short and fatal illness which carried off three persons in so brief a time, but it became known that, on their return from a hunting party, a dispute had arisen between the brothers, at the close of which the eldest, Cardinal John, had received a mortal blow from the boy Don Garcia. The enraged duke sprang upon his second son and laid him dead at his feet; their mother was a spectator of this scene; she might well have died of sorrow as was averred, but many whispered that a witness of his conduct so nearly interested, was not to be borne by Duke Cosmo.
On the death of Eleonora of Toledo, Cosmo had attached himself to a fair young lady of the house of Albizzi, named Eleonora also, and with a love so excessive, that it was feared he might marry. A person of his household thought it well to communicate these fears to his son, and Francesco had the temerity to speak on the subject to his father. The old duke’s violent temper roused, his heir had almost fallen its sacrifice; the presence of the informer only saved him, for Cosmo, like awild animal baffled in his first spring, rushed on this easier prey and plunged his sword into his bosom. It was Cosmo, who having been crowned grand duke in St. Peter’s at Rome, returned to hisPalazzo Pitti,to marry there the poor and beautiful Camilla Martelli, who replaced in his affections the second Eleonora, and Francis, in whose favour he had abdicated, dared make no further observation, since he himself, though husband of the austere and pious arch-duchess Jane, was the lover ofBianca Capello. Well known as is the latter’s romantic story, its place is here recalled by the walls in which she was the light love and the regal mistress; and the palace court where was held the joust in her honour, in which Duke Francis broke a lance.
Two years before his marriage with Jane of Austria, a fugitive pair arrived in Florence; Bianca, daughter of the noble house ofCapello, and Pietro Bonaventuri, clerk in the bank of Salviati at Venice. Proximity of residence caused their meeting frequently, and they loved “not wisely, but too well,” both too young to feel difference of fortunes an obstacle. Their affection was favoured by a menial of Bianca’s, who procured a false key for a private entrance of the palazzo: and while its inmates slept, the young girl nightly left the protection of her father’s roofto visit her lover, and returned before dawn. There occurred at last some mistake on the part of the attendant: the door had been barred or the key left within, or an uninterested passenger passing along had shut it in precaution, and Bianca, who could not enter unobserved, or remain to confess her fault, since she knew what vengeance must follow, tottered back to Bonaventuri’s presence, and they fled together.
Apprised of their flight and of their marriage, her infuriated father obtained from the Council of Ten its sentence, condemning Bonaventuri; and casting his uncle Baptista, innocent of any fault, into an unwholesome prison, where the old man was seized with fever and died. At Florence, Bianca implored the duke’s protection. Made curious by the fame of her beauty, he sought an interview; she first refused, then consented to one,—to several,—then looked for his coming,—then changed by degrees. Her husband was named to a place in the household, which he accepted; and when the marriage of Francis was concluded, for till then the intrigue was kept secret through policy, the most pleasant apartment of his palace was assigned to Bianca, and in their gratified ambition and flattered vanity, the husband and the wife were content to forget their early love withits fondness and its sacrifices. The arch-duchess was amiable but grave and proud, and while her beauty was unnoticed by Francis, of whose life hers was a continued criticism, passed as it was in exercises of piety, Bianca’s favour increased daily. Her wit and gaiety became more necessary to unbend the sombre temper and warm the sterile imagination of Francis, and as a relaxation from his fatigues and calculations, as banker, trader, diamond merchant and sovereign. On the first coming of Bonaventuri, when the Venetian senate had offered two thousand ducats for his life, and the family ofCapellodispatched assassins on his track, Francis protected him for love of Bianca; but he had grown insolent in his dishonour, and become the admirer of a young widow of high rank, he boasted of it so openly, that her relations in turn complained to the duke both of his conduct and its publicity. Francis desired Bianca to send for and remonstrate with him; and anxious to hear their private conversation, placed himself where, unseen, he might witness the interview. It fell not out as he expected: for when the two were once more in presence, each betraying and betrayed, and Bianca faltered forth her message, Pietro, whose love was not wholly extinguished, yielding to a sudden burst of jealousy, loaded herwith invective, threatened her with death; and while Francis, hid and observing silently, decided that the life of the violent man he had supplanted henceforth might endanger his own, Bianca softened, in sorrow not in anger, wept her reply to his words of contempt and passion; and when he had flung from her, sought the duke to plead her husband’s cause.
As Bonaventuri left thePalazzo Pitti,he met one of those relations of the fair widow whose remonstrances had caused his late interview with Bianca. He held a pistol to his throat, and said, “I know not wherefore I do not kill thee,” cast him from his path, and passed on. The insulted nobleman asked an audience of the duke that very day. They took several turns in the presence-chamber together, in view but not in hearing of the court, as they conversed in a very low tone. That evening Francis left Florence for his villa, and remained absent but two days. On their return, Bianca was told that, waylaid by ten persons of the widow’s family, Bonaventuri had been murdered. If she gave a few tears to his memory, it was the only tribute offered it: for no search was made for the assassins, and no punishment awarded. This was in 1572, and in —74 Cosmo died; and the first act of Francis, having taken the title of Grand Duke, was to enclose in a cloister, where sheended her days, his father’s widow, Camilla Martelli. The new grand duke, of inexorable temper, though needing himself indulgence, by the rigour of his laws and the scandal of his life, by trading on his own account, ruining the state while he tripled his private revenues, drew on him his subjects’ hatred. His archduchess, Jane, died 1578, her pride and affection alike trampled on, the last stroke she received being the reception, like a triumph, which greeted Bianca’s brother. Weary of hearing her praises, he quitted Florence and Bianca for a time. Even before the murder of the latter’s husband, he had made her a promise of marriage, and, fearing the power of absence, she wrote eloquent letters, in some reminding him of his word passed to her, in others apparently resigned, but saying, that to reconcile herself to his loss she was determined to die. The softened duke returned and repeated his promise. A priest, employed by the Venetian, commanded him to marry her on pain of the church’s anger; and on the 5th of June, “not two months” after the death of the archduchess Jane, so that “the funeral baked meats might have furnished forth the marriage table,” he espoused Bianca, their nuptials being solemnized in thepalazzo,but so secretly as to remain unknown even to the grand duke’s family. The Cardinal Ferdinand,his attached brother, who, having saved him from a conspiracy got up against him some time before, in grief at his conduct had quitted Florence, now returned, hoping it had changed. The grand duke was indisposed, and tending him at his bedside sate Bianca. The former was constrained to confess their marriage,—a piece of news which the cardinal received in silence, and soon quitted the apartment. As he departed, which he did immediately, he was observed to brush away a tear. The term of mourning for the archduchess passed, and the approbation of Philip the Second obtained, the duke made public his ties with Bianca, and celebrated them with tournament and festival at thePalazzo Pitti.The Venetian senate proclaimed her “Daughter of the Republic;” the cannon thundered, and the bells of St. Mark rang; the palaces were illuminated; and the father and brother of the dame, who, more pure but less fortunate, had quitted their city beneath their ban as the fugitive love of the low-born Bonaventuri, were created knights, and styled “most illustrious,” and took precedence of the nobles of Venice, whose names were more ancient as well as brighter. Bianca was crowned Grand Duchess in the cathedral of Florence,—embassies from her native town, and from others of Italy, arriving to do her honour. The CardinalFerdinand was a solitary contrast to the vile flatterers who crowded thither. He remained at Rome; but his sister-in-law had resolved that their family differences should at least be no longer apparent to the world.
Since the rupture of their friendship, Francis, with little delicacy, had refused to pay the revenues due to his brother, who, being generous and prodigal, was necessarily in extreme embarrassment. Of this Bianca was aware, and using all her influence with Francis, she determined him to pay not only the sums due yearly to Ferdinand, but likewise the accumulated arrears.
Her seeming generosity won over the cardinal, and he returned to Florence; where, as he was a man of honour and probity, the reconciliation was on his part sincere. The duke, whose love had suffered no change, earnestly desired a son by Bianca, who expressed hopes of maternity, but so as to awaken the suspicion of Ferdinand, who, as heir presumptive, kept close watch on his sister-in-law’s conduct. It is told of him, that the hour being arrived, and he waiting in her ante-chamber, there entered from without an attendant, bearing a lute with apparent care, who passed towards the grand duchess’s apartment. The cardinal seized her arm, took from her hands the case, and opening it, found within a new-borninfant. Thenceforward sworn, though secret foes, they yet met as before, and Ferdinand was invited to accompany his brother and the duchess toPoggio,their villa atCaiano.There was served at the repast which awaited them, a favourite dish of the cardinal, but of which Bianca pressed him to taste so earnestly and strangely, that he pleaded indisposition, and ate nothing. The grand duke, on the contrary, ignorant of the plot, and tempted by the meat so praised, insisted on eating of it, notwithstanding her entreaties. In despair she did likewise, and both died of the poison. The cardinal, for whom it had been prepared, returned unharmed to preside at their funerals; the bodies were carried for interment to San Lorenzo, but with his command that Bianca’s corpse should be so disposed of, that no trace might remain; while, in the meantime, by his order also, the insignia of power, worn by her, were trodden under foot, and annihilated.