Part 15 (1/2)
[109] See _Donatello_, by Lord Balcarres, p. 136 (London, 1904), where a long comparison is made of the doors of Donatello, Ghiberti, and Luca della Robbia.
[110] Even politically, too, as Guicciardini tells us.
XIX. FLORENCE
CHURCHES NORTH OF ARNO: OGNISSANTI--S. TRINITa--SS. APOSTOLI--S.
STEFANO--BADIA--S. PIERO--S. AMBROGIO--S. MARIA MADDALENA DE'
PAZZI--ANNUNZIATA--OSPEDALE DEGLI INNOCENTI--LO SCALZO--S. APOLLONIA--S.
ONOFRIO--S. SALVI
To pa.s.s through Florence for the most part by the old ways, from church to church, is too often like visiting forgotten shrines in a museum.
Something seems to have been lost in these quiet places; it is but rarely after all that they retain anything of the simplicity which once made them holy. To their undoing, they have been found in possession of some beautiful thing which may be shown for money, and so some of them have ceased altogether to exist as churches or chapels or convents; you find yourself walking through them as through a gallery, and if you should so far forget yourself as to uncover your head, some official will eagerly nudge you and say, ”It is not necessary for the signore to bare his head: here is no longer a church, but a public monument.” A public monument! But indeed, as we know, the Italian ”public” is no longer capable of building anything that is beautiful. If it is a bridge they need, it is not such a one as the Trinita that will be built, but some hideous structure of iron, as in Pisa, Venice, and Rome. If it is a monument they wish to carve, they will destroy numberless infinitely precious things, and express themselves as vulgarly as the Germans could do, as in the monument of Vittorio Emmanuele at Rome, which is founded on the ruined palaces of n.o.bles, the convents of the poor. If it is a Piazza they must make, they are no longer capable of building such place as Piazza Signoria, but prefer a hideous and disgusting clearing, such as Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele in Florence. How often have I sat at the little cafe there on the far side of the square, wondering why the house of Savoy should have brought this vandalism from Switzerland. Nor is this strange monarchy content with broken promises and stolen dowries; in its grasping barbarism it must rename the most famous and splendid ways of Italy after itself: thus the Corso of Rome has become Corso Umberto Primo, and we live in daily expectation that Piazza Signoria of Florence will become Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele II. If that has not yet befallen, it is surely an oversight; the Government has been so busy renaming Roman places--the Villa Borghese, for instance--that Florence has so far nearly escaped. Not altogether, however: beyond the Carraja bridge, just before the Pescaia in the Piazza Manin, is the suppressed convent (now a barracks) of the Humiliati, that democratic brotherhood which improved the manufacture of wool almost throughout Italy. What has the Venetian Jew, Daniel Manin, to do with them? Yet he is remembered by means of a bad statue, while the Humiliati and the Franciscans are forgotten: yet for sure they did more for Florence than he. But no doubt it would be difficult to remind oneself tactfully of those one has robbed, and a Venetian Jew looks more in place before a desecrated convent than S. Francis would do. Like the rest of Italy, Florence seems always to forget that she had a history before 1860; yet here at least she should have remembered one of her old heroes, for in the convent garden Giano della Bella, who fought at Campaldino, and was anti-clerical too and hateful to the Pope, the hero of the Ordinances of Justice, used to walk with his friends. _Perisca innanzi la citta_, say I, _che tante opere rie si sostengano_. By this let even Venetian Jews, to say nothing of Switzer princes, know how they are like to be remembered when their little day is over.
[Ill.u.s.tration: OGNISSANTI]
It was in 1256 that the Humiliati founded here in Borgo Ognissanti the Church of S. Caterina, and carved their arms, a woolpack fastened with ropes, over the door. Originally founded by certain Lombard exiles in Northern Germany, the Humiliati were at first at any rate a lay brotherhood, which had learned in exile the craft of weaving wool. Such wool as was to be had in Tuscany, a land of olives and vines, almost without pasture, was poor enough, and it seems to have been only after the advent of the Humiliati that the great Florentine industry began to a.s.sert itself, foreign wools being brought in a raw state to the city and sold, dressed and woven into cloth, in all the cities of Europe and the East. This brotherhood, however, in 1140 formed itself into a Religious Order under a Bull of Innocent III, and though from that time the brethren seem no longer to have worked at their craft themselves, they directed the work of laymen whom they enrolled and employed, busying themselves for the most part with new inventions and the management of what soon became an immense business. Their fame was spread all over Italy, for, as Villari tells us,[111] ”wherever a house of their Order was established, the wool-weaving craft immediately made advance,” so that in 1239 the Commune of Florence invited them to establish a house near the city, as they did in S. Donato a Torri, which was given them by the Signoria. By 1250 we read that the Guild Masters were already grumbling at their distance from the city, so that they removed to S. Lucia sul Prato, under promise of exemption from all taxes; and in 1256 they founded a church and convent in Borgo Ognissanti. The Church of S. Lucia sul Prato still stands, but the Humiliati were robbed of it in 1547 by Cosimo I, who, strangely enough, had taken the old convent of S. Donato a Torri from the friars who had acquired it, in order to build a fortification, and now wished to give them the Church of S. Lucia sul Prato. It is said that the friars began to build their convent, but four years later abandoned the work, removing to S. Jacopo on the other side Arno. However this may be, the Franciscans certainly succeeded the Humiliati in their convent in Borgo Ognissanti about this time, and in 1627 they rebuilt S. Caterina, renaming it S. Salvadore. To-day there is but little worth seeing in this seventeenth-century church,--a St. Augustine by Botticelli, a St.
Jerome and two large frescoes by Domenico Ghirlandajo,--but in the old refectory of the convent, which has now become a barracks, is Domenico Ghirlandajo's fresco of the Last Supper.
Pa.s.sing from Ognissanti down the Borgo to Piazza Ponte alla Carraja, you come to the great palace built by Michelozzo for the Ricasoli family: it is now the Hotel New York. Thence you turn into Via di Parione behind the palace, where at No. 7 you pa.s.s the Palazzo Corsini, coming at last into Via Tornabuoni, where at the corner is the Church of S. Trinita facing the Piazza.
This beautiful and very ancient church stands on the site of an oratory of S. Maria dello Spasimo, destroyed, as it is said, in the tenth century. It was built by the monks of Vallombrosa, and was therefore in the hands of Benedictines. Here, in the Cappella Sa.s.setti, Domenico Ghirlandajo has painted the Life of S. Francis; but it is not with his commonplace treatment, often irrelevant enough, of a subject which Giotto had already used with genius, that we are concerned, but perhaps with the fresco above the altar, and certainly with the marvellous portraits of Sa.s.setti and Nera Cosi his wife, on either side. Here in this portrait for once Ghirlandajo seems to have escaped from the limitations of his cleverness, and to have really expressed himself so that his talent becomes something more than talent, is full of life and charm, and only just fails to convince us of his genius.
Many another delightful or surprising thing may be found in the old church, which has more than once suffered from restoration. In a chapel in the right aisle Lorenzo Monaco has painted the Annunciation, while, close by, you may see a beautiful altar by Benedetto da Rovezzano. Over the high altar is the crucifix which bowed to S. Giovanni Gualberto, who forbore to slay his brother's murderer; but the chief treasure of the church is the tomb in the left transept of Benozzo Federighi, Bishop of Fiesole, by Luca della Robbia. It was in the year 1450 that Luca finished his most perfect work in marble--begun and finished, as it is said, within the year--the tomb of Bishop Federighi. And here, as one might almost expect, remembering his happy expressive art in many a terra-cotta up and down in Italy, he has thought of death almost with cheerfulness, not as oblivion, but as just sleep after labour. Amid a profusion of natural things--fruits, garlands, grapes--the old man lies half turned towards us, at rest at last. Behind him Luca has carved a Pieta, and beneath two angels unfold the name of the dead man. The tomb was removed hither from S. Francesco di Paolo.
Pa.s.sing now under the Column of the Trinita across the Piazza between the two palaces, Bartolini Salimbeni and Buondelmonte on the left, and Palazzo Spini on the right, you come into Borgo Santi Apostoli, where, facing the Piazzetta del Limbo, is the little church de' Santi Apostoli, which, if we may believe the inscription on the facade, was founded by Charlemagne and consecrated by Turpin before Roland and Oliver. However that may be, it is, with the exception of the Baptistery, the oldest church on this side Arno, and already existed outside the first walls of the city. Within, the church is beautiful, and indeed Brunellesco is reported by Vasari to have taken it as a model for S. Lorenzo and S.
Spirito. In the sacristy lies the stone which Mad Pazzi brought from Jerusalem, and from which the Easter fire is still struck in the Duomo; while in the chapel to the left of the high altar is a beautiful Tabernacle by the della Robbia, and a monument to Otto Altoviti by Benedetto da Rovezzano. The Altoviti are buried here, and their palace, which Benedetto built for them, is just without to the south.
This Borgo SS. Apostoli and the Via Lambertesca which continues it are indeed streets of old palaces and towers. Here the Buondelmonti lived, and the Torre de' Girolami, where S. Zan.o.bi is said to have dwelt, still stands, while Via Lambertesca is full of remembrance of the lesser guilds. Borgo SS. Apostoli pa.s.ses into Via Lambertesca at the corner of Por S. Maria, where of old the great gate of St. Mary stood in the first walls, and the Amidei had their towers. It must have been just here the Statue of Mars was set, under the shadow of which Buondelmonte was murdered so brutally; and thus, as Bandello tells us, following Villani, began the Guelph and Ghibelline factions in Florence.
Just out of Via Lambertesca, on the left, is the little Church of S.
Stefano and S. Cecilia--S. Cecilia only since the end of the eighteenth century, when that church was destroyed in Piazza Signoria; but S.
Stefano, _ad portam ferram_, since the thirteenth century at any rate.
This church seems to have been confused by many with the little Santo Stefano, still, I think, a parish church, though now incorporated with the abbey buildings, of the Badia. You pa.s.s out of Via Lambertesca by Via de' Lanzi, coming thus into Piazza Signoria; then, pa.s.sing Palazzo Uguccione, you take Via Condotta to the right, and thus come into Via del Proconsolo at the Abbey gate.
Here in this quiet Benedictine house one seems really to be back in an older world, to have left the noise and confusion of to-day far behind, and in order and in quiet to have found again the beautiful things that are from of old. The Badia, dedicated to S. Maria a.s.sunta, was founded in 978 by Countess Willa, the mother of Ugo of Tuscany,[112] and was rebuilt in 1285 by Arnolfo di Cambio. The present building is, however, almost entirely a work of the seventeenth century, though the beautiful tower was built in 1328. Here still, however, in spite of rebuilding, you may see the tomb of the Great Marquis by Mino da Fiesole. ”It was erected,” says Mr. Carmichael, ”at the expense of the monks, not of the Signoria.... Ugo died in 1006, on the Feast of St. Thomas the Apostle, December 21, and every year on that date a solemn requiem for the repose of his soul is celebrated in the Abbey Church. His helmet and breast-plate are always laid upon the catafalque. In times past--down to 1859, I think--a young Florentine used on this occasion to deliver a panegyric on the Great Prince. I have heard ... that the ma.s.s is no longer celebrated. That is not so; but since the city has ceased to care about it, it takes place quietly at seven in the morning, instead of with some pomp at eleven. Then again, it is said that the monks have allowed the panegyric to drop. That too is not the case; it was not they but the Florentines who were pledged to this pious office, and it is the laity alone who have allowed it to fall into desuetude.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: VIA POR. S. MARIA]
Even here we cannot, however, escape destruction and forgetfulness. The monastery has been turned into communal schools and police courts; the abbot has become a parish priest, and his abbey has been taken from him; there are but four monks left. But in the steadfast, unforgetful eyes of that Church which has already outlived a thousand dynasties, and beside whom every Government in the world is but a thing of yesterday, the Abbot of S. Maria is abbot still, and no parish priest at all. It is not, however, such things as this that will astonish the English or American stranger, whose pathetic faith in ”progress” is the one touching thing about him. He has come here not to think of deprived Benedictines, or to stand by the tomb of Ugo, of whom he never heard, but to see the masterpiece of Filippino Lippi, the Madonna and St.
Bernard, with which a thousand photographs have already made him familiar. Painted in 1480, when Filippino was still, as we may suppose, under the influence of Botticelli, it was given by Piero del Pugliese to a church outside Porta Romana, and was removed here in 1529 during the siege.
Pa.s.sing down Via della Vigna Vecchia, you come at last to the little Church of S. Simone, which the monks of the Badia built about 1202, in their vineyards then, and just within the second walls. At the beginning of the fourteenth century it became a parish church, but was only taken from them at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Within, there is an early picture of Madonna, which comes from the Church of S. Piero Maggiore, now destroyed. You may reach the Piazza di S. Piero (for it still bears that name) if you turn into Via di Mercatino. Here the bishops of Florence were of old welcomed to the city and installed in the See. Thither came all the clergy of the diocese to take part in a strange and beautiful ceremony. Attached to the church was a Benedictine convent, whose abbess seems to have represented the diocese of Florence.
There in S. Piero the Archbishop came to wed her, and thus became the guardian of the city. The church is destroyed now, and, as we have seen, all the monks and nuns have departed; the Government has stolen their dowries and thrust them into the streets. Well might the child, pa.s.sing S. Felice, cry before this came to pa.s.s, O bella Liberta! But S. Piero was memorable for other reasons too beside this mystic marriage. There lay Luca della Robbia, Lorenzo di Credi, Mariotto Albertinelli, Piero di Cosimo: where is their dust to-day? As we look at their work in the galleries and churches, who cares what has happened to them, or whether such graves as theirs are rifled or no? Yet not one of them but has done more for Italy than Vittorio Emmanuele; not one of them, O Italia Nuova, but is to-day filling your pockets with gold, while he is nothing in the Pantheon; yet their graves are rifled and forgotten, and him you have placed on the Capitol.
It is to another Benedictine convent you come down Via Pietrapiana, past Borgo Allegri, whence the Florentines say they bore Cimabue's Madonna in triumph to S. Maria Novella. It is a pity, truly, that it is not his picture that is in the Rucellai Chapel to-day, and that the name of the Borgo does not come from that rejoicing, but from the Allegri family, who here had their towers. Yet here Cimabue lived, and Ghiberti and Antonio Rossellino. Who knows what beauty has here pa.s.sed by?