CROSS OF THE FLORENTINE PEOPLECROSS OF THE FLORENTINE PEOPLE(FROM OLD HOUSE ON NORTH SIDE OF DUOMO)View larger image
CROSS OF THE FLORENTINE PEOPLE(FROM OLD HOUSE ON NORTH SIDE OF DUOMO)
ARMS OF THE MEDICI FROM THE BADIA AT FIESOLE.ARMS OF THE MEDICI FROM THE BADIA AT FIESOLE.View larger image
ARMS OF THE MEDICI FROM THE BADIA AT FIESOLE.
Per molti, donna, anzi per mille amanti,creata fusti, e d'angelica forma.Or par che'n ciel si dorma,s'un sol s'appropria quel ch'è dato a tanti.(Michelangelo Buonarroti).
THE Via dei Martelli leads from the Baptistery into the Via Cavour, formerly the historical Via Larga. Here stands the great Palace of the Medici, now called the Palazzo Riccardi from the name of the family to whom the Grand Duke Ferdinand II. sold it in the seventeenth century.
The palace was begun by Michelozzo for Cosimo the Elder shortly before his exile, and completed after his return, when it became in reality the seat of government of the city, although the Signoria still kept up the pretence of a republic in the Palazzo Vecchio. Here Lorenzo the Magnificent was born on January 1st, 1449, and here the most brilliant and cultured society of artists and scholars that the world had seen gathered round him and his family.[44]Here, too, after the expulsion of Lorenzo's mad son, Piero, in 1494, Charles VIII. of France was splendidly lodged; here Piero Capponi tore the dishonourable treaty and saved the Republic, and here Fra Girolamo a few days later admonished the fickle king. On the return of the Medici, the Cardinal Giovanni, the younger Lorenzo, and the Cardinal Giulio successively governed the city here; until in 1527 the people drove out the young pretenders, Alessandro and Ippolito, with their guardian, the Cardinal Passerini. It was on this latter occasion that Piero's daughter, Madonna Clarice, the wife of the younger Filippo Strozzi, was carried hither in her litter, and literally slanged these boys and the Cardinal out of Florence. She is reported, with more vehemence than delicacy, to have told her young kinsmen that the house of Lorenzo dei Medici was not a stable for mules. During the siege, the people wished to entirely destroy the palace and rename the place the Piazza dei Muli.
After the restoration Alessandro carried on his abominable career here, until, on January 5th, 1537, the dagger of another Lorenzo freed the world from an infamous monster. Some months before, Benvenuto Cellini came to the palace, as he tells us in his autobiography,to show the Duke the wax models for his medals which he was making. Alessandro was lying on his bed, indisposed, and with him was only this Lorenzino or Lorenzaccio,quel pazzo malinconico filosafo di Lorenzino, as Benvenuto calls him elsewhere. "The Duke," writes Benvenuto, "several times signed to him that he too should urge me to stop; upon which Lorenzino never said anything else, but: 'Benvenuto, you would do best for yourself to stay.' To which I said that I wanted by all means to return to Rome. He said nothing more, and kept continually staring at the Duke with a most evil eye. Having finished the medal and shut it up in its case, I said to the Duke: 'My Lord, be content, for I will make you a much more beautiful medal than I made for Pope Clement; for reason wills that I should do better, since that was the first that ever I made; and Messer Lorenzo here will give me some splendid subject for a reverse, like the learned person and magnificent genius that he is.' To these words the said Lorenzo promptly answered: 'I was thinking of nothing else, save how to give thee a reverse that should be worthy of his Excellency.' The Duke grinned, and, looking at Lorenzo, said: 'Lorenzo, you shall give him the reverse, and he shall make it here, and shall not go away.' Lorenzo replied hastily, saying: 'I will do it as quickly as I possibly can, and I hope to do a thing that will astonish the world.' The Duke, who sometimes thought him a madman and sometimes a coward, turned over in his bed, and laughed at the words which he had said to him. I went away without other ceremonies of leave-taking, and left them alone together."
On the fatal night Lorenzino lured the Duke into his own rooms, in what was afterwards called the Strada del Traditore, which was incorporated intothe palace by the Riccardi. Alessandro, tired out with the excesses of the day, threw himself upon a bed; Lorenzino went out of the room, ostensibly to fetch his kinswoman, Caterina Ginori, whose beauty had been the bait; and he returned with the bravo Scoroncocolo, with whose assistance he assassinated him. Those who saw Sarah Bernhardt in the part of "Lorenzaccio," will not easily forget her rendering of this scene. Lorenzino published an Apologia, in which he enumerates Alessandro's crimes, declares that he was no true offspring of the Medici, and that his own single motive was the liberation of Florence from tyranny. He fled first to Constantinople, and then to Venice, where he was murdered in 1547 by the agents of Alessandro's successor, Cosimo I., who transferred the ducal residence from the present palace first to the Palazzo Vecchio, and then across the river to the Pitti Palace.
With the exception of the chapel, the interior of the Palazzo Riccardi is not very suggestive of the old Medicean glories of the days of Lorenzo the Magnificent. There is a fine court, surrounded with sarcophagi and statues, including some of the old tombs which stood round the Baptistery and among which Guido Cavalcanti used to linger, and some statues of Apostles from the second façade of the Duomo. Above the arcades are eight fine classical medallions by Donatello, copied and enlarged from antique gems. The rooms above have been entirely altered since the days when Capponi defied King Charles, and Madonna Clarice taunted Alessandro and Ippolito; the large gallery, which witnessed these scenes, is covered with frescoes by Luca Giordano, executed in the early part of the seventeenth century. The Chapel–still entirely reminiscent of the better Medici–was painted by Benozzo Gozzoli shortlybefore the death of Cosimo the Elder, with frescoes representing the Procession of the Magi, in a delightfully impossible landscape. The two older kings are the Patriarch Joseph of Constantinople, and John Paleologus, Emperor of the East, who had visited Florence twenty years before on the occasion of the Council (Benozzo, it must be observed, was painting them in 1459, after the fall of Constantinople); the third is Lorenzo dei Medici himself, as a boy. Behind follow the rest of the Medicean court, Cosimo himself and his son, Piero, content apparently to be led forward by this mere lad; and in their train is Benozzo Gozzoli himself, marked by the signature on his hat. The picture of the Nativity itself, round which Benozzo's lovely Angels–though very earthly compared with Angelico's–seem still to linger in attendance, is believed to have been one by Lippo Lippi, now at Berlin.
In the chapterOf the Superhuman Ideal, in the second volume ofModern Painters, Ruskin refers to these frescoes as the most beautiful instance of the supernatural landscapes of the early religious painters:–
"Behind the adoring angel groups, the landscape is governed by the most absolute symmetry; roses, and pomegranates, their leaves drawn to the last rib and vein, twine themselves in fair and perfect order about delicate trellises; broad stone pines and tall cypresses overshadow them, bright birds hover here and there in the serene sky, and groups of angels, hand joined with hand, and wing with wing, glide and float through the glades of the unentangled forest. But behind the human figures, behind the pomp and turbulence of the kingly procession descending from the distant hills, the spirit of the landscape is changed. Severer mountains rise in the distance, ruder prominences and less flowery vary the nearer ground, and gloomyshadows remain unbroken beneath the forest branches."
Among the manuscripts in theBiblioteca Riccardiana, which is entered from the Via Ginori at the back of the palace, is the most striking and plausible of all existing portraits of Dante. It is at the beginning of a codex of the Canzoni (numbered 1040), and appears to have been painted about 1436.
From the palace where the elder Medici lived, we turn to the church where they, and their successors of the younger line, lie in death. In the Piazza San Lorenzo there is an inane statue of the father of Cosimo I., Giovanni delle Bande Nere, by Baccio Bandinelli. Here, in June 1865, Robert Browning picked up at a stall the "square old yellow Book" with "the crumpled vellum covers," which gave him the story ofThe Ring and the Book:–
"I found this book,Gave a lira for it, eightpence English just,(Mark the predestination!) when a Hand,Always above my shoulder, pushed me once,One day still fierce 'mid many a day struck calm,Across a square in Florence, crammed with booths,Buzzing and blaze, noon-tide and market-time,Toward Baccio's marble–ay, the basement ledgeO' the pedestal where sits and menacesJohn of the Black Bands with the upright spear,'Twixt palace and church–Riccardi where they lived,His race, and San Lorenzo where they lie."That memorable day,(June was the month, Lorenzo named the Square)I leaned a little and overlooked my prizeBy the low railing round the fountain-sourceClose to the statue, where a step descends:While clinked the cans of copper, as stooped and roseThick-ankled girls who brimmed them, and made placeFor market men glad to pitch basket down,Dip a broad melon-leaf that holds the wet,And whisk their faded fresh."
"I found this book,Gave a lira for it, eightpence English just,(Mark the predestination!) when a Hand,Always above my shoulder, pushed me once,One day still fierce 'mid many a day struck calm,Across a square in Florence, crammed with booths,Buzzing and blaze, noon-tide and market-time,Toward Baccio's marble–ay, the basement ledgeO' the pedestal where sits and menacesJohn of the Black Bands with the upright spear,'Twixt palace and church–Riccardi where they lived,His race, and San Lorenzo where they lie.
"That memorable day,(June was the month, Lorenzo named the Square)I leaned a little and overlooked my prizeBy the low railing round the fountain-sourceClose to the statue, where a step descends:While clinked the cans of copper, as stooped and roseThick-ankled girls who brimmed them, and made placeFor market men glad to pitch basket down,Dip a broad melon-leaf that holds the wet,And whisk their faded fresh."
THE TOMB OF GIOVANNI AND PIERO DEI MEDICITHE TOMB OF GIOVANNI AND PIERO DEI MEDICIBy Andrea Verrocchio(In San Lorenzo)View larger image
THE TOMB OF GIOVANNI AND PIERO DEI MEDICIBy Andrea Verrocchio(In San Lorenzo)
The unsightly bare front of San Lorenzo represents several fruitless and miserable years of Michelangelo's life. Pope Leo X. and the Cardinal Giulio dei Medici commissioned him to make a new façade, in 1516, and for some years he consumed his time labouring among the quarries of Carrara and Pietrasanta, getting the marble for it and for the statues with which it was to be adorned. In one of his letters he says: "I am perfectly disposed (a me basta l'animo) to make this work of the façade of San Lorenzo so that, both in architecture and in sculpture, it shall be the mirror of all Italy; but the Pope and the Cardinal must decide quickly, if they want me to do it or not"; and again, some time later: "What I have promised to do, I shall do by all means, and I shall make the most beautiful work that was ever made in Italy, if God helps me." But nothing came of it all; and in after years Michelangelo bitterly declared that Leo had only pretended that he wanted the façade finished, in order to prevent him working upon the tomb of Pope Julius.
"The ancient Ambrosian Basilica of St. Lawrence," founded according to tradition by a Florentine widow named Giuliana, and consecrated by St. Ambrose in the days of Zenobius, was entirely destroyed by fire early in the fifteenth century, during a solemn service ordered by the Signoria to invoke the protection of St. Ambrose for the Florentines in their war against Filippo Maria Visconti. Practically the only relic of this Basilica is the miraculous image of the Madonna in the right transept. The present church was erected from the designs of Filippo Brunelleschi, at the cost of the Medici (especially Giovanni di Averardo, who may be regarded as its chief founder) and seven other Florentine families. It is simple and harmonious in structure; the cupola, which is so visible in distant views of Florence, looking like a smaller edition of the Duomo,unlike the latter, rests directly upon the cross. This appears to be one of the modifications from what Brunelleschi had intended.
The two pulpits with their bronze reliefs, right and left, are the last works of Donatello; they were executed in part and finished by his pupil, Bertoldo. The marble singing gallery in the left aisle (near a fresco of the martyrdom of St. Lawrence, by Bronzino) is also the joint work of Donatello and Bertoldo. In the right transept is a marble tabernacle by Donatello's great pupil, Desiderio da Settignano. Beneath a porphyry slab in front of the choir, Cosimo the Elder, the Pater Patriae, lies; Donatello is buried in the same vault as his great patron and friend. In the Martelli Chapel, on the left, is an exceedingly beautiful Annunciation by Fra Filippo Lippi, a fine example of his colouring (in which he is decidedly the best of all the early Florentines); Gabriel is attended by two minor Angels, squires waiting upon this great Prince of the Archangelic order, who are full of that peculiar mixture of boyish high spirits and religious sentiment which gives a special charm of its own to all that Lippo does.
TheSagrestia Vecchia, founded by Giovanni di Averardo, was erected by Brunelleschi and decorated by Donatello for Cosimo the Elder. In the centre is the marble sarcophagus, adorned withputtiand festoons, containing the remains of Giovanni and his wife Piccarda, Cosimo's father and mother, by Donatello. The bronze doors (hardly among his best works), the marble balustrade before the altar, the stucco medallions of the Evangelists, the reliefs of patron saints of the Medici and the frieze of Angels' heads are all Donatello's; also an exceedingly beautiful terracotta bust of St. Lawrence, which is one of his most attractive creations. In the niche on the left of the entrance is the simple but very beautiful tomb ofthe two sons of Cosimo, Piero and Giovanni–who are united also in Botticelli's Adoration of the Magi as the two kings–and it serves also as a monument to Cosimo himself; it was made by Andrea Verrocchio for Lorenzo and Giuliano, Piero's sons. The remains of Lorenzo and Giuliano rested together in this sacristy until they were translated in the sixteenth century. In spite of a misleading modern inscription, they were apparently not buried in their father's grave, and the actual site of their former tomb is unknown. They now lie together in theSagrestia Nuova. The simplicity of these funereal monuments and thepietàswhich united the members of the family so closely, in death and in life alike, are very characteristic of these earlier Medicean rulers of Florence.
The cloisters of San Lorenzo, haunted by needy and destitute cats, were also designed by Brunelleschi. To the right, after passing Francesco da San Gallo's statue of Paolo Giovio, the historian, who died in 1559, is the entrance to the famous Biblioteca Laurenziana. The nucleus of this library was the collection of codices formed by Niccolò Niccoli, which were afterwards purchased by Cosimo the Elder, and still more largely increased by Lorenzo the Magnificent; after the expulsion of Piero the younger, they were bought by the Friars of San Marco, and then from them by the Cardinal Giovanni, who transferred them to the Medicean villa at Rome. In accordance with Pope Leo's wish, Clement VII. (then the Cardinal Giulio) brought them back to Florence, and, when Pope, commissioned Michelangelo to design the building that was to house them. The portico, vestibule and staircase were designed by him, and, in judging of their effect, it must be remembered that Michelangelo professed that architecture was not his business, and also that the vestibule and staircase wereintended to have been adorned with bronzes and statues. It was commenced in 1524, before the siege. Of the numberless precious manuscripts which this collection contains, we will mention only two classical and one mediæval; the famous Pandects of Justinian which the Pisans took from Amalfi, and the Medicean Virgil of the fourth or fifth century; and Boccaccio's autograph manuscript of Dante's Eclogues and Epistles. This latter codex, shown under the glass at the entrance to the Rotunda, is the only manuscript in existence which contains Dante's Epistles to the Italian Cardinals and to a Florentine Friend. In the first, he defines his attitude towards the Church, and declares that he is not touching the Ark, but merely turning to the kicking oxen who are dragging it out of the right path; in the second, he proudly proclaims his innocence, rejects the amnesty, and refuses to return to Florence under dishonourable conditions. Although undoubtedly in Boccaccio's handwriting, it has been much disputed of late years as to whether these two letters are really by Dante. There is not a single autograph manuscript, nor a single scrap of Dante's handwriting extant at the present day.
From the Piazza Madonna, at the back of San Lorenzo, we enter a chilly vestibule, the burial vault of less important members of the families of the Medicean Grand Dukes, and ascend to theSagrestia Nuova, where the last male descendants of Cosimo the Elder and Lorenzo the Magnificent lie. Although the idea of adding some such mausoleum to San Lorenzo appears to have originated with Leo X., this New Sacristy was built by Michelangelo for Clement VII., commenced while he was still the Cardinal Giulio and finished in 1524, before the Library was constructed. Its form wasintended to correspond with that of Brunelleschi's Old Sacristy, and it was to contain four sepulchral monuments. Two of these, the only two that were actually constructed, were for the younger Lorenzo, titular Duke of Urbino (who died in 1519, the son of Piero and nephew of Pope Leo), and the younger Giuliano, Duke of Nemours (who died in 1516, the third son of the Magnificent and younger brother of Leo). It is not quite certain for whom the other two monuments were to have been, but it is most probable that they were for the fathers of the two Medicean Popes, Lorenzo the Magnificent and his brother the elder Giuliano, whose remains were translated hither by Duke Cosimo I. and rediscovered a few years ago. Michelangelo commenced the statues before the third expulsion of the Medici, worked on them in secret while he was fortifying Florence against Pope Clement before the siege, and returned to them, after the downfall of the Republic, as the condition of obtaining the Pope's pardon. He resumed work, full of bitterness at the treacherous overthrow of the Republic, tormented by the heirs of Pope Julius II., whose tomb he had been forced to abandon, suffering from insomnia and shattered health, threatened with death by the tyrant Alessandro. When he left Florence finally in 1534, just before the death of Clement, the statues had not even been put into their places.
Neither of the ducal statues is a portrait, but they appear to represent the active and contemplative lives, like the Leah and Rachel on the tomb of Pope Julius II. at Rome. On the right sits Giuliano, holding the baton of command as Gonfaloniere of the Church. His handsome sensual features to some extent recall those of the victorious youth in the allegory in the Bargello. He holds his baton somewhat loosely, as though he half realised the baseness of the historicalpart he was doomed to play, and had not got his heart in it. Opposite is Lorenzo, immersed in profound thought, "ghastly as a tyrant's dream." What visions are haunting him of the sack of Prato, of the atrocities of the barbarian hordes in the Eternal City, of the doom his house has brought upon Florence? Does he already smell the blood that his daughter will shed, fifty years later, on St. Bartholomew's day? Here he sits, as Elizabeth Barrett Browning puts it:–
"With everlasting shadow on his face,While the slow dawns and twilights disapproveThe ashes of his long extinguished race,Which never more shall clog the feet of men."
"It fascinates and is intolerable," as Rogers wrote of this statue. It is, probably, not due to Michelangelo that the niches in which the dukes sit are too narrow for them; but the result is to make the tyrants seem as helpless as their victims, in the fetters of destiny. Beneath them are four tremendous and terrible allegorical figures: "those four ineffable types," writes Ruskin, "not of darkness nor of day–not of morning nor evening, but of the departure and the resurrection, the twilight and the dawn of the souls of men." Beneath Lorenzo are Dawn and Twilight; Dawn awakes in agony, but her most horrible dreams are better than the reality which she must face; Twilight has worked all day in vain, and, like a helpless Titan, is sinking now into a slumber where is no repose. Beneath Giuliano are Day and Night: Day is captive and unable to rise, his mighty powers are uselessly wasted and he glares defiance; Night is buried in torturing dreams, but Michelangelo has forbidden us to wake her:–
"Grato mi è il sonno, e più l'esser di sasso;mentre che il danno e la vergogna dura,non veder, non sentir, m'è gran ventura;però non mi destar; deh, parla basso!"[45]
It will be remembered that it was for these two young men, to whom Michelangelo has thus reared the noblest sepulchral monuments of the modern world, that Leo X. desired to build kingdoms and that Machiavelli wrote one of the masterpieces of Italian prose–thePrincipe. Giuliano was the most respectable of the elder Medicean line; in Castiglione'sCortigianohe is an attractive figure, the chivalrous champion of women. It is not easy to get a definite idea of the character of Lorenzo, who, as we saw in chapter iv., was virtually tyrant of Florence during his uncle's pontificate. The Venetian ambassador once wrote of him that he was fitted for great deeds, and only a little inferior to Cæsar Borgia–which was intended for very high praise; but there was nothing in him to deserve either Michelangelo's monument or Machiavelli's dedication. He usurped the Duchy of Urbino, and spent his last days in fooling with a jester. His reputed son, the foul Duke Alessandro, lies buried with him here in the same coffin.
Opposite the altar is the Madonna and Child, by Michelangelo. The Madonna is one of the noblest and most beautiful of all the master's works, but the Child, whom Florence had once chosen for her King, has turned His face away from the city. A few years later, and Cosimo I. will alter the inscription which Niccolò Capponi had set up on the Palazzo Vecchio. The patron saints of the Medici on either side, Sts. Cosmas and Damian, are by Michelangelo's pupils and assistants, Fra Giovanni Angiolo da Montorsoliand Raffaello da Montelupo. Beneath these statues lie Lorenzo the Magnificent and his brother, the elder Giuliano. Their bodies were removed hither from the Old Sacristy in 1559, and the question as to their place of burial was finally set at rest, in October 1895, by the discovery of their bodies. It is probable that Michelangelo had originally intended the Madonna for the tomb of his first patron, Lorenzo.
In judging of the general effect of thisSagrestia Nuova, which is certainly somewhat cold, it must be remembered that Michelangelo intended it to be full of statues and that the walls were to have been covered with paintings. "Its justification," says Addington Symonds, "lies in the fact that it demanded statuary and colour for its completion." The vault was frescoed by Giovanni da Udine, but is now whitewashed. In 1562, Vasari wrote to Michelangelo at Rome on behalf of Duke Cosimo, telling him that "the place is being now used for religious services by day and night, according to the intentions of Pope Clement," and that the Duke was anxious that all the best sculptors and painters of the newly instituted Academy should work upon the Sacristy and finish it from Michelangelo's designs. "He intends," writes Vasari, "that the new Academicians shall complete the whole imperfect scheme, in order that the world may see that, while so many men of genius still exist among us, the noblest work which was ever yet conceived on earth has not been left unfinished." And the Duke wants to know what Michelangelo's own idea is about the statues and paintings; "He is particularly anxious that you should be assured of his determination to alter nothing you have already done or planned, but, on the contrary, to carry out the whole work according to your conception. The Academicians, too, are unanimous in their heartydesire to abide by this decision."[46]
In theCappella dei Principi, gorgeous with its marbles and mosaics, lie the sovereigns of the younger line, the Medicean Grand Dukes of Tuscany, the descendants of the great captain Giovanni delle Bande Nere. Here are the sepulchral monuments of Cosimo I. (1537-1574); of his sons, Francesco (1574-1587) and Ferdinand I. (1587-1609); and of Ferdinand's son, grandson and great-grandson, Cosimo II. (1609-1621), Ferdinand II. (1627-1670), Cosimo III. (1670-1723). The statues are those of Ferdinand I. and Cosimo II.
Cosimo I. finally transformed the republic into a monarchy, created a new aristocracy and established a small standing army, though he mainly relied upon Spanish and German mercenaries. He conquered Siena in 1553, and in 1570 was invested with the grand ducal crown by Pius V.–a title which the Emperor confirmed to his successor. Although the tragedy which tradition has hung round the end of the Duchess Eleonora and her two sons has not stood the test of historical criticism, there are plenty of bloody deeds to be laid to Duke Cosimo's account during his able and ruthless reign. Towards the close of his life he married his mistress, Cammilla Martelli, and made over the government to his son. This son, Francesco, the founder of the Uffizi Gallery and of the modern city of Leghorn, had more than his father's vices and hardly any of his ability; his intrigue with the beautiful Venetian, Bianca Cappello, whom he afterwards married, and who died with him, has excited more interest than it deserves. The Cardinal Ferdinand, who succeeded him and renounced the cardinalate, was incomparably the best of the house–a man of magnanimous character and an enlightened ruler. Heshook off the influence of Spain, and built an excellent navy to make war upon the Turks and Barbary corsairs. Cosimo II. and Ferdinand II. reigned quietly and benevolently, with no ability but with plenty of good intentions. Chiabrera sings their praises with rather unnecessary fervour. But the wealth and prosperity of Tuscany was waning, and Cosimo III., a luxurious and selfish bigot, could do nothing to arrest the decay. On the death of his miserable and contemptible successor, Gian Gastone dei Medici in 1737, the Medicean dynasty was at an end.
Stretching along a portion of the Via Larga, and near the Piazza di San Marco, were the famous gardens of the Medici, which the people sacked in 1494 on the expulsion of Piero. The Casino Mediceo, built by Buontalenti in 1576, marks the site. Here were placed some of Lorenzo's antique statues and curios; and here Bertoldo had his great art school, where the most famous painters and sculptors came to bask in the sun of Medicean patronage, and to copy the antique. Here the boy Michelangelo came with his friend Granacci, and here Andrea Verrocchio first trained the young Leonardo. In this garden, too, Angelo Poliziano walked with his pupils, and initiated Michelangelo into the newly revived Hellenic culture. There is nothing now to recall these past glories.
THE WELL OF S. MARCOTHE WELL OF S. MARCOView larger image
THE WELL OF S. MARCO
The church of San Marco has been frequently altered and modernised, and there is little now to remind us that it was here on August 1, 1489, that Savonarola began to expound the Apocalypse. Over the entrance is a Crucifix ascribed by Vasari to Giotto. On the second altar to the right is a much-damaged but authentic Madonna and Saints by Fra Bartolommeo; that on the opposite altar, on the left,is a copy of the original now in the Pitti Palace. There are some picturesque bits of old fourteenth century frescoes on the left wall, and beneath them, between the second and third altars, lie Pico della Mirandola and his friend Girolamo Benivieni, and Angelo Poliziano. The left transept contains the tomb and shrine of St Antoninus, the good Dominican Archbishop of Florence, with statues by Giovanni da Bologna and his followers, and later frescoes. In the sacristy, which was designed by Brunelleschi, there is a fine bronze recumbent statue of him. Antoninus was Prior of San Marco in the days of Angelico, and Vasari tells us that when Angelico went to Rome, to paint for Pope Eugenius, the Pope wished to make the painter Archbishop of Florence: "When the said friar heard this, he besought his Holiness to find somebody else, because he did not feel himself apt to govern people; but that since his Order had a friar who loved the poor, who was most learned and fit for rule, and who feared God, this dignity would be much better conferred upon him than on himself. The Pope, hearing this, and bethinking him that what he said was true, granted his request freely; and so Fra Antonino was made Archbishop of Florence, of the Order of Preachers, a man truly most illustrious for sanctity and learning."
It was in the church of San Marco that Savonarola celebrated Mass on the day of the Ordeal; here the women waited and prayed, while the procession set forth; and hither the Dominicans returned at evening, amidst the howls and derision of the crowd. Here, on the next evening, the fiercest of the fighting took place. The attempt of the enemy to break into the church by the sacristy door was repulsed. One of the Panciatichi, a mere boy, mortally wounded, joyfully received the last sacraments from Fra Domenicoon the steps of the altar, and died in such bliss, that the rest envied him. Finally the great door of the church was broken down; Fra Enrico, a German, mounted the pulpit and fired again and again into the midst of the Compagnacci, shouting with each shot,Salvum fac populum tuum, Domine. Driven from the pulpit, he and other friars planted their arquebusses beneath the Crucifix on the high altar, and continued to fire. The church was now so full of smoke that the friars could hardly continue the defence, until Fra Giovacchino della Robbia broke one of the windows with a lance. At last, when the Signoria threatened to destroy the whole convent with artillery, Savonarola ordered the friars to go in procession from the church to the dormitory, and himself, taking the Blessed Sacrament from the altar, slowly followed them.
The convent itself, now officially theMuseo di San Marco, originally a house of Silvestrine monks, was made over to the Dominicans by Pope Eugenius IV., at the instance of Cosimo dei Medici and his brother Lorenzo. They solemnly took possession in 1436, and Michelozzo entirely rebuilt the whole convent for them, mainly at the cost of Cosimo, between 1437 and 1452. "It is believed," says Vasari, "to be the best conceived and the most beautiful and commodious convent of any in Italy, thanks to the virtue and industry of Michelozzo." Fra Giovanni da Fiesole, as the Beato Angelico was called, came from his Fiesolan convent, and worked simultaneously with Michelozzo for about eight or nine years (until the Pope summoned him to Rome in 1445 to paint in the Vatican), covering with his mystical dreams the walls that his friend designed. That other artistic glory of the Dominicans, Fra Bartolommeo, took the habit here in 1500, though there are now only a few unimportant works of his remaining in theconvent. Never was there such a visible outpouring of the praying heart in painting, as in the work of these two friars. And Antoninus and Savonarola strove to make the spirit world that they painted a living reality, for Florence and for the Church.
The first cloister is surrounded by later frescoes, scenes from the life of St. Antoninus, partly by Bernardino Poccetti and Matteo Rosselli, at the beginning of the seventeenth century. They are not of great artistic value, but one, the fifth on the right of the entrance, representing the entry of St. Antoninus into Florence, shows the old façade of the Duomo. Like gems in this rather indifferent setting, are five exquisite frescoes by Angelico in lunettes over the doors; St. Thomas Aquinas, Christ as a pilgrim received by two Dominican friars, Christ in the tomb, St. Dominic (spoilt), St. Peter Martyr; also a larger fresco of St. Dominic at the foot of the Cross. The second of these, symbolising the hospitality of the convent rule, is one of Angelico's masterpieces; beneath it is the entrance to the Foresteria, the guest-chambers. Under the third lunette we pass into the great Refectory, with its customary pulpit for the novice reader: here, instead of the usual Last Supper, is a striking fresco of St. Dominic and his friars miraculously fed by Angels, painted in 1536 by Giovanni Antonio Sogliani (a pupil of Lorenzo di Credi); the Crucifixion above, with St. Catherine of Siena and St. Antoninus, is said to be by Fra Bartolommeo. Here, too, on the right is the original framework by Jacopo di Bartolommeo da Sete and Simone da Fiesole, executed in 1433, for Angelico's great tabernacle now in the Uffizi.
Angelico's St. Dominic appropriately watches over the Chapter House, which contains the largest of Fra Giovanni's frescoes and one of the greatest masterpiecesof religious art: the Crucifixion with the patron saints of Florence, of the convent, and of the Medici, the founders of the religious orders, the representatives of the zeal and learning of the Dominicans, all gathered and united in contemplation around the Cross of Christ. It was ordered by Cosimo dei Medici, and painted about 1441. On our left are the Madonna, supported by the Magdalene, the other Mary, and the beloved Disciple; the Baptist and St. Mark, representing the city and the convent; St. Lawrence and St. Cosmas (said by Vasari to be a portrait of Nanni di Banco, who died twenty years before), and St. Damian. On our right, kneeling at the foot of the Cross, is St. Dominic, a masterpiece of expression and sentiment; behind him St. Augustine and St. Albert of Jerusalem represent Augustinians and Carmelites; St. Jerome, St. Francis, St. Bernard, St. John Gualbert kneel; St. Benedict and St. Romuald stand behind them, while at the end are St. Peter Martyr and St. Thomas Aquinas. All the male heads are admirably characterised and discriminated, unlike Angelico's women, who are usually either merely conventionally done or idealised into Angels. Round the picture is a frieze of prophets, culminating in the mystical Pelican; below is the great tree of the Dominican order, spreading out from St. Dominic himself in the centre, with Popes Innocent V. and Benedict XI. on either hand. The St. Antoninus was added later. Vasari tells us that, in this tree, the brothers of the order assisted Angelico by obtaining portraits of the various personages represented from different places; and they may therefore be regarded as the real, or traditional, likenesses of the great Dominicans. The same probably applies to the wonderful figure of Aquinas in the picture itself.
Beyond is a second and larger cloister, surrounded by very inferior frescoes of the life of St. Dominic, full of old armorial bearings and architectural fragments arranged rather incongruously. Some of the lunettes over the cells contain frescoes of the school of Fra Bartolommeo. The Academy of the Crusca is established here, in what was once the dormitory of the Novices. Connected with this cloister was the convent garden. "In the summer time," writes Simone Filipepi, "in the evening after supper, the Father Fra Girolamo used to walk with his friars in the garden, and he would make them all sit round him with the Bible in his hand, and here he expounded to them some fair passage of the Scriptures, sometimes questioning some novice or other, as occasion arose. At these meetings there gathered also some fifty or sixty learned laymen, for their edification. When, by reason of rain or other cause, it was not possible in the garden, they went into thehospitiumto do the same; and for an hour or two one seemed verily to be in Paradise, such charity and devotion and simplicity appeared in all. Blessed was he who could be there." Shortly before the Ordeal of Fire, Fra Girolamo was walking in the garden with Fra Placido Cinozzi, when an exceedingly beautiful boy of noble family came to him with a ticket upon which was written his name, offering himself to pass through the flames. And thinking that this might not be sufficient, he fell upon his knees, begging the Friar that he might be allowed to undergo the ordeal for him. "Rise up, my son," said Savonarola, "for this thy good will is wondrously pleasing unto God"; and, when the boy had gone, he turned to Fra Placido and said: "From many persons have I had these applications, but from none have I received so much joy as from this child, for which may God be praised."
To the left of the staircase to the upper floor, isthe smaller refectory with a fresco of the Last Supper by Domenico Ghirlandaio, not by any means one of the painter's best works.
On the top of the stairs we are initiated into the spirit of the place by Angelico's most beautiful Annunciation, with its inscription,Virginis intacte cum veneris ante figuram, pretereundo cave ne sileatur Ave, "When thou shalt have come before the image of the spotless Virgin, beware lest by negligence the Ave be silent."
On the left of the stairway a double series of cells on either side of the corridor leads us to Savonarola's room. At the head of the corridor is one of those representations that Angelico repeated so often, usually with modifications, of St. Dominic at the foot of the Cross. Each of the cells has a painted lyric of the life of Christ and His mother, from Angelico's hand; almost each scene with Dominican witnesses and auditors introduced,–Dominic, Aquinas, Peter Martyr, as the case may be. In these frescoes Angelico was undoubtedly assisted by pupils, from whom a few of the less excellent scenes may come; there is an interesting, but altogether untrustworthy tradition that some were executed by his brother, Fra Benedetto da Mugello, who took the Dominican habit simultaneously with him and was Prior of the convent at Fiesole. Taking the cells on the left first, we see theNoli me tangere(1), the Entombment (2), the Annunciation (3), the Crucifixion (4), the Nativity (5), the Transfiguration (6), a most wonderful picture. Opposite the Transfiguration, on the right wall of the corridor, is a Madonna and Saints, painted by the Friar somewhat later than the frescoes in the cells (which, it should be observed, appear to have been painted on the walls before the cells were actually partitionedoff)–St. John Evangelist and St. Mark, the three great Dominicans and the patrons of the Medici. Then, on the left, the following cells contain the Mocking of Christ (7), the Resurrection with the Maries at the tomb (8), the Coronation of the Madonna (9), one of the grandest of the whole series, with St. Dominic and St. Francis kneeling below, and behind them St. Benedict and St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Peter Martyr and St. Paul the Hermit. The Presentation in the Temple (10), and the Madonna and Child with Aquinas and Augustine (11), are inferior to the rest.
The shorter passage now turns to the cells occupied by Fra Girolamo Savonarola; one large cell leading into two smaller ones (12-14). In the larger are placed three frescoes by Fra Bartolommeo; Christ and the two disciples at Emmaus, formerly over the doorway of the refectory, and two Madonnas–one from the Dominican convent in the Mugnone being especially beautiful. Here are also modern busts of Savonarola by Dupré and Benivieni by Bastianini. In the first inner cell are Savonarola's portrait, apparently copied from a medal and wrongly ascribed to Bartolommeo, his Crucifix and his relics, his manuscripts and books of devotion, and, in another case, his hair shirt and rosary, his beloved Dominican garb which he gave up on the day of his martyrdom. In the inmost cell are the Cross which he is said to have carried, and a copy of the old (but not contemporary) picture of his death, of which the original is in the Corsini Palace.
The seven small cells on the right (15-21) were assigned to the Juniors, the younger friars who had just passed through the Noviciate. Each contains a fresco by Angelico of St. Dominic at the foot of the Cross, now scourging himself, now absorbed in contemplation,now covering his face with his hands, but in no two cases identical. Into one of these cells a divine apparition was said to have come to one of these youths, after hearing Savonarola's "most fervent and most wondrous discourse" upon the mystery of the Incarnation. The story is told by Simone Filipepi:–
"On the night of the most Holy Nativity, to a young friar in the convent, who had not yet sung Mass, had appeared visibly in his cell on the little altar, whilst he was engaged in prayer, Our Lord in the form of a little infant even as when He was born in the stable. And when the hour came to go into the choir for matins, the said friar commenced to debate in his mind whether he ought to go and leave here the Holy Child, and deprive himself of such sweetness, or not. At last he resolved to go and to bear It with him; so, having wrapped It up in his arms and under his cowl as best he could, all trembling with joy and with fear, he went down into the choir without telling anyone. But, when it came to his turn to sing a lesson, whilst he approached the reading-desk, the Infant vanished from his arms; and when the friar was aware of this, he remained so overwhelmed and almost beside himself that he commenced to wander through the choir, like one who seeks a thing lost, so that it was necessary that another should read that lesson."
Passing back again down the corridor, we see in the cells two more Crucifixions (22 and 23); the Baptism of Christ with Madonna as witness (24), the Crucifixion (25); then, passing the great Madonna fresco, the Mystery of the Passion (26), in one of those symbolical representations which seem to have originated with the Camaldolese painter, Don Lorenzo; Christ bound to the pillar, with St. Dominic scourging himself and the Madonna appealing to us (27, perhaps by a pupil); Christ bearing the Cross (28); two more Crucifixions (29 and 30), apparently not executed byAngelico himself.
At the side of Angelico's Annunciation opposite the stairs, we enter the cell of St. Antoninus (31). Here is one of Angelico's most beautiful and characteristic frescoes, Christ's descent into Hades: "the intense, fixed, statue-like silence of ineffable adoration upon the spirits in prison at the feet of Christ, side by side, the hands lifted and the knees bowed, and the lips trembling together," as Ruskin describes it. Here, too, is the death mask of Antoninus, his portrait perhaps drawn from the death mask by Bartolommeo, his manuscripts and relics; also a tree of saintly Dominicans, Savonarola being on the main trunk, the third from the root.
The next cell on the right (32) has the Sermon on the Mount and the Temptation in the Wilderness. In the following (33), also double, besides the frescoed Kiss of Judas, are two minute pictures by Fra Angelico, belonging to an earlier stage of his art than the frescoes, intended for reliquaries and formerly in Santa Maria Novella. One of them, theMadonna della Stella, is a very perfect and typical example of the Friar's smaller works, in their "purity of colour almost shadowless." The other, the Coronation of the Madonna, is less excellent and has suffered from retouching. The Agony in the Garden (in cell 34) contains a curious piece of mediæval symbolism in the presence of Mary and Martha, contemplation and action, the Mary being here the Blessed Virgin. In the same cell is another of the reliquaries from Santa Maria Novella, the Annunciation over the Adoration of the Magi, with Madonna and Child, the Virgin Martyrs, the Magdalene and St. Catherine of Siena below; the drawing is rather faulty. In the following cells are the Last Supper (35), conceived mystically as the institution of the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, with the Madonnaalone as witness; the Deposition from the Cross (36); and the Crucifixion (37), in which Dominic stands with out-stretched arms.
Opposite on the right (38-39) is the great cell where Pope Eugenius stayed on the occasion of the consecration of San Marco in 1442; here Cosimo the Elder, Pater Patriae, spent long hours of his closing days, in spiritual intercourse with St. Antoninus and after the latter's death. In the outer compartment the Medicean saint, Cosmas, joins Madonna and Peter Martyr at the foot of the Cross. Within are the Adoration of the Magi and a Pietà, both from Angelico's hand, and the former, one of his latest masterpieces, probably painted with reference to the fact that the convent had been consecrated on the Feast of the Epiphany. Here, too, is an old terracotta bust of Antoninus, and a splendid but damaged picture of Cosimo himself by Jacopo da Pontormo, incomparably finer than that artist's similarly constructed work in the Uffizi. Between two smaller cells containing Crucifixions, both apparently by Angelico himself (42-43–the former with the Mary and Martha motive at the foot of the Cross), is the great Greek Library, built by Michelozzo for Cosimo. Here Cosimo deposited a portion of the manuscripts which had been collected by Niccolò Niccoli, with additions of his own, and it became the first public library in Italy. Its shelves are now empty and bare, but it contains a fine collection of illuminated ritual books from suppressed convents, several of which are, rather doubtfully, ascribed to Angelico's brother, Fra Benedetto da Mugello.
It was in this library that Savonarola exercised for the last time his functions of Prior of San Marco, and surrendered to the commissioners of the Signoria, onthe night of Palm Sunday, 1498. What happened had best be told in the words of the Padre Pacifico Burlamacchi of the same convent, Savonarola's contemporary and follower. After several fictitious summonses had come:–
"They returned at last with the decree of the Signoria in writing, but with the open promise that Fra Girolamo should be restored safe and sound, together with his companions. When he heard this, he told them that he would obey. But first he retired with his friars into the Greek Library, where he made them in Latin a most beautiful sermon, exhorting them to follow onwards in the way of God with faith, prayer, and patience; telling them that it was necessary to go to heaven by the way of tribulations, and that therefore they ought not in any way to be terrified; alleging many old examples of the ingratitude of the city of Florence in return for the benefits received from their Order. As that of St. Peter Martyr who, after doing so many marvellous things in Florence, was slain, the Florentines paying the price of his blood. And of St. Catherine of Siena, whom many had sought to kill, after she had borne so many labours for them, going personally to Avignon to plead their cause before the Pope. Nor had less happened to St. Antoninus, their Archbishop and excellent Pastor, whom they had once wished to throw from the windows. And that it was no marvel, if he also, after such sorrows and labourings, was paid at the end in the same coin. But that he was ready to receive everything with desire and happiness for the love of his Lord, knowing that in nought else consisted the Christian life, save in doing good and suffering evil. And thus, while all the bye-standers wept, he finished his sermon. Then, issuing forth from the library, he said to those laymen who awaited him: 'I will say to you what Jeremiah said: This thing I expected, but not so soonnor so suddenly.' He exhorted them further to live well and to be fervent in prayer. And having confessed to the Father Fra Domenico da Pescia, he took the Communion in the first library. And the same did Fra Domenico. After eating a little, he was somewhat refreshed; and he spoke the last words to his friars, exhorting them to persevere in religion, and kissing them all, he took his last departure from them. In the parting one of his children said to him: 'Father, why dost thou abandon us and leave us so desolate?' To which he replied: 'Son, have patience, God will help you'; and he added that he would either see them again alive, or that after death he would appear to them without fail. Also, as he departed, he gave up the common keys to the brethren, with so great humility and charity, that the friars could not keep themselves from tears; and many of them wished by all means to go with him. At last, recommending himself to their prayers, he made his way towards the door of the library, where the first Commissioners all armed were awaiting him; to whom, giving himself into their hands like a most meek lamb, he said: 'I recommend to you this my flock and all these other citizens.' And when he was in the corridor of the library, he said: 'My friars, doubt not, for God will not fail to perfect His work; and although I be put to death, I shall help you more than I have done in life, and I will return without fail to console you, either dead or alive.' Arrived at the holy water, which is at the exit of the choir, Fra Domenico said to him: 'Fain would I too come to these nuptials.' Certain of the laymen, his friends, were arrested at the command of the Signoria. When the Father Fra Girolamo was in the first cloister, Fra Benedetto, the miniaturist, strove ardently to go with him; and, when the officers thrust him back, he still insisted that he would go. But theFather Fra Girolamo turned to him, and said: 'Fra Benedetto, on your obedience come not, for I and Fra Domenico have to die for the love of Christ.' And thus he was torn away from the eyes of his children."
"In Firenze, più che altrove, venivano gli uomini perfetti in tutte l'arti, e specialmente nella pittura."–Vasari.
TURNING southwards from the Piazza di San Marco into the Via Ricasoli, we come to theAccademia delle Belle Arti, with its collection of Tuscan and Umbrian pictures, mostly gathered from suppressed churches and convents.
In the central hall, the Tribune of the David, Michelangelo's gigantic marble youth stands under the cupola, surrounded by casts of the master's other works. The young hero has just caught sight of the approaching enemy, and is all braced up for the immortal moment. Commenced in 1501 and finished at the beginning of 1504, out of a block of marble over which an earlier sculptor had bungled, it was originally set up in front of the Palazzo Vecchio on the Ringhiera, as though to defend the great Palace of the People. It is supposed to have taken five days to move the statue from the Opera del Duomo, where Michelangelo had chiselled it out, to the Palace. When the simple-minded Gonfaloniere, Piero Soderini, saw it, he told the artist that the nose appeared to him to be too large; whereupon Michelangelo mounteda ladder, pretended to work upon it for a few moments, dropping a little marble dust all the time, which he had taken up with him, and then turned round for approval to the Gonfaloniere, who assured him that he had now given the statue life. Thisgigante di Fiorenza, as it was called, was considerably damaged during the third expulsion of the Medici in 1527, but retained its proud position before the Palace until 1873.
On the right, as we approach the giant, is theSala del Beato Angelico, containing a lovely array of Fra Angelico's smaller paintings. Were we to attempt to sum up Angelico's chief characteristics in one word, that word would beonestà, in its early mediaeval sense as Dante uses it in theVita Nuova, signifying not merely purity or chastity, as it came later to mean, but the outward manifestation of spiritual beauty,–thehonestasof which Aquinas speaks. A supreme expression of this may be found in the Paradise of his Last Judgment (266), the mystical dance of saints and Angels in the celestial garden that blossoms under the rays of the Sun of Divine Love, and on all the faces of the blessed beneath the Queen of Mercy on the Judge's right. The Hell is, naturally, almost a failure. In many of the small scenes from the lives of Christ and His Mother, of which there are several complete series here, some of the heads are absolute miracles of expression; notice, for instance, the Judas receiving the thirty pieces of silver, and all the faces in the Betrayal (237), and, above all perhaps, the Peter in the Entry into Jerusalem (252), on every line of whose face seems written: "Lord, why can I not follow thee now? I will lay down my life for thy sake." The Deposition from the Cross (246), contemplated by St. Dominic, the Beata Villana and St. Catherine of Alexandria, appears to be an earlier work of Angelico's. Here, also, are three great Madonnaspainted by the Friar as altar pieces for convent churches; the Madonna and Child surrounded by Angels and saints, while Cosmas and Damian, the patrons of the Medici, kneel at her feet (281), was executed in 1438 for the high altar of San Marco, and, though now terribly injured, was originally one of his best pictures; the Madonna and Child, with two Angels and six saints, Peter Martyr, Cosmas and Damian, Francis, Antony of Padua, and Louis of Toulouse (265), was painted for the convent of the Osservanza near Mugello,–hence the group of Franciscans on the left; the third (227), in which Cosmas and Damian stand with St. Dominic on the right of the Madonna, and St. Francis with Lawrence and John the Divine on her left, is an inferior work from his hand.
Also in this room are four delicious little panels by Lippo Lippi (264 and 263), representing the Annunciation divided into two compartments, St. Antony Abbot and the Baptist; two Monks of the Vallombrosa, by Perugino (241, 242), almost worthy of Raphael; and two charming scenes of mediaeval university life, the School of Albertus Magnus (231) and the School of St. Thomas Aquinas (247). These two latter appear to be by some pupil of Fra Angelico, and may possibly be very early works of Benozzo Gozzoli. In the first, Albert is lecturing to an audience, partly lay and partly clerical, amongst whom is St. Thomas, then a youthful novice but already distinguished by the halo and the sun upon his breast; in the second, Thomas himself is now holding the professorial chair, surrounded by pupils listening or taking notes, while Dominicans throng the cloisters behind. On his right sits the King of France; below his seat the discomforted Averrhoes humbly places himself on the lowest step, between the heretics–Williamof St. Amour and Sabellius.
From the left of the David's tribune, we turn into three rooms containing masterpieces of the Quattrocento (with a few later works), and appropriately named after Botticelli and Perugino.
In theSala prima del Botticelliis Sandro's famousPrimavera, the Allegory of Spring or the Kingdom of Venus (80). Inspired in part by Poliziano'sstanzein honour of Giuliano dei Medici and his Bella Simonetta, Botticelli nevertheless has given to his strange–not altogether decipherable–allegory, a vague mysterious poetry far beyond anything that Messer Angelo could have suggested to him. Through this weirdly coloured garden of the Queen of Love, in "the light that never was on sea or land," blind Cupid darts upon his little wings, shooting, apparently at random, a flame-tipped arrow which will surely pierce the heart of the central maiden of those three, who, in their thin clinging white raiment, personify the Graces. The eyes of Simonetta–for it is clearly she–rest for a moment in the dance upon the stalwart Hermes, an idealised Giuliano, who has turned away carelessly from the scene. Flora, "pranked and pied for birth," advances from our right, scattering flowers rapidly as she approaches; while behind her a wanton Zephyr, borne on his strong wings, breaks through the wood to clasp Fertility, from whose mouth the flowers are starting. Venus herself, the mistress of nature, for whom and by whom all these things are done, stands somewhat sadly apart in the centre of the picture; this is only one more of the numberless springs that have passed over her since she first rose from the sea, and she is somewhat weary of it all:–
"Te, dea, te fugiunt venti, te nubila caeliAdventumque tuum, tibi suavis daedala tellusSummittit flores, tibi rident aequora pontiPlacatumque nitet diffuso lumine caelum."[47]
This was one of the pictures painted for Lorenzo theMagnificent. Botticelli's other picture in this room, the large Coronation of the Madonna (73) with its predella (74), was commissioned by the Arte di Por Sta. Maria, the Guild of Silk-merchants, for an altar in San Marco; the ring of festive Angels, encircling their King and Queen, is in one of the master's most characteristic moods. On either side of the Primavera are two early works by Lippo Lippi; Madonna adoring the Divine Child in a rocky landscape, with the little St. John and an old hermit (79), and the Nativity (82), with Angels and shepherds, Jerome, Magdalene and Hilarion. Other important pictures in this room are Andrea del Sarto's Four Saints (76), one of his latest works painted for the monks of Vallombrosa in 1528; Andrea Verrocchio's Baptism of Christ (71), in which the two Angels were possibly painted by Verrocchio's great pupil, Leonardo, in his youth; Masaccio's Madonna and Child watched over by St. Anne (70), an early and damaged work, the only authentic easel picture of his in Florence. The three small predella pictures (72), the Nativity, the martyrdom of Sts. Cosmas and Damian, St. Anthony of Padua finding a stone in the place of the dead miser's heart, by Francesco Pesellino, 1422-1457, the pupil of Lippo Lippi, are fine examples of a painter who normally only worked on this small scale and whose works are very rare indeed. Francesco Granacci, who painted the Assumption (68), is chiefly interesting as having been Michelangelo's friend and fellow pupilunder Ghirlandaio.
TheSala del Peruginotakes its name from three works of that master which it contains; the great Vallombrosa Assumption (57), signed and dated 1500, one of the painter's finest altar pieces, with a very characteristic St. Michael–the Archangel who was by tradition the genius of the Assumption, as Gabriel had been of the Annunciation; the Deposition from the Cross (56); and the Agony in the Garden (53). But the gem of the whole room is Lippo Lippi's Coronation of the Madonna (62), one of the masterpieces of the early Florentine school, which he commenced for the nuns of Sant' Ambrogio in 1441. The throngs of boys and girls, bearing lilies and playing at being Angels, are altogether delightful, and the two little orphans, that are being petted by the pretty Florentine lady on our right, are characteristic of Fra Filippo's never failing sympathy with child life. On the left two admirably characterised monks are patronised by St. Ambrose, and in the right corner the jolly Carmelite himself, under the wing of the Baptist, is welcomed by a little Angel with the scroll,Is perfecit opus. It will be observed that "poor brother Lippo" has dressed himself with greater care for his celestial visit, than he announced his intention of doing in Robert Browning's poem:–
"Well, all theseSecured at their devotion, up shall comeOut 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 thingForward, 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!'"
Fra Filippo's Madonna and Child, with Sts. Cosmas and Damian, Francis and Antony, painted for the Medicean chapel in Santa Croce (55), is an earlier and less characteristic work. Over the door is St. Vincent preaching, by Fra Bartolommeo (58), originally painted to go over the entrance to the sacristy in San Marco–a striking representation of a Dominican preacher of repentance and renovation, conceived in the spirit of Savonarola, but terribly "restored." The Trinità (63) is one of Mariotto Albertinelli's best works, but sadly damaged. The two child Angels (61) by Andrea del Sarto, originally belonged to his picture of the Four Saints, in the last room; the Crucifixion, with the wonderful figure of the Magdalene at the foot of the Cross (65), ascribed to Luca Signorelli, does not appear to be from the master's own hand; Ghirlandaio's predella (67), with scenes from the lives of Sts. Dionysius, Clement, Dominic, and Thomas Aquinas, belongs to a great picture which we shall see presently.
TheSala seconda del Botticellicontains three pictures ascribed to the master, but only one is authentic–the Madonna and Child enthroned with six Saints, while Angels raise the curtain over her throne or hold up emblems of the Passion (85); it is inscribed with Dante's line–
"Vergine Madre, Figlia del tuo Figlio."
The familiar Three Archangels (84), though attributed to Sandro, is not even a work of his school. There is a charming little predella picture by Fra Filippo (86),representing a miracle of San Frediano, St. Michael announcing her death to the Blessed Virgin, and a friar contemplating the mystery of the Blessed Trinity–pierced by the "three arrows of the three stringed bow," to adopt Dante's phrase. The Deposition from the Cross (98), was commenced by Filippino Lippi for the Annunziata, and finished after his death in 1504 by Perugino, who added the group of Maries with the Magdalene and the figure on our right. The Vision of St. Bernard (97), by Fra Bartolommeo, is the first picture that the Friar undertook on resuming his brush, after Raphael's visit to Florence had stirred him up to new efforts; commenced in 1506, it was left unfinished, and has been injured by renovations. Here are two excellent paintings by Lorenzo di Credi (92 and 94), the former, the Adoration of the Shepherds, being his very best and most perfectly finished work. High up are two figures in niches by Filippino Lippi, the Baptist and the Magdalene (93 and 89), hardly pleasing. The Resurrection (90), by Raffaellino del Garbo, is the only authentic work in Florence of a pupil of Filippino's, who gave great promise which was never fulfilled.
At the end of the hall are three Saledei Maestri Toscani, from the earliest Primitives down to the eighteenth century. Only a few need concern us much.
The first room contains the works of the earlier masters, from a pseudo-Cimabue (102), to Luca Signorelli, whose Madonna and Child with Archangels and Doctors (164), painted for a church in Cortona, has suffered from restoration. There are four genuine, very tiny pictures by Botticelli (157, 158, 161, 162). The Adoration of the Kings (165), by Gentile da Fabriano, is one of the most delightful old pictures in Florence; Gentile da Fabriano, an Umbrianmaster who, through Jacopo Bellini, had a considerable influence upon the early Venetian school, settled in Florence in 1422, and finished this picture in the following year for Santa Trinità, near which he kept a much frequented bottega. Michelangelo said that Gentile had a hand similar to his name; and this picture, with its rich and varied poetry, is his masterpiece. The man wearing a turban, seen full face behind the third king, is the painter himself. Kugler remarks: "Fra Angelico and Gentile are like two brothers, both highly gifted by nature, both full of the most refined and amiable feelings; but the one became a monk, the other a knight." The smaller pictures surrounding it are almost equally charming in their way–especially, perhaps, the Flight into Egypt in the predella. The Deposition from the Cross (166), by Fra Angelico, also comes from Santa Trinità, for which it was finished in 1445; originally one of Angelico's masterpieces, it has been badly repainted; the saints in the frame are extremely beautiful, especially a most wonderful St. Michael at the top, on our left; the man standing on the ladder, wearing a black hood, is the architect, Michelozzo, who was the Friar's friend, and may be recognised in several of his paintings. The lunettes in the three Gothic arches above Angelico's picture, and which, perhaps, did not originally belong to it, are by the Camaldolese Don Lorenzo, by whom are also the Annunciation with four Saints (143), and the three predella scenes (144, 145, 146).
Of the earlier pictures, the Madonna and Child adored by Angels (103) is now believed to be the only authentic easel picture of Giotto's that remains to us–though this is, possibly, an excess of scepticism. Besides several works ascribed to Taddeo Gaddi and his son Agnolo, by the former of whom are probably the small panels from Santa Croce, formerly attributedto Giotto, we should notice the Pietà by Giovanni da Milano (131); the Presentation in the Temple by Ambrogio Lorenzetti (134), signed and dated 1342; and a large altarpiece ascribed to Pietro Cavallini (157). The so-called Marriage of Boccaccio Adimari with Lisa Ricasoli (147) is an odd picture of the social customs of old Florence.
In the second room are chiefly works by Fra Bartolommeo and Mariotto Albertinelli. By the Frate, are the series of heads of Christ and Saints (168), excepting the Baptist on the right; they are frescoes taken from San Marco, excepting the Christ on the left, inscribed "Orate pro pictore 1514," which is in oil on canvas. Also by him are the two frescoes of Madonna and Child (171, 173), and the splendid portrait of Savonarola in the character of St. Peter Martyr (172), the great religious persecutor of the Middle Ages, to whom Fra Girolamo had a special devotion. By Albertinelli, are the Madonna and Saints (167), and the Annunciation (169), signed and dated 1510. This room also contains several pictures by Fra Paolino da Pistoia and the Dominican nun, Plautilla Nelli, two pious but insipid artists, who inherited Fra Bartolommeo's drawings and tried to carry on his traditions. On a stand in the middle of the room, is Domenico Ghirlandaio's Adoration of the Shepherds (195), from Santa Trinità, a splendid work with–as Vasari puts it–"certain heads of shepherds which are held a divine thing."
On the walls of the third room are later pictures of no importance or significance. But in the middle of the room is another masterpiece by Ghirlandaio (66); the Madonna and Child with two Angels, Thomas Aquinas and Dionysius standing on either side of the throne, Dominic and Clement kneeling. It is seldom, indeed, that this prosaic painter succeeded increating such a thinker as this Thomas, such a mystic as this Dionysius; in the head of the latter we see indeed the image of the man who, according to the pleasant mediæval fable eternalised by Dante, "in the flesh below, saw deepest into the Angelic nature and its ministry."
In the Via Cavour, beyond San Marco, is theChiostro dello Scalzo, a cloister belonging to a brotherhood dedicated to St. John, which was suppressed in the eighteenth century. Here are a series of frescoes painted in grisaille by Andrea del Sarto and his partner, Francia Bigio, representing scenes from the life of the Precursor, with allegorical figures of the Virtues. The Baptism of Christ is the earliest, and was painted by the two artists in collaboration, in 1509 or 1510. After some work for the Servites, which we shall see presently, Andrea returned to this cloister; and painted, from 1515 to 1517, the Justice, St. John preaching, St. John baptising the people, and his imprisonment. Some of the figures in these frescoes show the influence of Albert Dürer's engravings. Towards the end of 1518, Andrea went off to France to work for King Francis I.; and, while he was away, Francia Bigio painted St. John leaving his parents, and St. John's first meeting with Christ. On Andrea's return, he set to work here again and painted, at intervals from 1520 to 1526, Charity, Faith and Hope, the dance of the daughter of Herodias, the decollation of St. John, and the presentation of his head, the Angel appearing to Zacharias, the Visitation, and, last of all, the Birth of the Baptist. The Charity is Andrea's own wife, Lucrezia, who at this very time, if Vasari's story is true, was persuading him to break his promise to the French King and to squander the money which had been intrusted to him for the purchase of works ofart.
The Via della Sapienza leads from San Marco into thePiazza della Santissima Annunziata. In one of the houses on the left, now incorporated into the Reale Istituto di Studi Superiori, Andrea del Sarto and Francia Bigio lodged with other painters, before Andrea's marriage; and here, usually under the presidency of the sculptor Rustici, the "Compagnia del Paiuolo," an artists' club of twelve members, met for feasting and disport.[48]
This Piazza was a great place for processions in old Florence. Here stand the church of theSantissima Annunziataand the convent of the Servites, while the Piazza itself is flanked to right and left by arcades originally designed by Brunelleschi. The equestrian statue of the Grand Duke Ferdinand I. was cast by Giovanni da Bologna out of metal from captured Turkish guns. The arcade on the right, as we face the church, with its charming medallions of babies in swaddling clothes by Andrea della Robbia, is a part of the Spedale degli Innocenti or Hospital for Foundlings, which was commenced from Brunelleschi's designs in 1421, during the Gonfalonierate of Giovanni dei Medici; the work, which was eloquently supported in the Council of the People by Leonardo Bruni, was raised by the Silk-merchants Guild, the Arte di Por Santa Maria. On its steps the Compagnacci murdered their first victim in the attack on San Marco. There is a picturesque court, designed by Brunelleschi, with an Annunciation by Andrea della Robbia over the door of the chapel, and a small picture gallery, which contains nothing of much importance, save a Holy Family with Saints by Piero di Cosimo. In the chapel, or church of Santa Maria degli Innocenti,there is a masterpiece by Domenico Ghirlandaio, painted in 1488, an Adoration of the Magi (the fourth head on the left is the painter himself), in which the Massacre of the Innocents is seen in the background, and two of these glorified infant martyrs, under the protection of the two St. Johns, are kneeling most sweetly in front of the Madonna and her Child, for whom they have died, joining in the adoration of the kings and thegloriaof the angelic choir.