31.I, that have haunted the dim San Spirito,(Or was it rather the Ognissanti?)Patient on altar-step planting a weary toe!Nay, I shall have it yet! Detur amanti!My Koh-i-noor—or (if that’s a platitude)Jewel of Giamschid, the Persian Sofi’s eye;So, in anticipative gratitude,What if I take up my hope and prophesy?
— St. 31. San Spirito: a church of the 14th century, in Florence. Ognissanti: i.e., “All Saints”, in Florence.
I shall have it yet!: I shall make a happy find yet. Detur amanti!: let it be given to the loving one.
Koh-i-noor: “Mountain of Light”, a celebrated diamond, “the diamond of the great Mogul”, presented to Queen Victoria, in 1850. See Art. on the Diamond, ‘N. Brit. Rev.’ Vol. 18, p. 186, and Art., Diamond, ‘Encycl. Brit.’; used here, by metonymy, for a great treasure.
Jewel of Giamschid: the ‘Deria-i-noor’, or ‘the Sea of Light’, one of the largest of known diamonds, belonging to the king of Persia, is probably referred to. See ‘N. Brit. Rev.’, Vol. 18, p. 217.
32.When the hour grows ripe, and a certain dotardIs pitched, no parcel that needs invoicing,To the worse side of the Mont St. Gothard,We shall begin by way of rejoicing;None of that shooting the sky (blank cartridge),Nor a civic guard, all plumes and lacquer,Hunting Radetzky’s soul like a partridgeOver Morello with squib and cracker.
— St. 32. a certain dotard: Joseph Wenzel Radetzky, b. Nov. 2, 1766, d. Jan. 5, 1858, in his 92d year; governed the Austrian possessions in Italy to Feb. 28, 1857.
Morello: Monte Morello, the highest of the spurs of the Apennines, to the north of Florence.
33.This time we’ll shoot better game and bag ‘em hot:No mere display at the stone of Dante,But a kind of sober Witanagemot(Ex: “Casa Guidi”, ‘quod videas ante’)Shall ponder, once Freedom restored to Florence,How Art may return that departed with her.Go, hated house, go each trace of the Loraine’s,And bring us the days of Orgagna hither!
— St. 33. the stone of Dante: see ‘Casa Guidi Windows’, Pt. I, Sect. XIV., XV.
Witanagemot: A. S. ‘witena gemo^t’: an assembly of wise men, a parliament.
Casa Guidi: Mrs. Browning’s ‘Casa Guidi Windows’, a poem named from the house in Florence in which she lived, and giving her impressions of events in Tuscany at the time.
the Loraine’s: the “hated house” included the Cardinals of Guise, or Lorraine, and the Dukes of Guise, a younger branch of the house of Lorraine.
Orgagna: Andrea di Cione (surnamed Orcagna, or Arcagnolo, approximate dates of b. and d. 1315-1376), one of the most noted successors of Giotto, and allied to him in genius; though he owed much to Giotto, he showed great independence of spirit in his style.
34.How we shall prologuize, how we shall perorate,Utter fit things upon art and history,Feel truth at blood-heat and falsehood at zero rate,Make of the want of the age no mystery;Contrast the fructuous and sterile eras,Show—monarchy ever its uncouth cub licksOut of the bear’s shape into Chimaera’s,While Pure Art’s birth is still the republic’s!
35.Then one shall propose in a speech (curt Tuscan,Expurgate and sober, with scarcely an “issimo”),To end now our half-told tale of Cambuscan,And turn the bell-tower’s ALT to ALTISSIMO;And, fine as the beak of a young beccaccia,The Campanile, the Duomo’s fit ally,Shall soar up in gold full fifty braccia,Completing Florence, as Florence, Italy.
— St. 35. an “issimo”: any adjective in the superlative degree. to end: complete.
our half-told tale of Cambuscan: by metonymy for the unfinished Campanile of Giotto;
“Or call up him that left half-toldThe story of Cambuscan bold.”—Milton’s ‘Il Penseroso’.
An allusion to Chaucer, who left the ‘Squire’s Tale’ in the ‘Canterbury Tales’ unfinished. The poet follows Milton’s accentuation of the word “Cambuscan”, on the penult; it’s properly accented on the ultimate.
beccaccia: woodcock.
the Duomo’s fit ally: “There is, as far as I know, only one Gothic building in Europe, the Duomo of Florence, in which the ornament is so exquisitely finished as to enable us to imagine what might have been the effect of the perfect workmanship of the Renaissance, coming out of the hands of men like Verocchio and Ghiberti, had it been employed on the magnificent framework of Gothic structure.”—Ruskin in ‘Stones of Venice’.
36.Shall I be alive that morning the scaffoldIs broken away, and the long-pent fire,Like the golden hope of the world, unbaffledSprings from its sleep, and up goes the spire,While, “God and the People” plain for its motto,Thence the new tricolor flaps at the sky?At least to foresee that glory of GiottoAnd Florence together, the first am I!
— St. 36. and up goes the spire: Giotto’s plan included a spire of 100 feet, but the project was abandoned by Taddeo Gaddi, who carried on the work after the death of Giotto in 1336.
“The mountains from withoutIn silence listen for the word said next.What word will men say,—here where Giotto plantedHis Campanile like an unperplexedFine question heaven-ward, touching the things grantedA noble people, who, being greatly vexedIn act, in aspiration keep undaunted?”—Mrs. Browning’s ‘Casa Guidi Windows’,Pt. I., vv. 66-72.
I could have painted pictures like that youth’sYe praise so. How my soul springs up! No barStayed me—ah, thought which saddens while it soothes!—Never did fate forbid me, star by star,To outburst on your night, with all my giftOf fires from God: nor would my flesh have shrunkFrom seconding my soul, with eyes upliftAnd wide to heaven, or, straight like thunder, sunkTo the centre, of an instant; or aroundTurned calmly and inquisitive, to scan {10}The license and the limit, space and bound,Allowed to truth made visible in man.And, like that youth ye praise so, all I saw,Over the canvas could my hand have flung,Each face obedient to its passion’s law,Each passion clear proclaimed without a tongue:Whether Hope rose at once in all the blood,A-tiptoe for the blessing of embrace,Or Rapture drooped the eyes, as when her broodPull down the nesting dove’s heart to its place; {20}Or Confidence lit swift the forehead up,And locked the mouth fast, like a castle braved,—O human faces! hath it spilt, my cup?What did ye give me that I have not saved?Nor will I say I have not dreamed (how well!)Of going—I, in each new picture,—forth,As, making new hearts beat and bosoms swell,To Pope or Kaiser, East, West, South, or North,Bound for the calmly satisfied great State,Or glad aspiring little burgh, it went, {30}Flowers cast upon the car which bore the freight,Through old streets named afresh from the event,Till it reached home, where learned age should greetMy face, and youth, the star not yet distinctAbove his hair, lie learning at my feet!—Oh, thus to live, I and my picture, linkedWith love about, and praise, till life should end,And then not go to heaven, but linger here,Here on my earth, earth’s every man my friend,The thought grew frightful, ‘twas so wildly dear! {40}But a voice changed it. Glimpses of such sightsHave scared me, like the revels through a doorOf some strange house of idols at its rites!This world seemed not the world it was, before:Mixed with my loving trusting ones, there trooped. . . Who summoned those cold faces that begunTo press on me and judge me? Though I stoopedShrinking, as from the soldiery a nun,They drew me forth, and spite of me. . .enough!These buy and sell our pictures, take and give, {50}Count them for garniture and household-stuff,And where they live needs must our pictures liveAnd see their faces, listen to their prate,Partakers of their daily pettiness,Discussed of,—“This I love, or this I hate,This likes me more, and this affects me less!”Wherefore I chose my portion. If at whilesMy heart sinks, as monotonous I paintThese endless cloisters and eternal aislesWith the same series, Virgin, Babe, and Saint, {60}With the same cold calm beautiful regard,—At least no merchant traffics in my heart;The sanctuary’s gloom at least shall wardVain tongues from where my pictures stand apart:Only prayer breaks the silence of the shrineWhile, blackening in the daily candle-smoke,They moulder on the damp wall’s travertine,‘Mid echoes the light footstep never woke.So, die my pictures! surely, gently die!O youth, men praise so,—holds their praise its worth? {70}Blown harshly, keeps the trump its golden cry?Tastes sweet the water with such specks of earth?
— 3. ah, thought which saddens while it soothes: the thought saddens him that he has not realized his capabilities, and soothes him that he has resisted the temptations to earthly fame, and been true to his soul.
14-22. he could have expressed Hope, Rapture, Confidence, and all other passions, in the human face, each clear proclaimed without a tongue.
23. hath it spilt, my cup?: the cup of his memory.
24. What did ye give me that I have not saved?: he has retained all the impressions he has received from human faces.
25 et seq.: Nor will I say I have not dreamed (how well I have dreamed!) of going forth in each new picture, as it went to Pope or Kaiser, etc., making new hearts beat and bosoms swell.
34. the star not yet distinct above his hair: his fame not having yet shone brightly out; “his” refers to “youth”.
35. lie learning: and should lie.
41. But a voice changed it: the voice of his secret soul.
67. travertine: coating of lime; properly a limestone. Lat., ‘lapis Tiburtinus’, found near Tibur, now Tivoli.
But do not let us quarrel any more,No, my Lucrezia! bear with me for once:Sit down and all shall happen as you wish.You turn your face, but does it bring your heart?I’ll work then for your friend’s friend, never fear,Treat his own subject after his own way,Fix his own time, accept too his own price,And shut the money into this small handWhen next it takes mine. Will it? tenderly?Oh, I’ll content him,—but to-morrow, Love! {10}I often am much wearier than you think,This evening more than usual: and it seemsAs if—forgive now—should you let me sitHere by the window, with your hand in mine,And look a half hour forth on Fiesole,Both of one mind, as married people use,Quietly, quietly the evening through,I might get up to-morrow to my workCheerful and fresh as ever. Let us try.To-morrow, how you shall be glad for this! {20}Your soft hand is a woman of itself,And mine, the man’s bared breast she curls inside.Don’t count the time lost, neither; you must serveFor each of the five pictures we require:It saves a model. So! keep looking so—My serpentining beauty, rounds on rounds!—How could you ever prick those perfect ears,Even to put the pearl there! oh, so sweet—My face, my moon, my everybody’s moon,Which everybody looks on and calls his, {30}And, I suppose, is looked on by in turn,While she looks—no one’s: very dear, no less.You smile? why, there’s my picture ready made,That’s what we painters call our harmony!A common grayness silvers every thing,—All in a twilight, you and I alike—You, at the point of your first pride in me(That’s gone, you know)—but I, at every point;My youth, my hope, my art, being all toned downTo yonder sober pleasant Fiesole. {40}There’s the bell clinking from the chapel-top;That length of convent-wall across the wayHolds the trees safer, huddled more inside;The last monk leaves the garden; days decrease,And autumn grows, autumn in every thing.Eh? the whole seems to fall into a shape,As if I saw alike my work and selfAnd all that I was born to be and do,A twilight-piece. Love, we are in God’s hand.How strange now, looks the life he makes us lead; {50}So free we seem, so fettered fast we are!I feel he laid the fetter: let it lie!This chamber, for example—turn your head—All that’s behind us! You don’t understandNor care to understand about my art,But you can hear at least when people speak:And that cartoon, the second from the door—It is the thing, Love! so such things should be:Behold Madonna!—I am bold to say.I can do with my pencil what I know, {60}What I see, what at bottom of my heartI wish for, if I ever wish so deep—Do easily, too—when I say, perfectly,I do not boast, perhaps: yourself are judge,Who listened to the Legate’s talk last week;And just as much they used to say in France.At any rate ‘tis easy, all of it!No sketches first, no studies, that’s long past:I do what many dream of, all their lives,—Dream? strive to do, and agonize to do, {70}And fail in doing. I could count twenty suchOn twice your fingers, and not leave this town,Who strive—you don’t know how the others striveTo paint a little thing like that you smearedCarelessly passing with your robes afloat,—Yet do much less, so much less, Someone says,(I know his name, no matter)—so much less!Well, less is more, Lucrezia: I am judged.There burns a truer light of God in them,In their vexed beating stuffed and stopped-up brain, {80}Heart, or whate’er else, than goes on to promptThis low-pulsed forthright craftsman’s hand of mine.Their works drop groundward, but themselves, I know,Reach many a time a heaven that’s shut to me,Enter and take their place there sure enough,Though they come back and cannot tell the world.My works are nearer heaven, but I sit here.The sudden blood of these men! at a word—Praise them, it boils, or blame them, it boils too.I, painting from myself and to myself, {90}Know what I do, am unmoved by men’s blameOr their praise either. Somebody remarksMorello’s outline there is wrongly traced,His hue mistaken; what of that? or else,Rightly traced and well ordered; what of that?Speak as they please, what does the mountain care?Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp,Or what’s a heaven for? All is silver-gray,Placid and perfect with my art: the worse!I know both what I want and what might gain; {100}And yet how profitless to know, to sigh“Had I been two, another and myself,Our head would have o’erlooked the world!” No doubt.Yonder’s a work now, of that famous youthThe Urbinate who died five years ago.(‘Tis copied, George Vasari sent it me.)Well, I can fancy how he did it all,Pouring his soul, with kings and popes to see,Reaching, that heaven might so replenish him,Above and through his art—for it gives way; {110}That arm is wrongly put—and there again—A fault to pardon in the drawing’s lines,Its body, so to speak: its soul is right,He means right—that, a child may understand.Still, what an arm! and I could alter it:But all the play, the insight and the stretch—Out of me, out of me! And wherefore out?Had you enjoined them on me, given me soul,We might have risen to Rafael, I and you.Nay, Love, you did give all I asked, I think— {120}More than I merit, yes, by many times.But had you—oh, with the same perfect brow,And perfect eyes, and more than perfect mouth,And the low voice my soul hears, as a birdThe fowler’s pipe, and follows to the snare—Had you, with these the same, but brought a mind!Some women do so. Had the mouth there urged“God and the glory! never care for gain.The present by the future, what is that?Live for fame, side by side with Agnolo! {130}Rafael is waiting: up to God, all three!”I might have done it for you. So it seems:Perhaps not. All is as God over-rules.Beside, incentives come from the soul’s self;The rest avail not. Why do I need you?What wife had Rafael, or has Agnolo?In this world, who can do a thing, will not;And who would do it, cannot, I perceive:Yet the will’s somewhat—somewhat, too, the power—And thus we half-men struggle. At the end, {140}God, I conclude, compensates, punishes.‘Tis safer for me, if the award be strict,That I am something underrated here,Poor this long while, despised, to speak the truth.I dared not, do you know, leave home all day,For fear of chancing on the Paris lords.The best is when they pass and look aside;But they speak sometimes; I must bear it all.Well may they speak! That Francis, that first time,And that long festal year at Fontainebleau! {150}I surely then could sometimes leave the ground,Put on the glory, Rafael’s daily wear,In that humane great monarch’s golden look,—One finger in his beard or twisted curlOver his mouth’s good mark that made the smile,One arm about my shoulder, round my neck,The jingle of his gold chain in my ear,I painting proudly with his breath on me,All his court round him, seeing with his eyes,Such frank French eyes, and such a fire of souls {160}Profuse, my hand kept plying by those hearts,—And, best of all, this, this, this face beyond,This in the background, waiting on my work,To crown the issue with a last reward!A good time, was it not, my kingly days?And had you not grown restless. . .but I know—‘Tis done and past; ‘twas right, my instinct said;Too live the life grew, golden and not gray:And I’m the weak-eyed bat no sun should temptOut of the grange whose four walls make his world. {170}How could it end in any other way?You called me, and I came home to your heart.The triumph was, to have ended there; then, ifI reached it ere the triumph, what is lost?Let my hands frame your face in your hair’s gold,You beautiful Lucrezia that are mine!“Rafael did this, Andrea painted that;The Roman’s is the better when you pray,But still the other’s Virgin was his wife”—Men will excuse me. I am glad to judge {180}Both pictures in your presence; clearer growsMy better fortune, I resolve to think.For, do you know, Lucrezia, as God lives,Said one day Agnolo, his very self,To Rafael. . .I have known it all these years. . .(When the young man was flaming out his thoughtsUpon a palace-wall for Rome to see,Too lifted up in heart because of it)“Friend, there’s a certain sorry little scrubGoes up and down our Florence, none cares how, {190}Who, were he set to plan and executeAs you are, pricked on by your popes and kings,Would bring the sweat into that brow of yours!”To Rafael’s!—And indeed the arm is wrong.I hardly dare. . .yet, only you to see,Give the chalk here—quick, thus the line should go!Ay, but the soul! he’s Rafael! rub it out!Still, all I care for, if he spoke the truth,(What he? why, who but Michel Agnolo?Do you forget already words like those?) {200}If really there was such a chance so lost,—Is, whether you’re—not grateful—but more pleased.Well, let me think so. And you smile indeed!This hour has been an hour! Another smile?If you would sit thus by me every nightI should work better, do you comprehend?I mean that I should earn more, give you more.See, it is settled dusk now; there’s a star;Morello’s gone, the watch-lights show the wall,The cue-owls speak the name we call them by. {210}Come from the window, love,—come in, at last,Inside the melancholy little houseWe built to be so gay with. God is just.King Francis may forgive me: oft at nightsWhen I look up from painting, eyes tired out,The walls become illumined, brick from brickDistinct, instead of mortar, fierce bright gold,That gold of his I did cement them with!Let us but love each other. Must you go?That cousin here again? he waits outside? {220}Must see you—you, and not with me? Those loans?More gaming debts to pay? you smiled for that?Well, let smiles buy me! have you more to spend?While hand and eye and something of a heartAre left me, work’s my ware, and what’s it worth?I’ll pay my fancy. Only let me sitThe gray remainder of the evening out,Idle, you call it, and muse perfectlyHow I could paint, were I but back in France,One picture, just one more—the Virgin’s face, {230}Not your’s this time! I want you at my sideTo hear them—that is, Michel Agnolo—Judge all I do and tell you of its worth.Will you? To-morrow, satisfy your friend.I take the subjects for his corridor,Finish the potrait out of hand—there, there,And throw him in another thing or twoIf he demurs; the whole should prove enoughTo pay for this same cousin’s freak. Beside,What’s better and what’s all I care about, {240}Get you the thirteen scudi for the ruff!Love, does that please you? Ah, but what does he,The cousin! what does he to please you more?I am grown peaceful as old age to-night.I regret little, I would change still less.Since there my past life lies, why alter it?The very wrong to Francis!—it is trueI took his coin, was tempted and complied,And built this house and sinned, and all is said.My father and my mother died of want. {250}Well, had I riches of my own? you seeHow one gets rich! Let each one bear his lot.They were born poor, lived poor, and poor they died:And I have labored somewhat in my timeAnd not been paid profusely. Some good sonPaint my two hundred pictures—let him try!No doubt, there’s something strikes a balance. Yes,You loved me quite enough, it seems to-night.This must suffice me here. What would one have?In heaven, perhaps, new chances, one more chance— {260}Four great walls in the New Jerusalem,Meted on each side by the angel’s reed,For Leonard, Rafael, Agnolo, and meTo cover—the three first without a wife,While I have mine! So—still they overcomeBecause there’s still Lucrezia,—as I choose.Again the cousin’s whistle! Go, my love.
— 29. My face, my moon:
“Once, like the moon, I madeThe ever-shifting currents of the bloodAccording to my humor ebb and flow.”—Cleopatra, in Tennyson’s ‘A Dream of Fair Women’.“You are the powerful moon of my blood’s sea,To make it ebb or flow into my faceAs your looks change.”—Ford and Decker’s ‘Witch of Edmonton’.
35. A common grayness: Andrea del Sarto was distinguished for his skill in chiaro-oscuro.
82. low-pulsed forthright craftsman’s hand: “Andrea del Sarto’s was, after all, but the ‘low-pulsed forthright craftsman’s hand’, and therefore his perfect art does not touch our hearts like that of Fra Bartolommeo, who occupies about the same position with regard to the great masters of the century as Andrea del Sarto. Fra Bartolommeo spoke from his heart. He was moved by the spirit, so to speak, to express his pure and holy thoughts in beautiful language, and the ideal that presented itself to his mind, and from which he, equally with Raphael, worked, approached almost as closely as Raphael’s to that abstract beauty after which they both longed. Andrea del Sarto had no such longing: he was content with the loveliness of earth. This he could understand and imitate in its fullest perfection, and therefore he troubled himself but little about the ‘wondrous paterne’ laid up in heaven. Many of his Madonnas have greater beauty, strictly speaking, than those of Bartolommeo, or even of Raphael; but we miss in them that mysterious spiritual loveliness that gives the latter their chief charm.” —Heaton’s History of Painting.
93. Morello: the highest of the spurs of the Apennines to the north of Florence.
96. Speak as they please, what does the mountain care?: it’s beyond their criticism.
105. The Urbinate: Raphael Santi, born 1483, in Urbino. Andrea sees in Raphael, whose technique was inferior to his own, his superior, as he reached above and through his art— for it gives way.
106. George Vasari: see note under St. 9 of ‘Old Pictures in Florence’.
120. Nay, Love, you did give all I asked: it must be understood that his wife has replied with pique, to what he said in the two preceding lines.
129. by the future: when placed by, in comparison with, the future.
130. Agnolo: Michael Angelo (more correctly, Agnolo) Buonarotti. See note under St. 30 of ‘Old Pictures in Florence’.
146. For fear of chancing on the Paris lords: by reason of his breaking the faith he had pledged to Francis I. of France, and using for his own purposes, or his wife’s, the money with which the king had entrusted him to purchase works of art in Italy.
149-165. That Francis, that first time: he thinks with regret of the king and of his honored and inspiring stay at his court.
161. by those hearts: along with, by the aid of.
173. The triumph was. . .there: i.e., in your heart.
174. ere the triumph: in France.
177. Rafael did this, . . .was his wife: a remark ascribed to some critic.
198. If he spoke the truth: i.e., about himself.
199. What he: do you ask?
202. all I care for. . .is whether you’re.
209. Morello’s gone: its outlines are lost in the dusk. See v. 93.
218. That gold of his: see note to v. 146.
220. That cousin here again?: one of Lucrezia’s gallants is referred to, to pay whose gaming debts, it appears, she has obtained money of her husband. It must be understood that this gallant whistles here. See last verse of the monologue.
263. Leonard: Leonardo da Vinci.
I am poor brother Lippo, by your leave!You need not clap your torches to my face.Zooks, what’s to blame? you think you see a monk!What, ‘tis past midnight, and you go the rounds,And here you catch me at an alley’s endWhere sportive ladies leave their doors ajar?The Carmine’s my cloister: hunt it up,Do,—harry out, if you must show your zeal,Whatever rat, there, haps on his wrong hole,And nip each softling of a wee white mouse, {10}‘Weke, weke’, that’s crept to keep him company!Aha! you know your betters? Then, you’ll takeYour hand away that’s fiddling on my throat,And please to know me likewise. Who am I?Why, one, sir, who is lodging with a friendThree streets off—he’s a certain. . .how d’ye call?Master—a. . .Cosimo of the Medici,I’ the house that caps the corner. Boh! you were best!Remember and tell me, the day you’re hanged,How you affected such a gullet’s-gripe! {20}But you, sir, it concerns you that your knavesPick up a manner, nor discredit you:Zooks, are we pilchards, that they sweep the streetsAnd count fair prize what comes into their net?He’s Judas to a tittle, that man is!Just such a face! Why, sir, you make amends.Lord, I’m not angry! Bid your hangdogs goDrink out this quarter-florin to the healthOf the munificent House that harbors me(And many more beside, lads! more beside!) {30}And all’s come square again. I’d like his face—His, elbowing on his comrade in the doorWith the pike and lantern,—for the slave that holdsJohn Baptist’s head a-dangle by the hairWith one hand (“Look you, now”, as who should say)And his weapon in the other, yet unwiped!It’s not your chance to have a bit of chalk,A wood-coal or the like? or you should see!Yes, I’m the painter, since you style me so.What, brother Lippo’s doings, up and down, {40}You know them, and they take you? like enough!I saw the proper twinkle in your eye—‘Tell you, I liked your looks at very first.Let’s sit and set things straight now, hip to haunch.Here’s spring come, and the nights one makes up bandsTo roam the town and sing out carnival,And I’ve been three weeks shut within my mew,A-painting for the great man, saints and saintsAnd saints again. I could not paint all night—Ouf! I leaned out of window for fresh air. {50}There came a hurry of feet and little feet,A sweep of lute-strings, laughs, and whifts of song—‘Flower o’ the broom,Take away love, and our earth is a tomb!Flower o’ the quince,I let Lisa go, and what good in life since?Flower o’ the thyme’—and so on. Round they went.Scarce had they turned the corner when a titterLike the skipping of rabbits by moonlight,—three slim shapes,And a face that looked up. . .zooks, sir, flesh and blood, {60}That’s all I’m made of! Into shreds it went,Curtain and counterpane and coverlet,All the bed-furniture—a dozen knots,There was a ladder! Down I let myself,Hands and feet, scrambling somehow, and so dropped,And after them. I came up with the funHard by Saint Lawrence, hail fellow, well met,—‘Flower o’ the rose,If I’ve been merry, what matter who knows?’And so, as I was stealing back again, {70}To get to bed and have a bit of sleepEre I rise up to-morrow and go workOn Jerome knocking at his poor old breastWith his great round stone to subdue the flesh,You snap me of the sudden. Ah, I see!Though your eye twinkles still, you shake your head—Mine’s shaved—a monk, you say—the sting’s in that!If Master Cosimo announced himself,Mum’s the word naturally; but a monk!Come, what am I a beast for? tell us, now! {80}I was a baby when my mother diedAnd father died and left me in the street.I starved there, God knows how, a year or twoOn fig-skins, melon-parings, rinds and shucks,Refuse and rubbish. One fine frosty day,My stomach being empty as your hat,The wind doubled me up and down I went.Old aunt Lapaccia trussed me with one hand(Its fellow was a stinger, as I knew),And so along the wall, over the bridge, {90}By the straight cut to the convent. Six words there,While I stood munching my first bread that month:“So, boy, you’re minded,” quoth the good fat fatherWiping his own mouth, ‘twas refection-time,—“To quit this very miserable world?Will you renounce”. . ."the mouthful of bread?” thought I;By no means! Brief, they made a monk of me;I did renounce the world, its pride and greed,Palace, farm, villa, shop, and banking-house,Trash, such as these poor devils of Medici {100}Have given their hearts to—all at eight years old.Well, sir, I found in time, you may be sure,‘Twas not for nothing—the good bellyful,The warm serge and the rope that goes all round,And day-long blessed idleness beside!“Let’s see what the urchin’s fit for”—that came next.Not overmuch their way, I must confess.Such a to-do! They tried me with their books:Lord, they’d have taught me Latin in pure waste!‘Flower o’ the clove, {110}All the Latin I construe is, “Amo” I love!’But, mind you, when a boy starves in the streetsEight years together as my fortune was,Watching folk’s faces to know who will flingThe bit of half-stripped grape-bunch he desires,And who will curse or kick him for his pains,—Which gentleman processional and fine,Holding a candle to the Sacrament,Will wink and let him lift a plate and catchThe droppings of the wax to sell again, {120}Or holla for the Eight and have him whipped,—How say I?—nay, which dog bites, which lets dropHis bone from the heap of offal in the street,—Why, soul and sense of him grow sharp alike,He learns the look of things, and none the lessFor admonition from the hunger-pinch.I had a store of such remarks, be sure,Which, after I found leisure, turned to use:I drew men’s faces on my copy-books,Scrawled them within the antiphonary’s marge, {130}Joined legs and arms to the long music-notes,Found eyes and nose and chin for A’s and B’s,And made a string of pictures of the worldBetwixt the ins and outs of verb and noun,On the wall, the bench, the door. The monks looked black.“Nay,” quoth the Prior, “turn him out, d’ye say?In no wise. Lose a crow and catch a lark.What if at last we get our man of parts,We Carmelites, like those CamaldoleseAnd Preaching Friars, to do our church up fine {140}And put the front on it that ought to be!”And hereupon he bade me daub away.Thank you! my head being crammed, the walls a blank,Never was such prompt disemburdening.First every sort of monk, the black and white,I drew them, fat and lean: then, folks at church,From good old gossips waiting to confessTheir cribs of barrel-droppings, candle-ends,—To the breathless fellow at the altar-foot,Fresh from his murder, safe and sitting there {150}With the little children round him in a rowOf admiration, half for his beard, and halfFor that white anger of his victim’s sonShaking a fist at him with one fierce arm,Signing himself with the other because of Christ(Whose sad face on the cross sees only thisAfter the passion of a thousand years),Till some poor girl, her apron o’er her head(Which the intense eyes looked through), came at eveOn tiptoe, said a word, dropped in a loaf, {160}Her pair of ear-rings and a bunch of flowers(The brute took growling), prayed, and so was gone.I painted all, then cried, “‘Tis ask and have;Choose, for more’s ready!”—laid the ladder flat,And showed my covered bit of cloister-wall.The monks closed in a circle and praised loudTill checked, taught what to see and not to see,Being simple bodies,—“That’s the very man!Look at the boy who stoops to pat the dog!That woman’s like the Prior’s niece who comes {170}To care about his asthma: it’s the life!”But there my triumph’s straw-fire flared and funked;Their betters took their turn to see and say:The prior and the learned pulled a faceAnd stopped all that in no time. “How? what’s here?Quite from the mark of painting, bless us all!Faces, arms, legs, and bodies like the trueAs much as pea and pea! it’s devil’s game!Your business is not to catch men with show,With homage to the perishable clay, {180}But lift them over it, ignore it all,Make them forget there’s such a thing as flesh.Your business is to paint the souls of men—Man’s soul, and it’s a fire, smoke. . .no, it’s not. . .It’s vapor done up like a new-born babe—(In that shape when you die it leaves your mouth),It’s. . .well, what matters talking, it’s the soul!Give us no more of body than shows soul!Here’s Giotto, with his Saint a-praising God,That sets us praising,—why not stop with him? {190}Why put all thoughts of praise out of our headWith wonder at lines, colors, and what not?Paint the soul, never mind the legs and arms!Rub all out, try at it a second time!Oh, that white smallish female with the breasts,She’s just my niece. . .Herodias, I would say,—Who went and danced, and got men’s heads cut off!Have it all out!” Now, is this sense, I ask?A fine way to paint soul, by painting bodySo ill, the eye can’t stop there, must go further {200}And can’t fare worse! Thus, yellow does for whiteWhen what you put for yellow’s simply black,And any sort of meaning looks intenseWhen all beside itself means and looks naught.Why can’t a painter lift each foot in turn,Left foot and right foot, go a double step,Make his flesh liker and his soul more like,Both in their order? Take the prettiest face,The Prior’s niece. . .patron-saint—is it so prettyYou can’t discover if it means hope, fear, {210}Sorrow or joy? won’t beauty go with these?Suppose I’ve made her eyes all right and blue,Can’t I take breath and try to add life’s flash,And then add soul and heighten them threefold?Or say there’s beauty with no soul at all—(I never saw it—put the case the same—)If you get simple beauty and naught else,You get about the best thing God invents:That’s somewhat: and you’ll find the soul you have missed,Within yourself, when you return him thanks. {220}“Rub all out!” Well, well, there’s my life, in short,And so the thing has gone on ever since.I’m grown a man no doubt, I’ve broken bounds:You should not take a fellow eight years oldAnd make him swear to never kiss the girls.I’m my own master, paint now as I please—Having a friend, you see, in the Corner-house!Lord, it’s fast holding by the rings in front—Those great rings serve more purposes than justTo plant a flag in, or tie up a horse! {230}And yet the old schooling sticks, the old grave eyesAre peeping o’er my shoulder as I work,The heads shake still—“It’s art’s decline, my son!You’re not of the true painters, great and old;Brother Angelico’s the man, you’ll find;Brother Lorenzo stands his single peer:Fag on at flesh, you’ll never make the third!”‘Flower o’ the pine,You keep your mistr. . .manners, and I’ll stick to mine!’I’m not the third, then: bless us, they must know! {240}Don’t you think they’re the likeliest to know,They with their Latin? So, I swallow my rage,Clinch my teeth, suck my lips in tight, and paintTo please them—sometimes do, and sometimes don’t;For, doing most, there’s pretty sure to comeA turn, some warm eve finds me at my saints—A laugh, a cry, the business of the world—(‘Flower o’ the peach,Death for us all, and his own life for each!’)And my whole soul revolves, the cup runs over, {250}The world and life’s too big to pass for a dream,And I do these wild things in sheer despite,And play the fooleries you catch me at,In pure rage! The old mill-horse, out at grassAfter hard years, throws up his stiff heels so,Although the miller does not preach to himThe only good of grass is to make chaff.What would men have? Do they like grass or no—May they or mayn’t they? all I want’s the thingSettled forever one way. As it is, {260}You tell too many lies and hurt yourself:You don’t like what you only like too much,You do like what, if given you at your word,You find abundantly detestable.For me, I think I speak as I was taught;I always see the garden, and God thereA-making man’s wife: and, my lesson learned,The value and significance of flesh,I can’t unlearn ten minutes afterwards.You understand me: I’m a beast, I know. {270}But see, now—why, I see as certainlyAs that the morning-star’s about to shine,What will hap some day. We’ve a youngster hereComes to our convent, studies what I do,Slouches and stares and lets no atom drop:His name is Guidi—he’ll not mind the monks—They call him Hulking Tom, he lets them talk—He picks my practice up—he’ll paint apace,I hope so—though I never live so long,I know what’s sure to follow. You be judge! {280}You speak no Latin more than I, belike;However, you’re my man, you’ve seen the world—The beauty and the wonder and the power,The shapes of things, their colors, lights, and shades,Changes, surprises,—and God made it all!—For what? Do you feel thankful, ay or no,For this fair town’s face, yonder river’s line,The mountain round it and the sky above,Much more the figures of man, woman, child,These are the frame to? What’s it all about? {290}To be passed over, despised? or dwelt upon,Wondered at? oh, this last of course!—you say.But why not do as well as say,—paint theseJust as they are, careless what comes of it?God’s works—paint any one, and count it crimeTo let a truth slip. Don’t object, “His worksAre here already; nature is complete:Suppose you reproduce her—(which you can’t)There’s no advantage! you must beat her, then.”For, don’t you mark? we’re made so that we love {300}First when we see them painted, things we have passedPerhaps a hundred times nor cared to see;And so they are better, painted—better to us,Which is the same thing. Art was given for that;God uses us to help each other so,Lending our minds out. Have you noticed, nowYour cullion’s hanging face? A bit of chalk,And trust me but you should, though! How much moreIf I drew higher things with the same truth!That were to take the Prior’s pulpit-place, {310}Interpret God to all of you! Oh, oh,It makes me mad to see what men shall doAnd we in our graves! This world’s no blot for us,Nor blank; it means intensely, and means good:To find its meaning is my meat and drink.“Ay, but you don’t so instigate to prayer!”Strikes in the Prior: “when your meaning’s plainIt does not say to folks—remember matins,Or, mind your fast next Friday!” Why, for thisWhat need of art at all? A skull and bones, {320}Two bits of stick nailed cross-wise, or, what’s best,A bell to chime the hour with, does as well.I painted a Saint Laurence six months sinceAt Prato, splashed the fresco in fine style:“How looks my painting, now the scaffold’s down?”I ask a brother: “Hugely,” he returns—“Already not one phiz of your three slavesWho turn the Deacon off his toasted side,But’s scratched and prodded to our heart’s content,The pious people have so eased their own {330}With coming to say prayers there in a rage:We get on fast to see the bricks beneath.Expect another job this time next year,For pity and religion grow i’ the crowd—Your painting serves its purpose!” Hang the fools!—That is—you’ll not mistake an idle wordSpoke in a huff by a poor monk, Got wot,Tasting the air this spicy night which turnsThe unaccustomed head like Chianti wine!Oh, the church knows! don’t misreport me, now! {340}It’s natural a poor monk out of boundsShould have his apt word to excuse himself:And hearken how I plot to make amends.I have bethought me: I shall paint a piece. . .There’s for you! Give me six months, then go, seeSomething in Sant’ Ambrogio’s! Bless the nuns!They want a cast o’ my office. I shall paintGod in the midst, Madonna and her babe,Ringed by a bowery, flowery angel-brood,Lilies and vestments and white faces, sweet {350}As puff on puff of grated orris-rootWhen ladies crowd to church at midsummer.And then i’ the front, of course a saint or two—Saint John, because he saves the Florentines,Saint Ambrose, who puts down in black and whiteThe convent’s friends and gives them a long day,And Job, I must have him there past mistake,The man of Uz (and Us without the z,Painters who need his patience). Well, all theseSecured at their devotion, up shall come {360}Out of a corner when you least expect,As one by a dark stair into a great light,Music and talking, who but Lippo! I!—Mazed, motionless, and moon-struck—I’m the man!Back I shrink—what is this I see and hear?I, caught up with my monk’s things by mistake,My old serge gown and rope that goes all round,I, in this presence, this pure company!Where’s a hole, where’s a corner for escape?Then steps a sweet angelic slip of a thing {370}Forward, puts out a soft palm—“Not so fast!”—Addresses the celestial presence, “nay—He made you and devised you, after all,Though he’s none of you! could Saint John there, draw—His camel-hair make up a painting-brush?We come to brother Lippo for all that,Iste perfecit opus!” So, all smile—I shuffle sideways with my blushing faceUnder the cover of a hundred wingsThrown like a spread of kirtles when you’re gay {380}And play hot cockles, all the doors being shut,Till, wholly unexpected, in there popsThe hot-head husband! Thus I scuttle offTo some safe bench behind, not letting goThe palm of her, the little lily thingThat spoke the good word for me in the nick,Like the Prior’s niece. . .Saint Lucy, I would say.And so all’s saved for me, and for the churchA pretty picture gained. Go, six months hence!Your hand, sir, and good-bye: no lights, no lights! {390}The street’s hushed, and I know my own way back,Don’t fear me! There’s the gray beginning. Zooks!
— 17. Cosimo of the Medici: Cosimo, or Cosmo, de’ Medici, surnamed the Elder, a celebrated Florentine statesman, and a patron of learning and the arts; b. 1389, d. 1464.
23. pilchards: a kind of fish.
34. John Baptist’s head: an imaginary picture.
67. Saint Lawrence: church of San Lorenzo, in Florence, famous for the tombs of the Medici, adorned with Michel Angelo’s Day and Night, Morning and Evening, etc. See ‘Hawthorne’s Italian Note-Books’.
88. Old aunt Lapaccia: Mona Lapaccia, his father’s sister.
121. the Eight: ‘gli Otto di guerra’, surnamed ‘i Santi’, the Saints; a magistracy composed of Eight citizens, instituted by the Florentines, during their war with the Church, in 1376, for the administration of the city government. Two were chosen from the ‘Signori’, three, from the ‘Mediocri’ (Middle Classes), and three, from the ‘Bassi’ (Lower Classes). For their subsequent history, see ‘Le Istorie Fiorentine di Niccolo Machiavelli’.
122. How say I?:—nay, worse than that, which dog bites, etc.
127. remarks: observations.
139. Camaldolese: monks of the celebrated convent of Camaldoli.
143. Thank you!: there’s a remark interposed here by one of the men, perhaps “YOU’RE no dauber”, to which he replies, “Thank you”.
145 et seq. The realistic painter, who disdains nothing, is shown here.
189. Giotto di Bondone (1266-1337): a pupil of Cimabue, and regarded as the principal reviver of art in Italy. He was a personal friend of Dante. See note under ‘Old Pictures in Florence’, St. 2.
223. I’m grown a man no doubt, I’ve broken bounds: all the editions are so punctuated; but it seems the comma should be after “man”, connecting “no doubt” with “I’ve broken bounds”.
235. “Giovanni da Fiesole, better known as Fra Angelico (1387-1455). Angelico was incomparably the greatest of the distinctively mediaeval school, whose ‘dicta’ the Prior in the poem has all at his tongue’s end. To ‘paint the souls of men’, to ‘make them forget there’s such a thing as flesh’, was the end of his art. And, side by side with Angelico, Masaccio painted. His short life taught him a different lesson—‘the value and significance of flesh’. He would paint by preference the BODIES of men, and would give us NO MORE OF SOUL than the body can reveal. So he ‘laboured’, saith the chronicler, ‘in nakeds’, and his frescoes mark an epoch in art.”—Ernest Bradford (B. S. Illustrations).
“One artist in the seclusion of his cloister, remained true to the traditions and mode of expression of the middle ages, into which, nevertheless, the incomparable beauty and feeling of his nature breathed fresh life. Fra Giovanni Angelico, called da Fiesole from the place of his birth, occupies an entirely exceptional position. He is the late-blooming flower of an almost by-gone time amid the pulsations of a new life. Never, in the whole range of pictorial art, have the inspired fervor of Christian feeling, the angelic beauty and purity of which the soul is capable, been so gloriously interpreted as in his works. The exquisite atmosphere of an almost supernaturally ideal life surrounds his pictures, irradiates the rosy features of his youthful faces, or greets us, like the peace of God, in the dignified figures of his devout old men. His prevailing themes are the humility of soul of those who have joyfully accepted the will of God, and the tranquil Sabbath calm of those who are lovingly consecrated to the service of the Highest. The movement and the changing course of life, the energy of passion and action concern him not.”—‘Outlines of the History of Art’. By Dr. Wilh. Luebke.
236. Lorenzo Monaco: a monk of the order of Camaldoli; a conservative artist of the time, who adhered to the manner of Taddeo Gaddi and his disciples, but Fra Angelico appears likewise to have influenced him.
238. Flower o’ the pine, etc.: this snatch of song applies to what he has just been talking about: you have your own notions of art, and I have mine.
276. Tommaso Guidi (1401-1428), better known as Masaccio, i.e., Tommasaccio, Slovenly or Hulking Tom. “From his time, and forward,” says Mr. Ernest Radford (B. S. Illustrations), “religious painting in the old sense was at an end. Painters no longer attempted to transcend nature, but to copy her, and to copy her in her loveliest aspects. The breach between the old order and the new was complete.” The poet makes him learn of Lippi, not, as Vasari states, Lippi of him.
“When Browning wrote this poem, he knew that the mastership or pupilship of Fra Lippo to Masaccio (called ‘Guidi’ in the poem), and vice versa, was a moot point; but in making Fra Lippi the master, he followed the best authority he had access to, the last edition of Vasari, as he stated in a Letter to the ‘Pall Mall’ at the time, in answer to M. Etienne {a writer in the ‘Revue des deux Mondes’.} Since then, he finds that the latest enquirer into the subject, Morelli, believes the fact is the other way, and that Fra Lippo was the pupil.”—B. Soc. Papers, Pt. II, p. 160.
The letter to the ‘Pall Mall Gazette’ I have not seen. M. Etienne’s Article is in Tome 85, pp. 704-735, of the ‘Revue des Deux Mondes’, 1870, and the letter probably appeared soon after its publication. What edition of Vasari is referred to, in the above note, as the last, is uncertain; but in Vasari’s own editions of 1550 and 1568, and in Mrs. Foster’s translation, 1855, Lippi is made the pupil, and not the master, of Masaccio.
323. Saint Laurence: suffered martyrdom in the reign of the Emperor Valerian, A.D. 258. He was broiled to death on a gridiron.
327. Already not one phiz of your three slaves. . .but’s scratched: the people are so indignant at what they are doing, in the life-like picture.
336. That is—: he fears he has spoken too plainly, and will be reported.
339. Chianti: a wine named from the part of Italy so called.
345. There’s for you: he tips them.
346. Sant’ Ambrogio’s: a convent in Florence.
354. Saint John: John the Baptist is meant; see v. 375.
355. Saint Ambrose: born about 340; made archbishop of Milan in 374; died 397; instituted the ‘Ambrosian Chant’.
377. Iste perfecit opus!: this is on a scroll, in the picture, held by the “sweet angelic slip of a thing”.
389. The picture referred to is ‘The Coronation of the Virgin’, in the ‘Accademia delle Belle Arti’, in Florence. There is a photograph of it in ‘Illustrations to Browning’s Poems’, Part I., published by the Browning Society, with an interesting description of the picture, by Mr. Ernest Radford. There’s no “babe” in the picture.
392. Zooks!: it’s high time I was back and in bed, that my night-larking be not known.