Exulem a Florentia Dantem LiberalissimeExcepit Ravenna.Vivo fruens Mortuum colensMagnis cineribus licet in parvo magnifici parentaruntPolentani Principes erigendoBembus Praetor Luculentissime extruendoPraetiosum Musis et Apollini MausoleumQuod injuria temporum pene squallensE. mo Dominico Maria Cursio LegatoJoanne Salviato ProlegatoMagni civis cineres Patriae reconciliareCultus perpetuitate curantibusS. P. Q. R.Jure Ac Aere suoTanquam Thesaurum suum munivitInstauravit ornavitA.D. MDCXCII.
Outside the tomb he placed his coat-of-arms, and on either side that of the legate of the province and that of the Franciscan Order. In 1760 the third restoration was undertaken and the tomb assumed the form we now see and was given yet another inscription:
Danti AleghieroPoetae sui temporis primoRestitutoriPolitioris humanitatisGuido et Hostasius Polentianiclienti et hospiti peregre defunctomonumentum feceruntBernardus Bembus Praetor Venet. Ravenn.Pro meritis eius ornatu excoluit.Aloysius Valentius Gonzaga Card.Leg. prov. Aemil.Superiorum Temporum negligentia corruptumOperibus ampliatisMunificentia sua restituendumcuravitAnno M DCC LXXX.
At the same time the tomb was opened again and was found to be empty. In spite of this fact in 1864 the municipal authorities in Florence wrote to Ravenna again demanding the body of the poet, only to be again refused. This, however, was the sixth centenary of Dante's birth and the sarcophagus was again to be opened to "verify the remains." The workmen were indeed at work upon some necessary repairs and draining, when it was found that a part of the wall of the Braccioforte chapel would have to be removed. In setting to work upon this—little more than the removal of a few stones—the pickaxe of one of the workmen struck against wood, and presently a wooden box appeared which partly fell to pieces, revealing a human skeleton. Within the box was found this inscription:
Dantis ossaDenuper revisa die 3 Junu1677
Dantis ossaA me Fre Antonio Santihic positaAno 1677 die 18 Octobris
Medical experts were summoned. They made, Miss Phillimore tells us, "a careful examination of the bones, and proceeded to reconstruct the skeleton…. The stature answered to that of the poet as nearly as the measurement of a skeleton can represent the living form, and the skull found in the chest corresponded exactly with the mask taken from Dante's face immediately after his death, which was brought from Florence for the purpose of making this comparison."
What seems to have happened has been made clear for us by Dr. Ricci. Between 1483, when Bembo reconstructed the tomb, and 1520, when the Florentines again claimed the body, and for the first time with a certainty of success, the body of Dante disappeared. It seems that in 1520 the Franciscans entered the mausoleum, abstracted the body, and hid it to save it for Ravenna. In June 1677 Fra Antonio visited the bones in their hiding place and verified them. In October of the same year they were built into the new wall where the old entrance to the Braccioforte chapel had been; to be discovered by chance in 1865.
It is curious that even as the last cantos of theDivine Comedywere discovered by means of a dream, so a dream went before the discovery of the bones of Dante.
"The sacristan of the Franciscan confraternity," we read, "called La Confraternita della Mercede, was wont to sleep in the damp recesses of the ancient chapel of Braccioforte." His name was Angelo Grillo … This sacristan declared himself to have seen in a dream a shade issue from the spot where the body was found, clad in red, that it passed through the chapel into the adjoining cemetery. It approached him, and on being asked who it was, replied, 'I am Dante.' The sacristan died in May 1865, a few days before the discovery of the bones on the 27th of that month. Upon June 26, 1865, the bones of Dante were replaced in their original sarcophagus, ornamented by Pietro Lombardi, after having lain in state for three days, during which thousands from all over Italy passed before them. There it is to be hoped they will remain.
[Illustration: CAMPANILE OF S. FRANCESCO]
When we come to examine what is left to us of mediaeval Ravenna, of the buildings which were erected there during the Middle Age, we shall find, as we might expect, very little that is either great or splendid, for, as we have seen, after the first year of the ninth century Ravenna fell from her great position and became nothing more than a provincial city, perhaps more inaccessible than any other in the peninsula. Her achievement such as it was in the earlier mediaeval period consisted in the production of three men of real importance, S. Romuald of the Onesti family of Ravenna, who was born in the city about the year 956 and who founded, as we know, the Order of Camaldoli; S. Peter Damian, who was born there about 988; and Blessed Peter of Ravenna, Pietro degli Onesti, calledIl Peccatore, of the same stock as S. Romuald.
The work of S. Romuald was a reform of the Benedictine Order. The Order of Camaldoli which he founded was the second reform which had come out of the great brotherhood of S. Benedict; it was younger than the Cluniac but older than the Cistercian reform, and it was begun in 1012. In that year S. Romuald, who was a Benedictine abbot, having been dismissed by all the houses over which he had successively ruled, for they would not bear the penitential strictness of his government, founded a hermitage at Camaldoli above the upper valley of the Arno called the Casentino. There each monk lived in a separate dwelling, all being enclosed in a great wall some five hundred and thirty yards about, beyond which the monks were forbidden to go. They followed the Rule of S. Benedict, kept two Lents in the year, and never tasted meat. They had, of course, a church in common where they were bound to recite the divine office, for this is of the essence of the Rule of S. Benedict, but certain among them—and this is the essence of the reform of Camaldoli—never quitted their cells, their food being brought to them in their huts, where, if the lecluse were a priest, he said his Mass, assisted by some one close by but not in the same room. Thus we see the monks and the hermits living side by side, but scarcely together, and so they continued from the year 1012 till our own day, which has seen the great Camaldoli suppressed. The device of the order was a cup or chalice out of which two doves drank, representing thus the two classes of hermits and monks, the contemplative and the active life.
[Illustration: Colour Plate S. MARIA IN PORTO]
The second great Ravennese of the Middle Age, S. Peter Damian, who was born about 988 in Ravenna, of a good but at that time poor family, was the youngest of many children. He was early left an orphan, and living in his brother's house was treated, it would appear, rather as a beast than a man. Presently, however, another brother, then archpriest of Ravenna, took pity on him and had him educated, first at Faenza but after at Parma, where he studied under a famous master. Here he became immersed in the religious life so that when two monks belonging to Fonte Avellana, "a desert at the foot of the Apennines in Umbria," happened to call at the place of his abode he followed them. After a life of penitence and hardship, in 1057 pope Stephen IX. prevailed upon him to quit his desert and made him cardinal-bishop of Ostia, and later pope Nicholas II. sent him to Milan as his legate, till in 1062 the successor of Nicholas allowed him to return to his solitude; but in 1063 he was sent to France as papal legate. Later we find him as papal ambassador in Ravenna—this in 1072. He was then a very old man, and on his way back to Rome he died at Faenza.
This famous saint has often been confused with the third greatRavennese of this time, Pietro degli Onesti, called PietroIlPeccatore[1] This confusion, which Dante disposes of in thewell-known passage of theParadiso:
"In quel loco fui 10, Pier Damiano,e Pietro Peccator fu nella casaDi nostra Donna in sul lito Adriano,"[2]
is commented upon in one of Boccaccio's letters to his friend Petrarch.[3] It is true both Peters were of Ravenna, but whereas Blessed PietroIl Peccatorewas of the Onesti family, as was S. Romuald, S. Pietro Damiano was not; the last died in 1072 at Faenza as we have seen, the first as we may think in 1119.
[Footnote 1: It is I confess doubtful whether Pietro degli Onesti was ever calledIl Peccatoretill a later epoch. The authenticity of the letters in which he so styles himself is open to question and the inscription on his tomb is it seems of the fifteenth century.]
[Footnote 2:Paradiso, xxi. 121-123. "In quel loco" refers to FonteAvellana.]
[Footnote 3: Cf. Corazzini,Lettere edite ed inedite di GiovanniBoccaccio(Firenze, 1877), p. 307.]
Now though all were famous and all were of Ravenna it is the last and I suppose the least of them who is most closely connected with the city. The others went away and won, not only great place in the world, but an everlasting fame. Blessed PietroIl Peccatorestayed in Ravenna and built there outside the walls in the marsh between Ravenna and Classe the great home of Our Lady, S. Maria in Porto fuori. About the middle of the eleventh century, Dr Ricci tells us, certain religious retired into the solitude by the shore of the Adriatic and there built a little church or oratory that was called S. Mariain fossula. In this act we may certainly see the example of S. Romuald. But about 1096 there joined himself to them Pietro degli Onesti calledIl Peccatore, and perhaps because he was of the Onesti he built there a new and a larger church, it is said in fulfilment of a vow made, as was Galla Placidia's, in a storm at sea. It is this church which in great part we still see, with additions of the thirteenth century, a lonely and beautiful thing in the emptiness of the sodden fields to the south-east of Ravenna between the Canale del Molino and the Fiumi Uniti.
The lonely and melancholy church of S. Maria in Porto fuori is a basilica consisting of three naves which formed a part of the original church of the Blessed Pietro, and a presbytery, apse, and chapels which are of the thirteenth century. There we see some frescoes of a very beautiful and early character which have been erroneously attributed to Giotto, and as erroneously it might seem to Peter of Rimini.
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF S. MARIA IN PORTO FUORI]
They were the gift of a certain Graziadeo, a notary who in 1246 provided the cost of the work, which was carried out it would seem by Maso da Faenza (1314), Rastello da Forll (1350-60), Giovanni da Ravenna (1368-96), and other painters of the Romagnuol school.[1] These works, which are among the loveliest we have of the school, may be noted as follows: in the nave to the left we see the Madonna and Child with four saints; here, too, is S. Julian. Upon the triumphal arch we see in the midst the Saviour and on the one side Antichrist and the martyrdom of the saints, on the other the defeat and end of Antichrist who is beheaded by angels. Beneath are scenes of Paradise and Hell. On the roof of the choir we see the Evangelists with their symbols and the Doctors of the Church. Upon the right the Death, Assumption, and Coronation of the Blessed Virgin, together with the Massacre of the Innocents and the Last Supper and perhaps S. Francis and S. Clare. Upon the left we have the Birth and Presentation of the Blessed Virgin in the Temple. The last two figures upon the right here are said to be portraits of Giotto and Guido da Polenta by those who attribute these works to the Florentine master. In the chapel on the left we see pope John I. before Theodoric, pope John in prison, and in the lunette the martyrdom of a saint. Close by are other frescoes repainted of S. Apollinaris and S. Antony Abbot. In the chapel on the right we see perhaps S. John baptising a king, S. John preaching, and Blessed PietroIl Peccatorehealing the blind and sick. Here too would appear to be scenes from the life of S. Matthew, but unhappily the subjects are all of them obscure and difficult to interpret. At the end of the apse we see the three Maries at the Sepulchre and the Incredulity of S. Thomas.
[Footnote 1: Cf. Dr. Ricci,Guida di Ravenna(Bologna, fourth edition), and see Anselmi,Memorie del Pittore Trecentista Petrus da RiminiinLa Romagna(1906), vol. III. fasc. Settembre.]
Of these majestic but spoilt works undoubtedly the noblest in design is that of the Death of the Blessed Virgin. The Last Supper is also exceedingly beautiful, and the Incredulity of S. Thomas is a splendid piece of work. But in the course of ages these latter works especially have suffered grievously, as of course has the whole church.
Built in the marsh it has sunk so deeply into it that its pillars are covered half way up, and the church seems always about to be wholly engulfed. It was called S. Maria in Porto because it was originally built near to the famous Port that Augustus Casar had established and which for so long was the headquarters of the eastern fleet. In the sixteenth century when the Canons Regular of the Lateran, who then served it, were compelled to abandon it, they built within the city of Ravenna another church which they named after that they had left, S. Maria in Porto. Thereafter the old church without the walls was known as S. Maria in Porto fuori.
The mighty tower which rises beside S. Maria in Porto fuori has been thought to be in part the famous Pharos of which Pliny speaks.[1] It is almost certainly founded upon it, but the lower part in its huge strength is, as we see it, a work of the end of the twelfth century, as is the lofty campanile which rises from it.
[Footnote 1: Seesupra, p. 24.]
S. Maria in Porto fuori is undoubtedly the greatest monument that remains to Ravenna of the Middle Age; nothing really comparable with it is to be found in the city itself.
The earliest of the friars' churches, those great monuments of the Middle Age in Italy, is S. Chiara which with its convent is now suppressed and lost in the Recovero di Mendicita (Corso Garibaldi, 19). This convent, which dates certainly from 1255, was founded by Chiara da Polenta and was rebuilt in 1794. It is from its garden that we get our best idea of the church which within possesses frescoes of the Romagnuol school, where in the vault we see the four Evangelists with their symbols and the four Doctors of the Church. Upon the walls we see a spoiled fresco of the Presepio, that peculiarly Franciscan subject, and again the Annunciation, the Adoration of the Magi, the Baptism of Our Lord, Christ in the Garden, the Crucifixion, and various saints. These frescoes are the work of the men who painted in S. Maria in Porto fuori.
It cannot have been much later that the church of S. Pier Maggiore, of which I have already spoken,[2] came into Franciscan hands, and certainly from 1261 it was called S. Francesco, when the archbishop Filippo Fontana handed it over to the Conventuals who held it till 1810. Its chief mediseval interest lies for us of course in the fact that Dante was buried, probably at his own desire, within its precincts. But there are other things too. Close to the entrance door is a slab of red Verona marble dated 1396, which is the tomb of Ostasio da Polenta who was a Tertiary of the Franciscan Order, and was therefore buried in the habit of the friars. The figure carved there in relief to represent Ostasio is evidently a portrait and a very fine and noble piece of work. To the left, again, is another slab of red Verona marble which marks the tomb of the General of the Franciscan Order, Padre Enrico Alfieri, who died of fever in Ravenna in 1405. The fine Renaissance pilasters in the Cappella del Crocefisso should be noted, and the beautiful sixteenth-century monument of Luffo Numai by Tommaso Flamberti at the end of the left aisle.
[Footnote 2: Seesupra, pp. 174et seq.]
The Dominicans have not been more fortunate than the Franciscans. Somewhat to the north of the Piazza Venti Settembre in the Via Cavour we find their church S. Domenico. It is said that originally there stood here a Byzantine church dedicated in honour of S. Maria Callopes, but this Dr. Ricci denies. S. Domenico was built from its foundations it seems in October 1269 for the Dominicans and was enlarged in 1374 according to an inscription in the sacristy; but it was almost entirely rebuilt in the beginning of the eighteenth century. The facade and the side portico are perhaps now the most genuine parts of the church. The chief treasure is, however, not of the Middle Age at all, but of the Renaissance, and consists of four large pictures painted in tempera, probably organ shutters, representing the Annunciation, S. Peter Martyr, and S. Dominic. They are the excellent work of Niccold Rondinelli the pupil of Giovanni Bellini.[1]
[Footnote 1: Seeinfra, pp. 267et seq.]
[Illustration: TORRE DEL COMUNE]
From S. Domenico we pass again to S. Giovanni Evangelista if only to note the beautiful Gothic portal of the fourteenth century, of which I have already spoken,[2] and the spoiled frescoes by Giotto in the vaulting of the fourth chapel on the left. Giotto, according to Vasari, came to Ravenna at the instigation of Dante and painted in S. Francesco, but whatever he may have done there has utterly perished, and there only remains in Ravenna his spoilt work in this little chapel in S. Giovanni Evangelista. Here we see in a ceiling divided by two diagonals, at the centre of which the Lamb and Cross are painted on a medallion, the four Evangelists enthroned with their symbols and the four Doctors of the Church, a subject common everywhere and especially so in Ravenna. These works have suffered very greatly from restoration, but they seem indeed to be the work of the master in so far as the design is concerned, all surely that is left after the repaintings that have befallen them.
[Footnote 2: Seesupra, pp. 175et seq.]
The mosaic pavements of 1213, representing scenes from the third crusade, in the chapel to the left of the choir should be noted.
We must not leave S. Giovanni Evangelista without a look at the great tower of the eleventh century which overshadows it. It might seem to be contemporary with the greater Torre Comunale in the Via Tredici Giugno as the street is now absurdly named. Nor should any one omit to visit the Casa Polentana near Porta Ursicina and the Casa Traversari in the Via S. Vitale, grand old thirteenth-century houses that speak to us, not certainly of Ravenna's great days, but of a greater day than ours, and one, too, in which the most tragic of Italians wandered up and down these windy ways eating his heart out for Florence. Indeed Dante consumes all our thoughts in mediaeval Ravenna.
There is a tale told by Franco Sacchetti that I will set down here, for it expresses what in part we must all feel, and what in the confusion of philosophy at the end of the Middle Age was felt far more keenly by men who visited this strange city.
"Maestro Antonio of Ferrara was a man of very great parts, almost a poet, and as entertaining as a jester, but he was very vicious and sinful. Being in Ravenna during the time that Messer Bernardino of Polenta held the lordship, it chanced that this Messer Antonio, who was a very great gambler, had been gambling one day and had lost nearly all he possessed. Being in despair, he entered the church of the Friars Minor, where there is the tomb which holds the body of the Florentine poet Dante, and having seen an antique Crucifix half-burned and smoked by the great number of lights placed around it, and finding just then many candles lighted there, he immediately went and took all the tapers and candles which were burning there and going to the tomb of Dante he placed them before it saying, 'Take them, for thou art far more worthy of them than it is.' The people beholding this and marvelling greatly said, 'What doth this man?' And they all looked at one another…."
[Illustration: PORTAL OF S. GIOVANNI EVANGELISTA]
Sacchetti does not answer the question asked by the astonished people of Ravenna, but goes on to tell us of the lord "who delighted in such things as do all lords." He could not have answered it for he did not know himself what it meant. We are in better case, I think, and know that what that wild and half—blasphemous act meant was that the Renaissance had made an end of the Middle Age here in Ravenna as elsewhere.
When in the year 1438 duke Filippo Maria Visconti of Milan forced Ostasio da Polenta, the fifth of that name, into an alliance and the Venetians thereupon invited him to visit them, Venice had decided for her own safety to annex Ravenna and Ostasio soon learned that the new government had proclaimed itself in his old capital. He, as I have said, presently disappeared, the victim of a mysterious assassination; and Venice governed Ravenna byprovveditoriandpodesta, as happily and successfully, it might seem, as she governed Venetia and a part of Lombardy. For her doubtless the acquisition of Ravenna was not a very great thing, nor does it seem to have changed in any very great degree the half-stagnant life of the city itself, which, as we may suppose, had for so long ceased to play any great part in the life of Italy, that a change of government there was not of much importance to any one except the Holy See, the true over-lord.
The Holy See, however, had no intention of submitting to the incursion of the republic into its long established territories without a protest. In the war of Ferrara, Venice had come into collision with the pope and had in reality been worsted, though the peace of Bagnolo (1484) gave her Rovigo, the Polesine, and Ravenna. But she had adopted a fatal policy in appealing to the French, a policy which led straight on to Cambray, which, as we may think, so unfortunately crippled her for ever.
The descent of the French was successful at least in this, that it aroused the cupidity and ambition of the king of Spain and of the emperor. Italy was proved to be any one's prize at Fornovo, and when Louis XII. succeeded Charles VIII. in 1498 and combined in his own person the claim of the French crown to Naples and to Genoa and the Orleans claim to Milan, Venice, instead of being doubly on guard, thought she saw a chance of extending her Lombard dominions. She refused the alliance Sforza offered and promised to assist Louis in return for Cremona and itscontado. In other words, she committed treason to Italy and thus justified, if anything could justify, the League of Cambray.
Sforza's first act was to urge the Turk, who needed no invitation, to attack the republic, whose fleet in 1499 was utterly defeated at sea by the Orientals, who presently raided into Friuli. Venice was forced to accept a humiliating peace. It was in these circumstances that, with all Italy alienated from her, the papacy began to act against her.
Its first and most splendid effort to create a reality out of the fiction of the States of the Church was the attempt of Cesare Borgia, who actually made himself master of the whole of the Romagna. Venice watched him with the greatest alarm, but chance saved her, for with the death of Alexander VI., Cesare and his dream came to nothing. Venice acted at once, for indeed even in her decline she was the most splendid force in Italy. She induced by a most swift and masterly stroke the leading cities of the Romagna to place themselves under her protection. It was a great stroke, the last blow of a great and desperate man; that it failed does not make it less to be admired.
The rock which broke the stroke as it fell and shattered the sword which dealt it was Pope Julius II.
Louis and the emperor had come together, and when in June 1508 a truce was made they would have been content to leave Venice alone; it was the pope who refused, and by the end of the year had formed the European League for the purpose of "putting a stop to losses, injuries, rapine, and damage which Venice had inflicted not merely on the Holy See, but also on the Holy Roman Empire, the House of Austria, the Duchy of Milan, the King of Naples and other princes, seizing and tyrannically occupying their territories, cities, and castles as though she were conspiring to the common ill…." So ran the preamble of the League of Cambray. It contemplated among other things the return of Ravenna, Faenza, Rimini, and the rest of the Romagna to the Holy See; Istria, Fruili, Treviso, Padua, Vicenza, and Verona being handed to the emperor; Brescia, Bergamo, Crema, and Cremona passing to France, and the sea-coast towns in Apulia to the king of Spain; Dalmatia was to go to the king of Hungary and Cyprus to the duke of Savoy.
[Illustration: ROCCA VENIZIANA]
In the spring of 1507, Julius launched his bull of excommunication against Venice; Ravenna, which was held by the podesta Marcello and by Zeno, was attacked by the pope's general, the duke of Urbino, and after the disastrous defeat of the Venetians by the French and Milanese, at Aguadello, on the Adda, the republic ordered the restoration of Ravenna to the Holy See, together with the other cities of the Romagna.
The pope was now content, but France and the emperor were not, and Venice was forced to ally herself first with one side and then with the other.
In the brutal struggle of the foreigner for Cisalpine Gaul there were two desperate battles, that of Ravenna in 1512, in which the French, though victorious, lost their best leader, Gaston de Foix, and that of Novara in 1513, which induced the French to leave Italy. As the first of these battles concerns Ravenna we must consider it more closely.
At this time Venice was in alliance with Spain and the pope against the French, who were commanded by Gaston de Foix, Duke of Nemours, a nephew of the French king. The combined Spanish and papal troops, about 20,000 strong, were led by Raimondo da Cardona. The French were south of the Apennines when the Papal-Spanish force swung round from Milan into the Ferrarese, seized the territory south of the Po, and laid siege to Bologna. A Venetian force was hurrying to aid them.
Gaston de Foix did not hesitate. On February 5, he flung himself over the ice-bound Apennine and hastened to relieve Bologna. Cardona retreated before him down the Aemilian Way; but Brescia opened its gates to the Venetians, and this, which hindered Gaston, so enraged him that when he had taken the city he gave it up to a pillage in which more than eight thousand were slain and his men "were so laden with spoil that they returned to France forthwith to enjoy it."
Gaston was compelled to return to Milan to re-form his troops, for he was determined both by necessity and by his own nature, which loved decision, to force a battle with the allies. The truth was that the position of France was precarious, her career in Italy was deeply threatened by the allies, Henry VIII. of England contemplated a descent upon Normandy, and until the enemy in Italy was disposed of her way was barred to Naples.
So Gaston set out with some 7000 cavalry and 17,000 infantry, French, Italian, German, to pursue and to defeat Cardona, who did not wish to fight. The army of the allies was chiefly Spanish and it numbered some 6000 cavalry and 16,000 infantry of most excellent fighting quality.
As the French advanced along the Via Aemilia, Cardona withdrew to Faenza. Gaston went on to Ravenna, which he besieged. Cardona was forced to intervene and try to save the city. He, too, approached Ravenna. Upon Easter Day, 1512, the two armies met in the marsh between Ravenna and the sea; and, in the words of Guicciardini, "there then began a very great battle, without doubt one of the greatest that Italy had seen for these many years…. All the troops were intermingled in a battle fought thus on a plain without impediments such as water or banks, and where both armies fought, each obstinately bent on death or victory, and inflamed not only with danger, glory, and hope, but also with the hatred of nation against nation. It was a memorable spectacle in the hot engagement between the German and Spanish infantry to see two very noted officers, Jacopo Empser, a German, and Zamudio, a Spaniard, advance before their battalions and encounter one another as if it were by challenge, in which combat the Spaniard went off conqueror by killing his adversary. The cavalry of the army of the League was not at best equal to that of the French, and having been shattered and torn by the artillery was become much inferior. Wherefore after they had sustained for some time, more by stoutness of heart than by strength of arms, the fury of the enemy, Yves d'Allegre with the rearguard and a thousand foot that were left at the Montone under Paliose and now recalled charging them in flank, and Fabrizio Colonna, fighting valiantly, being taken prisoner by the soldiers of the Duke of Ferrara, they turned their backs, in which they did no more than follow the example of their generals; for the Viceroy and Carvagiale, without making the utmost proof of the valour of their troops, betook themselves to flight, carrying off with them the third division or rearguard almost entire with Antonio da Leva, a man of that time of low rank though afterwards by a continual exercise of arms for many years, rising through all the military degrees, he became a very famous general. The whole body of light horse had been already broken, and the Marchese di Pescara, their commander, taken prisoner, covered with blood and wounds. And the Marchese della Palude, who had led up the second division, or main battle, through a field full of ditches and brambles in great disorder to the fight, was also taken. The ground was covered with dead men and horses, and yet the Spanish infantry, though abandoned by the horse, continued fighting with incredible fierceness; and though, at the first encounter with the German foot, they had received some damage from the firm and close order of the pikes, yet afterwards getting their enemies within the length of their swords, and many of them, covered with targets, pushing with daggers between the legs of the Germans, they had penetrated with very great slaughter almost to the centre of their battalions. The Gascon foot who were posted by the Germans on the ground between the river and a rising bank had attacked the Italian infantry, which, though they had greatly suffered by the artillery, would have repulsed them highly to their honour, had not Yves d'Allegre entered among them with a squadron of horse. But the fortune of that general did not answer his valour, for his son Viverais being almost immediately killed before his eyes, the father, unwilling to survive so great a loss, threw himself with his horse into the thickest of the enemies, where, fighting like a most valiant captain and killing several, he was at last cut to pieces. The Italian foot, unable to resist so great a multitude, gave way; but part of the Spanish infantry hastening to support them, they rallied. On the other side, the German infantry, being sorely pressed by the other part of the Spaniards, were hardly capable of making any resistance; but the cavalry of the confederates being all fled out of the field, Foix with a great body of horse turned to fall upon them. The Spaniards, therefore, rather retiring than driven out of the field, without the least disorder in their ranks, took their way between the river and the bank, marching slowly and with a close front, by the strength of which they beat off the French and began to disengage themselves; at which time Navarre, choosing rather to die than to save himself, and therefore refusing to leave the field, was made a prisoner. But Foix, thinking it intolerable that this Spanish infantry should march off in battle array like conquerors and knowing that the victory was not perfect if these were not broken and dispersed like the rest, went furiously to attack them with a squadron of horse and did execution upon the hindmost; but being surrounded and thrown from his horse, or, as some say, his horse falling upon him, while he was fighting, he received a mortal thrust with a pike in his side. And if it be desirable, as it is believed, for a man to die in the height of his prosperity, it is certain that he met with a most happy death in dying after he had obtained so great a victory. He died very young, but famous through the world, having in less than three months, and being a general almost before he was a soldier, with incredible ardour and expedition obtained so many victories. Near him lay on the ground for dead Lautrec, having received twenty wounds; but being carried to Ferrara he was by diligent care of the surgeons recovered.
"By the death of Foix, the Spanish infantry were suffered to pass off unmolested, the remainder of the army being already dispersed and put to flight, and the baggage, colours, and cannons taken. The pope's legate was also taken by the Stradiotti and carried to Federigo da Bozzolo, who made a present of him to the legate of the council. There were taken also Fabrizio Colonna, Pietro Navarra, the Marchese della Palude, the Marchese di Bitonto, and the Marchese di Pescara, with many other lords, barons, and honourable gentlemen, Spaniards and Neapolitans. Nothing is more uncertain than the number of the killed in battles; but amidst the variety of accounts it is the most common opinion that there died of both armies at least 10,000, of which a third was of the French and two-thirds of their enemies: some talk of many more, but they were without question almost all of them of the most valiant and choice soldiers, among whom, belonging to the papal forces, was Raffaello de' Pazzi, an officer of high reputation; and great numbers were wounded. But in this respect the loss of the conqueror was without comparison much the greater by the death of Foix, Yves d'Allegre, and many of the French nobility, and many other brave officers of the German infantry, by whose valour, though at vast expense of their blood, the victory was in a great measure acquired. Molard also fell with many other officers of the Gascons and Picards, which nation lost all their glory that day among the French. But their loss was exceeded by the death of Foix, with whom perished the very sinews and spirits of that army. Of the vanquished that escaped out of the field of battle the greater part fled towards Cesena, whence they continued their flight to more distant places; nor did the Viceroy stop till he came to Ancona where he arrived with a very few horse. Many were stripped and murdered in their flight; for the peasants scoured all the roads and the Duke of Urbino, who from his sending some time before Baldassare da Castiglione to the King of France, and employing some trusty persons as his agents with Foix, was supposed to have entered into a private agreement against his uncle, not only raised the country against those that fled, but sent his soldiers to intercept them in the territories of Pesaro; so that only those who took their flight through the dominions of the Florentines were by orders of the magistrates, confirmed by the republic, suffered to pass unmolested.
"The victorious army was no sooner returned to camp than the people of Ravenna sent deputies to treat of surrendering their city; but when they had agreed or were upon the point of agreement, and the inhabitants being employed in preparing provisions to be sent to the camp were negligent in guarding the walls, the German and Gascon foot entered through the breach that had been made and plundered the town in a most barbarous manner, their cruelty being exasperated not only by their natural hatred to the name of the Italians, but by a spirit of revenge for the loss they had sustained in the battle. On the fourth day after this, Marcantonio Colonna gave up the citadel, into which he had retired, on condition of safety to their persons and effects, but obliging himself on the other hand, together with the rest of the officers, not to bear arms against the King of France nor the Pisan Council till the next festival of S. Mary Magdalen; and not many days after, Bishop Vitello, who commanded in the castle with a hundred and fifty men, agreed to surrender it on terms of safety for life and goods. The cities of Imola, Forli, Cesena, and Rimini, and all the castles of the Romagna, except those of Forli and Imola, followed the fortune of the victory and were received by the legate in the name of the council."
The site of this great battle is marked by a monument, a square pilaster of marble, called the Colonna dei Francesi, adorned with bas-reliefs and inscriptions, raised in 1557 by the President of the Romagna, Pier Donato Cesi, on the right bank of the Ronco, some three miles from the city. We may recall Ariosto's verses:
"Io venni dove le campagne rosse eran del sangue barbaro e latino che fiera stella dianzi a furor mosse.
"E vidi un morto all' altro si vicinoche, senza premer lor, quasi il terrenoa molte miglia non dava il cammino.
"E da chi alberga fra Garonna e Reno vidi uscir crudelta, che ne dovria tutto il mondo d'orror rimaner pieno."
The League of Cambray had succeeded in breaking the real security and confidence of Venice; the death of Gaston de Foix, "the hero boy who died too soon," destroyed the energy of her ally, the French army, in Italy; and the battle of Novara, as I have said, in 1513, inducing that ally to withdraw from the peninsula, left the republic to be menaced by Cardona, who failed only to take Venice itself.
Nor was that great government more fortunate in the long struggles which followed between Francis I. and Charles V. In 1523, seeing that the French were failing, Venice came to terms with the emperor, by that time the real arbiter of Italy. In 1527, though then in alliance with pope Clement VII, she seized once more Ravenna and the Romagna, but the emperor intervened, and by the peace of Cambray in 1529, which on payment of a fine confirmed Venice in her Lombard possessions as far as the Adda, she was compelled to restore Ravenna and the Romagna to the pope.
The treaty of Cambray had so far as Ravenna was concerned a certain finality about it. Thenceforth the popes ruled the city through a cardinal legate, and an era of a certain social and artistic splendour began; the city was adorned with at least one new church, S. Maria in Porto, with many monuments and palaces, and some great public works were undertaken.
So Ravenna in the arms of the Church slumbered till, in 1797, the great soldier of the Revolution descended upon Italy in that marvellous campaign which so closely recalls the achievement of Caesar. Ravenna then became a part first of the Cispadan and later of the Cisalpine republic. Then, as we know, came the Austrians who took Ravenna from the French, but were in their turn expelled in 1800, when the city was incorporated into the short-lived kingdom of Italy. But it was again attacked by the Austrians, and later restored once again to the pope. A period of uncertainty and confusion followed in which various provisional governments were established for Ravenna, but at last in 1860 the city and its province were, by a vote of the people, included in the kingdom of United Italy.
[Illustration: MONUMENT OF GASTON DE FOIX]
The period of the Renaissance which saw the papal government re-established in Ravenna in 1529, has left its mark upon the city in many a fine monument, indelibly stamped with the style of that fruitful period. Among such monuments we must note the beautiful tombs of Guidarello Guidarelli, by Tullio Lombardi, erected in 1557, now in the Accademia, and of Luffo Numai by Tommaso Flamberti in S. Francesco, erected about fifty years earlier (1509). Above all, however, must be named the great church of S. Maria in Porto (1553) and the palaces of Minzoni, Graziani, and others, with the Loggia del Giardino at S. Maria in Porto. And there is, too, the work of the painters Niccolo Rondinelli, Cotignola, Luca Longhi and his sons, Guido Reni, and others.
Later the papal government undertook many great public works. The Venetians had, as we shall see, re-fortified Ravenna; these fortifications the papal government enlarged, and in the middle of the seventeenth century undertook the digging and construction of the Canale Pamfilio, so named in honour of Innocent X., and in the following century of the Canale Corsini. These works were necessary, it is said, not only for the maritime commerce of the city, which one may think was scarcely large enough to have excused them, but for the preservation of Ravenna from inundation consequent upon the silting up of the rivers.
But the earliest work done in Ravenna after the close of the Middle Age was that undertaken by the Venetians. It was in 1457 that they began to build the really tremendous fortification or Rocca, the ruins of which we may still see. They were engaged during some ten years upon this great fortress, the master of the works being Giovanni Francesco da Massa. They employed as material the ruins of the church of S. Andrea dei Goti, built by Theodoric, which they had been compelled to destroy to make room for the fortress, as well as the materials of a palace of the Polentani. The Rocca with its great citadel played a considerable part in the battle of 1512, and the subsequent sack of the city. But when Ravenna came again into the government of the Holy See, though the fortifications of the city as a whole were enlarged, the Rocca itself soon fell into a decay and was indeed in great part destroyed in the middle of the seventeenth century, the monastery and the church of Classe being repaired and enlarged with its ruins and the Ponte Nuovo over the Fiumi Uniti, according to Dr. Ricci, being also constructed from its remains, as were other buildings in Ravenna. Then like the Rocca Malatestiana at Rimini it came to be used as a mere prison, and when it failed to prove useful for that purpose it was allowed to become the picturesque ruin we see.
Upon the Torre del Ponte of old were set two great reliefs; on high the Madonna and Child and beneath the Lion of S. Mark. The Madonna and Child, a mediocre work, remains, but when Venice was turned out of Ravenna the Lion was taken down and behind it were carved the papal arms. Both Madonna and Lion would seem to have been the work of Marino di Marco Ceprini.
Another work undertaken and achieved by the Venetians was the enlargement and the adornment of the Piazza Maggiore. There in 1483, when their work was finished, they raised two columns which still stand before the Palazzo del Comune. They stand upon circular bases in three tiers, sculptured in relief by Pietro Lombardi with the signs of the Zodiac and other symbols and ornaments. The capitals of both the columns are beautiful. Upon the northern column of old stood a statue of S. Apollinaris, the true patron of the city, while upon the southern column stood the Lion of S. Mark. But when in 1509 Ravenna came into the hands of Julius II. the Lion was removed and in 1640 the statue of S. Apollinaris from the northern column took its place, while there, where of old S. Apollinaris had stood, a statue of S. Vitalis was set as we see to-day. The Palazzo del Comune was entirely reconstructed in 1681, while the Palazzo Governativo was built in 1696 by the Cardinal Legate Francesco Barberini and the Orologio Pubblico, originally dating from 1483, was transformed, as we see it, in 1785 Of the Portico Antico I have already spoken.[1]
[Footnote 1: Seesupra, p. 192.]
One of the most interesting and accessible fifteenth-century houses in Ravenna is to be found in the Albergo del Cappello, with its fine original windows in the Via Rattazzi, not far from S. Domenico; it may stand as an example of many other old houses in the Via Arcivescovado, but I must especially name that beautiful Venetian house in the Via Ponte Marino—it is No. 15—the Casa Graziani with its lovely balcony, the Casa Baldim (Via Mazzini, 31) with its double loggia in thecortile, the Casa Fabbri next door (No. 33), the Casa Zirardini (Via Belle Arti, No. i), the Casa Baromo (Via Romolo Gessi, Nos. 6 and 16), and the Casa Ghigi with its lovely door and portico (No. 7 of the same street).
[Illustration: THE CLOISTER OF S. GIOVANNI EVANGELISTA]
Undoubtedly the greatest monument which the sixteenth century has left us in Ravenna is the church of S. Maria in Porto. This was built by the Canons Regular of the Lateran, the most ancient community of canons still extant, in the year 1553, when for about fifty years they had been compelled to abandon the church of S. Maria in Porto fuori outside the city, in the marsh. They not only furnished their new church, but to a considerable extent built it, out of the materials of S. Lorenzo in Cesarea, which they thus destroyed.
[Illustration: Colour Plate PORTA SERRATA]
S. Maria in Porto as we see it has suffered from restoration, and the facade is a work of the eighteenth century, but the church itself remains a noble sixteenth-century building divided within into three naves by huge pilasters and columns and covered at the crossing with a great octagonal cupola. There is, however, little that is very precious to be seen, a few fine marbles and the beautiful marble relief of the Madonna in prayer in the transept, called the Madonna Greca, a Byzantine work probably brought to Ravenna, according to Dr. Ricci, at the time of the crusades. It was originally in S. Maria in Porto fuori. The noble choir should also be noticed and the beautiful ciborio.
Close by the church is the Monastero of the Canons, within which there remains the lovely cloister which should be compared with those at S. Vitale and S. Giovanni Evangelista of the same period. This of S. Maria in Porto, however, is the finest, having doubled storied logge. Above all the exquisite Loggia del Giardino should not be missed. It was built in 1508, and looks on to a piece of the sixth-century wall of Ravenna.
Not far away in the Via Girotto Guaccimanni near the Hotel Byron is the church of S. Maria delle Croci, founded in the tenth century, but entirely rebuilt in the sixteenth. The rose in terracotta of the facade is a work of this time, as is the exquisite baldacchino over the high altar within, upheld by two pilasters and two columns of Greek marble. The picture, too, of the Assumption over the altar is by a master, perhaps Gaspare Sacch' of Imola, of the sixteenth century. Of the same period is the massive Porta Serrata at the north end of the Corso Garibaldi.
The best monument of later times left in Ravenna is the fine PalazzoRasponi in Via S. Agnese (No. 2) built in or about 1700.
Ravenna isolated in her marsh and altogether, both geographically and politically, out of the Italian world that began to flower so wonderfully in Tuscany, then in Umbria, and later still in Venice in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, is the last city in which to look for pictures. Nevertheless a few delightful pieces among much that is negligible are to be found in the Accademia delle Belle Arti in the Via Alfredo Baccarini. The collection was begun about 1827, and though what is to be seen there is never of the first importance it is certainly more than we had the right to expect.
The first two rooms upon the upper floor are devoted to the Romagnuol and Bolognese painters, the best of them here pupils or disciples of the one master Ravenna can boast, Niccolo Rondinelli.
We have seen Rondinelli's organ shutters in S. Domenico, here we have something better. This really fine pupil of Giovanni Bellini was born it seems in Ravenna in the middle of the fifteenth century. Vasari tells us that "there also flourished in Romagna an excellent painter called Rondinello…. Giovanni Bellini, whose disciple he had been, had availed himself to a considerable extent of his services in various works. But after Rondinello had left Giovanni Bellini he continued to practise his art and in such a manner that, being exceedingly diligent, he produced numerous works which are highly deserving of and have obtained considerable praise…. For the altar of S. Maria Maddalena in the cathedral of Ravenna this master painted a picture in oil, wherein he portrayed the figure of that saint only; but in the predella he executed three stories, the small figures of which are very gracefully depicted. In one of these is our Saviour Christ appearing to Mary Magdalen in the form of the gardener; another shows S. Peter leaving the ship and walking upon the waves of the sea, and between them is the Baptism of Christ. All these representations are executed in an exceedingly beautiful manner.[1] Rondinello likewise painted two pictures in the church of S. Giovanni Evangelista in the same city. One of these portrays the Consecration of the church by S. Giovanni[2] and the other exhibits three martyrs, S. Cancio, S. Canciano, and S. Cancianilla, all very beautiful figures.[3] For the church of S. Apollinare also in Ravenna this master painted two pictures, each containing a single figure, S. Giovanni Battista and S. Sebastiano, namely, both highly extolled.[4] There is a picture by the hand of Rondinello in the church of S. Spirito likewise; the subject, Our Lady between S. Jerome and the virgin martyr S. Catherine.[5] In S. Francesco, Rondinello painted two pictures, in one of which are S. Catherine and S. Francesco; while in the other our artist depicted the Madonna accompanied by many figures, as well as by the apostle S. James and by S. Francesco.[6] For the church of S. Domenico, Rondinello painted two pictures; one is to the left of the high altar and exhibits Our Lady with numerous figures; the other is on the fagade of the church and is very beautiful.[7] In the church of S. Niccolo, a monastery of Augustinians, this master painted a picture with S. Lorenzo and S. Francesco, a work which was most highly commended, in so much that it caused Rondinello to be held in the utmost esteem for the remainder of his life, not in Ravenna only, but in all Romagna.[8] The painter here in question lived to the age of sixty years, and was buried in S. Francesco at Ravenna."[9]
[Footnote 1: This picture would seem to be lost.]
[Footnote 2: This picture is now in the Brera at Milan, No. 452.]
[Footnote 3: This picture would seem to be lost. Milanesi says it was taken to Milan.Vas. v. 254, n. 2.]
[Footnote 4: There is a Sebastian by this master in the Duomo atForli; the S. Giovanni panel seems to be lost.]
[Footnote 5: This is now in the Accademia of Ravenna, No. 6.]
[Footnote 6: This would seem to have disappeared; but cf. Brera, 455.]
[Footnote 7: The first of these remains in S. Domenico, the other is,I think, now in the Accademia, No. 7.]
[Footnote 8: This picture, too, seems to be lost.]
[Footnote 9: Vasari (trs. Foster), vol. III. pp 382-384.]
In another place, Vasari tells us that the pupil who copied Giovanni Bellini most closely and did him most honour was "Rondinello of Ravenna, of whose aid the master availed himself much in all his works…. Rondinello painted his best work for the church of S. Giovanni Battista in Ravenna. The church belongs to the Carmelite Friars and in the painting, besides a figure of Our Lady, Rondinello depicted that of S. Alberto, a brother of their order;[10] the head of the saint is extremely beautiful, and the whole work very highly commended."[11]
[Footnote 10: Now in the Accademia, unnumbered; it represents theMadonna between S. Alberto and S. Sebastian.]
[Footnote 11: Vasari (trs. Foster), vol. II. pp. 171-172.]
Of all the works thus named by Vasari as painted by Rondinelli inRavenna only four remain, three in the Accademia and one in S.Domenico. I have already spoken of the tempera pieces in S.Domenico.[12] Of the three pieces in the Accademia, the Madonna andChild between S. Catherine and S. Jerome (No. 6) comes from S.Spirito; the Madonna and Child between SS. Catherine, Mary Magdalen,John Baptist, and Thomas Aquinas comes from S. Domenico, and is, I amconvinced, the picture spoken of by Vasari rather than thesixteenth-century work that still hangs there, which is, according toDr. Ricci, perhaps the mediocre work of Ragazzini. The third pictureby Rondinelli in the Accademia, the Madonna and Child between S.Alberto and S. Sebastian, comes from the church of the Carmelites, S.Giovanni Battista.
[Footnote 12: Seesupra, p. 246.]
Beside these three fine works of Rondinelli hangs the work of a man he strongly influenced, Francesco Zaganelli da Cotignola. When Vasari tells us that Rondinelli was buried in S. Francesco at Ravenna, he goes on to say that "after him came Francesco da Cotignola, who was also greatly esteemed in that city and painted numerous pictures there. On the high altar of the church which belongs to the Abbey of Classe, for example, there is one from his hand of tolerably large size, representing the Raising of Lazarus with many figures[1]. Opposite to this work in the year 1548 Giorgio Vasari painted another for Don Romualdo da Verona, the abbot of that place. This represents a Deposition of Christ from the Cross, and has also a large number of figures[2]. Francesco Cotignola painted a picture in S. Niccolo, likewise a very large one, the subject of which is the Birth of Christ, with two in S. Sebastiano exhibiting numerous figures[3]. For the hospital of S. Caterina, Francesco painted a picture of Our Lady, S. Caterina, and many other figures[4]; and in S. Agata, he painted a figure of our Saviour Christ on the Cross, the Madonna being at the foot thereof, with a considerable number of other figures; this work also has received commendation[5]. In the church of S. Apollinare in the same city are three pictures by this artist, one at the high altar with Our Lady, S. Giovanni Battista, S. Apollinare, S. Jerome, and other saints; in the second is also the Madonna with S. Peter and S. Catherine[6]; and in the third and last is Jesus Christ bearing his Cross, but this Francesco could not finish having been overtaken by death before its completion[7]. Francesco coloured in a very pleasing manner, but had not such power of design as Rondinello; he was nevertheless held in great account by the people of Ravenna. It was his desire to be buried in S. Apollinare, where he had painted certain figures, as we have said, wishing that in the place where he had lived and laboured his remains might find their repose after his death."
[Footnote 1: This is in the ex-church of S. Romuald in Classe in the sacristy, now part of the Museo]
[Footnote 2: This is now in the Accademia, No 40]
[Footnote 3: The first of these is in the Accademia (No. 10), as I suppose are the two other undescribed pictures]
[Footnote 4: Is this a Marriage of S. Catherine in S. Girolamo inRavenna?]
[Footnote 5: Now in the Accademia, No 13.]
[Footnote 6: Of these I know nothing]
[Footnote 7: Now in the canonica of S. Croce in Ravenna]
To-day in Ravenna there remain the three works described by Vasari, one in the ex-church S. Romualdo di Classe, the other, as I think, once in the Hospital of S. Catherine and now in S. Girolamo, and another at S. Croce. In the Accademia there are nine of his works, of which the S. Niccolo Presepio (No. 10) and the S. Agata Crucifixion (No. 13) are the better. A S. Sebastian (No. 12) and a S. Catherine (No. 11) should also be noticed. By his brother and assistant, Bernardino, there is one picture in the Accademia, the Agony in the Garden (No. 194).
Another master of the Romagnuol school, Marco Palmezzano, the pupil of Melozza da Forli, a contemporary of Rondinelli, who influenced him to some small extent, is represented in the Accademia by two works in Sala II., the Nativity and the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin (Nos. 189 and 190); in the Vescovado there is a Madonna and Child with four saints from his hand. Vasari says nothing of him, but only mentions his name, yet he has a good deal to tell us of perhaps a lesser man, Luca Longhi (1507-1580), who was born in Ravenna.
"Maestro Luca de' Longhi of Ravenna," he says, "a man of studious habits and quiet reserved character, has painted many beautiful pictures in oil, with numerous portraits from the life in his native city and its neighbourhood. Among other productions of Longhi are two sufficiently graceful little pictures which the reverend Don Antonio da Pisa, then abbot of the monastery, caused him to paint no long time since for the monks of Classe; many other works have also been executed by this painter. It is certain that Luca Longhi, being studious, diligent, and of admirable judgment as he is, would have become an excellent master had he not always confined himself to Ravenna where he still remains with his family; his works are accomplished with much patience and study; and of this I can bear testimony since I know the progress which he made during the time of my stay in Ravenna both in the practise and comprehension of art. Nor will I omit to mention that a daughter of his, called Barbara, still but a little child, draws very well and has begun to paint also in a very good manner and with much grace."
There are five pictures by Luca Longhi in the Accademia besides three portraits. In Sala I. we have an early work painted at the age of twenty-two, the Marriage of S. Catherine (No. 14); a Madonna and Child with S. Benedict, S. Apollinaris, S. Barbara, and S. Paul (No. 23). In Sala II. the Dead Christ between S. Bartholomew and Don Antonio da Pisa, abbot of the monastery of Classe (No. 17), and two pictures of the Adoration of the Shepherds (Nos. 15, 16). Here, too, are the three portraits from his hand which represent Raffaele Rasponi (No. 22), Giovanni Arrigoni (No. 21), and Girolamo Rossi (No. 20). By Luca's son Francesco there is a feeble Crucifixion (No. 29) in Sala I.;[1] and happily in Sala II. three pictures by Barbara, Luca's daughter, of whom Vasari speaks; a S. Catherine, which is really a portrait of the painter (No. 81), a Madonna and Child (No. 27), and a Judith (No. 28).[2]
[Footnote 1: There is another work, an Annunciation, by FrancescoLonghi in S. Croce.]
[Footnote 2: Another work by Barbara Longhi, S. Peter visiting S.Agata in Prison, may be seen in S. Maria Maggiore.]
Only one picture by a Bolognese master is really worthy of much notice here; I mean the S. Romuald of Guercino (No. 33) in Sala I. In the floor of this first room there is set a fine mosaic from S. Apollinare in Classe which should be noted.
The third room in the Accademia, filled with various works of little merit of the sundry schools of Italy, may be neglected. The fourth room, however, is devoted to the beautiful tomb of Guidarello Guidarelli, the very glorious work of Tullio Lombardi. Of old this exquisite tomb stood in the Cappella Braccioforte at S. Francesco. Guidarello of Ravenna was killed in battle at Imola in 1501, and Tullio Lombardi, the son of Pietro, was employed to make his tomb. "I doubt," says M. de Vogue, "whether, apart from the work of Donatello, the early Renaissance produced anything more beautiful." Guidarello the knight is represented in marble, a life-size figure, lying on his back, his body encased in armour, his helmet on his head, his visor raised, his gloved hands crossed over his sword which lies along his body. He seems, weary of fighting at last, to be sleeping, but the sweet expression upon the tired face makes us think rather of a monk than a soldier. In truth he was a knight of the olden time.
We leave the room in which he sleeps for ever in his marble, reluctantly, and, passing Sala V., which is full of late pictures of no interest, come to Sala VI. where there are several delightful early Italian works. One would not certainly expect to find in Ravenna a picture of the most exquisite school in Tuscany, the school of Siena. Yet here is a delightful Madonna and Child with S. Peter and S. Barbara (No. 191) by Matteo di Giovanni (1435-1495); and a fourteenth-century Annunciation (No. 176) from Tuscany. In the Crucifixion (No. 225) we seem to have an early Venetian work, and another Crucifixion (No. 181) might almost be from the hand of Lorenzo Monaco. It is probable that we see a work of Antonio da Fabriano in the S. Peter Damiano (No. 188), and certainly an Umbrian work in the S. Francis receiving the Stigmata (216). But the most remarkable Umbrian picture here is the Christ with the Cross between two angels (No. 202), the work of Niccolo da Foligno. A few early works by the mediocre masters of the Romagnuol school (Nos. 174, 171, 172, 182) are to be seen here also.
Sala VI. is entirely devoted to an immense number of pictures in the Byzantine manner, of considerable interest and much beauty, but not yet to be discussed.
We leave the Accademia for the Museo close by. The building in which the collections are housed is the old Camaldulensian monastery of Classe built in 1515 by the monks of S. Apollinare in Classe, and since S. Romuald, the founder of the order, was a Ravennese one may think the monastery might have been left in the hands of the monks. Even as it is it has considerably more interest for us than the collections gathered within it. The beautiful seventeenth-century cloisters, the old convent church of S. Romualdo in the baroque style of 1630, and the convent itself are delightful. The collections are mediocre. But here we may see all that is to be seen of the Ravenna of Augustus and of the great years of the empire, fragments and inscriptions and reliefs now and then of real interest, as in the relief representing the Apotheosis of Augustus, in the eastern walk of the cloisters, and in the remains of that suit of gold armour thought to be Theodoric's in the old sacristy. But for the most part the collection is without much attraction, yet certainly not to remain unvisited.
[Illustration: THE PINETA]
Ravenna has so much that is rare and precious to show us that few among the many who spend a day or two within her walls have the inclination to explore the melancholy marshes in which she stands. No doubt most of us drive out to S. Apollinare in Classe, but the road thither does not encourage a further journey, for it is rude and rough and the country over which it passes is among the most featureless in Italy. Nevertheless he does himself a wrong who leaves Ravenna for good without having spent one day at any rate in the Pineta which, ruined though it now be, is still one of the loveliest and most mysterious places in the Romagna.
But lovely though it is, and full of memories, what can be said of this vast ruined forest of stone pines with its mystery of mere and fen, its coolness and shadow, its astonishing silence? Only this I think, that if once you find it, nothing else in Ravenna will seem half so precious as this green wood. You will love it always and for its own sake more than anything else in Ravenna, and in this you will not be alone; every one who has come to it these thousand years has felt the same, Dante, Boccaccio, Byron, Carducci, the Pineta knows the footsteps of them all and they seem to haunt it still.
Dante would seem to have loved it best in the morning; out of it he conjures hisParadiso Terrestrein the twenty-eighth canto of thePurgatorio:
"Through that celestial forest, whose thick shadeWith lively greenness the new-springing dayAttemper'd, eager now to roam, and searchIts limits round, forthwith I left the bank;Along the champain leisurely my wayPursuing, o'er the ground, that on all sidesDelicious odour breathed. A pleasant airThat intermitted never, never veer'd,Smote on my temples, gently as a windOf softest influence, at which the sprays,Obedient all, lean'd trembling to that partWhere first the holy mountain casts his shade,Yet were not so disordered, but that stillUpon their top the feathered quiristersApplied their wonted art, and with full joyWelcomed those hours of prime, and warbled shrillAmid the leaves that to their jocund laysKept tenour; even as from branch to branchAlong the piny forests on the shoreOf Chiassi rolls the gathering melodyWhen Eolus hath from his cavern loosedThe dripping south. Already had my steps,Though slow, so far into that ancient woodTransported me, I could not ken the placeWhere I had entered; when, behold, my pathWas bounded by a rill which to the leftWith little rippling waters bent the grassThat issued from its brink. On earth no waveHow clear so'er that would not seem to haveSome mixture in itself, compared with thisTranspicuous clear; yet darkly on it rolled,Darkly beneath perpetual gloom, which ne'erAdmits or sun or moon-light there to shine."
Well, is not it the very place? And did not Dante, who knew Italy as few have known it, do well to remember it when he would describe for us the Earthly Paradise? In the forest the morning is sacred to him and there one should turn, with less misunderstanding than anywhere else, the precious pages of that poem which is in itself a universe.
But if the clear morning there is Dante's, when we may still hear the voice he heard pass by there, in the stillness, singing,Beati quorum tecta sunt peccata, the long noon belongs to Boccaccio, for it is full of the most tragic and pitiful of his tales.
[Illustration: THE PINETA]
"Ravenna being a very ancient City in Romania, there dwelt sometime a great number of worthy Gentlemen, among whom I am to speake of one more especially, named Anastasio, descended from the Family of the Honesti, who by the death of his Father, and an Unckle of his, was left extraordinarily abounding in riches, and growing to yeares fitting for marriage, (as young Gallants are easily apt enough to do) he became enamored of a very bountifull Gentlewoman, who was Daughter to Signior Paulo Traversario, one of the most ancient and noble Families in all the Countrey. Nor made he any doubt, but by his meanes and industrious endeavour, to derive affection from her againe; for he carried himselfe like a brave-minded Gentleman, liberall in his expences, honest and affable in all his actions, which commonly are the true notes of a good nature, and highly to be commended in any man. But, howsoever Fortune became his enemy, these laudable parts of manhood did not any way friend him, but rather appeared hurtfull to himselfe: so cruell, unkind, and almost meerely savage did she shew her self to him; perhaps in pride of her singular beauty, or presuming on her nobility by birth, both which are rather blemishes, then ornaments in a woman, especially when they be abused.
"The harsh and uncivill usage in her, grew very distastefull to Anastasio, and so unsufferable, that after a long time of fruitlesse service, requited still with nothing but coy disdaine; desperate resolutions entred into his brain, and often he was minded to kill himselfe. But better thoughts supplanting those furious passions, he abstained from any such violent act; and governed by more manly consideration, determined, that as shee hated him, he would requite her with the like, if he could: wherein he became altogether deceived, because as his hopes grew to a dayly decaying, yet his love enlarged it selfe more and more.
"Thus Anastasio persevering still in his bootlesse affection, and his expences not limited within any compasse; it appeared in the judgement of his Kindred and Friends, that he was falne into a mighty consumption, both of his body and meanes. In which respect, many times they advised him to leave the City of Ravenna, and live in some other place for such a while; as might set a more moderate stint upon his spendings, and bridle the indiscreete course of his love, the onely fuell which fed this furious fire.
"Anastasio held out thus a long time, without lending an eare to such friendly counsell: but in the end, he was so neerely followed by them, as being no longer able to deny them, he promised to accomplish their request. Whereupon, making such extraordinary preparation, as if he were to set thence for France or Spaine, or else into some further distant countrey: he mounted on horsebacke, and accompanied with some few of his familiar friends, departed from Ravenna, and rode to a countrey dwelling house of his owne, about three or foure miles distant from the Cittie, which was called Chiasso, and there (upon a very goodly greene) erecting divers Tents and Pavillions, such as great persons make use of in the time of a Progresse: he said to his friends, which came with him thither, that there he determined to make his abiding, they all returning backe unto Ravenna, and might come to visite him againe so often as they pleased.
"Now, it came to passe, that about the beginning of May, it being then a very milde and serrene season, and he leading there a much more magnificent life, then ever hee had done before, inviting divers to dine with him this day, and as many to morrow, and not to leave him till after supper: upon the sodaine, falling into remembrance of his cruell Mistris, hee commanded all his servants to forbeare his company, and suffer him to walke alone by himselfe awhile, because he had occasion of private meditations, wherein he would not (by any meanes) be troubled. It was then about the ninth houre of the day, and he walking on solitary all alone, having gone some halfe miles distance from his Tents, entred into a Grove of Pine-trees, never minding dinner time, or any thing else, but onely the unkind requitall of his love.
"Sodainly he heard the voice of a woman, seeming to make most mournfull complaints, which breaking off his silent considerations, made him to lift up his head, to know the reason of this noise. When he saw himselfe so farre entred into the Grove, before he could imagine where he was; hee looked amazedly round about him, and out of a little thicket of bushes and briars, round engirt with spreading trees, hee espyed a young Damosell come running towards him, naked from the middle upward, her haire dishevelled on her shoulders, and her faire skinne rent and torne with the briars and brambles, so that the blood ran trickling downe mainely; she weeping, wringing her hands, and crying out for mercy so lowde as she could. Two fierce Blood-hounds also followed swiftly after, and where their teeth tooke hold, did most cruelly bite her. Last of all (mounted on a lusty blacke Courser) came galloping a Knight, with a very sterne and angry countenance, holding a drawne short Sword in his hand, giving her very vile and dreadful speeches, and threatning every minute to kill her.
"This strange and uncouth sight, bred in him no meane admiration, as also kinde compassion to the unfortunate woman; out of which compassion, sprung an earnest desire, to deliver her (if he could) from a death so full of anguish and horror: but seeing himselfe to be without Armes, he ran and pluckt up the plant of a Tree, which handling as if it had bene a staffe, he opposed himselfe against the Dogges and the Knight, who seeing him comming, cryed out in this manner to him. Anastasio, put not thy selfe in any opposition, but referre to my Hounds and me, to punish this wicked woman as she hath justly deserved. And in speaking these words, the Hounds tooke fast hold on her body, so staying her, untill the Knight was come neerer to her, and alighted from his horse: when Anastasio (after some other angry speeches) spake thus unto him: I cannot tell what or who thou art, albeit thou takest such knowledge of me, yet I must say, that it is meere cowardize in a Knight, being armed as thou art, to offer to kill a naked woman, and make thy dogges thus to seize on her, as if she were a savage beast; therefore beleeve me, I will defend her so farre as I am able.