Mornings in Florence

MORNINGS

IN
FLORENCE

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
DEPARTMENT OF UNIVERSITY EXTENSION

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE

JOHN RUSKIN.

ti&W

ritf

NEW YORK

HURST AND COMPANY

PUBLISHERS

CONTENTS.

BAM.

L SANTA CROCE 7

II. THE GOLDEN GATS..,, 85

III. BEFORE THE SOLDAN 60

TV. THE VAULTED BOOK 118

Y. THE STRAIT GATE 148

PREFACE.

IT seems to me that the real duty in-
volved in my Oxford professorship cannot
be completely done by giving lectures in
Oxford only, but that I ought also to give
what guidance I may to travelers in Italy.

The following letters are written as I
would write to any of my friends who asked
me what they ought preferably to study in
limited time ; and I hope they may be found
of use if read in the places which they de-
scribe, or before the pictures to which they
refer. But in the outset let me give my
readers one piece ot practical advice. If
you can afford it, pay your custode or sacris-
tan well. You may think it an injustice
to the next comer ; but your paying him ill
is an injustice to all comers, for the nec-
essary result of your doing so is that he
will lock up or cover whatever he can, that
he may get his penny fee for showing it;

6 PREFACE.

and that, thus exacting a small tax from
everybody, he is thankful to none, and gets
into a sullen passion if you stay more than
a quarter of a minute to look at the object
after it is uncovered. And you will not
find it possible to examine anything prop-
erly under these circumstances. Pay your
sacristan well, and make friends with him :
in nine cases out of ten an Italian is really
grateful for the money, and more than grate-
ful for human courtesy ; and will give you
»ome true zeal and kindly feeling in return
for a franc and a pleasant look. How very
horrid of him to be grateful for money, you
think! Well, I can only tell you that I
know fifty people who will write me letters
full of tender sentiment, for one who will
give me tenpence ; and I shall be very much
obliged to you if you will give me tenpence
for each of these letters of mine, though I
have done more work than you know of, to
make them good tea-penny worths to you.

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

THE FIRST MORNING.

SANTA CROCK.

IF there is one artist, more than another,
whose work it is desirable that you should
examine in Florence, supposing that you
care for old art at all, it is Giotto. You can,
indeed, also see work of his at Assisi ; but
it is not likely you will stop there, to any
purpose. At Padua there is much; but
only of one period. At Florence, which is
his birthplace, you can see pictures by him
of every date and every kind. But you
had surely better see, first, what is of his
best time and of the best kind. He painted
very small pictures and very large — painted
from the age of twelve to sixty — painted
some subjects carelessly which he had little

8 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

Interest in — some carefully with all his
heart. You would surely like, and it would
certainly be wise, to see him first in his
strong and earnest work, — to see a painting
by him, if possible, of large size, and
wrought with his full strength, and of a
subject pleasing to him. And if it were,
also, a subject interesting to yourself, — bet-
ter still.

Now, if indeed you are interested in old
art, you cannot but know the power of the
thirteenth century. You know that the
character of it was concentrated in, and to
the full expressed by, its best king, St.
Louis. You know St. Louis was a Francis-
can, and that the Franciscans, for whom
Giotto was continually painting under
Dante's advice, were prouder of him than of
any other of their royal brethren or sisters.
If Giotto ever would imagine anybody with
oare and delight, it would be St. Louis, if it
chanced that anywhere he had St. Louis to
paint.

Also, you know that he was appointed to
build the Campanile of the Duomo, because
he was then the best master of sculpture,
painting, and architecture in Florence, and

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 9

supposed to be without superior in the
world.1 And that this commission was
given him late in life, (of course he could
not have designed the Campanile when he
was a boy ; ) so therefore, if you find any of
his figures painted under pure campanile
architecture, and the architecture by hi3
hand, you know, without other evidence,
that the painting must be of his strongest
time.

So if one wanted to find anything of his
to begin with, especially, and could choose
what it should be, one would say, " A fresco,
life size, with campanile architecture behind
it, painted in an important place; and if
one might choose one's subject, perhaps the
most interesting saint of all saints — for him
to do for us — would be St. Louis."

Wait then for an entirely bright morn-
ing; rise with the sun, and go to Santa
Croce, with a good opera-glass in your

1 " Cum in universe orbe non reperiri dicatur quen-
quam qui sufficientior sit in his et aliis multis artibus
magistro Giotto Bondonis de Florentia, pictorc, et
accipiendus sit in patria, veltit maopms rnagister."—
(Decree of his appointment, quoted by Lord .Lindsay,
fol. ii.f p,

10 MORNINGS IN FLOEENCK

pocket, with which you shall for onoe, at
any rate, see an opus; and, if you have
time, several opera Walk straight to the
chapel on the right of the choir ("k" hi
your Murray's Guide). "When you first get
Into it, you will see nothing but a modern
window of glaring glass, with a red-hot car-
dinal in one pane — which piece of modern
manufacture takes away at least seven-
eighths of the light (little enough before)
by which you might have seen what is
worth sight. Wait patiently till you get
used to the gloom. Then, guarding your
eyes from the accursed modern window as
best you may, take your opera-glass and look
to the right, at the uppermost of the two fig-
ures beside it. It is St. Louis, under cam-
panile architecture, painted by — Giotto ? or
the last Florentine painter who wanted a
job — over Giotto? That is the first ques-
tion you have to determine; as you will
have henceforward, in every case in which
•you look at a fresco.

Sometimes there will be no question at alL
These two gray frescos at the bottom of the
walls on the right and left, for instance, have
fc:-?n entirely got up for your better satisfao-

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. II

tion, in the last year or two — over Giotto's
half -effaced lines. But that St. Louis ? Re-
painted or not, it is a lovely thing, — there
can be no question about that ; and we must
look at it, after some preliminary knowledge
gained, not inattentively.

Your Murray's Guide tells you that this
chapel of the Bardi della Libertd, in which
you stand, is covered with frescos by Giotto ;
that they were whitewashed, and only laid
bare hi 1853 ; that they were painted between
1296 and 1304; that they represent scenes
in the life of St. Francis ; and that on each
side of the window are paintings of St. Louis
of Toulouse, St. Louis, king of France, St.
Elizabeth, of Hungary, and St. Claire, — " all
much restored and repainted." Under such
recommendation, the frescos are not likely
to be much sought after ; and accordingly,
as I was at work in the chapel this morning,
Sunday, 6th September, 1874, two nice-look-
ing Englishmen, under guard of their valet
de place, passed the chapel without so much
as looking in.

You will perhaps stay a little longer in it
with me, good reader, and find out gradually
where you are, Namely, in the most intez-

12 MOENINGS IN FLORENCE.

esting and perfect little Gothic chapel in all
Italy — so far as I know or can hear. There
is no other of the great time which has all
its frescos in their place. The Arena, though
far larger, is of earlier date — not pure Gothic,
nor showing Giotto's full force. The lower
chapel at Assisi is not Gothic at all, and is
still only of Giotto's middle time. You have
here, developed Gothic, with Giotto in his
consummate strength, and nothing lost, in
form, of the complete design.

By restoration — judicious restoration, as
Mr. Murray usually calls it — there is no say-
ing how much you have lost. Putting the
question of restoration out of your mind,
however, for a while, think where you are,
and what you have got to look at.

You are in the chapel next the high altar
of the great Franciscan church of Flor-
ence. A few hundred yards west of you,
within ten minutes' walk, is the Baptistery
of Florence. And five minutes' walk west
of that is the great Dominican church of
Florence, Santa Maria Novella.

Get this little bit of geography and archi-
tectural fact well into your mind. There is
the little octagon Baptistery in the middle j

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 18

here, ten minutes' walk east of it, the Fran-
ciscan church of the Holy Cross ; there, five
minutes' walk west of it, the Dominican
church of St. Mary.

Now, that little octagon Baptistery stood
where it now stands (and was finished,
though the roof has been altered since) in the
eighth century. It is the central building of
Etrurian Christianity, — of European Chris-
tianity.

From the day it was finished, Christianity
went on doing her best, in Etruria and else-
where, for four hundred years, — and her best
seemed to have come to very little, — when
there rose up two men who vowed to God it
should come to more. And they made it
come to more, forthwith ; of which the im-
mediate sign in Florence was that she re-
solved to have a fine new cross-shaped cathe-
dral instead of her quaint old little octagon
one ; and a tower beside it that should beat
Babel : — which two buildings you have also
within sight.

But your business is not at present with
them, but with these two earlier churches
of Holy Cross and St. Mary. The two men
•who were tliu effectual builders of these were

14 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

the two great religious Powers and Reform*
ers of the thirteenth century ; — St. Francis,
who taught Christian men how they should
behave, and St. Dominic, who taught Chris-
tian men what they should think. In brief,
one the Apostle of Works; the other of
Faith. Each sent his little company of dis-
ciples to teach and to preach in Florence :
St. Francis in 1212 ; St. Dominic in 1220.

The little companies were settled — one,
ten minutes' walk east of the old Baptistery ;
the other, five minutes' walk west of it. And
after they had stayed quietly in such lodg-
ings as were given them, preaching and
teaching through most of the century, and
had got Florence, as it were, neated through,
she burst out into Christian poetry and archi-
tecture, of which you have heard much talk :
— burst into bloom of Arnolfo, Giotto, Dante,
Orcagna, and the like persons, whose works
you profess to have come to Florence that
you may see and understand.

Florence then, thus heated through, first
helped her teachers to build finer churches.
The Dominicans, or White Friars, the
Teachers of Faith, began their church of St.
Mary's in 1279* The Franciscans, or Blade

MORXINQS Ztf FLORENCE. 15

Friars, the teachers of Works, laid the first
stone of this church of the Holy Cross in
1294. And the whole city laid the founda-
tions of its new cathedral in 1298. The
Dominicans designed their own building;
but for the Franciscans and the town worked
the first great master of Gothic art, Arnolf o ;
with Giotto at his side, and Dante looking
on, and whispering sometimes a word to
both.

An,d here you stand beside the high altar
of the Franciscans' church, under a vault of
Arnolfo's building, with at least some of
Giotto's color on it still fresh ; and in front
of you, over the little altar, is the only
reportedly authentic portrait of St. Francis,
taken from life by Giotto's master. Yet I
can hardly blame my two English friends
for never looking in. Except in the early
morning light, not one touch of all this art
can be seen. And in any light, unless you
understand the relations of Giotto to St,
Francis, and of St. Francis to humanity, it
will be of little interest.

Observe, then, the special character of
Giotto among the great painters of Italy is
bis being a practical person. Whatever other

16 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

men dreamed of, he did. He could work la
mosaic ; he could work in marble ; he could
paint ; and he could build ; and all thoroughly >,
a man of supreme faculty, supreme common
sense. Accordingly, he ranges himself at
once among the disciples of the Apostle of
Works, and spends most of his time in the
same apostleship.

Now the gospel of Works, according to
St. Francis, lay in three things. You must
work without money, and be poor. You
must work without pleasure, and be chaste.
You must work according to orders, and be
obedient.

Those are St. Francis's three articles of
Italian opera. By which grew the many
pretty things you have come to see here.

And now if you will take your opera-glass
and look up to the roof above Arnolfo's
building, you will see it is a pretty Gothic
cross vault, in four quarters, each with a
circular medallion, painted by Giotto. That
over the altar has the picture of St. Francis
himself. The three others, of his Command-
ing Angels. In front of him over the en-
trance arch, Poverty. On his right hand»
Obedience. On his left, Chastity.

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. If

Poverty, in a red patched dress, with gray
wings, and a square nimbus of glory above
her head, is flying from a black hound,
whose head is seen at the corner of the
medallion.

Chastity, veiled, is imprisoned in a tower,
while angels watch her.

Obedience bears a yoke on her shoulders,
and lays her hand on a book.

Now, this same quatrefoil, of St. Francis
and his three Commanding Angels, was also
painted, but much more elaborately, by
Giotto, on the cross vault of the lower
church of Assisi, and it is a question of
interest which of the two roofs was painted
first.

Your Murray's Guide tells you the frescos
in this chapel were painted between 1296
and 1304 But as they represent, among
other personages, St. Louis of Toulouse,
who was not canonized till 1317, that state-
ment is not altogether tenable. Also, as the
first stone of the church was only laid in 1294,
when Giotto was a youth of eighteen, it is
little likely that either it would have been
ready to be painted, or he ready with his
scheme of practical divinity, two year slater.

II MORfrtxras IN

Farther, Arnolfo, the builder of the main
body of the church, died in 1310. And as
St. Louis of Toulouse was not a saint till
seven years after wards, and the frescos there-
fore beside the window not painted in Arnol-
fo's day, it becomes another question whether
Arnolfo left the chapels, or the church at all,
in their present form.
* On which poLit— now that I have shown
you where Giotto's St. Louis is — I will ask
you to think awhile, until you are inter-
ested : and then I will try to satisfy your
curiosity. Therefore, please leave the little
chapel for the moment, and walk down the
nave, till you come to two sepulchral slabs
near the west end, and then look about you
and see what sort of a church Santa Croce is.

Without looking about you at all, you may
£nd, in your Murray, the useful information
that it is a church which " consists of a very
wide nave and lateral aisles, separated by
seven fine pointed arches." And as you will
be — under ordinary conditions of tourist
hurry — glad to learn so much, without look*
ing, it is little likely to occur to you that
this nave and two rich aisles required alsoi
for your complete present comfort, walls at

MORKINQS Iff FLORENCE. 19

!x>th ends, and a roof on the top. It is just
possible, indeed, you may have been struck,
on entering, by the curious disposition of
painted glass at the east end ; — more remote-
ly possible that, in returning down the nave, .
you may this moment have noticed the ex-
tremely small circular window at the west
end ; but the chances are a thousand to one
that, after being pulled from tomb to tomb
round the aisles and chapels, you should take
so extraordinary an additional amount of
pains as to look up at the roof, — unless you
do it now, quietly. It will have had its effect
upon you, even if you don't, without your
knowledge. You will return home with a
general impression that Santa Croce is,
somehow, the ugliest Gothic church you
ever were in. Well, that is really so ; and
now, will you take the pains to see why ?

There are two features, on which, more
than on any others, the grace and delight of a
fine Gothic building depends; one is the
springing of its vaultings, the other the pro-
portion and fantasy of its traceries. This
church of Santa Croce has no vaultings at
all, but the roof of a farm-house barn. And
its windows are all of the same pattern,—

20 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

the exceedingly prosaic one of two pointed
arches, with a round hole above, between
them.

And to make the simplicity of the roof
more conspicuous, the aisles are successive
sheds, built at every arch. In the aisles ol
the Campo Santo of Pisco, the unbroken flat
roof leaves the eye free to look to the trac-
eries ; but here, a succession of up-and-down
sloping beam and lath gives the impression
of a line of stabling rather than a church,
aisle. And lastly, while, in fine Gothic build-
ings, the entire perspective concludes itself
gloriously in the high and distant apse, here
the nave is cut across sharply by a line of
ten chapels, the apse being only a tall recess
in the midst of them, so that, strictly speak-
ing, the church is not of the form of a cross,
but of a letter T.

Can this clumsy and ungraceful arrange-
ment be indeed the design of the renowned
Arnolfo?

Yes, this is purest Arnolf o-Gothic ; not
l>eautiful by any means; but deserving-,
nevertheless, our thoughtfulest examina-
tion. We will trace its complete character
another day; just now we are only con-

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. $. 21

cerned with this pre-Christian form of the
letter T, insisted upon in the lines of chapels.

Respecting which you are to observe, that
the first Christian churches in the catacombs
took the form of a blunt cross naturally,
a square chamber having a vaulted recess on
each side ; then the Byzantine churches were
structurally built in the form of an equal
cross; while the heraldic and other orna-
mental equal-armed crosses are partly signs
of glory and victory, partly of light, and
divine spiritual presence.1

But the Franciscans and Dominicans saw
in the cross no sign of triumph, but of trial.2

1 See, on this subject generally, Mr. R. St. J. Tyr-
•whitt's "Art-Teaching of the Primitive Church."
S. P. B. K., 1874.

2 I have never obtained time for any right study of
early Christian church-discipline, — nor am I sure to
how many other causes the choice of the form of the
basilica may be occasionally attributed, or by what
other communities it may be made. Symbolism, for
instance, has most power with the Franciscans, and
convenience for preaching with the Dominicans ; but
in all cases, and in all places, the transition from the
close tribune to the brightly-lighted apse, indicates
the change in Christian feeling between regarding a
church as a place for public judgment or teaching, or
a place for private prayer and congregational praise,

22 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

The wounds of their Master were to be thei f
inheritance. So their first aim was to make
what image to the cross their church might

The following passage from the Dean of Westminster' s
perfect history of his Abbey ought to be read also in
the Florentine church : — " The nearest approach to
Westminster Abbey in this aspect is the church of
Santa Croce at Florence. There, as here, the present
destination of the building was no part of the origi-
nal design, but was the result of various converging
causes. As the church of one of the two great preach-
ing orders, it had a nave large beyond all proportion
to its choir. That order being the Franciscan, bound
by vows of poverty, the simplicity of the worship pre-
•erved the whole space clear from any adventitious
ornaments. The popularity of the Franciscans, espe-
cially in a convent hallowed by a visit from at. Fran-
cis himself, drew to it not only the chief civic festi-
vals, but also the numerous families who gave alms
to the friars, and whose connection with their church
was, for this reason, in turn encouraged by them. In
those graves, piled with standards and achievements
of the noble families of Florence, were successfully
interred — not because of their eminence, but as mem-
bers or friends of those families — some of the most
illustrious personages of the fifteenth century. Thus
it came to pass, as if by accident, that in the vault of
the Buonarotti was laid Michael Angelo; in the vault
of the Vivian! the preceptor of one of their house,
€klileo. From those two burials the church gradu-
ally became the recognized shrine of Italian genius."

XORNING8 IN FLORENCE. 28

present, distinctly that of the actual instru-
ment of death.

And they did this most effectually by
using the form of the letter T, that of the
Furca or Gibbet, — not the sign of peace.

Also, their churches were meant for use ;
not show, nor self-glorification, nor town-
glorification. They wanted places for preach-
ing, prayer, sacrifice, burial ; and had no
intention of showing how high they could
build towers, or how widely they could arch
vaults. Strong walls, and the roof of a
barn, — these your Franciscan asks of his
Arnolf o. These Arnolfo gives, — thoroughly
and wisely built ; the succession of gable
roof being a new device for strength, much
praised in its day.

This stern humor did not last long. Ar-
nolfo himself had other notions ; much more
Cimabue and Giotto; most of all, Nature
and Heaven. Something else had to be
taught about Christ than that He was
wounded to death. Nevertheless, look how
grand this stern form would be, restored to
its simplicity. It is not the old church
which is in itself unimpressive. It is the
old church defaced by Yasari, by Michael

24 MOBNINGS IN FLORENCE.

Angelo, and by modern Florence. See those?
huge tombs on your right hand and left, afc
the sides of the aisles, with their alternate
gable and round tops, and their paltriest of
all possible sculpture, trying to be grand
by bigness, and pathetic by expense. Tear
them all down in your imagination ; fancy
the vast hall with its massive pillars, — not
^painted calomel-pill color, as now, but of
their native stone, with a rough, true wood
for roof, — and a people praying beneath
them, strong in abiding, and pure in life, as
their rocks and olive forests. That was
Arnolfo's Santa Croce. Nor did his work
remain long without grace.

That very line of chapels in which we
found our St. Louis shows signs of change
in temper. They have no pent-house roofs,
but true Gothic vaults : we found our four-
square type of Franciscan Law on one of
them.

It is probable, then, that these chapels
may be later than the rest— even in their
stonework. In their decoration, they are
so, assuredly ; belonging already to the time
when the story of St. Francis was becom-
ing a passionate tradition, told and painted
everywhere with delight.

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 2&

And that high recess, taking the place of
apse, in the center, — see how noble it is in
the colored shade surrounding and joining
the glow of its windows, though their form
be so simple. You are not to be amused
here by patterns in balance stone, as a
French or English architect would amuse
you, says Arnolfo. " You are to read and
think, under these severe walls of mine;
immortal hands will write upon them." "VVe
will go back, therefore, into this line of
manuscript chapels presently ; but first, look
at the two sepulchral slabs by which you are
standing. That farther of the two from the
west end is one of the most beautiful pieces
of fourteenth century sculpture in this
world; and it contains simple elements of
excellence, by your understanding of which
you may test your power of understanding
the more difficult ones you will have to deal
with presently.

It represents an old man, in the high
deeply folded cap worn by scholars and
gentlemen in Florence from 1300 — 1500, lying
dead, with a book in his breast, over which
his hands are folded. At his feet is this
inscription ; " Temporibus hie suis phyloao-

26 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

phye atq. medicine culmen fuit Galileus da
Galileis olim Bonajutis qui etiam summo in
magistratu miro quodam modo rempubli-
cam dilexit, cujus sancte memorie bene aote
vite pie benedictus filius hunc tumulum
patri sibi suisq. posteris edidit."

Mr. Murray tells you that the effigies " in
low relief" (alas, yes, low enough now —
worn mostly into flat stones, with a trace
only of the deeper lines left, but originally
in very bold relief), with which the floor of
Santa Croce is inlaid, of which this by
which you stand is characteristic, are " in-
teresting from the costume," but that, " ex-
oept in the case of John Ketterick, Bishop
of St. David's, few of the other names have
any interest beyond the walls of Florence."
As, however, you are at present within the
walls of Florence, you may perhaps conde-
scend to take some interest in this ancestor
or relation of the Galileo whom Florence
indeed left to be externally interesting, and
would not allow to enter hi her walls.1

I am not sure if I rightly place or con-

1 " Seven years a prisoner at the city gate,
Let In but his grave-clothe*. "

Roger? "

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 27

strue the phrase in the above inscription,
" cujus sancte memorie bene acte ; " but, in
main purport, the legend runs thus : " This
Galileo of the Galilei was, in his times, the
head of philosophy and medicine ; who also
in the highest magistracy loved the repub-
lic marvelously; whose son, blessed in
inheritance of his holy memory and well-
passed and pious life, appointed this tomb for
his father, for himself, and for his posterity."

There is no date ; but the slab immedi-
ately behind it, nearer the western door, is
of the same style, but of later and interior
work, and bears date— I forget now of what
early year in the fifteenth century.

But Florence was still in her pride ; and
you may observe, in this epitaph, on what
it was based. That her philosophy was
studied together with useful arts, and as a
part of them; that the masters in these
became naturally the masters in public
affairs ; that in such magistracy they loved
the State, and neither cringed to it nor
robbed it; that the sons honored their
fathers, and received their fathers' honor as
the most blessed inheritance. Remember
the phrase " vite piebenedictus filius," to be

28 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

compared with the " nos nequiores," of the
declining days of all states, — chiefly now in
Florence, France and England,

Thus much for the local interest of name.
Next for the universal interest of the art of
this tomb.

It is the crowning virtue of all great art
that, however little is left of it by the in-
juries of time, that little will be lovely. As
long as you can see anything, you can see —
almost all ; — so much the hand of the master
will suggest of his soul.

And here you are well quit, for once, of
restoration. No one cares for this sculpt-
ure; and if Florence would only thus put
all her old sculpture and painting under her
feet and simply use them for gravestones and
oilcloth, she would be more merciful to them
than she is now. Here, at least, what little
is left is true.

And, if you look long, you will find it is
not so little. That worn face is still a per-
fect portrait of the old man, though like one
struck out at a venture, with a few rough
touches of a master's chisel. And that fall-
ing drapery of his cap is, in its few lines,
faultless, and subtle beyond description.

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 2D

And now, here is a simple but most use-
ful test of your capacity for understanding
Florentine sculpture or painting. If you
can see that the lines of that cap are both
right and lovely; that the choice of the
folds is exquisite in its ornamental relations
of line ; and that the softness and ease of
them is complete, — though only sketched
with a few dark touches, — then you can un-
derstand Giotto's drawing, and Botticelli's ;
— Donatello's carving, and Luca's. But if
you see nothing in this sculpture, you will
see nothing hi theirs, o/theirs. Where they
choose to imitate flesh, or silk, or to play any
vulgar modern trick with marble — (and they
often do) — whatever, hi a word, is French,
or American, or Cockney, in their work,
you can see ; but what is Florentine, and
forever great — unless you can see also tho
beauty of this old man in his citizen's cap,
—you will see never.

There is more in this sculpture, however,
than its simple portraiture and noble drap-
ery. The old man lies on a piece of em-
broidered carpet; and, protected by tha
high relief, many of the finer lines of this
are almost uninjured j in particular, its ex-

dO MORXINGS IN FLORENCE.

quisitely-wrought fringe and tassels are
nearly perfect. And if you will kneel
down and look long at the tassels of the
cushion under the head, and the way they
fill the angles of the stone, you will — or
may — know, from this example alone, what
noble decorative sculpture is, and was, and
must be, from the days of earliest Greece to
those of latest Italy.

"Exquisitely sculptured fringe!" and
you have just been abusing sculptors who
play tricks with marble ! Yes, and you can-
not find a better example, in all the mu-
seums of Europe, of the work of a man who
does not play tricks with it — than this
tomb. Try to understand the difference:
it is a point of quite cardinal importance to
all your future study of sculpture.

I told you, observe, that the old Galileo
was lying on a piece of embroidered carpet.
I don't think, if I had not told you, that you
would have found it out for yourself. It is
aot so like a carpet as all that comes to.

But had it been a modern trick-sculpture,
the moment you came to the tomb you
would have said, " Bear me ! how wonder-
fully that carpet is done,— it doesn't look

IN FLORENCE. 81

like stone in the least — one longs to take it
up and beat it to get the dust off."

Now whenever you feel inclined to speak
so of a sculptured drapery, be assured, with-
out more ado, the sculpture is base, and bad.
You will merely waste your time and cor-
rupt your taste by looking at it. Nothing
is so easy as to imitate drapery in marble.
You may cast a piece any day ; and carve it
•with such subtlety that the marble shall be
an absolute image of the folds. But that is
not sculpture. That is mechanical manu-
facture.

No great sculptor, from the beginning of
art to the end of it, has ever carved, or ever
•will, a deceptive drapery. He has neither
time nor will to do it. His mason's laa may
do that if he likes. A man who can carve
a limb or a face never finishes inferior parts,
but either with a hasty and scornful chisel,
or with such grave and strict selection of
their lines as you know at once to be im-
aginative, not imitative.

But if, as in this case, he wants to oppose
the simplicity of his central subject with a
rich background, — a labyrinth of ornamental
lines to relieve the severity of s*pressive

&2 ItORtfXNGS IN FLORENCE.

ones, — he will carve you a carpet, or a tree,
or a rose thicket, with their fringes and
leaves and thorns, elaborated as richly as
natural ones ; but always for the sake A the
ornamental form, never of the imitation;
yet, seizing the natural character in the lines
he gives, with twenty times the precision
and clearness of sight that the mere imitator
has. Examine the tassels of the cushion,
and the way they blend with the fringe,
thoroughly; you cannot possibly see finer
ornamental sculpture. Then, look at the
same tassels in the same place of the slab
next the west end of the church, and you
will see a scholar's rude imitation of a mas-
\er's hand, though in a fine school. (Notice,
however, the folds of the drapery at the feet
of this figure : they are cut so as to show
the hem of the robe within as well as with-
out, and are fine.) Then, as you go back to
Giotto's chapel, keep to the left, and just
beyond the north door in the aisle is the
much celebrated tomb of C. Marsuppini, by
Desiderio of Settignano. It is very fine of
its kind; but there the drapery is chiefly
done to cheat you, and chased delicately to
show how finely the sculptor could chisel

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 83

it. It is wholly vulgar and mean in cast of
fold. Undtr your feet, as you look at it,
you will tread another tomb ^>f the fine time,
'which, looking last at, you will recognize
the difference between the false and true
art, as far as there is capacity in you at
present to do so. And if you really and
honestly like the low-lying stones, and see
more beauty in them, you have also the
power of enjoying Giotto, into whose chapel
we will return to-morrow ; — not to-day, for
the light must have left it by this time;
and now that you have been looking at
these sculptures on the floor you had better
traverse nave and aisle across and across ;
and get some idea of that sacred field of
stone. In the north transept you will find
a beautiful knight, the finest in chiseling of
all these tombs, except one by the same
hand in the south aisle just where it enters
the south transept. Examine the lines of the
Gothic niches traced above them ; and what
is left of arabesque on their armor. They
are far more beautiful and tender in chival-
ric conception than Donatello's St. George,
which is merely a piece of vigorous natural-
ism founded on these older tombs. If you

34 xoitiriitGs IN

will drive in the evening to the Chartreuse
in Val d'Ema, you may see there an unin-
jured example of this slab-tomb by Dona-
tello himself: very beautiful; but not so
perfect as the earlier ones on which it is
founded. And you may see some fading
light and shade of monastic life, among
which if you stay till the fireflies come out
in the twilight, and thus get to sleep when
you come home, you will be better prepared
for to-morrow morning's walk — if you will
take another with me — than if you go to a
party, to talk sentiment about Italy, and
hear the last new* from London and New
York.

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 86

THE SECOND MORNING.

THE GOLDEN GATE.

TO-DAT, as early as you please, and at all
events before doing anything else, let us go
to Giotto's own parish-church, Santa Maria
Novella. If, walking from the Strozzi
Palace, you look on your right for the
" Way of the Beautiful Ladies," it will take
you quickly there.

Do not let anything in the way of acquaint-
ance, sacristan, or chance sight stop you in
doing what I tell you. "Walk straight up to
the church, into the apse of it ; — (you may
let your eyes rest, as you walk, on the glow
of its glass, only mind the step, half way ;)
— and lift the curtain ; and go in behind the
grand marble altar, giving anybody who
follows you anything they want, to hold
their tongues, or go away.

You know, most probably, already, that
tha frescos ou each side of you are Chilian*

SO MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

da jo's. You have been told they are very
fine, and if you know anything of painting,
you know the portraits in them are so.
Nevertheless, somehow, you don't renlly
enjoy these frescos, nor come often here,
do you?

The reason of which is, that if you are a
nice person, they are not nice enough for
you; and if a vulgar person, not vulgar
enough. But if you are a nice person, I
want you to look carefully, to-day, at the
two lowest, next the windows, for a few
minutes, that you may better feel the art
you are really to study, by its contrast with
these.

On your left hand is represented the birth
of the Virgin. On your right, her meeting
with Elizabeth.

You can't easily see better pieces — no-
where more pompous pieces) — of flat gold-
smiths' work. Ghirlandajo was to the end
of his life a mere goldsmith, with a gift of
portraiture. And here he has done his
best, and has put a long wall in wonderful
perspective, and the whole city of Florence
behind Elizabeth's house in the hill country ;
and a splendid bas-relief, in the style of

MORNINGS IN FLOKENCE. 37

Luca della Robbia, in St. Anne's bedroom ;
and he has carved all the pilasters, and
embroidered all the dresses, and flourished
and trumpeted into every corner ; and it is
all done, within just a point, as well as it
can be done ; and quite as well as Ghirlan-
dajo could do it. But the point in which it
just misses being as well as it can be done is
the vital point. And it is all simply — good
for nothing.

Extricate yourself from the goldsmith's
rubbish of it, and look full at the Salutation.
You will say, perhaps, at first, "What
grand and graceful figures ! " Are you
sure they are graceful? Look again, and
you will see their draperies hang from them
exactly as they would from two clothes-
pegs. Now, fine drapery, really well drawn,
as it hangs from a clothes-peg, is always
rather impressive, especially if it be dis-
posed hi large breadths and deep folds; but
that is the only grace of their figures.

Secondly. Look at the M^lonna, care-
fully. You will find she is not the least
meek — only stupid, — as all the other women
in the picture are.

« St. Elizabeth, you think, is nice ? " Yes ;

38 XOBNINQf? IN FLORENCE.

«* and she says, c Whence ie this to me, that
the mother of my Lord should come to me?'
really with a great deal of serious feeling?"
Yes, with, a great deal. Well, you have
looked enough at those two. Now — just
for another minute — look at the birth of the
Virgin. "A most graceful group, (your
Murray's Guide tells you), in the attendant
servants." Extremely so. Also, the one
holding the child is rather pretty. Also,
the servant pouring out the water does it
from a great height, without splashing,
most cleverly. Also, the lady coming to ask
for St. Anne, and see the baby, -walks
majestically and is very finely dressed.
And as for that bas-relief in the style of
Luca della Robbia, you might really almost
think it was Luca ! The very best plated
goods, Master Ghirlandajo, no doubt —
always on hand at your shop.

Well, now you must ask for the sacristan,
who is civil and nice enough, and get him
to let you into the green cloister, and then
go Into the less cloister opening out of it on
the right, as you go down the steps ; and
you must ask for the tomb of the Marcheza
Stiozzi Kidolfl 5 and in .the receaa behind the

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 39

Marcheza's tomb — very close to the ground,
and in excellent light, if the day is fine— »
you will see two small frescos, only about
four feet wide each, in odd-shaped bits of
wall— quarters of circles; representing—-
that on the left, the Meeting of Joachim and
Anna at the Golden Gato ; and that on the
right, the Birth of the Virgin.

No flourish of trumpets here, at any rate,
you think ! No gold on the gate ; and, for
the birth of the Virgin — is this all ! Good-
ness I — nothing to be seen, whatever, of bas-
reliefs, nor fine dresses, nor graceful pour-
ings out of water, nor processions of visit-
ors?

No. There's but one thing you can see,
here, which you didn't in Ghirlandajo's
fresco, unless you were very clever and
looked hard for it — the Baby ! And you
are never likely to see a more true piece of
Giotto's work in this world.

A round-faced, small-eyed little thing, tied
up in a bundle !

Yes, Giotto was of opinion she must have
appeared really not much else than that.
But look at the servant who has just finished
dressing her j — awe-struck, full of love and

40 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

wonder, putting her hand softly on the
child's head, who has never cried. The
nurse, who has just taken her, is — the
nurse, and no more: tidy in the extreme,
and greatly proud and pleased ; but would
be as much so with any other child.

Ghirlandajo's St. Anne (I ought to have
told you to notice that, — you can afterwards)
is sitting strongly up in bed, watching, if not
directing, all that is going on. Giotto's lying
down on the pillow, leans her face on her
hand; partly exhausted, partly in deep
thought. She knows that all will be well
done for the child, either by the servants,
or God ; she need not look after anything.

At the foot of the bed is the midwife, and
a servant who has brought drink for St.
Anne. The servant stops, seeing her so
quiet ; asking the midwife, Shall I give it her
now ? The midwife, her hands lifted under
her robe, in the attitude of thanksgiving,
(with Giotto distinguishable always, though
one doesn't know how, from that of prayer),
answers, with her look, " Let be — she does
not want anything."

At the door a single acquaintance is com-
ing in to see the child. Of ornament, there ia

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 41

only the entirely simple outline of the vase
which the servant carries ; of color, two or
three masses of sober red and pure white,
•with brown and gray.

That is all. And if you can be pleased
with this, you can see Florence. But if not,
by all means amuse yourself there, if you
find it amusing, as long as you like; you
can never see it.

But if indeed you are pleased, ever so
little, with this fresco, think what that
pleasure means. I brought you, on purpose,
round, through the richest overture, and
farrago of tweedledum and tweedledee, I
could find in Florence ; and here is a tune of
four notes, on a shepherd's pipe, played by
the picture of nobody ; and yet you like it !
You know what music is, then. Here is
another little tune, by the same player, and
sweeter. I let you hear the simplest first.

The fresco on the left hand, with the
bright blue sky, and the rosy figures ! Why,
anybody might like that !

Yes ; but, alas, all the blue sky is repaint-
ed. It was blue always, however, and bright
too ; and I dare say, when the fresco was
first done anybody did like it.

42 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

You know the story of Joachim and Anna,
I hope ? Not that I do, myself, quite in the
ins and outs ; and if you don't I'm not going
to keep you waiting while I tell it. All
you need know, and you scarcely, before
this fresco, need, know so much, is, that here
are an old husband and old wife, meeting
again by surprise, after losing each other,
and being each in great fear ; — meeting at
the place where they were told by God each
to go, without knowing what was to happen
there.

" So they rushed into one another's arms,
and kissed each other."

No, says Giotto, — not that.

"They advanced to meet, in a manner
conformable to the strictest laws of com-
position ; and with their draperies cast into
folds which no one until Raphael could
have arranged better."

No, says Giotto, — not that.

St. Anne has moved quickest ; her dress
just falls into folds sloping backwards
enough to tell you so much. She has
caught St. Joachim by his mantle, and
draws him to her, softly, by that. St.
Joachim lays his hand under her arm, see*

MOBNING8 IN FLORENCE. 43

ing she is like to faint, and holds her up.
They do not kiss each other — only look into
each other's eyes. And God's angel lays
his hand on their heads.

Behind them, there are two rough fig-
ures, busied with their own affairs; — two of
Joachim's shepherds ; one, bare-headed, the
other wearing the wide Florentine cap with
the falling point behind, which is exactly
like the tube of a larkspur or violet ; both
carrying game, and talking to each other
about — Greasy Joan and her pot or the like.
Not at all the sort of persons whom you
would have thought hi harmony with the
scene; — by the laws of the drama, accord-
ing to Racine or Voltaire.

No, but according to Shakespeare, or
Giotto, these are just the kind of persons
likely to be there : as much as the angel is
likely to be there also, though you will be
told nowadays that Giotto was absurd for
putting him into the sky, of which an apoth-
ecary can always produce the similar blue,
in a bottle. And now that you have had
Shakespeare, and sundry other men of head
and heart, following the track of this shep-
herd lad, you can forgive him his grotesques

44 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

in the corner. But that he should have
given them to himself, after the training ha
had, this is the wonder! We have seen
simple pictures enough hi our day ; and
therefore we think that of course shepherd
boys will sketch shepherds; what wonder
is there in that ?

I can show you how in this shepherd
boy it was very wonderful indeed, if you
will walk for five minutes back into the
church with me, and up into the chapel At
the end of the south transept, — at least if
the day is bright, and you get the sacristan
to undraw the window-curtain in the tran-
sept itself. For then the light of it will bq
enough to show you the entirely authentic
and most renowned work of Giotto's mas-
ter ; and you will see through what school-
ing the lad had gone.

A good and brave master he was, if ever
boy had one; and, as you will find when
you know really who the great men are,
the master is half their life ; and well they
know it — always naming themselves from
their master, rather than their families.
See then what kind of work Giotto had
laeen first put to. Thfire is, literally, not a

FLORENCE. 45

tjquare inch of all that panel— some ten feet
high by six or seven wide— which is not
wrought in gold and color with the fineness
of a Greek manuscript. There is not such
an elaborate piece of ornamentation in the
first page of any Gothic king's missal, as
you will find in that Madonna's throne ; —
the Madonna herself is meant to be grave
and noble only, and to be attended only by
angels.

And here is this saucy imp of a lad de-
clares his people must do without gold, and
without thrones ; nay, that the Golden Gate
itself shall have no gilding, that St. Joachim
and St. Anne shall have only one angel be-
tween them ; and their servants shall have
their joke, and nobody say them nay !

It is most wonderful ; and would have
been impossible, had Cimabue been a com-
mon man, though ever so great in his own
way. Nor could I in any of my former
thinking understand how it was, till I saw
Cimabue's own work at Assisi ; in which
he shows himself, at heart, as independent
of his gold as Giotto, — even more intense,
capable of higher things than Giotto, though
of none, perhaps, so keen or sweet. But to

46 MOBNINGS IN FLORENCE.

this day, among all the Mater Dolorosa.
of Christianity, Cimabue's at Assisi is tho
noblest ; nor did any painter after him add
one link to the chain of thought with which
he summed the creation of the earth, and
preached its redemption.

He evidently never checked the boy, from
the first day he found him. Showed him
all he knew: talked with him of many
things he felt himself unable to paint : made
him a workman and a gentleman, — above
all, a Christian, — yet left him — a shepherd.
And Heaven had made him such a painter,
that, at his height, the words of his epitaph
are in nowise overwrought : " Ille ego sum,
per quern pictura extincta revixit."

A word or two, now, about the repainting
by which this pictura extincta has been re-
vived to meet existing taste. The sky is
entirely daubed over with fresh blue ; yet it
leaves with unusual care the original out-
line of the descending angel, and of the
white clouds about his body. This idea of
the angel laying his hands on the two heads
— (as a bishop at Confirmation does, in a
hurry; and I've seen one sweep four to-
gether, like Arnold de "Vfinkelied), — partly

XORNING3 12V FLORENCE. 4f

In blessing, partly as a symbol of their
being brought together to the same place by
God, — was afterwards repeated again and
again : there is one beautiful little echo of it
among the old pictures in the schools of Ox-
ford. This is the first occurrence of it that
I know in pure Italian painting ; but the idea
is Etruscan-Greek, and is used by the Etrus-
can sculptors of the door of the Baptistery
of Pisa, of the evil angel, who "lays the
heads together," of two very different per-
sons from these — Herodias and her daugh-
ter.

Joachim, and the shepherd with the lark-
spur cap, are both quite safe; the other
shepherd a little reinforced; the black
bunches of grass, hanging about, are re-
touches. They were once bunches of plants
drawn with perfect delicacy and care ; you
may see one left, faint, with heart-shaped
leaves, on the highest ridge of rock above
the shepherds. The whole landscape is,
however, quite undecipherably changed and
spoiled.

You will be apt to think at first, that if
anything has been restored, surely the ugly
shepherd's uglier feet have. No, not at all.

48 MOSNINGS I# FLORENCE.

Restored feet are always drawn with en-
tirely orthodox and academical toes, like th«
Apollo Belvidere's. You would have ad-
mired them very much. These are Giotto's
own doing, every bit ; and a precious busi-
ness he has had of it, trying again and again
— in vain. Even hands were difficult enough
to him, at this time ; but feet, and bare legs !
Well, he'll have a try, he thinks, and gets
really a fair line at last, when you are close
to it ; but, laying the light on the ground
afterwards, he dare not touch this precious
and dear-bought outline. Stops all round
it, a quarter of an inch off,1 with such effect
as you see. But if you want to know what,
sort of legs and feet he can draw, look at
our lambs, in the corner of the fresco under
the arch on your left !

And there is one on your right, though
more repainted — the little Virgin present-
ing herself at the Temple, — about which I
couid also say much. The stooping figure,

1Perbaps it is only the restorer's white on the
ground that stops ; but I think a restorer would never
have been so wise, but have gone right up to th9
outline, and spoiled all.

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 49

kissing the hem of her robe without her
knowing is, as far as I remember, first in
this fresco ; the origin, itself, of the main
design in all the others you know so well
(and with its steps, by the way, in better
perspective already than most of them).

" This the original one ! " you will be in-
clined to exclaim, if you have any general
knowledge of the subsequent art. " This
Giotto ! why it's a cheap rechauffe of Titian ! "
No, my friend,. The boy who tried so
hard to draw those steps in perspective
had been carried down others, to his grave,
two hundred years before Titian ran alone
at Cadore. But, as surely as Venice looks
on the sea, Titian looked upon this, and
caught the reflected light of it forever.

What kind of boy is this, think you, who
can make Titian his copyist, — Dante his
friend? What new power is here which
is to change the heart of Italy? — can you
see it, feel it, writing before you these words
on the faded wall ?

" You shall see things — as they Are."

" And the least with the greatest, because
God made them."

"And the greatest with the least, because

t>0 WORKINGS IN FLORENCE.

God made you, and gave you eyes and a
heart."

I. You shall see things — as they are. So
easy a matter that, you think ? So much
more difficult and sublime to paint grand
processions and golden thrones, than St.
Anne faint on her pillow, and her servant
At pause ?

Easy or not, it is all the sight that is re-
quired of you in this world, — to see things,
and men and yourself, — as they are.

II. And the least with the greatest, be-
cause God made them, — shepherd, and flock,
and grass of the field, no less than the Golden
'Sate.

III. But also the golden gate of Heaven
itself, open, and the angels of God coming
down from it.

These three things Giotto taught, and men
believed, in his day. Of which Faith you
shall next see brighter work; only before
we leave the cloister, I want to sum for you
one or two of the instant and evident tech-
nical changes produced in the school of
Florence by this teaching.

One of quite the first results of Giotto's
simply looking at things as they were, was

MORNINGS JN FLORENCE. bl

Ms finding out that a red thing was red, and
a brown thing brown, and a white thing
white — all over.

The Greeks had painted anything anyhow,
— gods black, horses red, lips and cheeks
white ; and when the Etruscan vase expand-
ed into a Cimabue picture, or a Tafi mosaic,
still, — except that the Madonna was to have
a blue dress, and everything else as much
gold on it as could be managed, — there was
very little advance in notions of color. Sud-
denly, Giotto threw aside all the glitter, and
all the conventionalism ; and declared that
he saw the sky blue, the tablecloth white,
and angels, when he dreamed of them, rosy.
And he simply founded the schools of color
in Italy — Venetian and all, as I will show
you to-morrow morning, if it is fine. And
what is more, nobody discovered much about
color after him.

But a deeper result of his resolve to look
at things as they were, was his getting so
heartily interested in them that he couldn't
miss their decisive moment. There is a deci-
sive instant in all matters ; and if you look
languidly, you are sure to miss it. Nature
seems always somehow trying to make you

62 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

miss it. " I will see that through," you must
say, " without turning my head ; " or you
won't see the trick of it at all. And the most
significant thing in all his work, you will find
hereafter, is his choice of moments. I will
give you at once two instances in a picture
which, for other reasons, you should quickly
compare with these frescos. Return by the
Via delle Belle Donne ; keep the Casa Strozzi
on your right ; and go straight on, through,
the market. The Florentines think them-
selves so civilized, forsooth, for building a
nuovo Lung-Arno, and three manufactory
chimneys opposite it : and yet sell butchers?
meat dripping red, peaches, and anchovies',
side by side : it is a sight to be seen. Muck
more, Luca della Robbia's Madonna in fh&
circle above the chapel door. Never pass
near tne market without looking at it ; and
glance from the vegetables underneath to
Luca's leaves and lilies, that you may see
how honestly he was trying to make his clay
like the garden-stuff. But to-day, you may
pass quickly on to the Uffizii, which will be
just open ; and when you enter the great
gallery, turn to the right, and there, the first

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 63

picture you come at will be No. 6, Giotto's
" Agony in the garden."

I used to think it so dull that I could not
believe it was Giotto's. That is partly from
its dead color, which is the boy's way of tell-
ing you it is night : — more from the subject
being one quite beyond his age, and which
he felt no pleasure in trying at. You may
see he was still a boy, for he not only cannot
draw feet yet, in the least, and scrupulously
hides them therefore ; but is very hard put
to it for the hands, being obliged to draw
them mostly in the same position,— all the
four fingers together But hi the careful
bunches of grass and weeds you will see what
the fresco foregrounds were before they got
spoiled ; and there are some things he can
understand already, even about that Agony,
thinking of it in his own fixed way. Some
things, — not altogether to be explained by
the old symbol of the angel with the cup.
He will try if he cannot explain them better
in those two little pictures below; which
nobody ever looks at ; the great Roman sar-
cophagus being put in front of them, and the
light glancing on the new varnish so that you
must twist about like a lizard to see any-

$4 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

thing0 Nevertheless, you may make out
what Giotto meant.

"The cup which my Father hath given
me, shall I not drink it?" In what was
its bitterness ? — thought the boy. " Cruci-
fixion ? — Well, it hurts, doubtless ; but the
thieves had to bear it too, and many poor
human wretches have to bear worse on
our battlefields. But " — and he thinks, and
thinks, and then he paints his two little
pictures for the predel'

They represent, of course, the sequence
of the time in Gethsemane ; but see what
choice the youth made of his moments, hav-
ing two panels to fill. Plenty of choice for
him — in pain. The Flagellation — the Mock-
ing— the Bearing of the Cross ; — all habit-
ually given by the Margheritones, and their
school, us extremes of pain.

" No," thinks Giotto. " There was worse
than all that. Many a good man has been
mocked, spitefully entreated, spitted on,
slain. But who was ever so betrayed?
Who ever saw such a sword thrust in his
mother's heart?"

He paints, first, the laying hands on Him
in the garden, but with only two principal

IN FLORENCE. 55

figures, — Judas and Peter, of course ; Judas
and Peter were always principal in the old
Byzantine composition, — Judas giving the
kiss — Peter cutting off the servant's ear.
But the two are here, not merely principal,
but almost alone in sight, all the other
figures thrown back ; and Peter is not at all
concerned about the servant, or his strug-
gle with him. He has got him down, — but
looks back suddenly at Judas giving the
kiss. What ! — you are the traitor, then — you!

" Yes," says Giotto ; " and you, also, in an
hour more."

The other picture is more deeply felt still.
It is of Christ brought to the foot of the
cross. There is no wringing of hands or
lamenting crowd — no haggard signs of faint-
ing or pain in His body. Scourging or faint-
ing, feeble knee and torn wound, — he thinks
scorn of all that, this shepherd boy. One
executioner is hammering the wedges of the
cross harder down. The other — not un-
gently — is taking Christ's red robe off His
shoulders. And St. John, a few yards off,
is keeping His mother from coming nearer.
She looks dow?i, not at Ciirist ; but tries tfl
QOOMb

66 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

And now you may go on for your day's
eeeings through the rest of the gallery, if
you will — Fornarina, and the wonderful
cobbler, and all the rest of it. I don't
want you any more till to- morrow morn-
ing.

But if, meantime, you will sit down, —
say, before Sandro Botticelli's " Fortitude,"
which I shall want you to look at, one of
these days (No. 1299, innermost room from
the Tribune), and there read this following
piece of one of my Oxford lectures on the
relation of Cimabue to Giotto, you will be
better prepared for our work to-morrow
morning in Santa Croce, and may find
something to consider of, in the room you
are in. Where, by the way, observe that
No. 1288 is a most true early Lionardo, of
extreme interest: and the savants who

doubt it are never mind what ; but sit

down at present at the feet of Fortitude,
and read.

Those of my readers who have been un-
fortunate enough to interest themselves
in that most profitless of studies — the phi-
losophy of art — have been at various times
teased or amused by disputes respecting

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 57

the relative dignity of the contemplative
and dramatic schools.

Contemplative, of course, being the term
attached to the system of painting things
only for the sake of their own niceness — a
lady because she is pretty, or a lion because
he is strong : and the dramatic school being
that which cannot be satisfied unless it sees
something going on : which can't paint a
pretty lady unless she is being made love to,
or being murdered ; and can't paint a stag
or a lion unless they are being hunted, or
shot, or the one eating the other.

You have always heard me — or, if not,
will expect by the very tone of this sentence
to hear me, now, on the whole recommend
you to prefer the Contemplative school.
But the comparison is always an imperfect
and unjust one, unless quite other terms are
introduced.

The real greatness or smallness of schools
is not in their preference of inactivity t3
action, nor of action to inactivity. It is in
their preference of worthy things to un-
worthy, in rest ; and of kind action to un»
kind, hi business.

A Dutchman can be just as solemnly and

68 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

entirely contemplative of a lemon pip and a
cheese paring, as an Italian of the Virgin
in Glory. An English squire has pictures,
purely contemplative, of his favorite horse
— and a Parisian lady, pictures, purely con-
templative, of the back and front of the last
dress proposed to her in La Mode Artis-
tique. All these works belong to the same
school of silent admiration; — the vital ques-
tion concerning them is, " What do you ad-
mire?"

Now therefore, when you hear me so
often saying that the Northern races — Nor-
man and Lombard, — are active, or dramatic,
in their art ; and that the Southern races —
Greek and Arabian, — are contemplative, you
ought instantly to ask farther, Active in
what? Contemplative of what? And the
answer is, The active art — Lombardic, — re-
joices in hunting and fighting ; the contem-
plative art — Byzantine, — contemplates the
mysteries of the Christian faith.

And at first, on such answer, one would
be apt at once to conclude — all grossness
must be in the Lombard; all good in the
Byzantine. But again we should be wrong,
_«— and extremely wrong. For the hunting

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 50

and fighting did practically produce strong,
and often virtuous, men; while the per-
petual and inactive contemplation of what it
was impossible to understand, did not on
the whole render the contemplative persons,
stronger, wiser, or even more amiable. So
that, in the twelfth century, while the
Northern art was only in need of direction,
the Southern was in need of life. The
North was indeed spending its valor and
virtue on ignoble objects ; but the South
disgracing the noblest objects by its want
of valor and virtue.

Central stood Etruscan Florence — her
root in the earth, bound with iron and brass
— wet with the dew of heaven. Agriculture
in occupation, religious in thought, she ac-
cepted, like good ground, the good ; refused,
like the Rock of Fesole, the evil ; directed
the industry of the Northman into the arts
of peace ; kindled the dreams of the Byzan-
tine with the fire of charity. Child of her
peace, and exponent of her passion, her
Cimabue became the interpreter to man-
kind of the meaning of the Birth of Christ,

We hear constantly, and think naturally,
of him as of a man whose peculiar genius,

60 MOENINGS IN FLORENCE.

in painting suddenly reformed its princi-
ples ; who suddenly painted, out of his own
gifted imagination, beautiful instead of rude
pictures ; and taught his scholar Giotto to
carry on the impulse; which we suppose
thenceforward to have enlarged the re-
sources and bettered the achievements of
painting continually, up to our own time, —
when the triumphs of art having been com-
pleted, and its uses ended, something higher
is offered to the ambition of mankind ; and
Watt and Faraday initiate the Age of Manu-
facture and Science, as Cimabue and Giotto
instituted that of Arfe and Imagination.

In this conception of the History of Men-
tal and Physical culture, we much overrate
the influence, though we cannot overrate
the power, of the men by whom the change
seems to have been effected. We cannot
overrate their power, — for the greatest men
of any age, those who become its leaders
when there is a great march to be begun,
are indeed separated from the average in-
tellects of their day by a distance which is
immeasurable in any ordinary terms of
wonder.

But we far overrate their influence; be-

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 61

cause the apparently sudden result of theif
labor or invention is only the manifested
fruit of the toil and thought of many who
preceded them, and of whose names we
have never heard. The skill of Cimabue
cannot be extolled too highly ; but no Ma-
donna by his hand could ever have rejoiced
the soul of Italy, unless for a thousand years
before many a nameless Greek and nameless
Goth had adorned the traditions, and lived
in the love, of the Virgin.

In like manner, it is impossible to over-
rate the sagacity, patience, or precision of
the masters in modern mechanical and sci-
entific discovery. But their sudden tri-
umph, and the unbalancing of all the world
by their words, may not in any wise be at-
tributed to their own power, or even to that
of the facts they have ascertained. They
owe their habits and methods of industry
to the paternal example, no less than the
inherited energy, of men who long ago prose-
cuted the truths of nature, through the
rage of war, and the adversity of supersti-
tion ; and the universal and overwhelming
consequences of the facts which their fol-
lowers have now proclaimed, indicate only

62 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

the crisis of a rapture produced by the ofc
fering of new objects of curiosity to nations
who had nothing to look at ; and of the
amusement of novel motion and action to
nations who had nothing to do.

Nothing to look at ! That is indeed — you
will find, if you consider of it — our sorrow-
ful case. The vast extent of the adver-
tising fresco of London, daily refreshed
into brighter and larger frescos by its bill-
stickers, cannot somehow sufficiently enter-
tain the popular eyes. The great Mrs.
Allen, with her flowing hair, and equally
flowing promises, palls upon repetition, and
that Madonna of the nienteenth century
smiles in vain above many a borgo unre-
joiced; even the excitement of the shop-
window, with its unattainable splendors,
or too easily attainable impostures, cannot
maintain itself in the wearying mind of the
populace, and I find my charitable friends
inviting the children, whom the streets
educate only into vicious misery, to enter-
tainments of scientific vision, in microscope
or magic lantern ; thus giving them some-
thing to look at, such as it is ; — fleas mostly ;
and the stomachs of various vermin; and

X01WINGS IN FLORENCE. 63

people with their heads cut off and set on
again ; — still something, to look at.

The fame of Cimabue rests, and justly,
on a similar charity. He gave the populace
of his day something to look at ; and satis-
fied their curiosity with science of some-
thing they had long desired to know. We
have continually imagined in our careless-
ness, that his triumph consisted only in a
new pictorial skill; recent critical writers,
unable to comprehend how any street popu-
lace could take pleasure in painting, have
ended by denying his triumph altogether,
and insisted that he gave no joy to Florence ;
and that the " Joyful quarter " was accident-
ally so named — or at least from no other
festivity than that of the procession attend*
ing Charles of Anjou. I proved to you, in
a former lecture, that the old tradition was
true, and the delight -of the people unques-
tionable. But that delight was not merely in
the revelation of an art they had not known
how to practice ; it was delight in the rev-
elation of a Madonna whom they had not
known how to love. <

Again ; what was revelation to them — we
suppose farther and as unwisely, to have

64 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

been only art in him ; that in better laying of
colors, — in better tracing of perspectives —
in recovery of principles of classic composi-
tion— he had manufactured, as our Gothic
Firms now manufacture to order, a Ma-
donna— in whom he believed no more than
they.

Not so. First of the Florentines, first of
the European men — he attained in thought,
and saw with spiritual eyes, exercised to
discern good from evil, — the face of her who
was blessed among women; and with his
following hand, made visible the Magnif-
icat of his heart.

He magnified the Maid; and Florence
rejoiced in her Queen. But it was left for
Giotto to make the queenship better beloved,
in its sweet humiliation.

You had the Etruscan stock in Florence —
Christian, or at least semi-Christian; the
statue of Mars still in its streets, but with
its central temple built for Baptism in the
name of Christ. It was a race living by
agriculture; gentle, thoughtful, and exqui-
sitely fine in handiwork. The straw bonnet
of Tuscany — the Leghorn — is pure Etruscan
art, young ladies : — only plaited gold ot

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 65

God's harvest, instead of the plaited gold
of His earth.

You had then the Norman and Lombard
races coming down on this : kings and hun-
ters— splendid in war — insatiable of action.
You had the Greek and Arabian races flow-
ing from the east, bringing with them the
law of the City, and the dream of the Desert.

Cimabue — Etruscan born, gave, we saw,
the life of the Norman to the tradition of
the Greek : eager action to holy contempla-
tion. And what more is left for his favorite
shepherd boy Giotto to do, than this, except
to paint with ever-increasing skill? We
fancy he only surpassed Cimabue— eclipsed
by greater brightness.

Not so. The sudden and new applause of
Italy would never have been won by mere
increase of the already-kindled light. Giotto
had wholly another work to do. The meet-
ing of the Norman race with the Byzantine
is not merely that of action with repose —
not merely that of war with religion, — it is
the meeting of domestic life with monastic,
and of practical household sense with un-
practical Desert insanity.

I bare BO other word to use than thi» laat.
6

66 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

I use it reverently, meaning a very noble
thing ; I do not know how far I ought to say
— even a divine thing. Decide that for your-
selves. Compare the Northern farmer with
St. Francis ; the palm hardened by stubbing
Thornaby waste, with the palm softened by
the imagination of the wounds of Christ. To
my own thoughts, both are divine ;• decide
that for yourselves ; but assuredly, and with-
out possibility of other decision, one is,
humanly speaking, healthy; the other un-
healthy ; one sane, the other — insane.

To reconcile Drama with Dream, Cima-
bue's task was comparatively an easy one.
But to reconcile Sense with — I still use even
this following word reverently — Nonsense,
is not so easy ; and he who did it first, — no
wonder he has a name in the world.

I must lean, however, still more distinctly
on the word "domestic." For it is not
Rationalism and commercial competition —
Mr. Stuart Mill's "other career for woman
than that of wife and mother " — which are
reconcilable, by Giotto, or by anybody else,
with divine vision. But household wisdom,
labor of love, toil upon earth according to
the law of Heaven — these are reconcilable,

XORNINQS IX FLORENCE. 67

in one code of glory, with revelation in cave
or island, with the endurance of desolate and
loveless days, with the repose of folded hands
that wait Heaven's time.

Domestic and monastic. He was the first
of Italians — the first of Christians — who
equally knew the virtue of both lives ; and
who was able to show it in the sight of men
of all ranks, — from the prince to the shep-
herd ; and of all powers, — from the wisest
philosopher to the simplest child.

For, note the way in which the new gift of
painting, bequeathed to him by his great
master, strengthened his hands. Before
Cimabue, no beautiful rendering of human
form was possible ; and the rude or formal
types of the Lombard and Byzantine, though
they would serve in the tumult of the chase
or as the recognized symbols of creed, could
not represent personal and domestic charac-
ter. Faces with goggling eyes and rigid lips
might be endured with ready help of imagi-
nation, for gods, angels, saints, or hunters —
or for anybody else in scenes of recognized
legend, but would not serve for pleasant por-
traiture of one's own self — or of the incidents
of gentle, actual life. And even Cimabue

68 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

did not ventnre to leave the sphere of COB*
ventionally reverenced dignity. He still
painted — though beautifully — only the Ma-
donna, and the St. Joseph, and the Christ.
These he made living, — Florence asked no
more : and " Credette Cimabue nella pintura
tener lo campo."

But Giotto came from the field, and saw
with his simple eyes a lowlier worth. And
he painted — the Madonna, and St. Joseph,
and the Christ, — yes, by all means if you
choose to call them so, but essentially, —
Mamma, Papa, and the Baby. And all Italy
threw up its cap, — " Ora ha Giotto il grido."

For he defines, explains, and exalts, every
sweet incident of human nature ; and makes
dear to daily life every mystic imagination
of natures greater than our own. He recon-
ciles, while he intensifies, every virtue of
domestic and monastic thought. He makes
the simplest household duties sacred, and
the highest religious passions serviceable and
just.

THE THIRD MORNING.

BEFOBE THE SOLDAN.

I PROMISED some note of Sandro's Forti-
tude, before whom I asked you to sit and
read the end of my last letter ; and I've lost
my own notes about her, and forget, now,
whether she has a sword, or a mace ; — it
does not matter. What is chiefly notable
in her is — that you would not, if you had to
guess who she was, take her for Fortitude
at all. Everybody else's Fortitudes an-
nounce themselves clearly and proudly.
They have tower-like shields, and lion-like
helmets — and stand firm astride on their legs,
—and are confidently ready for all comers.

Yes; — that is your common Fortitude.
Very grand, though common. But not the
highest, by any means.

Ready for all comers, and a match for
them,— thinks the universal Fortitude ;~-

69

70 JIOIWINQ8 IN FLORENCE.

no thanks to her for standing so steady,
then!

But Botticelli's Fortitude is no match, it
may be, for any that are coming. Worn,
somewhat ; and not a little weary, instead
of standing ready for all comers, she is
sitting, — apparently in reverie, her fingers
playing restlessly and idly — nay, I think —
even nervously, about the hilt of her sword.

For her battle is not to begin to-day ; nor
did it begin yesterday. Many a morn and
eve have passed since it began — and now —
is this to be the ending day of it ? And if
this — by what manner of end?

That is what Sandro's Fortitude is think-
ing. And the playing fingers about the
sword-hilt would fain let it fall, if it might
be: and yet, how swiftly and gladly will
they close on it, when the far-off trumpet
blows, which she will hear through all her
reverie !

There is yet another picture of Sandro's
here, which you must look at before going
back to Giotto: the small Judith in the
room next the Tribune, as you return from
ttds outer one. It is just under Lionardo'»
Medusa. She is returning to the camp of

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE* 71

her Israel, followed by her maid carrying1
the head of Hololernes. And she walks in
one of Botticelli's light dancing actions, her
drapery all on flutter, and her hand, like
Fortitude's, light on the sword-hilt, hut
daintily — not nervously, the little finger laid
over the cross of it.

And at the first glance — you will think
the figure merely a piece of fifteenth-cen-
tury affectation. "Judith, indeed! — say
rather the daughter of Herodias, at her
mincingest."

"Well, yes — Botticelli is affected, in the
way that all men in that century necessarily
were. Much euphuism, much studied grace
of manner, much formal assertion of scholar-
ship, mingling with his force of imagina-
tion. And he likes twisting the fingers of
hands about, just as Correggio does. But
he never does it like Correggio, without
cause.

Look at Judith again, — at her face, not
her drapery, — and remember that when a
man is base at the heart, he blights his vir-
tues into weaknesses ; but when he is true
at the heart, he sanctifies his weaknesses
into virtues. It is a weakness of Botticelli's

72 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

this love of dancing motion and waved
pery ; but why has he given it full flight
here?

Do you happen to know anything about
Judith yourself, except that she cut off
Holofernes' head ; and has been made the
high light of about a million of vile pictures
ever since, in which the painters thought
they could surely attract the public to the
double show of an execution, and a pretty
woman, — especially with the added pleas-
ure of hinting at previously ignoble sin ?

When you go home to-day, take the pains
to write out for yourself, in the connection
I here place them, the verses underneath
numbered from the book of Judith ; you will
probably think of their meaning more care-
fully as you write.

Begin thus :

" Now at that time, Judith heard thereof,
which was the daughter of Merari, * * *
the son of Simeon, the son of Israel." And
then write out, consecutively, these pieces —

Chapter viii., verses 2 to 8. (Always in-
clusive,) and read the whole chapter.

Chapter ix., verses 1 and 5 to 7, begin-
ning this piece with tbe previous sentence,

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 78

"Oh God, oh my God, hear me also a
widow."

Chapter ix., verses 11 to 14.

u

X.,

" 1 to 5.

u

xiii.,

" 6 to 10.

«

XV.,

« 11 to 13.

4

xvi.,

" 1 to 6.

d

xvi.,

" 11 to 15.

fC

xvi.,

" 18 and 19.

(C

xvi.,

« 23 to 25.

Now, as in many other cases of noble
history, apocryphal and other, I do not in
the least care how far the literal facts are
true. The conception of facts, and the idea
of Jewish womanhood, are there, grand and
real as a marble statue, — possession for all
ages. And you will feel, after you have
read this piece of history, or epic poetry,
with honorable care, that there is some-
what more to be thought of and pictured in
Judith, than painters have mostly found it
in them to show you ; that she is not merely
the Jewish Delilah to the Assyrian Samson ;
but the mightiest, purest, brightest type of
high passion in severe womanhood offered
to our human memory. Sandro's picture is

74 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE*

but slight ; but it is true to her, and the
only one I know that is ; and after writing
out these verses, you will see why he gives
her that swift, peaceful motion, while you
read in her face, only sweet solemnity of
dreaming thought. " My people delivered,
and by my hand ; and God has been gra-
cious to His handmaid ! " The triumph of
Miriam over a fallen host, the fire of exult-
ing mortal life in an immortal hour, the
purity and severity of a guardian angel — all
are here ; and as her servant follows, carry-
ing ind'eed the head, but invisible — (a mere
thing to be carried— no more to be so much
as thought of) — she looks only at her mis-
tress, with intense, servile, watchful love.
Faithful, not in these days of fear only, but
hitherto in all her life, and afterwards
forever.

After you have seen it enough, loot also
for a little while at Angelico's Marriage and
Death of the Virgin, in the same room ; you
may afterwards associate the three picture*
always together in your mind. And, look'
ing at nothing else to-day hi the UffisS, let
Us go back to Giotto's chapel.

must begin with thia work o* oof

MORNINGS IN FLOEENCS. 76

left hand, the Death of St. Francis ; for it
is the key to all the rest. Let us hear first
what Mr. Crowe directs us to think of it.
"In the composition of this scene, Giotto
produced a masterpiece, \vhich served as
a model but too often feebly imitated by his
successors. Good arrangement, variety of
character and expression in the heads, unity
and harmony in the whole, make this an
exceptional work of its kind. As a com-
position, worthy of the fourteenth century,
Ghirlandajo and Benedetto da Majano both
imitated, without being able to improve it.
No painter ever produced dts equal except
Raphael ; nor could a better be created ex-
cept in so far as regards improvement in
the mere rendering of form."

To these inspiring observations by the
rapturous Crowe, more cautious Cavalca-
sella1 appends a refrigerating note, say-

1 1 yenture to attribute the wiser note to Signor
Cavalcasella because I have every reason to put real
confidence in his judgment. But it was impossible
for any man, engaged as he Is, to go over all the
ground covered by so extensf/e a piece of critical
work as these three volumes contain, with effective
attention.

76 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

ing, " The St. Francis in the glory is
but the angels are in part preserved. Tho
rest has all been more or less retouched ;
and no judgment can be given as to the
color of this — or any other (!) — of these
works."

You are, therefore — instructed reader-
called upon to admire a piece of art which
no painter ever produced the equal of ex-
cept Raphael ; but it is unhappily deficient,
according to Crowe, in the " mere render-
ing of form " ; and, according to Signor
Cavalcasella, "no opinion can be given as
to its color."

Warned thus of the extensive places
where the ice is dangerous, and forbidden
to look here either for form or color, you
are to admire " the variety of character and
expression in the heads." I do not myself
know how these are to be given without
form or color ; but there appears to me, in
my innocence, to be only one head in the
whole picture, drawn up and down in dif-
ferent positions.

The " unity and harmony " of the whole
— which make this an exceptional work of
its kind — mean, I suppose, its general look

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 7T

of having been painted out of a scavenger's
cart; and so we are reduced to the last
article of our creed according to Crowe, —

" In the composition of this scene Giotto
produced a masterpiece."

Well, possibly. The question is, What
you mean by " composition." Which, put-
ting modern criticism now out of our way,
I will ask the reader to think, hi front of
this wreck of Giotto, with some care.

Was it, hi the first place, to Giotto, think
you, the " composition of a scene," or the
conception of a fact? You probably, if a
fashionable person, have seen the apotheosis
of Margaret in Faust? You know what
care is taken, nightly, hi the composition of
that scene, — how the draperies are arranged
for it ; the lights turned off, and on ; the
flddlestrings taxed for their utmost tender-
ness ; the bassoons exhorted to a grievous
solemnity.

You don't believe, however, that any real
soul of a Margaret ever appeared to any mor-
tal in that manner?

Here is an apotheosis also. Composed ! — •
yes ; figures high on the right and left, low
in the middle, etc., etc., etc.

78 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

But the important questions seem to
Was there ever a St. Francis ? — did he ever
receive stigmata? — did his soul go up to
heaven ? — did any monk see it rising? — and
did Giotto mean to tell us so ? If you will
be good enough to settle these few small
points in your mind first, the " composition "
will take a wholly different aspect to you,
according to your answer.

Nor does it seem doubtful to me what your
answer, after investigation made, must be.

There assuredly was a St. Francis, whose
life and works you had better study than
either to-day's Galignani, or whatever, this
year, may supply the place of the Tichborne
case, in public interest.

His reception of the stigmata is, perhaps,
a marvellous instance of the power of imagi-
nation over physical conditions ; perhaps an
equally marvelous instance of the swift
change of metaphor into tradition ; but as-
suredly, and beyond dispute, one of the most
influential, significant, and instructive tradi-
tions possessed by the Church of Christ.
And, that, if ever soul rose to heaven from
the dead body, his soul did so rise, is equally

IN FLORENCE. 79

And, finally, Giotto believed that all he
Was called on to represent, concerning St.
Francis, really had taken place, just as surely
as you, if you are a Christian, believe that
Christ died and rose again ; and he repre-
sents it with all fidelity and passion : but%
as I just now said, he is a man of supreme
common sense; — has as much humor and
clearness of sight as Chaucer, and as much
dislike of falsehood in clergy, or in pro-
fessedly pious people: and in his gravest
moments he will still see and say truly that
what is fat, is fat — and what is lean, lean —
and what is hollow, empty.

His great point, however, in this fresco, is
the assertion of the reality of the stigmata
against all question. There is not only one
St. Thomas to be convinced ; there are five ;
— one to each wound. Of these, four are
intent only on satisfying their curiosity, and
are peering or probing ; one only kisses the
hand he has lifted. The rest of the picture
never was much more than a gray drawing
of a noble burial service ; of all concerned in
which, one monk, only, is worthy to see the
soul taken up to heaven ; and he is evidently
just the monk whom nobody in the convent

80 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

thought anything of. (His face is all re-
painted ; but one can gather this much, or
little, out of it, yet.)

Of the composition, or " unity and har-
mony of the whole,." as a burial service, we
may better judge after we have looked at
the brighter picture of St. Francis's Birth —
birth spiritual, that is to say, to his native
heaven ; the uppermost, namely, of the three
subjects on this side of the chapel. It is en-
tirely characteristic of Giotto ; much of it
by his hand — all of it beautiful. All impor-
tant matters to be known of Giotto you may
know from this fresco.

"But we can't see it, even with our opera-
glasses, but all foreshortened and spoiled.
What is the use of. lecturing us on this ?"

That is precisely the first point which is
essentially Giottesque in it ; its being so out
of the way ! It is this which makes it a per-
fect specimen of the master. I will tell you
next something about a work of his which
you can see perfectly, just behind you on the
opposite side or the wall ; but that you have
half to break your neck to look at this one,
is the very first thing I want you to feel.

It is a characteristic — (as far as I know*

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 81

quite a universal one) — of the greatest mas-
ters, that they never expect you to look at
them ; seem always rather surprised if you
want to ; and not overpleased. Tell them
you are going to hang their picture at the
upper end of the table at the next great City
dinner, and that Mr. So-and-So will make a
speech about it ; you produce no impression
upon them whatever, or an unfavorable one.
The chances are ten to one they send you the
most rubbishy thing they can find hi their
lumber-room. But send for one of them ha
ft hurry, and tell him the rats have gnawed
ft nasty hole behind ttie parlor door, and you
want it plastered and painted over ; — and he
does you a masterpiece which the world will
peep behind your door to look at forever.

I have no time to tell you why this is so ;
nor do I know why, altogether ; but so it is.

Giotto, then, is sent for, to paint this high
chapel : I am not sure if he chose his own
subjects from the life of St. Francis : I think
BO, — but of course can't reason on the guess
securely. At all events, he would have
much of his own way in the matter.

Now you must observe that painting a
Gothic chapel rightly is just the same thing
6

82 MORNI&Q8 IN FLOREtfCS.

as painting a Greek vase rightly. The
chapel is merely the vase turned upside-
down, and outside-in. The principles of
decoration are exactly the same. Your
decoration is to be proportioned to the size
of your vase ; to be together delightful when
you look at the cup, or chapel, as a whole ;
to be various and entertaining when you
turn the cup round (you turn yourself
round in the chapel) ; and to bend its heads
and necks of figures about, as it best can,
over the hollows, and ins and outs, so that
anyhow, whether too long or too short —
possible or impossible — they may be living,
and full of grace. You will also please take
it on my word to-day — in another morning
walk you shall have proof of it — that Giotto
was a pure Etruscan-Greek of the thirteenth
century: converted indeed to worship St.
Francis instead of Heracles ; but as far as
vase-painting goes, precisely the Etruscan
he was before. This is nothing else than a
large, beautiful, colored Etruscan vase you
have got, inverted over your heads like a
diving-bell.1

1 1 observe that recent criticism is engaged in prov-
ing all Etruscan vases to be of late manufacture, in

ITT FLORENCE. 83

Accordingly, after the quatref oil ornamen-
tation of the top of the bell, you get two
spaces at the sides under arches, very diffi-
cult to cramp one's picture into, if it is to be
a picture only ; but entirely provocative of
our old Etruscan instinct of ornament.
And, spurred by the difficulty, and pleased

Imitation of archaic Greek. And I therefore must
briefly anticipate a statement which I shall have to
enforce in following letters. Etruscan art remains
in its own Italian valleys, of the Arno and upper
Tiber, in one unbroken series of work, from the
seventh century before Christ, to this hour, when
the country whitewasher still scratches his plaster ia
Etruscan patterns. All Florentine work of the finest
kind — Luca della Robbia's, Ghiberti's, Donatello's,
Filippo Lippi's, Botticelli's, Fra Angelico's— is ab-
solutely pure Etruscan, merely changing its subjects,
and representing the Virgin instead of Athena, and
Christ instead of Jupiter. Every line of the Floren-
tine chisel in the fifteenth century is based on na-.
tional principles of art which existed in the seventh
century before Christ ; and Angelico, in his convent
of St. Dominic, at the foot of the hill of F6sole, is as
true an Etruscan as the builder who laid the rude
stones of the wall along its crest— of which modern
civilization has used the only arch that remained
for cheap building stone. Luckily, I sketched it in
1845 ; but alas, too carelessly,— -never conceiving of
the brutalities of modern Italy as

84 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

by the national character of it, we put oui
best work into these arches, utterly neglect-
ful of the public below, — who will see the
white and red and blue spaces, at any rate,
which is all they will want to see, thinks
Giotto, if he ever looks down from his scaf-
fold.

Take the highest compartment, then, on
the left, looking towards the window. It
was wholly impossible to get the arch filled
with figures, unless they stood on each
other's heads; so Giotto ekes it out
with a piece of fine architecture. Raphael,
in the Sposalizio, does the same, for pleas-
ure.

Then he puts two dainty little white
figures, bending, on each flank, to stop up
his corners. But he puts the taller inside on
the right, and outside on the left. And he
puts his Greek chorus of observant and
moralizing persons on each side of his main
action.

Then he puts one Choragus— or leader of
chorus, supporting the main action — on each
Bide. Then he puts the main action in the
middle — which is a quarrel about that white
of contention in the center, Choragus

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 86

on the right, who sees that the bishop is
going to have the best of it, backs him se-
renely. Choragus on the left, who sees that
hit impetuous friend is going to get the
worst of it, is pulling him back, and trying
to keep him quiet. The subject of the pict-
ure, which, after you are quite sure it is
good as a decoration, but not till then, you
may be allowed to understand, is the follow-
ing. One of St. Francis's three great virtues
being Obedience, he begins his spiritual life
by quarreling with his father. He, I sup-
pose in modern terms I should say, " com-
mercially invests " some of his father's goods
in charity. His father ob j ects to t hat invest-
ment; on which St. Francis runs away,
taking what he can find about the house
along with him. His father follows to claim
his property, but finds it is all gone, already ;
and that St. Francis has made friends with
the Bishop of Assisi. His father flies into
an indecent passion, and declares he will
disinherit him ; on which St. Francis then
and there takes all his clothes off, throws
them frantically in his father's face, and
says he has nothing more to do with clothes
or lather. The good Bishop, in tears of ad-

86 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

miration, embraces St. Francis, and covers
him with his own mantle.

I have read the picture to you as, if Mr,
Spurgeon knew anything about art, Mr.
Spurgeon would read it, — that is to say,
from the plain, common-sense, Protestant
side. If you are content with that view of
it, you may leave the chapel, and, as far as
any study of history is concerned, Florence
also; for you can never know anything
either about Giotto, or her.

Yet do not be afraid of my re-reading it
to you from the mystic, nonsensical, and
Papistical side. I am going to read it to
you— if after many and many a year of
thought, I am able— as Giotto meant it;
Giotto being, as far as we know, then the
man of strongest brain and hand in Florence ;
the best friend of the best religious poet of
the world ; and widely differing, as his friend
did also, in his views of the world, from
either Mr. Spurgeon or Pius IX.

The first duty of a child is to obey its
father and mother; as the first duty of a
citizen to obey the laws of his state. And
this duty is so strict that I believe the only
limits to it are those fixed by Isaac and

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 87

Ipbigenia. On the other hand, the father
and mother have also a fixed duty to the
child — not to provoke it to wrath. I have
never heard this text explained to fathers
and mothers from the pulpit, which is curi-
ous. For it appears to me that God will
expect the parents to understand their duty
to their children, better even than children
can be expected to know their duty to their
parents.

But farther. A child's duty is to obey its
parents. It is never said anywhere in the
Bible, and never was yet said in any good
or wise book, that a man's, or woman's is.
Wfien^ precisely, a child becomes a man or a
woman, it can no more be said, than
when it should first stand on its legs. But
a time assuredly comes when it should.
In great states, children are always trying
to remain children, and the parents want-
ing to make men and women of them. In
vile states, the children are always wanting
to be men and women, and the parents to
keep them children. It may be — and happy
the house in which it is so — that the father's
at least equal intellect, and older experience,
may remain to the end of his life a law to

88 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

his children, not of force, but of perfect
guidance, with perfect love. Rarely it is so ;
not often possible. It is as natural for the
old to be prejudiced as for the young to be
presumptuous; and, in the change of cen-
turies, each generation has something id
judge of for itself.

But this scene, on which Giotto has dwel*
with so great force, represents, not the
child's assertion of his independence, but
his adoption of another Father.

You must not confuse the d&sire of this
boy of Assisi to obey God rather than man,
with the desire of your young cockney hope-
ful to have a latch-key, and a separate allow-
ance.

No point of duty has been more miserably
warped and perverted by false priests, in all
churches, than this duty of the young to
choose whom they will serve. But the duty
itself does not the less exist ; and if there be
any truth in Christianity at all, there will
come, for all true disciples, a time when
they have to take that saying to heart, " Ha
that loveth father or mother more than Me,
is not worthy of Me.' '

"— -observe. There is no talk at

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 89

disobeying fathers or mothers whom you do
not love, or of running away from a home
where you would rather not stay. But to
leave the home which is your peace, and to
be at enmity with those who are most dear
to you, — this, if there be meaning in Christ's
words, one day or other will be demanded
of His true followers.

And there is meaning in Christ's words.
Whatever misuse may have been made
of them, — whatever false prophets— and
Heaven knows there have been many — have
called the young children to them, not to
bless, but to curse, the assured fact remains,
that if you will obey God, there will come a
moment when the voice of man will be raised,
with all its holiest natural authority, against
you. The friend and the wise adviser — the
brother and the sister — the father and the
master — the entire voice of your prudent
and keen-sighted acquaintance — the entire
weight of the scornful stupidity of the vul-
gar world— for once, they will be against
you, all at one. You have to obey God
rather than man. The human race, with
all its wisdom and love, all its indignation

90 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

and folly, on one side, — God alone on thfl
other. You have to choose.

That is the meaning of St. Francis's re-
nouncing his inheritance ; and it is the begin-
ning of Giotto's gospel of Works. Unless
this hardest of deeds be done first, — this in-
heritance of mammon and the world cast
away, — all other deeds are useless. You
cannot serve, cannot obey, God and mam-
mon. No charities, no obediences, no self-
denials, are of any use, while you are still
at heart in conformity with the world. You
go to church, because the world goes. You
keep Sunday, because your neighbors keep
it. But you dress ridiculously, because
your neighbors ask it ; and you dare not do
a rough piece of work, because your neigh-
bors despise it. You must renounce your
neighbor, in his riches and pride, and re-
member him in his distress. That is St.
Francis's " disobedience."

And now you can understand the rela-
tion of subjects throughout the chapel, and
Giotto's choice of them.

The roof has the symbols of the threa
virtues of labor — Poverty, Chastity, Obedi-
ence.

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 91

A. Highest on the left side, looking to the
window. The life of St. Francis begins in
his renunciation of the world.

B. Highest on the right side. His new
life is approved and ordained by the author*
ity of the church.

C. Central on the left side. He preaches*
to his own disciples.

D. Central on the right side. He preaches
to the heathen.

E. Lowest on the left side. His burial.

F. Lowest on the right side. His power
after death.

Besides these six subjects, there are, on
the sides of the window, the four great Fran-
ciscan saints, St. Louis of France, St. Louis
of Toulouse, St. Clare, and St. Elizabeth of
Hungary.

So that you have in the whole series this
much given you to think of : first, the law
of St. Francis's conscience ; then, his own
adoption of it; then, the ratification of it
by the Christian Church ; then, his preach-
ing it hi life ; then, his preaching it in death ;
and then, the first of it in his disciples.

I have only been able myselt to examine,
or in any right) sense to see, of this code of

fg MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

subjects, the first, second, fourth, and the
St. Louis and Elizabeth. I will ask you
only to look at two more of them, namely,
St. Francis before the Soldan, midmost on
your right, and St. Louis.

The Soldan, with an ordinary opera-glass,
you may see clearly enough ; and I think it
•will be first well to notice some technical
points in it.

If the little virgin on the stairs of the
temple reminded you of one composition of
Titian's, this Soldan should, I think, remind
you of all that is greatest in Titian ; so for-
cibly, indeed, that for my own part, if I had
been told that a careful early fresco by
Titian had been recovered in Santa Croce, I
could have believed both report and my own
eyes, more quickly than I have been able to
admit that this is indeed by Giotto. It is
80 great that — had its principles been un-
derstood— there was in reality nothing more
to be taught of art hi Italy ; nothing to be
invented afterwards, except Dutch effects
of light.

That there is no " effect of light," here
arrived at, I beg you at once to observe as
a most important lesson. The subject is

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 93

fit. Francis challenging the Soldan's Magi,—
fire- worshipers — to pass with him through
the fire, which is blazing red at his feet. It
is so hot that the two Magi on the other
side of the throne shield their faces. But it
is represented simply as a red mass of
writhing forms of flame ; and casts no fire-
light whatever. There is no ruby color
on anybody's nose ; there are no black shad-
ows under anybody's chin; there are no
Rembrandtesque gradations of gloom, or
glitterings of sword-hilt and armor.

Is this ignorance, think you, in Giotto,
and pure artlessness ? He was now a man
in middle life, having passed all his days in
painting, and professedly, and almost con-
tentiously, painting things as he saw them.
Do you suppose he never saw fire cast fire-
light ?— and he the friend of Dante ! who of
all poets is the most subtle in his sense of
every kind of effect of light — though he has
been thought by the public to know that of
fire only. Again and again, his ghosts won-
der that there is no shadow cast by Dante's
body; and is the poet's friend, because a
painter, likely, therefore, not to have known
that mortal substance casts shadow, and ter-

94 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

restrial flame, light ? Nay, the passage in
the " Purgatorio " where the shadows from
the morning sunshine make the flames
redder, reaches the accuracy of Newtonian
science; and does Giotto, think you, all
the while, see nothing of the sort ?

The fact was, he saw light so intensely
that he never for an instant thought of
painting it. He knew that to paint the sun
was as impossible as to stop it 5 and he was
no trickster, trying to find out ways of seem-
ing to do what he did not. I can paint a rose,
— yes ; and I will. I can't paint a red-hot
coal ; and I won't try to, nor seem to. This
was just as natural and certain a process of
thinking with him, as the honesty of it, and
true science, were impossible to the false
painters of the sixteenth century.

Nevertheless, what his art can honestly do
to make you feel as much as he wants you
to feel, about this fire, he will do; and that
studiously. That the fire be luminous or not,
is no matter just now. But that the fire
is hot, he would have you to know. Now,
will you notice what colors he has used in
the whole picture. First, the blue back-
ground, necessary to unite it with the othe*

nr FLORZWCX. 96

three subjects, is reduced to the smallest
possible space. St. Francis must be in gray,
for that is bis dress ; also the attendant of
one of the Magi is in gray ; but so warm,
that, if you saw it by itself, you would call
it brown. The shadow behind the throne,
which Giotto knows he can paint, and there-
fore does, is gray also. The rest of the pict-
ure * in at least six-sevenths of its area — is
either crimson, gold, orange, purple, or white,
all as warm as Giotto could paint them ; and
set off by minute spaces only of intense black,
— the Soldan's fillet at the shoulders, his
eyes, beard, and the points necessary in the
golden pattern behind. And the whole pict-
ure is one glow.

A single glance round at the other subjects
will convince you of the special character in
this ; but you will recognize also that the
four upper subjects, in which St. Francis's
life and zeal are shown, are all in compara-
tively warm colors, while the two lower ones
— of the death, and the visions after it — have
been kept as definitely sad and cold.

1 The floor has been repainted ; but though its gray
is now heavy and cold, it cannot kill the splendor of
(to rot,

96 MORNINGS IN FLOEENCE.

Necessarily you might think, being full of
monks' dresses. Not so. Was there any
need for Giotto to have put the priest at the
foot of the dead body, with the black ban-
ner stooped over it in the shape of a grave?
Might he not, had he chosen, in either fresco,
have made the celestial visions brighter ?
Might not St. Francis have appeared in the
center of a celestial glory to the dream-
ing Pope, or his soul been seen of the poor
monk, rising through more radiant clouds ?
Look, however, how radiant, in the small
space allowed out of the blue, they are in
reality. You cannot anywhere see a lovelier
piece of Giottesque color, though here, you
have to mourn over the smallness of the piece,
and its isolation. For the face of St. Francis
himself is repainted, and all the blue sky ;
but the clouds and four sustaining angels
are hardly retouched at all, and their irides-
cent and exquisitely graceful wings are left
with really very tender and delicate care by
the restorer of the sky. And no one but
Giotto or Turner could hare painted them.

For in all his use of opalescent and warm
color, Giotto is exactly like Turner, as, in
his swift expressional power, he is like Gains-

ORNIKGS IN FLORENCE. 97

borough. All the other Italian religious
painters work out their expression with
toil ; he only can give it with a touch. All
the other great Italian colorists see only
the beauty of color, but Giotto also its bright-
ness. And none of the others, except Tin-
toret, understood to the full its symbolic
power ; but with those — Giotto and Tintoret
— there is always, not only a color har-
mony, but a color secret. It is not merely
to make the picture glow, but to remind
you that St. Francis preaches to a fire- wor-
shiping king, that Giotto covers the wall
with purple and scarlet ; — and above, in the
dispute at Assisi, the angry father is dressed
in red, varying like passion ; and the robe
with which his protector embraces St. Fran-
cis, blue, symbolizing the peace of Heaven.
Of course certain conventional colors were
traditionally employed by all painters ; but
only Giotto and Tintoret invent a symbolism
of their own for every picture. Thus in
Tintoret's picture of the fall of the manna,
the figure of God the Father is entirely
robed in white, contrary to all received cus-
tom : in that of Moses striking the rock, it
is surrounded by a rainbow. Of Giotto's

IN FL6B3WC&

§ yinboliam in color at Assisi, I have given
account elsewhere.1

You are not to think, therefore, the dif-
ference between the color of the upper and
lower frescos unintentional. The life of St.
Francis was always full of joy and triumph.
His death, in great suffering, weariness, and
extreme humility. The tradition of him
reverses that of Elijah ; living, he is seen in
the chariot of fire; dying, he submits to
more than the common sorrow of death.

There is, however, much more than a dif-
ference in color between the upper and
lower frescos. There is a difference in man-
ner which I cannot account for ; and abov©
all, a very singular difference in skill,— in-
dicating, it seems to me, that the two lower
were done long before the others, and after-
wards united and harmonized with them.
It is of no interest to the general reader to
pursue this question ; but one point he can
notice quickly, that the lower frescos de-
pend much on a mere black or brown out-
line of the features, while the faces above
are evenly and completely painted in the

*Fors Clavigera, for September, 1874]

uf FLORENCE. 99

most accomplished Venetian manner : — and
another, respecting the management of the
draperies, contains much interest for us.

Giotto never succeeded, to the very end
of his days, in representing a figure lying
down, and at ease. It is one of the most
curious points in all his character. Just
the thing which he could study from nature
without the smallest hindrance, is the thing
he never can paint ; while subtleties of form
and gesture, which depend absolutely on
their inomentariness, and actions in which
no model can stay for an instant, he seizes
with infallible accuracy.

Not only has the sleeping Pope, in the
right hand lower fresco, his head laid un-
comfortably on his pillow, but all the clothes
on him are in awkward angles, even Giotto's
instinct for lines of drapery failing him
altogether when he has to lay it on a re-
posing figure. But look at the folds of the
Soldan's robe over his knees. None could
be more beautiful or right ; and it is to me
wholly inconceivable that the two paintings
should be within even twenty years of each
other in date — the skill in the upper one ia
go supremely greater. We shall find, how-

100 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

ever, more than mere truth in its cai ts of
drapery, if we examine them.

They are so simply right, in the figure of
the Soldan, that we do not think of them ;
— we see him only, not his dress. But we
see dress first, in the figures of the discom-
fited Magi. Very fully draped personages
these, indeed, — with trains, it appears, four
yards long, and bearers of them.

The one nearest the Soldan has done his
devoir as bravely as he could ; would fain
go up to the fire, but cannot; is forced
to shield his face, though he has not turned
back. Giotto gives him full sweeping
breadth of fold ; what dignity he can ; — a
man faithful to his profession, at all events.

The next one has no such courage. Col-
lapsed altogether, he has nothing more to
say for himself or his creed. Giotto hangs
the cloak upon him, in Ghirlandajo's fashion,
as from a peg, but with ludicrous narrow-
ness of fold. Literally, he is a " shut-up "
Magus — closed like a fan. He turns his
head away, hopelessly. And the last Ma-
gus shows nothing but his back, disappear-
ing through the door.

Opposed to them, in a modern work, you

IN FLORENCE. 101

would have had a St. Francis standing as
high as he could in his sandals, contemptu-
ous, denunciatory; magnificently showing
the Magi the door. No such thing, says
Giotto. A somewhat mean man; disap-
pointing enough in presence — even in feat-
ture; I do not understand his gesture,
pointing to his forehead — perhaps meaning,
"my life, or my head, upon the truth of
this." The attendant monk behind him is
terror-struck ; but will follow his master.
The dark Moorish servants of the Magi
show no emotion— will arrange their mas-
ters' trains as usual, and decorously sustain
their retreat.

Lastly, for the Soldan himself. In a
modern work, you would assuredly have
had him staring at St. Francis with his eye-
brows up, or frowning thunderously at his
Magi, with them bent as far down as they
would go. Neither of these aspects does he
bear, according to Giotto. A perfect gentle-
man and king, he looks on his Magi with
quiet eyes of decision ; he is much the no-
blest person in the room— though
the true hero of the scene, far more
Francis. It ia evidently the Soldaai wtram

102 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

Giotto wants you to think of mainly, in thia
picture of Christian missionary work.

He does not altogether take the view of the
Heathen which you would get in an Exeter
Hall meeting. Does not expatiate on their
ignorance, their blackness, or their naked-
ness. Does not at all think of the Florentine
Islington and Pentonville, as inhabited by
persons in every respect superior to the
kings of the East ; nor does he imagine every
other religion but his own to be log- worship.
Probably the people who really worship
logs — whether in Persia or Pentonville —
will be left to worship logs to their hearts'
content, thinks Giotto. But to those who
worship God, and who have obeyed the laws
of heaven written in their hearts, and num-
bered the stars of it visible to them, — to
these, a nearer star may rise ; and a higher
God be revealed.

You arc to note, therefore, that Griotto's
Soldan is the type of all noblest religion
and law, in countries where the name of
Christ has not been preached. There was
no doubt what king or people should be
chosen : the country of the three Magi had
already been indicated by the miracle of

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 103

Bethlehem ; and the religion and morality
of Zoroaster were the purest, and in spirit
the oldest, in the heathen world. There-
fore, when Dante, in the nineteenth and
twentieth books of the Paradise, gives his
final interpretation of the law of human and
divine justice in relation to the gospel of
Christ — the lower and enslaved body of the
heathen being represented by St. Philip's
convert, (" Christians like these the Ethiop
shall condemn," — the noblest state of heath-
enism is at once chosen, as by Giotto:
"What may the Persians say unto yowr
kings ? " Compare also Milton, —

"At the Soldan's chair,
Defied the best of Paynim chivalry."

And now, the time is come for you to
look at Giotto's St. Louis, who is the type
of a Christian king.

You would, I suppose, never have seen it
at all, unless I had dragged you here on
purpose. It was enough in the dark origi-
nally— is trebly darkened by the modern
painted glass — and dismissed to its oblivion
contentedly by Mr. Murray's " Four saint*,
all much restored and repainted," and

194 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcasella's serene
" The St. Louis is quite new."

Now, I am the last person to call any
restoration whatever, judicious. Of all
destructive manias, that of restoration is the
frightfullest and foolishest. Nevertheless,
what good, in its miserable way, it can bring
the poor art scholar must now apply his
common sense to take ; there is no use, be-
cause a great work has been restored, in
now passing it by altogether, not even look-
ing for what instruction we still may find
in its design, which will be more intelligible,
if the restorer has had any conscience at all,
to the ordinary spectator, than it would
have been in the faded work. When, indeed,
Mr. Murray's Guide tells you that a building
has been " magnificently restored," you may
pass the building by in resigned despair;
for that means that every bit of the old
sculpture has been destroyed, and modern
vulgar copies put up in its place. But a
restored picture or fresco will often be, to
you, more useful than a pure one; and in all
probability — if an important piece of art-
it will have been spared in many places
cautiously completed in others, and still as*

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 105

sert itself in a mysterious way — as Leon-
ardo's Cenacolo does— through every phase
of reproduction. l

1 For a test of your feeling in the matter, having
looked well at these two lower frescos in this chapel,
walk around into the next, and examine the lower
one on your left hand as you enter that. You will
find in your Murray that the frescos in this chapel
" were also till lately (1862) covered with whitewash;"
but I happened to have a long critique of this par-
ticular picture written in the year 1845, and I see no
change in it since then. Mr. Murray's critic also tells
you to observe in it that " the daughter of Herodias
playing on a violin is not unlike Perugino's treatment
of similar subjects." By which Mr. Murray's critic
means that the male musician playing on a violin,
whom, without looking either at his dress, or at the
rest of the fresco, he took for the daughter of Hen>
dias, has a broad face. Allowing you the full bene-
fit of this criticism— there is still a point or two more
to be observed. This is the only fresco near the
ground in which Giotto's work is untouched, at least,
by the modern restorer. So felicitously safe it is, that
you may learn from it at once and forever, what good
fresco painting is — how quiet — how delicately clear-
how little coarsely or vulgarly attractive — how capa-
ble of the most tender light and shade, and of the most
exquisite and enduring color.

In this latter respect,this fresco stands almost alone
among the works of Giotto; the striped curtain bo-
hind the table being wrought with a variety and tun

10« MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

But I can assure you, in the first place, that
St. Louis is by no means altogether new. I
have been up at it, and found most lovely and
true color left in many parts: the crown,
which you will find, after our mornings at the
Spanish chapel, is of importance, nearly un-
touched ; the lines of the features and hair,
though all more or less reproduced, still of
definite and notable character ; and the junc-
tion throughout of added color so careful,
that the harmony of the whole, if not deli-
cate with its old tenderness, is at least, in its
coarser way, solemn and unbroken. Such

tasy of playing color which Paul Veronese could not
better at his best.

You will find without difficulty, in spite of the faint
tints, the daughter of Herodias in the middle of the
picture — slowly moving, not dancing, to the violin
music — she herself playing on a lyre. In the farther
corner of the picture, she gives St. John's head to her
mother; the face of Herodias is almost entirely faded,
which may be a farther guarantee to you of the safety
of the rest. The subject of the Apocalypse, highest
on the right, is one of the most interesting mythic
pictures in Florence; nor do I know any other so
completely rendering the meaning of the scene be-
tween the woman in the wilderness, and the Dragon
enemy. But it cannot be seen from the floor lerei:
and I hare no power of showing its beauty in words.

310SNINOS IN FLORENCE. 107

as the figure remains, it still possesses ex-
treme beauty — profoundest interest. And,
as you can see it from below with your
glass, it leaves little to be desired, and may
be dwelt upon with more profit than nine
out of ten of the renowned pictures of the
Tribune or the Pitti. You will enter into
the spirit of it better if I first translate for
you a little piece from the Fioretti di San
Francesco.

" How St. Louis, King of France, went
personalty, in the guise of a pilgrim, to Pe-
rugia, to visit the holy Brother Giles. — St.
Louis, King of France, went on pilgrimage
to visit the sanctuaries of the world ; and
hearing the most great fame of the holiness
of Brother Giles, who had been among the
first companions of St. Francis, put it in his
heart, and determined assuredly that he
would visit him personally; wherefore he
came to Perugia, where was then staying
the said brother. And coming to the gate
of the place of the Brothers, with few com-
panions, and being unknown, he asked with
great earnestness for Brother Giles, telling
nothing to the porter who he was that
asked. The porter, therefore, go«s to

108 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

Brother Giles, and says that there is a pil«
grim asking for him at the gate. And bj
God it was inspired in him and revealed
that it was the King of France ; whereupon
quickly with great fervor he left his cell
and ran to the gate, and without any ques-
tion asked, or ever having seen each other
before, kneeling down together with great-
est devotion, they embraced and kissed each
other with as much familiarity as if for a
long time they had held great friendship ;
but all the while neither the one nor the
other spoke, but stayed, so embraced, with
such signs of charitable love, in silence.
And so having remained for a great while,
they parted from one another, and St. Louis
went on his way, and Brother Giles re-
turned to his cell. And the King being
gone, one of the brethren asked of his com-
panion who he was, who answered that
he was the King of France. Of which the
other brothers being told, were in the great-
est melancholy because Brother Giles had
never said a word to him ; and murmuring
at it, they said, " Oh, Brother Giles, where-
for hadst thou so country manners that to
BO holy a king, who had coma from France

MO.RNINQS IJV FLORENCE. 109

to see thee and hear from thee some good
word, thou hast spoken nothing ? "

" Answered Brother Giles : c Dearest
brothers, wonder not ye at this, that neither
I to him, nor he to me, could speak a word ;
for so soon as we had embraced, the light
of the divine wisdom revealed and mani-
fested, to me, his heart, and to him, mine;
and so by divine operation we looked each
in the other's heart on what we would have
said to one another, and knew it better far
than if we had spoken with the mouth, and
with more consolation, because of the defect
of the human tongue, which cannot clearly
express the secrets of God, and would have
been for discomfort rather than comfort.
And know, therefore, that the King parted
from me marvelously content, and com-
forted in his mind.' "

Of all which story, not a word, of course,
is credible by any rational person.

Certainly not : the spirit, nevertheless,
which created the story, is an entirely in-
disputable fact in the history of Italy and of
mankind. Whether St. Louis and Brother
Giles ever knelt together in the street of
Perugia matters not a whit* That a king

110 -MORKIXGS IN FLORENCE.

and a poor monk could be conceived to havo
thoughts of each other which no words could
speak ; and that indeed the King's tender-
ness and humility made such a tale credible
to the people, — this is what you have to
meditate on here.

Nor is there any better spot in the world,
— whencesoever your pilgrim feet may have
journeyed to it, wherein to make up so much
mind as you have in you for the making,
concerning the nature of Kinghood and
Princedom generally ; and of the forgeries
and mockeries of both which are too often
manifested in their room. For it happens
that this Christian and this Persian King
are better painted here by Giotto than else-
where by any one, so as to give you the best
attainable conception of the Christian and
Heathen powers which have both received,
in the book which Christians profess to rev-
erence, the same epithet as the King of the
Jews Himself; anointed, or Chris tos; — and
as the most perfect Christian Kinghood was
exhibited in the life, partly real, partly tra-
ditional, of St. Louis, so the most perfect
Heathen Kinghood was exemplified in the
life, partly real, partly traditional, of Cyras

MORNINGS IN FLOBXNCS. Ill

of Persia, and in the laws for human govern-
ment and education which had chief force in
his dynasty. And before the images of
these two Kings I think therefore it will
he well that you should read the charge
to Cyrus, written by Isaiah. The second
clause of it, if not all, will here become
memorable to you — literally illustrating, aa
it does, the very manner of the defeat of
the Zoroastrian Magi, on which Giotto founds
his Triumph of Faith. I write the leading
sentences continuously ; what I omit is only
their amplification, which you can easily
refer to at home. (Isaiah xliv. 24, to xlr.
13.)

" Thus saith the Lord, thy Redeemer, and
he that formed thee from the womb. I the
Lord that maketh all ; that stretcheth forth
the heavens, alone ; that spreadeth abroad
the earth, alone ; that turneth wise men back*
ward, and maketh their JcnoioJedye foolish ;
that confirmeth the word of his Servant, and
fulfiUeth the counsel of hi: messengers : that
saith of Cyrus, He is my Shepherd, and
shall perform all my pleasure, even saying
to Jerusalem, * thou shalt be built/ and to
the temple, ' thy foundation shall be laid.'

3 12 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

" Thus saith the Lord to his Christ ;—
Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden,
subdue nations before him, and I will loc
the loins of Kings.

"I will go before thee, and make t
crooked places straight; I will break
pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sund
the bars of iron ; and I will give thee t
treasures of darkness, and hidden riches
secret places, that thou mayest know thai
the Lord, which call thee by thy name, £
the God of Israel.

" For Jacob my servant's sake, and Isrj
mine elect, I have even called thee by t
name ; I have surnamed thee, though th
*"iast not known me.

** I am the Lord, and there is none els
Jhere is no God beside me. I girded thi
though thou hast not known me. That th
may know, from the rising of the siw, a
from the west, that there is none beside m
I am the Lord and there is none else. If 01
the light, and create darkness ; I make pea<
and create evil. I the Lord do all the
things.

" I have raised him up in Righteousnei
and will direct all his ways ; he shall bui

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. lit

my city, and let go my captives, not for price
nor reward, saith the Lord of Nations."

To this last verse, add the ordinance of
Cyrus in fulfilling it, that you may under-
stand what is meant by a King's being
" raised up in Righteousness," and notice,
with respect to the picture under which you
stand, the Persian King's thought of the
Jewish temple.

" In the first year of the reign of Cyrus,1
King Cyrus commanded that the house of
the Lord at Jerusalem should be built again,
where they do service with perpetual fire ; (the
italicized sentence is Darius's, quoting Cy-
rus's decree — the decree itself worded thus),
Thus saith Cyrus, King of Persia : 2 The
Lord God of heaven hath given me all the
kingdoms of the earth, and he hath charged
me to build him an house at Jerusalem.

" Who is there among you of all his peo-
ple ? — his God be with him, and let him go
up to Jerusalem which is in Judah, and let
the men of his place help him with silver
and with gold, and with, gooda and with
beasts."

1 1st Esdrus vi. iM.

9 Ezra i. 3, soul 2d Esdraa ii. 3.

114 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

Between which " bringing the prisoners out
of captivity " and modern liberty, free trade,
and anti-slavery eloquence, there is no small
interval.

To these two ideals of Kinghood, then, the
boy has reached, since the day he was draw-
ing the lamb on the stone, as Cimabue passed
by. You will not find two other such, that
I know of, in the west of Europe ; and yet
there has been many a try at the painting of
crowned heads, — and King George III. and
Queen Charlotte, by Sir Joshua Reynolds,
are very fine, no doubt. Also your black-
muzzled kings of Velasquez, and Vandyke's
long-haired and white-handed ones; and
Rubens' riders — in those handsome boots.
Pass such shadows of them as you can sum-
mon, rapidly before your memory — then look
at this St. Louis.

His face— gentle, resolute, glacial-pure,
thin-cheeked ; so sharp at the chin that the
entire head is almost of the form of a knight's
shield — the hair short on the forehead, fall-
ing on each side in the old Greek-Etruscan
curves of simplest line, to the neck; I don't
know if you can see without being nearer,
the difference in the arrangement of it on

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. US

the two sides — the mass of it on the right
shoulder bending inwards, while that on the
left falls straight. It is one of the pretty
changes which a modern workman would
never dream of— and which assures me
the restorer has followed the old lines
rightly.

He wears a crown formed by an hexagonal
pyramid, beaded with pearls on the edges :
and walled round, above the brow, with a
Vertical fortress-parapet, as it were, rising
into sharp pointed spines at the angles : it
is chasing of gold with pearl— beautiful in
the remaining work of it ; the Soldan wears
a crown of the same general form ; the hex-
agonal outline signifying all order, strength
and royal economy. We shall see farther
symbolism of this kind, soon, by Simon
Memmi, in the Spanish chapel.

I cannot tell you anything definite of the
two other frescos — for I can only examine
one or two pictures in a day ; and never
begin with one till I have done with another;
and I had to leave Florence without looking
at these — even so far as to be quite sure of
their subjects. The central one on the left
is either the twelfth subject of Asaisi— St.

116 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

Francis in Ecstasy ; * or the eighteenth, tho
Apparition of St. Francis at Aries ; * while
the lowest on the right may admit choice
between two subjects in each half of it : my
own reading of them would be — that they
are the twenty-first and twenty-fifth sub-
jects of Assisi, the Dying Friar 8 and Vision
of Pope Gregory IX ; but Crowe and Caval-
casella may be right in their different inter-
pretation;4 in any case, the meaning of the
entire system of work remains unchanged,
as I have given it above.

1 " Represented " (next to St. Francis before the
Soldan, at Assisi) " as seen one night by the brethren,
praying, elevated from the ground,his hands extended
like the cross, and surrounded by a shining cloud."
— Lord Lindsay.

2 "St. Anthony of Padua was preaching at a gen-
eral chapter of the order, held at Aries, in 1224, when
St. Francis appeared in the midst, his arms extended
and in an attitude of benediction." — Lord Lindsay.

* " A brother of the order, lying on his deathbed,
saw the spirit of St. Francis rising to heaven, and
springing forward cried, ' Tarry, Father, I come with
theel' and fell back dead."— Lord Lindsay.

* " He hesitated, before canonizing St. Francis;
doubting the celestial infliction of the stigmata. St.
Francis appeared to him in a vision, and with a sever*
eountenon.ee reproving his unbelief, opened his robe,

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 117

and, exposing the wound in his side, filled a vial with
the blood that flowed from it, and gave it to the Pope,
who awoke and found it in his hand." — Lord Lind-
say.

6 " As St. Francis was carried on his bed of sick-
ness to St. Maria degli Angeli, he stopped at an hos-
pital on the roadside, and ordering his attendants to
turn his head in the direction of Assisi, he rose in his
litter and said, * Blessed be thou amongst cities I may
the blessing of God cling to thee, oh holy place, for
by thee shall many souls be saved; ' and, having said
this, he lay down and was carried on to St. Maria
degli Angeli. On the evening of the 4th of October
His death was revealed at the very hour to the bishop
of Assisi on Mount Sajrzaua*"— Qrowe

US MORNINGS, IN FLOEENC&,

THE FOURTH MORNING.

THB VAULTED BOOK.

As early as may be this morning, let lift
look for a minute or two into the cathe*
dral : — I was going to say, entering by one
of the side doors of the aisles; — but we
can't do anything else, which perhaps mighfc
not strike you unless you were thinking
specially of it. There are no transept doors ;
and one never wanders round to the deso-
late front.

From either of the side doors, a few paces
•will bring you to the middle of the nave,
and to the point opposite the middle of
the third arch from the west end; where
you will find yourself — if well in the mid-
nave — standing on a circular slab of green
porphyry, which marks the former place
of the grave of the bishop Zenobius. The
larger inscription, on the wide circle of tba

MORNINGS IN FLOEENCE. 119

floor outside of you, records the translation
of his body ; the smaller one round the
istone at your feet — " quiescimus, domum
hanc quum adimus ultimam " — is a painful
truth, I suppose, to travelers like us, who
never rest anywhere now, if we can help it.

Resting here, at any rate, for a few min-
utes, look up to the whitewashed vaulting
of the compartment of the roof next the
west end.

You will see nothing whatever in it
worth looking at. Nevertheless, look a lit-
tie longer.

But the longer you look, the less you will
•understand why I tell you to look. It is
nothing but a whitewashed ceiling : vaulted
indeed, — but so is many a tailor's garret
window, for that matter. Indeed, now that
you have looked steadily for a minute or
so, and are used to the farm of the arch, it
seems to become so small that you can al-
most fancy it the ceiling of a good-sized
lumber-room in an attic.

Having attained to this modest concep-
tion of it, carry your eyes back to the simi-
lar vault of the second compartment, nearer
you. Very little further contemplation will

120 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

reduce that also to the similitude of a mod-
erately-sized attic. And then, resolving to
bear, if possible — for it is worth while,—
the cramp in your neck for another quarter
of a minute, look right up to the third
vault, over your head ; which, if not, in the
said quarter of a minute, reducible in im-
agination to a tailor's garret, will at least
sink, like the two others, into the sem-
blance of a common arched ceiling, of no
serious magnitude or majesty.

Then, glance quickly down from it to the
floor, and round at the space, (included be-
tween the four pillars), which that vault
covers.

It is sixty feet square,1 — four hundred'
square yards of pavement, — and I believe
you will have to look up again more than
once or twice, before you can convince your
self that the mean-looking roof is swept in-
deed over all that twelfth part of an acre.
And still less, if I mistake not, will you,
without slow proof, believe, when you turn

1 Approximately. Thinking I could find the di-
mensions of the duomo anywhere, I only paced it my-
self,— and cannot, at this moment lay my hand on
English measurements of it.

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 121

yourself round towards the east end, that
the narrow niche (it really looks scarcely
more than a niche) which occupies, beyond
the dome, the position of our northern
choirs, is indeed the unnarrowed elongation
of the nave, whose breadth extends round
you like a frozen lake. From which ex-
periments and comparisons, your conclu-
sion, I think, will be, and I am sure it
ought to be, that the most studious inge-
nuity could not produce a design for the in-
terior of a building which should more com-
pletely hide its extent, and throw away
every common advantage of its magnitude,
than this of the Duomo of Florence.

Having arrived at this, I assure you,
quite securely tenable conclusion, we will
quit the cathedral by the western door, for
once, and as quickly as we can walk, return
to the Green cloister of Sta. Maria Novella;
and place ourselves on the south side of it,
so as to see as much as we can of the en-
trance, en the opposite side, to the so-called
" Spanish Chapel."

There is, indeed, within the opposite
cloister, an arch of entrance, plain enough.
But no chapel, whatever, externally mani-

122 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

testing itself as worth entering. No walla,
or gable, or dome, raised above the rest of
the outbuildings — only two windows with
traceries opening into the cloister ; and one
story of inconspicuous building above. You
can't conceive there should be any effect of
magnitude produced in the interior, hew-
ever it has been vaulted or decorated. It
may be pretty, but it cannot possibly look
large.

Entering it, nevertheless, you will be
surprised at the effect of height, and dis-
posed to fancy that the circular window
cannot surely be the same you saw outside,
looking so low. I had to go out again, my-
self, to make sure that it was.

And gradually, as you let. the eye follow
the sweep of the vaulting arches, from the
small central keystone-boss, with the Lamp
carved on it, to the broad capitals of the
hexagonal pillars at the angles, — there will
form itself in your mind, I think, some im-
pression not only of vastness in the build-
ing, but of great daring in the builder ; and
at last, after closely following out the lines
of » fresco or two, and looking up and up
again to the colored vaults, it will beooiae

ZZf FLORENCE. 128

to you literally one of the grandest places
you ever entered, roofed without a central
pillar. You will begin to wonder that hu-
man daring ever achieved anything so
magnificent.

But just go out again into the cloister,
and recover knowledge of the facts. It is
nothing like so large as the blank arch
which at home we filled with brickbats or
leased for a gin-shop under the last railway
we made to carry coals to Newcastle. And
if you pace the floor it covers, you will find
it is three feet less one way, and thirty feet
less the other, than that single square of
the Cathedral which was roofed like a tailor's
loft,— accurately, for I did measure here,
myself, the floor of the Spanish chapel is
fifty-seven feet by thirty-two.

I hope, after this experience, that you
will need no farther conviction of the first
law of noble building, that grandeur de-
pends on proportion and design — not, ex-
cept in a quite secondary degree, on magni-
tude. Mere size has, indeed, under all dis-
ackvantage, some definite value ; and so has
mere splendor. Disappointed as you may
be, or at least ought to be, at first, by 84,

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

Peter's in the end you will feel its size,—
ftnd its brightness. These are all you can
feel in it — it is nothing more than the pump-
room at Leamington built bigger ; — but the
bigness tells at last ; and Corinthian pillars
whose capitals alone are ten feet high, and
their acanthus leaves, three feet six long,
give you a serious conviction of the infalli-
bility of the Pope, and the fallibility of the
wretched Corinthians, who invented the
style indeed, but built with capitals no
bigger than hand-baskets.

Vastness has thus its value. But the
glory of architecture is to be — whatever you
wish it to be, — lovely, or grand, or comfort-
able,— on such terms as it can easily obtain.
Grand, by proportion — lovely, by imagina-
tion—comfortable, by ingenuity — secure, by
honesty : with such materials and in such
space as you have got to give it.

Grand — by proportion, I said : but ought
to have said by ^proportion. Beauty is
given by the relation of parts — size, by their
comparison. The first secret in getting the
Impression of size in this chapel is the dis-
proportion between pillar and arch. You
take the pillar for granted,— -it is thick,

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 126

strong, and fairly high above your head.
You look to the vault springing from it— •
and it soars away, nobody knows where.

Another great, but more subtle secret Is
in the inequality and immeasurability of
the curved lines ; and the hiding of the form
by the color.

To begin, the room, I said, is fifty-seven
feet wide, and only thirty-two deep. It is
thus nearly one- third larger in the direction,
across the line of entrance, which gives to
every arch, pointed and round, throughout
the roof, a different spring from its neigh-
bors. '

The vaulting ribs have the simplest of all
profiles — that of a chamfered beam. I call
it simpler than even that of a square beam ;
for in barking a log you cheaply get your
chamfer, and nobody cares whether the
level is alike on each side ; but you must
take a larger tree, and use much more work
to get a square. And it is the same with
stone.

And this profile is — fix the conditions ol
it, therefore, hi your mind, — venerable in
the history of mankind as the origin of all
Gothic tracery-moldings ; venerable in the

126 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

history of the Christian Church as that of
the roof ribs, both of the lower church of
Assisi, bearing the scroll of the precepts of
St. Francis, and here at Florence, bearing
the scroll of the faith of St. Dominic. If
you cut it out in paper, and cut the corners
off farther and farther, at every cut, you
will produce a sharper profile of rib, con-
nected in architectural use with differently
treated styles. But the entirely venerable
form is the massive one in which the angle
of the beam is merely, as it were, secured
and completed in stability by removing its
too sharp edge.

Well, the vaulting ribs, as in Giotto's
vault, then, have here, under their painting,
this rude profile : but do not suppose the
vaults are simply the shells cast over them.
Look how the ornamental borders fall on the
capitals ! The plaster receives all sorts of
indescribably accommodating shapes — the
painter contracting and stopping his design
upon it as it happens to be convenient.
You can't measure anything ; you can't ex-
haust ; you can't grasp, — except one simple
ruling idea, which a child can grasp, if it is
interested and intelligent; namely, that the

MOB A 1JTG& IN FLORENCE. 127

room has four sides with four tales told up-
on them ; and the roof iour quarters, with
another four tales told on those. And each
history in the sides has its correspondent
history in the root Generally, in good
Italian decoration, the roof represents con-
stant, or essential facts ; the walls, consec-
utive histories arising out of them, or
leading up to them. Thus here, the roof
represents in front of you, in its main
quarter, the Resurrection — the cardinal
fact of Christianity ; opposite (above, behind
you), the Ascension ; on your left hand, the
descent of the Holy Spirit ; on your right,
Christ's perpetual presence with His Church,
symbolized by His appearance on the Sea of
Galilee to the disciples hi the storm.

The correspondent walls represent : under
the first quarter, (the Resurrection), the
story of the Crucifixion ; under the second
quarter, (the Ascension), the preaching after
that departure, that Christ will return-
symbolized here in the Dominican churci
by the consecration of St. Dominic ; under
the third quarter, (the descent of the Holy
Spirit), the disciplining power of human
fktae and wisdom ; under the fourth quar-

128 MORNINGS IN FLOEENCE.

ter, (St. Peter's Ship), the authority and
government of the State and Church,

The order of these subjects, chosen by
the Dominican monks themselves, was suffi-
ciently comprehensive to leave boundless
room for the invention of the painter. The
execution of it was first intrusted to Taddeo
Gaddi, the best architectural master of
Giotto's school, who painted the four quar-
ters of the roof entirely, but with no great
brilliancy of invention and was beginning
to go down one of the sides, when, luckily,
a man of stronger brain, his friend, came
from Siena. Taddeo thankfully yielded the
room to him ; he joined his own work to
that of his less able friend in an exquisitely
pretty and complimentary way; throwing
his own greater strength into it, not com-
petitively, but gradually and helpfully.
When, however, he had once got himself
Well joined, and softly, to the more simple
work, he put his own force on with a will ;
and produced the most noble piece of pic-
torial philosophy l and divinity existing in
Italy.

1 There is no philosophy taught either by the
school of Athens or Michael Angeio's "Last Judg-

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 129

This pretty, and, according to all evidence
by me attainable, entirely true, tradition
has been all but lost, among the ruins of fair
old Florence, by the industry of modern
mason-critics — who, "without exception, la-
boring under the primal (and necessarily
unconscious) disadvantage of not knowing
good work from bad, and never, therefore,
knowing a man by his hand or his thoughts,
would be in any case sorrowfully at the
mercy of mistakes in a document ; but ara
tenfold more deceived by their own vanity,
and delight in overthrowing a received idea,
if they can.

Farther: as every fresco of this early date
fcas been retouched again and again, and
often painted half over, — and as, if there haa
been the least care or respect for the old
work in the restorer, he will now and then
follow the old lines and match the old colors
carefully in some places, while he puts in
clearly recognizable work of his own in
others, — two critics, of whom one knows
the first man's work well, and the other the

aent " and the ** Disputa " Is merely a graceful as-
semblage of authorities, the effects of such authority
mot being ah***
9

130 itO&tftXGS IN FLORENCE.

last's, \dU contradict each other to almost
«*ny extent on th* securest grounds. And
there is then no safe refuge for an uninitiated
person but in the old tradition, which, if
not literally true, is founded assuredly on
tome root of fact which you are likely to
get at, if ever, through it only. So that my
general directions to all young people going
to Florence or Rome would •>€ very short :
*Know your first volume of Vasari, and
your two first books of Livy ; look about
you, and don't talk, nor listen to talking."

On those terms, you may know, entering
this chapel, that in Michael Angelo's time, all
Florence attributed these frescos to Taddeo
Gaddi and Simon MemmL

I have studied neither of these artists my-
self with any speciality of care, and cannot
tell you positively, anything about them or
their works. But I know good work from
bad, as a cobbler knows leather, and I can tell
you positively the quality of these frescos,
and their relation to contemporary panel
pictures ; whether authentically ascribed to
Gaddi, Memmi, or any one else, it is for the
Florentine Academy to decide.

The roof, and the north side, down to the

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 131

feet of the horizontal line of sitting figures,
were originally third-rate work of the school
of Giotto ; the rest of the chapel was origi-
nally, and most of it is still, magnificent
work of the school of Siena. The roof and
north side have been heavily repainted in
many places ; the rest is faded and injured,
but not destroyed in its most essential qual-
ities. And now, farther, you must bear
with just a little bit of tormenting history
of painters.

There were two Gaddis, father and
son, — Taddeo and Angelo. And there
were two Memmis, brothers, — Simon and
Philip.

I daresay you will find, in the modern
books, that Simon's real name was Peter,
and Philip's real name was Bartholomew ;
and Angelo's real name was Taddeo, and
Taddeo's real name was Angelo ; and Mem-
mi's real name was Gaddi, and Gaddi's real
name was Memmi. You may find out all
that at your leisure, afterwards, if you like.
"What it io important for you to know here,
in the Spanish Chapel, is only this much
that follows : — There were certainly two
persona once called Gaddi, both rather

132 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

stupid in religious matters and high art ;
one of them, I don't know or care which, a
true decorative painter of the most exquisite
skill, a perfect architect, an amiable person,
and a great lover of pretty domestic life.
Vasari says this was the father, Tacldeo.
He built the Ponte Vecclrio; and the old
stones of it — which if you ever look at any-
thing on the Ponte Vecchio but the shops,
you may still see (above those wooden pent-
houses) with the Florentine shield — were so
laid by him that they are unshaken to this
day.

He painted an exquisite series of frescos
at Assisi from the Life of Christ ; in which,

— just to show you what the man's nature is,

— when the Madonna has given Christ into
Simeon's arms, she can't help holding out
her own arms to him, and saying, (visibly,)
"Won't you come back to mamma?"
The child laughs his answer — " I love

mamma ; but I'm quite happy just

Well; he, or he and his son together,
painted these four quarters of the roof of the
Spanish Chapel. They were very probably
muck retouched afterwards by Antonio

MORtflNQS IN FLORENCE. 133

Veneziano, or whomsoever Messrs. Crowe
and Cavalcasella please ; but that architec-
ture in the descent of the Holy Ghost is by
the man who painted the north transept of
Assisi, and there need be no more talk about
the matter, — for you never catch a restorer
doing his old architecture right again. And
farther, the ornamentation of the vaulting
ribs is by the man who painted the Entomb-
ment, No. 31 in the Galerie des Grands Tab-
leaux, in the catalogue of the Academy for
1874. Whether that picture is Taddeo Gad-
di's or not, as stated in the catalogue, I do
not know ; but I know the vaulting ribs of
the Spanish Chapel are painted by the same
hand.

Again: by the two brothers Memml, one
or other, I don't know or care which, had an
ugly way of turning the eyes of his figures
up and their mouths down ; of which you
may see an entirely disgusting example in
the four saints attributed to Filippo Memmi
on the cross wall of the north (called always
in Murray's guide the south, because he
didn't notice the way the church was built)
transept of Assisi. You may, however, also
see the way the mouth goes down in tha

134 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

much repainted, but still characteristic No.
9 in the Uffizii.1

Now I catch the wring and verjuice of thia
brother again and again, among the minor
heads of the lower frescos in this Spanish
Chapel. The head of the Queen beneath
Noah, in the Limbo, — (see below) is unmis-
takable.

Farther : one of the two brothers, I don't
Care which, had a way of painting leaves ; of
which you may see a notable example in the
rod in the hand of Gabriel in that same pict-
ure of the Annunciation in the Uffizii. No
Florentine painter, or any other, ever painted
leaves as well as that, till you get down to
Sandro Botticelli, who did them much better.
But the man who painted that rod in the
hand of Gabriel, painted the rod in the right
hand of Logic in the Spanish Chapel, — and
nobody else in Florance, or the world, could.

1 This picture bears the Inscription (I quote from
the French catalogue, not having verified it myself),
1 ' Simon Martini, et Lippus Memmi de Senis mo
flnxerunt." I have no doubt whatever, myself, that
the two brothers worked together on these frescos of
the Spanish Chapel: but the most of the Limbo 13
Philip's, and the Paradise, scarcely with hi* Inter-
ference, 5imou'§,

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 185

Farther (and this is the last of the anti-
quarian business) ; you see that the frescos
on the roof are, on the whole, dark with
much blue and red in them, the white spaces
corning out strongly. This is the character-
istic coloring of the partially defunct school
of Giotto, becoming merely decorative, and
passing into a colorist school which con-
nected itself afterwards with the Venetians.
There is an exquisite example of all its speci-
alities in the little Annunciation in the Uffizii,
No. 14, attributed to Angelo Gaddi, in which
you see the Madonna is stupid, and tho angel
stupid, but the color of the whole, as a piece
of painted glass, lovely ; and the execution
exquisite, — at once a painter's and jeweler's ;
with subtle sense of chiaroscuro underneath ;
(note the delicate shadow of the Madonna's
arm across her breast).

The head of this school was (according to
Vasari) Taddeo Gaddi; and henceforward,
without further discussion, I shall speak of
him as the painter of the roof of the Spanish
Chapel, — not without suspicion, however,
that his son Angelo may hereafter turn out
to have been the better decorator, and the
painter of the frescos from tho life of Ghriit

186 XORNWQS IN FLORENCE.

in the north transept of Assisi,— with such
assistance as his son or scholars might give
—and . such change or destruction as time,
Antonio Yeneziano, or the last operations
of the Tuscan railroad company, may have
effected on them.

On the other hand, you see that the frescos
on the walls are of paler colors, the blacks
coming out of these clearly, rather than the
whites ; but the pale colors, especially, for
instance, the whole of the Duomo of Flor-
ence in that on your right, very tender and
lovely. Also, you may feel a tendency to
express much with outline, and draw, more
than paint, in the most interesting parts;
while in the duller ones, nasty green and
yellow tones come out, which prevent the
effect of the whole from "being very pleasant.
These characteristics belong, on the whole,
to the school of Siena; and they indicate
here the work assuredly of a man of vast
power and most refined education, whom I
shall call without further discussion, during
the rest of this and the following morning's
study, Simon Memmi.

And of the grace and subtlety with which
be joined his work to that of the Gaddis,

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 13?

you may judge at once by comparing the
Christ standing on the fallen gate of the
Limbo, with the Christ in the Resurrection
above. Memini has retained the dress and
imitated the general effect of the figure in
the roof so faithfully that you suspect no
difference of mastership — nay, he has even
Taised the foot in the same awkward way :
but you will find Memmi's foot delicately
drawn — Taddeo's, hard and rude : and all
the folds of Memmi's drapery cast with un-
broken grace and complete gradations of
shada, while Taddeo's are rigid and meager ;
also in the heads, generally Taddeo's type
of face is square in feature, with massive
and inelegant clusters or volutes of hair and
beard; but Memmi's delicate and long in
feature, with much divided and flowing hair,
often arranged with exquisite precision, as
in the finest Greek corns. Examine succes-
sively in this respect only the heads of
Adam, Abel, Methuselah, and Abraham, in
the Limbo, and you will not confuse the two
designers any more. I have not had time
to make out more than the principal figures
in the Limbo, of which indeed the entire
dramatic power is centered in the, Adam and

138 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

Eve. The latter dressed as a nun, in her
fixed gaze on Christ, with her hands clasped,
is of extreme beauty r and however feeble
the work of any early painter may be, in
its decent and grave iaeffensiveness it guides
the imagination unerringly to a certain
point. How far you are yourself capable
of filling up what is left untold, and conceiv-
ing, as a reality,. Eve's first look on this her
child, depends on no painter's skili, but on
your own understanding. Just above Eve is
Abel, bearing the lamb: and behind him
Noah, between his wife and Shem : behind
them, Abraham, between Isaac and Ishmael;
(turning from Ishmael to Isaac) ; behind
these, Moses, between Aaron and David. I
have not identified the others, though I find
the white-bearded figure behind Eve called
Methuselah in my notes : I know not on
what authority. Looking up from these
groups, however, to the roof painting, you
will at once feel the imperfect grouping and
ruder features of all the figures ; and the
greater depth of color. We will dismiss
these comparatively inferior paintings at
once.
The roof and walla muat be read together,

MOBNI2TQ8 IN FLORENCE. 139

each segment of the roof forming an intro-
duction to, or portion of, the subject on the
wall below. But the roof must first be
looked at alone, as the work of Taddeo
Gaddi, for the artistic qualities and failures
of it.

I. In front, as you enter, is the compart-
ment with the subject of the Resurrection.
It is the traditional Byzantine composition :
the guards sleeping, and the two angels in
white saying to the women, "He is not
here," while Christ is seen rising with the
flag of the Cross.

But it would be difficult to find another
example of the subject, so coldly treated—-
so entirely without passion or action. The
faces are expressionless ; the gestures power-
less Evidently the painter is not making
the slightest effort to conceive what really
happened, but merely repeating and spoil-
Ing what he could remember of old design,
or himself supply of commonplace for im-
mediate need. The " Noli me tangere," on
the right, is spoiled from Giotto, and others
before him; a peacock, wofully plumeless
and colorless, a fountain, an ill-drawn toy-
horse, and two toy-children gathering

140 MORNINGS IN FLQEENCE.

flowers, are emaciate remains of Greek
symbols. He has taken pains with the
vegetation, but in vain. Yet Taddeo Gacldi
was a true painter, a very beautiful de:
signer, and a very amiable person. How
comes he to do that Resurrection so badly ?

In the first place, he was probably tired
of a subject which was a great strain to his
feeble imagination ; and gave it up as im-
possible : doing simply the required figures
in the required positions. In the second,
he was probably at the time despondent
and feeble because ot his master's death.
See Lord Lindsay, II. 273, where also it is
pointed out that in the effect of the light
proceeding from the figure of Christ, Tad-
deo Gacldi indeed was the first of the Giot-
tisti who showed true sense of light and
shade. But until Lionardo's time the in-
novation did not materially affect Floren-
tine art.

II. The Ascension (opposite the Resurrec-
tion, and not worth looking at, except for
the sake of making more sure our conclu-
sions from the first fresco). The Madonna
is fixed in Bvzantine stiffness, without By-
zantine

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 141

III. The Descent of the Holy Ghost, on
the left hand. The Madonna and disciples are
gathered in an upper chamber : underneath
are theParthians, Medes, Elamites, etc., who
hear them speak in their own tongues.

Three dogs are in the foreground — their
mythic purpose the same as that of the two
verses which affirm the fellowship of the
dog in the journey and return of Tobias :
namely, to mark the share of the lower ani-
mals in the gentleness given by the out-
pouring of the Spirit of Christ.

IV. The Church sailing on the Sea of the
World. St. Peter coming to Christ on the
water.

I was too little interested in the vague
symbolism of this fresco to examine it with
care — the rather that the subject beneath,
the literal contest of the Church with the
world, needed more time for study in itself
alone than I had for all Florence.

On this, and the opposite side of the
chapel, are represented, by Simon Memmi's
hand, the teaching power of the Spirit of
God, and the saving power of the Christ of
God, in the world, according to the under-
standing of Florence in his time.

;

142 MORNINGS IZT FLORENCE.

We will take the side of Intellect first,
beneath the pouring forth of the Holy
Spirit.

In the point of the arch beneath, are the
three Evangelical Virtues. Without these,
says Florence, you can have no science.
Without Love, Faith and Hope — no intelli-
gence.

Under these are the four Cardinal Virtues,
the entire group being thus arranged : —

A

B O

D E F G

A, Charity; flames issuing from her head
and hands.

B, Faith; holds cross and shield, quench-
ing fiery darts. This symbol, so frequent
in modern adaptation from St. Paul's ad-
dress to personal faith, is rare in older art.

C, Hope, with a branch of lilies.

I), Temperance; bridles a black fish, on
T ;iich she stands.

E, Prudence, with a book.

F, Justice, with crown and baton.

G, Fortitude, with tower and sword.
Under these are the great prophet* awi

IN FLORENCE. 143

apostles ; on the left,1 David, St. Paul, St.
Mark, St. John ; on the right, St. Matthew,
St. Luke, Moses, Isaiah, Solomon. In the
midst of the Evangelists, St. Thomas Aqui-
nas, seated on a Gothic throne.

Now observe, this throne, with all the
canopies below it, and the complete repre-
sentation of the Duomo of Florence opposite,
are of finished Gothic of Orcagna's school
—later than Giotto's Gothic. But the buiM-
ing in which the apostles are gathered at the
Pentecost is of the early Romanesque mo-
saic school, with a wheel window from the
duomo of Assisi, and square windows from
the Baptistery of Florence. And this is al-
ways the type of architecture used by Tad-
deo Gaddi : while the finished Gothic could
not possibly have been drawn by him, but
is absolute evidence of the later hand.

Under the line of prophets, as powers
summoned by their voices, are the mythic
figures of the seven theological or spiritual,
and the seven geological or natural sciences :
and under the feet of each of them, the
figure of its Captain-teacher to the world.

1 1 can't find my note of the first one on the left)

lomon, opposite.

144 MO&NtNGS IN FLORENCE!.

I had better perhaps give you the names
of this entire series of figures from left to
right at once. You will see presently why
they are numbered in a reverse order.

Beneath whom

8. Civil Law. The Emperor Justinian.

9. Canon Law. Pope Clement V.

10. Practical Theology. Peter Lombard.

11. Contemplative Theology. Dionysius the Areopagite.

12. Dogmatic Theology. Boethius.

13. Mystic Theology. St. John Damascene.

14. Polemic Theology. St. Augustine.
7. Arithmetic. Pythagoras*
6. Geometry. Euclid.

5. Astronomy. Zoroaster.

4. Music. Tubalcain.

3. Logic. Aristotle.

2. Rhetoric. Cicero.

1. Grammar. Priscian.

Here, then, you have pictorially repre-
sented, the system of manly education,
supposed in old Florence to be that neces-
sarily instituted in great earthly kingdoms
or republics, animated by the Spirit shed
down upon the world at Pentecost. How
long do you think it will take you, or ought
to take, to see such a picture? We were
to get to work this morning, as early as
might be : you have probably allowed half

MO&NINGS IN FLORENCE. 146

an hour for Santa Maria Novella ; half an
hour for San Lorenzo ; an hour for the mu-
seum of sculpture at the Bargello ; an hour
for shopping; and then it will be lunch
time, and you mustn't be late, because you
are to leave by the afternoon train, and
must positively be in Rome to-motrow
morning Well, of your half -hour for Santa
Maria Novella, — after Ghirlandajo's choir,
Orcagna's transept, and Cimabue's Madonna,
and the painted windows, have been seen
properly, there will remain, suppose, at the
utmost, a quarter of an hour for the Spanish
Chapel. That will give you two minutes
and a half for each side, two for the ceiling,
and three for studying Murray's explana-
tions or mine. Two minutes and a half
you have got, then — (and I observed, during
my five weeks' work in the chapel, that
English visitors seldom gave so much) — to
read this scheme given you by Simon
Memmi of human spiritual education. In
order to understand (She purport of it, in
any the smallest degree, you must summon
to your memory, in the course of these two
minutes and a half, what you happen to be

acquainted with of the doctrines and char-
10

146 MO&NltfQS IN FLOKENC&

tcters of Pythagoras, Zoroaster,
Dionysius the Areopagite, St. Augustine,
and the emperor Justinian, and having fur-
ther observed the expressions and actions
attributed by the painter to these person-
ages, judge how far he has succeeded in
reaching a true and worthy ideal of them,
and how large or how subordinate a part in
his general scheme of human learning he
supposes their peculiar doctrines properly
to occupy For myself, being, to my much
iorrow, now an old person ; and, to my much
pride, an old-fashioned one, I have not found
my powers either of reading or memory hi the
least increased by any of Mr. Stephenson's
or Mr. Wheatstone's inventions ; and though
indeed I came here from Lucca in three
hours instead of a day, which it used to take,
I do not think myself able, on that account,
to see any picture in Florence in less time
than it took formerly, or even obliged to
hurry myself in any investigations connected
with it.

Accordingly, I have myself taken five
weeks to see the quarter of this picture of
Simon Memmi's : and can give you a fairly
good account of that quarter, and some par-

JIORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 147

tial account of a fragment or two of those
on the other walls : but, alas ! only of their
pictorial qualities hi either case ; for I don't
myself know anything whatever, worth
trusting to, about Pythagoras, or Dionysius
the Areopagite ; and have not had, and never
shall have, probably, any time to learn
much of them ; while in the very feeblest
light only, — hi what the French would ex-
press by their excellent word "lueur," — I
am able to understand something of the
characters of Zoroaster, Aristotle, and Justi-
nian. But this only increases in me the
reverence with which I ought to stand be-
fore the work of a painter, who was not
only a master of his own craft, but so pro-
found a scholar and theologian as to be able
to conceive this scheme of picture and write
the divine law by which Florence was to
live. Which Law, written in the northern
page of this Vaulted Book, we will begin
quiet interpretation of, if you care to return
hither, to-morrow morning

148 MOBNIXGS IN FLOEENG&

THE FIFTH MORNING.

THE STRAIT GATE.

As you return this morning to St. Mary's,
you may as well observe — the matter before
Us being concerning gates — that the western
f a9ade of the church is of two periods. Your
Murray refers it all to the latest of these ; —
I forget when, and do not care ; — in which
the largest flanking columns, and the entire
effective mass of the walls, with their riband
mosaics and high pediment, were built in
front of, and above, what the barbarian ren-
aissance designer chose to leave of the pure
old Dominican church. You may see his un-
gainly jointings at the pedestals of the great;
columns, running through the pretty, parti-
colored base, which, with the " Strait" Gothic
doors, and the entire lines of the fronting and
flanking tombs (where not restored by the
Devil -begotten brood of modern Florence), is
of pure, and exquisitely severe and refined,

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 149

fourteenth century Gothic, with superbly
carved bearings on its shields. The small
detached line of tombs on the left, untouched
in its sweet color and living weed ornament,
I would f ain have painted, stone by stone ;
but one can never draw in front of a church
|n these republican days ; for all the black-
guard children of the neighborhood come to
howl, and throw stones, on the steps, and the
ball or stone play against these sculptured
tombs, as a dead wall adapted for that pur-
pose only, is incessant in the fine days when
I could have worked. 4

If you enter by the door most to the left,
or north, and turn immediately to the right,
on the interior of the wall of the fa9ade is an
Annunciation, visible enough because well
preserved, though in the dark, and extremely
pretty in its way, — of the decorated and orna-
mental school following Giotto:— I can't
guess by whom, nor does it much matter ;
but it is well to look at it by way of contrast
with the delicate, intense, slightly decorated
design of Memmi, — in which, when you re-
turn into the Spanish chapel, you will feel
the dependence for its effect on broad masses
of white and pale amber, where the decora*

150 MOBNHTQ8 IN FLORBNCM.

tive school would have had mosaic of red,
blue, and gold.

Our first business this morning must bo
to read and understand the writing on the
book held open by St. Thomas Aquinas, for
that informs us ot the meaning of the whole
picture.

It 10 this text from the Book of Wisdom
vii. 6.

" Optavi, et datus est mihi sensus.
Invocavi, et venit in me Spiritus Sapientiw,
Et preposui illam regnis et sedibus."

" I willed, and Sense was given me.
I prayed, and the Spirit of Wisdom came upon me.
And I set her before, (preferred her to,) kingdoms
and thrones."

The common translation in our English
Apocrypha loses the entire meaning of this
passage, which — not only as the statement of
the experience of Florence in her own educa-
tion, but as universally descriptive of the
process of all noble education whatever — we
had better take pains to understand.

First, says Florence "I willed, (in sense
of resolutely desiring,) and Sense was given

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 151

me." You must begin your education with
the distinct resolution to know what is true,
and choice of the strait and rough road to
such knowledge. This choice is offered to
every youth and maid at some moment of
their life ; — choice between the easy down-
ward road, so broad that we can dance down
it in companies, and the steep narrow way,
which we must enter alone. Then, and for
many a day aftewards, they need that form
of persistent Option, and Will : but day by
day, the " Sense " of the Tightness of what
they have done, deepens on them, not in con-
sequence of the effort, but by gift granted hi
reward of it. And the Sense of difference
between right and wrong, and between beau-
tiful and unbeautiful things, is confirmed in
the heroic, and fulfilled in the industrious,
soul.

That is the process of education hi the
earthly sciences, and the morality connected
with them. Reward given to faithful Voli-
tion.

Next, when Moral and Physical senses are
perfect, comes the desire for education in
the higher world, where the senses are no
more our Teachers; but the Maker of the

152 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

senses. And that teaching, we cannot get
by labor, but only by petition.

"Invocavi, et venit in me Spiritus Sapi-
entise " — " I prayed, and the Spirit of Wis-
dom," (not, you observe, was given? but,)
" came upon me." The personal power of
Wisdom: the "cro0ia" or Santa Sophia, to
whom the first great Christian temple was
dedicated. This higher wisdom, governing
by her presence, all earthly conduct, and by
her teaching, all earthly art, Florence tells
you, she obtained only by prayer.

And these two Earthly and Divine sciences
are expressed beneath in the symbols of
their divided powers ; — Seven terrestrial,
Seven celestial, whose names have been
already indicated to you: — in which figures
I must point out one or two technical mat-
ters, before touching their interpretation.
They are all by Simon Memmi originally ;
but repainted, many of them all over, some
hundred years later, — (certainly after the
disc ^very of America, as you will see) — by
an artist of considerable power, and some

1 1 in careless error, wrote " was given " in "Fort
Clayigera."

MORNING S IN FLORENCE. 158

feeling for the general aition of the figures ;
but of no refinement or carelessness. He
dashes massive paint in huge spaces over
the subtle old work, puts in his own chiaro-
oscuro where all had been shadeless, and his
own violent color where all had been pale,
and repaints the faces so as to make them,
to his notion, prettier and more human:
some of this upper work has, however, come
away since, ana the original outline, at least,
is traceable ; while in the face of the Logic,
the Music, and one or two others, the origi-
nal work is very pure. Being most inter-
ested myself in the earthly sciences, I had
a scaffolding put up, made on. a level with
them, and examined them inch by inch, and
the following report will be found accurate
until next repainting.

For interpretation of them, you must
always take the central figure of the Science,
with the little medallion above it, and the
figure below, all together. "Which I proceed
to do, reading first from left to right for the
earthly sciences, and then from right to left
the heavenly ones, to the center, where their
two highest powers sit, side by side.

We begin? tUeu, with the first in the list

164 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

given above (Vaulted Book, page 144) :—
Grammar, in the corner farthest from, the
window.

1. GRAMMAR : more properly Grammatics,
"Grammatic Act," the Art of Letters or
x< Literature," or using the word which to
some English ears will carry most weight
with it, — "Scripture," and its use. The
Art of faithfully reading what has been
written for our learning; and of clearly
writing what we would make immortal of
our thoughts. Power which consists first
In recognizing letters ; secondly, in forming
them; thirdly, in the understanding and
choice of words which errorless shall express
our thought. Severe exercises all reaching
—very few living persons know, how far :
beginning properly in childhood, then only
to be truly acquired. It is wholly impos-
sible— this I say from too sorrowful expe-
rience— to conquer by any eifort or time,
habits of the hand (much more of head and
soul) with which the vase of flesh has been
formed and filled in youth, — the law of God
being that parents shall compel the child IB
the day of its obedience into habits of hand,

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. loJ

and eye, and soul, which, when it Is old,
shall not, by any strength, or any weakness,
be departed from.

"Enter ye in," therefore, says Gram-
matics, "at the Strait Gate." She points
through it with her rod, holding a fruit (?)
for reward, in her left hand. The gate is
very strait indeed — her own waist no less
so, her hair fastened close. She had once a
white veil binding it, which is lost. Not a
gushing form of literature, this, — or in any
wise disposed to subscribe to Mudie's, my
English friends — or even patronize Tauch-
nitz editions of — what is the last new novel
you see ticketed up to-day in Mr. Goodban's
window ? She looks kindly down, neverthe-
less, to the three children whom she is
teaching — two boys and a girl (Qy. Does
this mean that one girl out of every twe
should not be able to read or write ? I am
quite willing to accept that inference, for my
own part, — should perhaps even say, two
girls out of three). This girl is of the high-
est classes, crowned, her golden hair falling
behind her, the Florentine girdle round her
hips — (not waist, the object being to leave
the lungs full play ; but to keep the dress

156 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

always well down in dancing or running).
The boys are of good birth also, the nearest
one with luxuriant curly hair — only the
profile of the farther one seen. All reverent
and eager. Above, the medallion is of a
figure looking at a fountain. Underneath,
Lord Lindsay says, Priscian, and is, I doubt
not, right.

Technical Points. — The figure is said by
Crowe to be entirely repainted. The dress
is so throughout — both the hands also, and
the fruit, and rod. But the eyes, mouth,
hair above the forehead, and outline of the
rest, with the faded veil, and happily, the
traces left of the children, are genuine ; the
strait gate perfectly so, in the color under-
neath, though reinforced ; and the action of
the entire figure is well preserved : but there
is a curious question about both the rod and
fruit. Seen close, the former perfectly as-
sumes the shape of folds of dress gathered
up over the raised right arm, and I am not
absolutely sure that the restorer has not
mistaken the folds — at the same time chang-
ing a pen or style into a rod The fruit also
I have doubts of, as fruit is not so rare at

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 16>

Florence that it should be made a reward.
It is entirely and roughly repainted, and is
oval in shape. In Giotto's Charity, luckily
not restored, at Assisi, the guide-books have
always mistaken the heart she holds for an
apple : — and my own belief is that originally,
the Grammatice of Simon Memmi made with
her right hand the sign which said, " Enter
ye in at the Strait Gate," and with her left,
the sign which said, " My son, give me thine
Heart."

II. RHETORIC. Next to learning how to
read and write, you are to learn to speak ;
and, young ladies and gentlemen, observe, —
to speak as little as possible, it is farther
implied, till you have learned.

In the streets of Florence at this day you
may hear much of what some people call
** rhetoric," — very passionate speaking in-
deed, and quite "from the heart," — such
hearts as the people have got. That is to
say, you never hear a word uttered but in a
rage, either just ready to burst, or for the
most part, explosive instantly : everybody —
man, woman, or child — roaring out their
incontinent, foolish, infinitely contemptible

158 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

opinions and wills, on every smallest .•oc-
casion, with flashing eyes, hoai-sely shriek-
ing and wasted voices, — insane h^pe to drag
by vociferation whatever they wculd have,
out of man and God.

Now consider Simon Memmi a Rhetoric.
The Science of Speaking, primarily ; of mak«
ing oneself heard therefore : whicK is not to
be done by shouting. She alone, of all the
sciences, carries a scroll: and being a
speaker gives you something to read. It is
not thrust forward at you at all, but held
quietly down with her beautiful depressed
right hand; her left hand set coolly and
strongly on her side.

And you will find that, thus, she alone of
all the sciences needs no use of her hands.
All the others have some important busi-
ness for them. She none. She can do all
with her lips, holding scroll, or bridle, or
what you will, with her right hand, her leffc
on her side.

Again, look at the talkers in the streets
of Florence, and see how, being ess ntially
«?iable to talk, they try to make lips of
their fingers ! How they poke, wave,
flourish, point) jerk, shake finger and fist at

IN FLORENCE. 169

their antagonists — dumb essentially, all the
while, if they knew it ; unpersuasive and
ineffectual, as the shaking of tree branchea
in the wind.

You will af1 ftrs' think her figure ungainly
and stiff. It te so, partly, the dress being
more coarse'y repainted than in any other
of the series. But she is meant to be both
stout and strong. What she has to say is
indeed to persuade you, if possible ; but as-
suredly to overpower you. And she has
not the Florentine girdle, for she does not
want to move. She has her girdle broad at
the waLit— of all the sciences, you would at
first have thought, the one that most needed
breath* No, says timon Memmi. You
want breath to run, or dance, or fight with.
But to tpeak ! — If you know how, you can
do yom work with few words ; very little
of thi* pure Florentine air will be enough,
if you nhape it rightly.

Note, also, that calm setting of her ln-nd
against her side. Yon think Rhetoric
should be glowing, fervid, impetuous ? No,
says Simon Memmi. Above all things, —
cool.

And aow itt us read what is w&tao on

160 NOONINGS IN FLORENCE.

her scroll : — Mulceo, dum loquor, varies in«
duta oolores.

Her chief function, to melt ; make soft,
thaw the hearts of men with kind fire ; to
everpower with peace ; and bring rest, with
rainbow colors. The chief mission of all
words that they should be of comfort.

Tou think the function of words is to ex-
cite ? Why, a red rag will do that, or a
blast through a brass pipe. But to give
calm and gentle heat; to be as the south
wind, and the iridescent rain, to all bitter-
ness of frost ; and bring at once strength,
and healing. This is the work of human
lips, taught of God.

One farther and final lesson is given in
the medallion above. Aristotle, and too
many modern rhetoricians of his school,
thought there could be good speaking in a
false cause. But above Simon Memmi's
Rhetoric is Truth, with her mirror.

There is a curious feeling, almost innate
in men, that though they are bound to
speak truth, in speaking to a single person,
they may lie as much as they please, pro-
vided they lie to two or more people at
once. There is the same feeling about

XO&NING8 Itf FLOEENCE. 161

killing most people would shrink from
shooting one innocent man ; but will fire a
mitrailleuse contentedly into an innocent
regiment.

When you look down from the figure of
the Science, to that of Cicero, beneath, you
will at first think it entirely overthrows
my conclusion that Rhetoric has no need of
her hands. For Cicero, it appears, has three
instead of two.

The uppermost, at his chin, is the only-
genuine one. That raised, with the finger
up, is entirely false. That on the book, is
repainted so as to defy conjecture of ite
original action.

But observe how the gesture of the true
one confirms instead of overthrowing what
I have said above. Cicero is not speaking
at all, but profoundly thinking before he
speaks. It is the most abstractedly thought-
ful face to be found among all the philoso-
phers : and very beautiful. The whole is
under Solomon, in the line of Prophets.

Technical Points. — These two figures
have suffered from restoration more than
any others, but the right hand of Rhetoric
11

162 MOBNltf&S IN FLORENCE.

is still entirely genuine, and the left, except
the ends of the fingers. The ear, and hail
just above it, are quite safe, the head well
set on its original line, but the crown of
leaves rudely retouched, and then faded.
All the lower part of the figure of Cicero
has been not only repainted but changed ;
the face is genuine — I believe retouched,
but so cautiously and skillfully, that it ia
probably now more beautiful than at first.

Ill LOGIC. The science of reasoning, or
more accurately Reason herself, or pure in-
telligence.

Science to be gained after that of Expres-
sion, says Simon Memmi; so, young peo-
ple, it appears that though you must not
speak before you have been taught how to
speak, you may yet properly speak before
you have been tnught how to think.

For indeed, it is only by frank speaking
that you can lea rn how to think. And it is
no matter how i prong the first thoughts you
have may be, provided you express them
clearly ; — and are willing to have them put
right.

Fortunately, nearly all of this beautiful

FLORXNC*. W

figure is practically safe, the outlines pure
everywhere, and the face perfect: the pret-
tiest, as far as I know, which exists in Ital-
ian art of this early date. It is subtle to
the extreme in gradations of color : the eye-
brows drawn, not with a sweep of the brush,
but with separate cross touches in the line
of their growth — exquisitely pure hi arch ;
the nose straight and fine ; the lips— play-
ful slightly, proud, unerringly cut ; the hair
flowing in sequent waves, ordered as if hi
musical time ; head perfectly upright on
the shoulders ; the height of the brow com-
pleted by a crimson frontlet set with pearls,
surmounted by a fleur-de lys.

Her shoulders were exquisitely drawn, her
white jacket fitting close to soft, yet scarcely
rising breasts ; her arms singularly strong,
at perfect rest ; her hands, exquisitely deli-
cate. In her right, she holds a branching
and leaf-bearing rod, (the syllogism) ; in her
left, a scorpion with double sting, (the
dilemma) — more generally, the powers of
rational construction and dissolution.

Beneath her, Aristotle, — intense keennem
of search in his half-closed eyes.

Medallion above, (leas expressive than

164 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

Usual) a man writing, with his head stooped.
The whole under Isaiah, in the line of
Prophets.

Technical Points. — The only parts of this
figure which have suffered seriously in re-
painting are the leaves of the rod, and the
scorpion. I have no idea, as I said above,
what the background once was ; it is now a
mere mess of scrabbled gray, carried over
the vestiges, still with care much redeem-
able, of the richly ornamental extremity of
the rod, which was a cluster of green leaves
on a black ground. But the scorpion is in-
decipherably injured, most of it confused re-
painting, mixed with the white of the dress,
the double sting emphatic enough still, but
not on the first lines.

The Aristotle is very genuine throughout
except his hat, and I think that must be
pretty nearly on the old lines, though I can-
not trace them. They are good lines, new or
old.

TV. Music. After you have learned to rea-
son, young people, of course you will be very
grave, if not dull, you think. No, says Si-
mon Memmi* By no means anything of the

MORNINGS .IN FLORENCE. 165

kind. After learning to reason, you will
learn to sing ; for you will want to. There
is so much reason for singing in the sweet
•vrorld, when one thinks rightly of it. None
for grumbling, provided always you have
entered in at the strait gate. You will sing
all along the road then, in a little while, in a
manner pleasant for other people to hear.

This figure has been one of the loveliest in
the series, an extreme refinement and ten-
der severity being aimed at throughout.
She is crowned, not with laurel, but with
small leaves, — I am not su?e what they are,
being too much injured : the face thin, ab-
stracted, wistful; the lips not far open in
their low singing ; the hair rippling softly on
the shoulders. She plays on a small organ,
richly ornamented with Gothic tracery, the
down slope of it set with crockets like those
of Santa Maria del Fiore. Simon Nemmi
means that all music must be "sacred."
Not that you are never to sing anything but
hymns, but that whatever is rightly called
music, or work of the Muses, is divine in
help and healing.

The actions of both hands are singularly
The right is one of the lovelies!

1(& MORNINGS Itf FLORENCE.

things I ever saw done in painting. She is
keeping down one note only, with her third
finger, seen under the raised fourth: the
thumb, just passing under ; all the curves of
the fingers exquisite, and the pale light and
shade of the rosy flesh relieved against the
ivory white and brown of the notes. Only
the thumb and end of the forefinger are seen
of the left hand, but they indicate enough its
light pressure on the bellows. Fortunately,
all these portions of the fresco are absolutely
intact.

Underneath, Tubal-Cain. Not Jubal, as
you would expect. Jubal is the inventor of
musical instruments. Tubal-Cain, thought
the old Florentines, invented harmony.
They, the best smiths in the world, knew the
differences in tones of hammer strokes on
anvil. Curiously enough, the only piece of
true part-singing, done beautifully and joy-
fully, which I have heard this year in Italy,
(being south of Alps exactly six months, and
ranging from Genoa to Palermo) was out of
a busy smithy at Perugia. Of bestial howl-
ing, and entirely frantic vomiting up of hope-
lessly damned souls through their still carnal
throats, I have heard more than, please God,

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 167

I will ever endure the hearing of again in
one of His summers.

You think Tubal-Cain very ugly? Tes.
Much like a shaggy baboon : not accidentally,
but with most scientific understanding of
baboon character. Men must have looked
like that, before they had invented harmony,
or felt that one note differed from another,
says, and knows, Simon Memmi. Darwin-
ism, like all widely popular and widely mis-
chievous fallacies, has many a curious gleam
and gram of truth in its tissue.

Under Moses.

Medallion, a youth drinking. Otherwise,
you might have thought only church music
meant, and not feast music also.

Technical Points. — The Tubal-Cain, one
of the most entirely pure and precious rem-
nants of the old painting, nothing lost:
nothing but the redder ends of his beard
retouched. Green dress of Music, in the
body and over limbs entirely repainted : it
was once beautifully embroidered ; sleeves,
partly genuine, hands perfect, face and hair
nearly so. Leaf crown faded and broken
away, but not retouched.

168 MOENINGS Itf FLORENCE.

V. ASTRONOMY. Properly Astro-logy, as
(Theology) the knowledge of so much of the
stars as we can know wisely ; not the at-
tempt to define their laws for them. Not
that it is unbecoming of us to find out, if
we can, that they move in ellipses, and so
on ; but it is no business of ours. What ef-
fects their rising and setting have on man,
and beast, and leaf ; what their times and
changes, are, seen and felt in this world, it
is our business to know, passing our nights,
if wakef ully, by that divine candlelight, and
no other.

She wears a dark purple robe ; holds in
her left hand the hollow globe with golden
zodiac and meridians : lifts her right hand hi
noble awe.

" When I consider the heavens, the work
of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars,
which Thou hast ordained."

Crowned with gold, her dark hair hi ellip-
tic waves, bound with glittering chains of
pearl. Her eyes dark, lifted.

Beneath her, Zoroaster,1 entirely noble

1 Alas ! according to poor Vasari, and sundry mod-
ern guides, I find Vasari' s mistakes usually of this
brightly bltmdering kind. In matters needing re«
eearch, after a wlwifi, I find he is right, usually.

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 169

and beautiful, the delicate Persian head
made softer still by the elaborately wreathed
silken hair, twisted into the pointed beard,
and into tapering plaits, falling on his shoul-
ders. The head entirely thrown back, he
looks up with no distortion of the delicately
arched brow : writing, as he gazes.

For the association of the religion of the
Magi with their own in the mind of the Flor-
entines of this time, see " Before the Soldan."

The dress must always have been white,
because of its beautiful opposition to the pur-
ple above and that of Tubal-Cain beside it.
But it has been too much repainted to bo
trusted anywhere, nothing left but a fold or
two in the sleeves. The cast of it from the
knees down is entirely beautiful, and I sup-
pose on the old lines ; but the restorer could
throw a fold well when he chose. The warm
light which relieves the purple of Zoroaster
above, is laid in by him. I don't know if I
should have liked it better, flat, as it was,
against the dark purple ; it seems to me quite
beautiful now. The full red flush on the face
of the Astronomy is the restorer's doing also.
She was much paler, if not quite pale.

Under St, Luke,

IfO MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

Medallion, a stern man, with sickle and
gpade. For the flowers, and for us, when
stars have risen and set such aud such times;
— remember.

Technical Points. — Left hand globe, most
of the important folds of the purple dress,
eyes, mouth, hair in great part, and crown,
genuine. Golden tracery on border of dress
lost; extremity of falling folds from left
sleer c altered and confused, but the confu-
sion prettily got out of. Right hand and
much of face and body of dress repainted.

Zoroaster's head quite pure. Dress re-
painted, but carefully, leaving the hair un-
touched. Right hand and pen, now a com-
mon feathered quill, entirely repainted, bufc
dexterously and with feeling. The hand was
once slightly different in position, and held,
most probably, a reed.

VI. GEOMETRY. You have now learned,
young ladies and gentlemen, to read, to speak,
to think, to sing, and to see. You are get-
ting old, and will have soon to think of being
married ; you must learn to build your houaa
therefore. Here is your carpenter's square

I2f ILORSXCX. 171

for you, and you may safely and wisely con-
template the ground a little, and the meas-
ures and laws relating to that, seeing you
have got to abide upon it : — and that you
have properly looked at the stars ; not be-
fore then, lest, had you studied the ground
first, you might perchance never have raised
your heads from it. This is properly the
science of all laws of practical labor, issuing
in beauty.

She looks down, a little puzzled, greatly
interested, holding her carpenter's square in
her left hand, not wanting that but for
practical work; following a diagram with
her right.

Her beauty, altogether soft and in curves,
I commend to your notice, as the exact op-
posite of what a vulgar designer would
have imagined for her. Note the wreath of
hair at the back of her head, which, though,
fastened by a spiral fillet, escapes at last,
and flies off loose in a sweeping curve.
Contemplative Theology is the only other of
the sciences who has such wavy hair.

Beneath her, Euclid, in white turban.
Very fine arid original work throughout;
but nothing of special interest in him. ^

172 MORNINGS IN FLOEENCS.

Under St. Matthew.

Medallion, a soldier with a straight sword
(best for science of defense), octagon shield,
helmet like the beehive of Canton Vaud.
As the secondary use of music in feasting,
so the secondary use of geometry in war —
her noble art being all in sweetest peace-
is shown in the medallion.

Technical Points. — It is more than fortu-
nate that in nearly every figure the original
outline of the hair is safe. Geometry's has
scarcely been retouched at all, except at the
ends, once in single knots, now in confused
double ones. The hands, girdle, most of her
dresses, and her black carpenter's square are
original. Face and breast repainted.

VII. ARITHMETIC. Having built your
house, young people, and understanding the
light of heaven, and the measures of earth,
you may marry — and can't do better. And
here is now your conclusive science, which
you will have to apply, all your days, to all
your affairs.

The Science of Number. Infinite in so-
lemnity of use in Italy at this time ; includ-

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 175

fog, of course, whatever was known of the
higher abstract mathematics and mysteries
of numbers, but reverenced especially in its
vital necessity to the prosperity of families
and kingdoms, and first fully so understood
here in commercial Florence.

Her hand lifted, with two fingers bent,
two straight, solemnly enforcing on your
attention her primal law — Two and two are
—four, you observe, — not five, as those ac-
cursed usurers think.

Under her, Pythagoras.

Above, medallion of king, with scepter
and globe, counting money. Have you ever
chanced to read carefully Carlyle's account
of the foundation of the existing Prussian
empire, in economy ?

You can, at all events, consider with
yourself a little, what empire this queen of
the terrestrial sciences must hold over the
rest, if they are to be put to good use ; or
what depth and breadth of application there
is in the brief parables of the counted cost
of Power, and number of Armies.

To give a very minor, but characteristic,
instance. I have always felt that with my
intense love of the Alps, I ought to hava

HT4 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

been able to make a drawing of Chamouni,
or the vale of Cluse, which should give peo-
ple more pleasure than a photograph ; but I
always wanted to do it as I saw it, and en-
grave pine for pine, and crag for crag, like
Albert Dtirer. I broke my strength down
for many a year, always tiring of my work,
or finding the leaves drop off, or the snow
come on, before I had well begun what I
meant to do. If I had only counted my pines
first, and calculated the number of hours
necessary to do them in the manner Diirer,
I should have saved the available drawing
time of some five years, spent in vain effort.

But Turner counted his pines, and did all
that could be done for them, and rested con-
tented.

So in all the affairs of life, the arith-
metical part of the business is the dominant
one. How many and how much have we ?
How many and how much do we want?
How constantly does noble Arithmetic of
the finite lose itself in base Avarice of the
Infinite, and in blind imagination of it ! In
counting of minutes, is our arithmetic ever
solicitous enough? In counting our days,
is she ever severe enough ? How we shrink

IN PLORSNCS. 175

from putting, in their decades, the dimin-
ished store of them ! And if we ever pray
the solemn prayer that we may be taught
to number them, do we even try to do it
after praying ?

Technical Points. — The Pythagoras al-
most entirely genuine. The upper figures,
from this inclusive to the outer wall, I have
not been able to examine thoroughly, my
scaffolding not extending beyond the Geo-
metry.

Here then we have the sum of sciences, —
seven, according to the Florentine mind —
necessary to the secular education of man
and woman. Of these the modern average
respectable English gentleman and gentle-
woman know usually only a little of the
last, and entirely hate the prudent applica-
tions of that : being unacquainted, except
as they chance here and there to pick up a
broken piece of information, with either
grammar, rhetoric, music,1 astronomy, or-

1 Being able to play the piano and admire M«ndex»
eoku is uoi knowing music.

1?6 MORNINGS IN

geometry ; and are not only unacquainted
with logic, or the use of reason, themselves,
but instinctively antagonistic to its use by
anybody else.

We are now to read the series of the
Divine sciences, beginning at the opposite
Bide, next the window.

VIII. CIVIL LAW. Civil, or " of citizens,'1
not only as distinguished from Ecclesias-
tical, but from Local law. She is the uni-
versal Justice of the peaceful relations of
men throughout the world, therefore holds
the globe, with its three quarters, white, as
being justly governed in her left hand.

She is also the law of eternal equity, not
jrring statute; therefore holds her sword
kvel across her breast.

She is the foundation of all other divine
science. To know anything whatever about
God, you must begin by being Just.

Dressed in red, which in these frescos
is always a sign of power, or zeal ; but her
face very calm, gentle and beautiful. Her
hair bound close, and crowned by the royal
circlet of gold, with pure thirteenth century
strawberry leaf ornament,

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 177

Under her, the Emperor Justinian, in blue,
with conical mitre of white and gold ; the
face in profile, very beautiful. The im-
perial staff in his right hand, the Institutes
in his left.

Medallion, a figure, apparently in dis-
tress, appealing for justice. (Trajan's sup-
pliant widow ?)

Technical Points. — The three divisions of
the globe in her hand were originally in-
scribed ASIA, AFEICA, EUROPE. The re-
storer has ingeniously changed AF into
AME — RICA. Faces, both of the science and
emperor, little retouched, nor any of the
rest altered.

IX. CHRISTIAN LAW. After the justice
which rules men, comes that which rules
the Church of Christ. The distinction is
not between secular law, and ecclesiastical
authority, but between the equity of hu-
manity, and the law of Christian discipline.

In full, straight-falling, golden robe, with
white mantle over it ; a church in her left
hand ; her right raised, with the forefinger
lifted ; (indicating heavenly source of all
Christian law ? or warning r)
12

ITS MOBNINtfS I

Head-dress, a white veil floating into f olda
in the air. You will find nothing in these
frescos without significance ; and as the
escaping hair of Geometry indicates the in-
finite conditions of lines of the higher or-
ders, so the floating veil here indicates that
the higher relations of Christian justice are
indefinable. So her golden mantle indi-
cates that it is a glorious and excellent
justice beyond that which unchristian men
conceive; while the severely falling lines
of the folds, which form a kind of gabled
niche for the head of the Pope beneath,
correspond with the strictness of true
Church discipline, firmer as well as more
luminous statute.

Beneath, Pope Clement V., in red, lifting
his hand, not in the position of benediction,
but, I suppose, of injunction, — only the fore-
finger straight, the second a little bant, the
two last quite. Note the strict level of the
book ; and the vertical directness of the key.

The medallion puzzles me. It looks like a
figure counting money.

Technical Points. — Fairly well preserved;
but the face of the science retouched; the

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE

grotesquely false perspective of the Pope's
tiara, one of the most curiously naive exam-
pies of the entirely ignorant feeling after
merely scientific truth of form which still
characterized Italian art.

Type of church interesting in its extreme
simplicity ; no idea of transept, campanile,
or dome.

X. PEACTICAL THEOLOGY. The beginning
of the knowledge of God being Human Jus-
tice, and its elements defined by Christian
Law, the application of the law so defined
follows, first with respect to man, then with
respect to God.

" Render unto Csesar the things that are
Caesar's — and to God the things that are
God's."

We have therefore now two sciences, one
of our duty to men, the other to their Maker.

This is the first : duty to men. She holds
a circular medallion, representing Christ
preaching on the Mount, and points with net
right hand to the earth.

The sermon on the Mount is perfectly ex-
pressed by the craggy pinnacle in front of
Christ, and the high dark horizon. There ii

180 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

curious evidence throughout all these fres-
cos of Simon Memmi's having read the Gos-
pels with a quite clear understanding of their
innermost meaning.

I have called this science Practical Theol-
ogy : — the instructive knowledge, that is to
say, of what God would have us do, person*
ally, in any given human relation : and the
speaking His Gospel therefore by act. " Let
your light so shine before men."

She wears a green dress, like Music her
hair in the Arabian arch, with jeweled dia-
dem.

Under David.

Medallion, Almsgiving.

Beneath her, Peter Lombard.

Technical Points. — It is curious that while
the instinct of perspective was not strong
enough to enable any painter at this time to
foreshorten a foot, it yet suggested to them
the expression of elevation by raising the
horizon.

I have not examined the retouching. The
hair and diadem at least are genuine, the
face is dignified and compassionate, and
much on the old lines.

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 181

XI. DEVOTIONAL THEOLOGY. — Giving glory
to God, or, more accurately, whatever feel-
ings He desires us to have towards Him,
•whether of affection or awe.

This is the science or method of devotion
for Christians universally, just as the Prao
tical Theology is their science or method of
action.

In blue and red : a narrow black rod still
traceable in the left hand ; I am not sure of
its meaning. (Thy rod and Thy staff, they
comfort me?") The other hand open hi
admiration, like Astronomy's; but Devo«
tion's is held at her breast. Her head very
characteristic of Memmi, with upturned eyes,
and Arab arch in hair. Under her, Diony-
sius the Areopagite — mending his pen ! But
I am doubtful of Lord Lindsay's identifica-
tion of this figure, and the action is curiously
common and meaningless. It may have
meant that meditative theology is essen-
tially a writer, not a preacher.

The medallion, on the other hand, is as
ingenious. A mother lifting her hands hi
delight at her child's beginning to take
notice.

Under fcl. PauLj

182 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

Technical Points. — Both figures very
genuine, the lower one almost entirely so.
The painting of the red book is quite exem-
plary in fresco style.

XII. DOGMATIC THEOLOGY. — After action
and worship, thought becoming too wide and
difficult, the need of dogma becomes felt ;
the assertion, that is, within limited range,
of the things that are to be believed.

Since whatever pride and folly pollute
Christian scholarship naturally delight in
dogma, the science itself cannot but be in
a kind of disgrace among sensible men:
nevertheless it would be difficult to over-
value the peace and security which hava
been given to humble persons by forms of
creed ; and it is evident that either there is
no such thing as theology, or some of its
knowledge must be thus, if not expressible,
at least reducible within certain limits of
expression, so as to be protected from mis-
interpretation.

In red, — again the sign of power, — crowned
With a black (once golden?) triple crown,
emblematic of the Trinity. The left hand
holding a scoop for winnowing corn; the

MOBNINGS IN FLORENCE. 18*

other points upwards. " Prove all things—*
told fast that which is good, or of God."

Beneath her, Boethius.

Under St. Mark.

Medallion, female figure, laying hands on
breast.

Technical Points. — The Boethius entirely
genuine, and the painting of his black book,
as of the red one beside it, again worth
notice, showing how pleasant and interest-
ing the commonest things become, when
well painted.

I have not examined the upper figure.

XIII. MYSTIC THEOLOGY. 1 Monastic sci-
ence, above dogma, and attaining to new rev-
elation by reaching higher spiritual states.

In white robes, her left hand gloved (I
don't know why)— -holding chalice. She
wears a nun's veil fastened under her chin,
her hair fastened close, like Grammar's,
showing her necessary monastic life; all
states of mystic spiritual life involving re-
treat from much that is allowable in tat
material and practical world.

U^ "Faftkl

184 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

There is no possibility, of denying this
fact, infinite as the evils are which have
arisen from misuse of it. They have been
chiefly induced by persons who falsely pre-
tended to lead monastic life, and led it with-
out having natural faculty for it. But many
more lamentable errors have arisen from
the pride of really noble persons, who have
thought it would be a more pleasing thing
to God to be a sibyl or a witch, than a use-
ful housewife. Pride is always somewhat
involved even in the true effort : the scarlet
head-dress in the form of a horn on the fore-
head in the fresco indicates this, both Aere,
and in the Contemplative Theology.

Under St. John.

Meda Jion unintelligible, to me. A woman
laying hands on the shoulders of two small
figures.

Technical Points.— More of the minute
folds of the white dress left than in any
other of the repainted draperies. It is curi-
ous that minute division has always in dra-
pery, more or less, been understood as an
expression of spiritual life, from the delicate
tc*A?. of Athena's peplua .down to the rippled

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 188

edges of modern priests' white robes;
Titian's breadth of fold, on the other hand,
meaning for the most part bodily power.
The relation of the two modes of composi-
tion was lost by Michael Angelo, who
thought to express spirit by making flesh
colossal.

For the rest, the figure is not of any in-
terest, Memmi's own mind being intellectual
rather than mystic.

XIV. POLEMIC THEOLOGY. *

"Who goes forth, conquering and to con*
quer?"

"For we war, not with flesh and blood,"
etc.

In red, as sign of power, but not in armor,
because she is herself invulnerable. A close
red cap, with cross for crest, instead of hel-
met. Bow in left hand ; long arrow in right,

She partly means Aggressive Logic : com-
pare the set of her shoulders and arms with
Logic's.

She is placed the last of the Divine sci-
cnces, not as their culminating power, but

called " Cluurity "

186 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

as the last which can be rightly learned.
You must know all the others, before you
go out to battle. Whereas the general prin-
ciple of modem Christendom is to go out to
battle without knowing any one of the
others ; one of the reasons for this error,
the prince of errors, being the vulgar notion
that truth may be ascertained by debate!
Truth is never learned, in any department
of industry, by arguing, but by working,
and observing. And when you have got
good hold of one truth, for certain, two
others will grow out of it, in a beautifully
dicotyledonous fashion, (which, as before
noticed, is the meaning of the branch in
Logic's right hand). Then, when you have
got so much true knowledge as is worth
fighting for, you are bound to fight for it.
But not to debate about it any more.

There is, however, one further reason for
Polemic Theology being put beside Mystic.
It is only in some approach to mystic sci-
ence that any man becomes aware of what
St. Paul means by " spiritual wickedness in

l With cowardly Intentional fallacy, tnuuiatecl
"high " In the English Bible.

MORNINGS IN TLORBNCX. 1ST

heavenly1 places;" or, in any true sense,
knows the enemies of God and of man.

Beneath St. Augustine. Showing you the
proper method of controversy; — perfectly
firm ; perfectly gentle.

You are to distinguish, of course, contro-
versy from rebuke. The assertion of truth
Is to be always gentle : the chastisement of
willful falsehood may be — very much the
contrary indeed. Christ's sermon on the
Mount is full of polemic theology, yet per-
fectly gentle : — " Ye have heard that it hath
been said — but I say unto you" ; — " And if
ye salute your brethren only, what do ye
more than others ? " and the like. But Ilia
<{ Ye fools and blind, for whether is greater,"
Is not merely the exposure of error, but re-
buke of the avarice which made that error
possible.

Under the throne of St. Thomas; and
next to Arithmetic, of the terrestrial sci-
ences.

Medallion, a soldier, but not interesting.

Technical Points. — Very genuine and
beautiful throughout. Note the use of St.
red band*, to connect him with

188 MORNINGS IN

the full red of the upper figures ; and com-
pare the niche formed by the dress of Canon
Law, above the Pope, for different artistic
methods of attaining the same object^—*
unity of composition.

But lunch time is near, my friends, and
you have that shopping to do, you know.

THE SIXTH MOROTNGfc

I AM obliged to interrupt my account of
the Spanish chapel by the following notes
on the sculptures of Giotto's Campanile:
first because I find that inaccurate accounts
of those sculptures are in course of publica-
tion; and chiefly because I cannot finish
my work in the Spanish chapel until one of
my good Oxford helpers, Mr. Caird, has
completed some investigations he has un-
dertaken for me upon the history connected
•with it. I had written my own analysis of
the fourth side, believing that in every
scene of it the figure of St. Dominic was
repeated. Mr. Caird first suggested, and
has shown me already good grounds for his
his belief,1 that the preaching monks rep-

1 He wrote thus to me on llth November last:
MThe three preachers are certainly different. Tbf

189

190 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

resented are in each scene intended for a
different person. I am informed also of
several careless mistakes which have got
into my description of the fresco of the
Sciences ; and finally, another of my young
helpers, Mr. Charles F. Murray,— one, how-
ever, whose help is given much in the form
cf antagonism, — informs me of various crit-
ical discoveries lately made, both by him-
self and by industrious Germans, of points
respecting the authenticity of this and that,
which will require notice from me: more
especially he tells me of a certification that
the picture in the Uflizii, of which I accept-
ed the ordinary attribution to Giotto, is by
Lorenzo Monaco, — which indeed may well
be, without in the least diminishing the use
to you. of what I have written of its pre-
della, and without in the least, if you think
rightly of the matter, diminishing your con«
fidence in what I tell you of Giotto gener-
ally. There is one kind of knowledge of
pictures which is the artist's, and another
which is the antiquary's and the picture-
first Is Dominic; the second, Peter Martyr, whom I
have identified from his martyrdom on the other

XORNItfQS IF FLORENCE. 101

dealer's ; the latter especially acute, and
founded on very secure and wide knowledge
of canvas, pigment, and tricks of touch,
without, necessarily, involving any knowl-
edge whatever of the qualities of art itself.
There are few practiced dealers in the great
cities of Europe whose opinion would not be
more trustworthy than mine, (if you could
get it, mind you,) on points of actual authen-
ticity. But they could only tell you whe-
ther the picture was by such and such a
master, and not at all what either the mas-
ter or his work were good for. Thus, I
have, before now, taken drawings by Varley
and by Cousins for early studies by Turner,
and have been convinced by the dealers
that they knew better than I, as far as re-
garded the authenticity of those drawings ;
but the dealers don't know Turner, or the
worth of him, so well as I, for all that. So,
also, you may find me again and again mis-
taken among the much more confused work
of the early Giottesque schools, as to the
authenticity of this work or che other ; bu'v
you will find (and I say it with far more
•orrow than pride) that I am simply the
only person who oan at present tell you the

192 MO&N1NGS IN FLORENCE.

real worth of any; you will find that when-
ever I tell you to look at a picture, it is
worth your pains ; and whenever I tell you
the character of a painter, that it is his
character, discerned by me faithfully in
spite of all confusion of work falsely at-
tributed to him in which similar character
may exist. Thus, when I mistook Cousins
for Turner, I was looking at a piece of sub-
tlety in the sky of which the dealer had
no consciousness whatever, which was es-
sentially Turneresque, but which another
man might sometimes equal ; whereas the
dealer might be only looking at the quality
of Whatman's paper, which Cousins used,
and Turner did not.

Not, in the meanwhile, to leave you quite
guideless as to the main subject of the
fourth fresco in the Spanish chapel, — the
Pilgrim's Progress of Florence, — here is a
brief map of it.

On the right, in lowest angle, St. Dominic
preaches to the group of Infidels ; in the
next group towards the left, he (or some
one very like him) preaches to the Heretics :
the Heretics proving obstinate, he sets hii
dogs at them, as at the fatallest of wolves,

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 193

who being driven away, the rescued lambs
are gathered at the feet of the Pope, I have
copied the head of the very pious, but
slightly weak-minded, little lamb hi the
center, to compare with my rough Cumber-
land ones, who have had no such grave ex-
periences. The whole group, with the Pope
above, (the niche of the Duomo joining with
and enriching the decorative power of his
mitre,) is a quite delicious piece of design.

The Church being thus pacified, is seen hi
worldly honor under the powers of the
Spiritual and Temporal Rulers. The Pope,
with Cardinal and Bishop descending in
order on his right ; the Emperor, with King
and Baron descending in order on his left ;
the ecclesiastical body of the whole Church
on the right side, and the laity, — chiefly its
poets and artists, on the left.

Then, the redeemed Church nevertheless
giving itself up to the vanities and tempta-
tions of the world, its forgetful saints are
seen feasting, with their children dancing
before them, (the Seven Mortal Sins, say
some commentators). But the wise-hearted
of them confess their sins to another ghost
of St. Dominic; and confessed, Decoming
13

194 MORNINGS IN FLOBENCE.

&s little children, enter hand in hand the
gate of the Eternal Paradise, crowned with
flowers by the waiting angels, and admitted
by St. Peter among the serenely joyful
crowd of all the saints, above whom the
white Madonna stands reverently before the
throne. There is, so far as I know, through-
out all the schools of Christian art, no other
so perfect statement of the noble policy and
religion of men.

I had intended to give tho best account of
it in my power; but, when at Florence, lost
all time for writing that I might copy the
group of the Pope and Emperor for the
schools of Oxford ; and the work since done
by Mr. Caird has informed me of so much,
and given me, in some of its suggestions, so
much to think of, that I believe it will be
best and most just to print at once his ac-
count of the fresco as a supplement to these
essays of mine, merely indicating any points
on which I have objections to raise, and so
leave matters till Fors lets me see Florence
once more.

Perhaps she may, in kindness forbid my
«ver seeing it more, the wreck of it being
now too ghastly and heartbreaking to any

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 195

human soul that remembers the days of old.
Forty years ago, there was assuredly no
spot of ground, out of Palestine, in all the
round world, on which, if you knew, even
but a little, the true course of that world's
history, you saw with so much joyful rever-
ence the dawn of morning, as at the foot of
the Tower of Giotto. For there the tradi-
tions of faith and hope, of both the Gentile
and Jewish races, met for their beautiful
labor : the Baptistery of Florence is the last
building raised on the earth by the descend-
ants of the workmen taught by Daedalus:
and the Tower of Giotto is the loveliest of
those raised on earth under the inspiration
of the men who lifted up the tabernacle in
the wilderness. Of living Greek work there
is none after the Florentine Baptistery ; of
living Christian work, none so perfect as the
Tower of Giotto ; and, under the gleam and
shadow of their marbles, the morning light
was haunted by the ghosts of the Father of
Natural Science, Galileo; of Sacred Art,
Angelico, and the Master of Sacred Song.
Which spot of ground the modern Floren-
tine has made his principal hackney-coach
stand and omnibus station. The hackney

196 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

coaches, with their more or less farmy.ud-
like litter of occasional hay, and smeii of
variously mixed horse manure, are yet in
more permissible harmony with the place
than the ordinary populace of a fashionable
promenade would be, with its cigars, spit-
ting, and harlot-planned fineries ; but the
omnibus place of call being in front of the
door of the tower, renders it impossible to
stand for a moment near it, to look at the
sculptures either of the eastern or southern
side; while the north side is enclosed with
an iron railing, and usually encumbered
with lumber as well ; not a soul in Florence
ever caring now for sight of any piece of its
old artists' work ; and the mass of strangers
being on the whole intent on nothing but
getting the omnibus to go by steam ; and so
seeing the cathedral in one swift circuit, by
glimpses between the puffs of it.

The front of Notre Dame of Paris was
similarly turned into a coach-office when
I last saw it— 1872. Within fifty yards of
me as I write, the Oratory of the Holy
Ghost is used for a tobacco-store, and in

* See Fors Clavigera in that year.

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 197

fine, over all Europe, mere Caliban bestiality
and Satyric ravage staggering, drunk and
desperate, into every once enchanted cell
where the prosperity of kingdoms ruled and
the miraculousness of beauty was shrined
in peace.

Deluge of profanity, drowning dome and
tower hi Stygian pool of vilest thought, —
nothing now left sacred, in the places where
once — nothing was profane.

For that is indeed the teaching, if you
could receive it, of the Tower of Giotto ; as
of all Christian art in its day. Next to dec-
laration of the facts of the Gospel, its pur-
pose, (often in actual work the eagerest,) was
to show the power of the Gospel. History
of Christ in due place ; yes, history of all He
did, and how he died : but then, and often,
as I say, with more animated imagination,
the showing of His risen presence in grant-
ing the harvests and guiding the labor of
the year. All sun and rain, and length or
decline of days received from His hand ; all
joy, and grief, and strength, or cessation of
labor, indulged or endured, as in His sight
and to His glory. And the familiar employ-
ments of the seasons, the homely toils of

MORNINGS IN FLO&EfrCE.

the peasant, the lowliest skills of the crafts-
man, are signed always on the stones of the
Church, as the first and truest condition of
sacrifice and offering.

Of these representations of human art
under heavenly guidance, the series of bas-
reliefs which stud the base of this tower of
Giotto's must be held certainly the chief in
Europe.1 At first you may be surprised at
the smallness of their scale in proportion to
their masonry ; but this smallness of scale
enabled the master workmen of the tower
to execute them with their own hands ; and
for the rest, in the very finest architecture,
the decoration of most precious kind is usu-
ally thought of as a jewel, and set with
ipace round it, — as the jewels of a crown, or
ie clasp of a girdle. It is in general not
possible for a great workman to carve, him-
self, a greatly conspicuous series of orna-
ment; nay, even his energy fails him in
design, when the bas-relief extends itself
into incrustation, or involves the treatment

1 For account of the series on the main archivolt
of St. Mark's, see my sketch of the schools of Vene-
tian sculpture in third forthcoming number of " St.
Mark's Best."

MOENINGS Iff FLORENCE. 199

of great masses of stone. If his own does
not, the spectator's will. It would be the
work of a long summer's day to examine
the over-loaded sculptures of the Certosa of
Pavia; and yet in the tired last hour, you
would be empty-hearted. Read but these
inlaid jewels of Giotto's once with patient
following ; and your hour's study will give
you strength for all your life. So far as you
can, examine them of course on the spot ;
but to know them thoroughly you must
have their photographs : the subdued color
rf the old marble fortunately keeps the lights
fubdued, so that the photograph may be
made more tender in the shadows than is
usual in its renderings of sculpture, and
there are few pieces of art which may now
be so well known as these, in quiet homes
far away.

"We begin on the western side. There are
seven sculptures on the western, southern,
and northern sides : six on the eastern ;
counting the Lamb over the entrance door
of the tower, which divides the complete
series hi to two groups of eighteen and eight.
Itself, between them, being the introduction
to the following eight, you must count it aa

200 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

the first of the terminal group; you then
have the whole twenty- seven sculptures
divided into eighteen and nine.

Thus lettering the groups on each side for
West, South, East, and North, we have:

W. S. E. N.

7 +

7 H

L 6 -\

- 7 =

27; or,

W.

S.

E.

7 +

7 -

h 4

«g

18; aod,

E.

N.

2 -

h 7 =

9.

There is a very special reason for this
division by nines ; but, for convenience sake,
I shall number the whole from 1 to 27,
straightforwardly. And if you will have
patience with me, I should like to go round
the tower once and again ; first observing the
general meaning and connection of the sub-
jects, and then going back to examine the
technical points in each, and such minor
specialties as it may be well, at the first time,
to pass over.

1. The series begins, then, on the west
gide, with the Creation of Man. It is not
the beginning of the story of Genesis ; but

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 201

the simple assertion that God made us, and
breathed, and still breathes, into our nostrils
the breath of life.

This Giotto tells you to believe as the
beginning of all knowledge and all power. l
This he tells you to believe, as a thing which
he himself knows.

He will tell you nothing but what he does
know.

2. Therefore, though Giovanna Pisano
and his fellow sculptors had given, literally,
the taking of the rib out of Adam's side,
Giotto merely gives the mythic expression
of the truth he knows, — " they two shall be
one flesh."

3. And though all the theologians and
poets of his time would have expected, if
not demanded, that his next assertion, after
that of the Creation of Man, should be of
the Fall of Man, he asserts nothing of the
kind. He knows nothing of what man was.
What he is, he knows best of living men at
that hour, and proceeds to say. The next
sculpture is of Eve spinning and Adam hew-

1 So also the Master-builder of the Ducal Palace of
Venice. See Fors Clavigera for June of this year.

202 MORNINGS IN FLOEENCE.

ing the ground into clods. Not digging;
you cannot, usually, dig but in ground al-
ready dug. The native earth you must
hew.

They are not clothed in skins. What
would have been the use of Eve spinning if
she could not weave? They wear, each,
one simple piece of drapery, Adam's knotted
behind him, Eve's fastened around her neck
with a rude brooch.

Above them are an oak and an apple-tree.
Into the apple-tree a little bear is trying to
climb.

The meaning of which entire myth is, as
I read it, that men and women must both
eat their bread with toil. That the first
duty of man is to feed his family, and the
first duty of the woman to clothe it. That the
trees of the field are given us for strength
and for delight, and that the wild beasts of
the field must have their share with us.1

1 The oak and apple boughs are placed, with the
same meaning, by Sandro Botticelli, in the lap of Zip-
porah. The figure of the bear is again represented
by Jacopo della Quercia, on the north door of the
Cathedral of Florence. I am not sure of Us com*
plete meaning.

MO&NItfGS IN FLORENCE. 208

4. The fourth sculpture, forming the
center-piece of the series on the west side,
is nomad pastoral life.

Jabal, the father of such as dwell in tents,
and of such as have cattle, lifts the curtain
of his tent to look out upon his flock. His
dog watches it.

5. Jubal, the father of all such as handle
the harp and organ.

That is to say, stringed and wind instru-
ments ; — the lyre and reed. The first arts
(with the Jew and Greek) of the shepherd
David, and shepherd Apollo.

Giotto has given him the long level trum-
pet, afterwards adopted so grandly in the
sculptures of La Robbia and Donatello. It
Is, I think, intended to be of wood, as now
the long Swiss horn, and a long and shorter
tube are bound together.

6. Tubal Cain, the instructor of every
artificer in brass and iron.

Giotto represents him as sitting, fully
robed, turning a wedge of bronze on the
anvil with extreme watchfulness.

These last three sculptures, observe, rep-
resent the life of the race of Cain ; of those
who are wanderers, and have no home.

204 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

Nomad pastoral life; Nomad artistic
Wandering Willie; yonder organ man,
whom you want to send the policeman after,
and the gypsy who is mending the old
school-mistress's kettle on the grass, which
the squire has wanted so long to take into
bis park from the roadside.

7. Then the last sculpture of the seven
begins the story of the race of Seth, and of
home life. The father of it lying drunk
under his trellised vine; such the general
image of civilized society, in the abstract,
thinks Giotto.

With several other meanings, universally
known to the Catholic world of that day,— •
too many to be spoken of here.

The second side of the tower represents,
after this introduction, the sciences and arts
of civilized or home life.

8. Astronomy. In nomad life you may
serve yourself of the guidance of the stars :
but to know the laws of their nomadic life,
your own must be fixed.

The astronomer, with his sextant revolv-
ing on a fixed pivot, looks up to the vault
of the heavens and beholds their zodiac;
prescient of what else with optic glass the

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 205

Tuscan artist viewed, at evening, from the
top of Fesole.

Above the dome of heaven, as yet unseen,
are the Lord of the worlds and His angels.
To-day, the Dawn and the Daystar: to-
morrow, the Daystar arising in the heart.

9. Defensive architecture. The building
of the watch-tower. The beginning of
security in possession.

10. Pottery. The making of pot, cup, and
platter. The first civilized furniture ; the
means of heating liquid, and serving drink
and meat with decency and economy.

11. Riding. The subduing of animals to
domestic service.

12. Weaving. The making of clothes
with swiftness, and in precision of structure,
by help of the loom.

13. Law, revealed as directly from hea-
ven.

14. Daedalus (not Icarus, but the father
trying the wings). The conquest of the ele-
ment of air.

As the seventh subject of the first group
introduced the arts of home after those of
the savage wandering, this seventh of the
second group introduces the arts of the

206 MORNINGS IN FLOEENCE.

missionary, or civilized and gift-bringing
wanderer.

15. The Conquest of the Sea. The helms-
man, and two rowers3 rowing as Venetians,
face to bow.

16. The Conquest of the Earth. Hercules
victor over Antaeus. Beneficent strength of
civilization crushing the savageness of in-
humanity.

17. Agriculture. The oxen and plow.

18. Trade. The cart and horses.

19. And now the sculpture over the door
of the tower. The Lamb of God, expresses
the Law of Sacrifice, and door of ascent to
heaven. And then follow the fraternal arts
^>f the Christian world.

20. Geometry. Again the angle sculpt-
ure, introductory to the following series.
We shall see presently why this science
must be the foundation of the rest.

21. Sculpture.

22. Painting.

23. Grammar.

24. Arithmetic. The laws of number,
weight, and measures of capacity.

25. Music. The laws of number, weight
(or force), and measure, applied to sound.

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 207

26. Logic. The laws of number and
measure applied to thought.

27. The Invention of Harmony.

You see now — by taking first the great
division of pre-Christian and Christian arts,
marked by the door of the Tower; and
then the divisions into four successive his-
torical periods, marked by its angles— that
you have a perfect plan of human civiliza-
tion. The first side is of the nomad life,
learning how to assert its supremacy ovei-
other wandering creatures, herbs, and beasts.
Then the second side is the fixed home life,
developing race and country; then the
third side, the human intercourse between
stranger races ; then the fourth side, the
harmonious arts of all who are gathered
into the fold of Christ.

Now let us return to the first angle, and
examine piece by piece with care.

1. Creation of Man.

Scarcely disengaged from the clods of the
earth, he opens his eyes to the face of Christ,
like all the rest of the sculptures, it is less
the representation of a past fact than of a
constant one. It is the continual state of
man, * of the earth,' yet seeing God.

208 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

Christ holds the book of His Law — the
< Law of life '—in His left hand.

The trees of the garden above are, — cen-
tral above Christ, palm (immortal life) ;
above Adam, oak (human life). Pear, and
fig, and a large-leaved ground fruit (what ?)
complete the myth of the Food of Life.

As decorative sculpture, these trees are
especially to be noticed, with those in the
two next subjects, and the Noah's vine as
differing in treatment from Giotto's foliage,
of which perfect examples are seen in 16
and 17. Giotto's branches are set in close
sheaf -like clusters; and every mass dis-
posed with extreme formality of radiation.
The leaves of these first, on the contrary,
ire arranged with careful concealment of
their ornamental system, so as to look in-
artificial. This is done so studiously as
to become, by excess, a little unnatural ! —
Nature herself is more decorative and for-
mal in grouping. But the occult design is
very noble, and every leaf modulated with
loving, dignified, exactly right and sufficient
finish; not done to show skill, nor with
mean forgetfulness of main subject, but in
tender completion and harmony with it.

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 201

Loek at the subdivisions of the palm
leaves with your magnifying glass. The
others are less finished in this than in the
next subject. Man himself incomplete, the
leaves that are created with him, for his
life, must not be so.

(Are not his fingers yet short ; growing ?)

2. Creation of Woman.

Far, in its essential qualities, the tran-
scendent sculpture of this subject, Ghiberti's
is only a dainty elaboration and beautifioa-
tion of it, losing its solemnity and simplicity
in a flutter of feminine grace. The older
sculptor thinks of the Uses of Womanhood,
and of its dangers and sins, before he thinks
of its beauty ; but, were the arm not lost,
the quiet naturalness of this head and breast
of Eve, and the bending grace of the sub-
missive rendering of soul and body to per-
petual guidance by the hand of Christ —
(grasping the arm, note, for full support)
— would be felt to be far beyond Ghiberti's in
beauty, as in mythic truth.

The line of her body joins with that of the
serpent- ivy round the tree trunk above her :
a double myth — of her fall, and her support

210 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

afterwards by her husband's strength.
" Thy desire shall be to thy husband." The
fruit of the tree — double-set filbert, telling
nevertheless the happy equality.

The leaves in this piece are finished with
consummate poetical care and precision.
Above Adam, laurel (a virtuous woman is a
crown to her husband) ; the filbert for the
two together ; the fig, for fruitful household
joy (under thy vine and fig-tree l— but vine
properly the masculine joy) ; and the fruit
taken by Christ for type of all naturally
growing food, in his own hunger.

Examine with lens the ribbing of these
leaves, and the insertion on their stem of
the three laurel leaves on extreme right:
and observe that in all cases the sculptor
works the molding with his own part of
the design ; look how he breaks variously
deeper into it, beginning from the foot of
Christ, and going up to the left into full
depth above the shoulder.

3. Original labor.

Much poorer, and intentionally so. For
the myth of the creation of humanity, the

1 Compare Fora Clavigera, February, 1877.

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 211

sculptor uses his best strength, and shows
supremely the grace of womanhood ; but in
representing the first peasant state of life,
makes the grace of woman by no means her
conspicuous quality. She even walks awk-
wardly ; some feebleness in foreshortening
the foot also embarrassing the sculptor.
He knows its form perfectly — but its per-
spective, not quite yet.

The trees stiff and stunted — they also
needing culture. Their fruit dropping at
present only into beasts' mouths.

4. JabaL

If you have looked long enough, and
carefully enough, at the three previous
sculptures, you cannot but feel that the
hand here is utterly changed. The drapery
sweeps in broader, softer, but less true
folds ; the handling is far more delicate ;
exquisitely sensitive to gradation over broad
surfaces — scarcely using an incision of any
depth but in outline; studiously reserved
in appliance of shadow, as a thing precious
and local — look at it above the puppy's
head, and under the tent. This is assuredly
painter's work, not mere sculptor's. I have

$12 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

no doubt whatever it is by the own hand of
the shepherd-boy of Fesole. Cimabue had
found him drawing, (more probably scratch-
ing with Etrurian point,) one of his sheep
upon a stone. These, on the central foun-
dation-stone of his tower he engraves, look-
ing back on the fields of life : the time
soon near for him to draw the curtains of
Ills tent.

I know no dog like this in method of
drawing, and in skill of giving the living
form without one touch of chisel for hair,
or incision for eye, except the dog barking
at Poverty in the great fresco of Assisi.

Take the lens and look at every piece of
the work from corner to corner — note es*
pecially as a thing which would only have
been enjoyed by a painter, and which all
great painters do intensely enjoy — the fringe
of the tent,1 and precise insertion of its
point in the angle of the hexagon, prepared
for by the archaic masonry indicated hi the

* "I think Jabal's tent is made of leather ; the
relaxed intervals between the tent-pegs show a
curved ragged edge like leather near the ground"
(Mr. Caird). The edge of the opening is still mor»
eharacterutic, I think.

XO&X1K&8 IN PL6&BNC& 213

oblique joint above ; l architect and painter
thinking at once, and doing as they thought.
I gave a lecture to the Eton boys a year
or two ago, on little more than the shep-
herd's dog, which is yet more wonderful in
magnified scale of photograph. The lecture
is partly published — somewhere, but I can't
refer to it.

5. Jubal.

Still Giotto's, though a little less delighted
in ; but with exquisite introduction of the
Gothic of his own tower. See the light
surface sculpture of a mosaic design in the
horizontal molding.

Note also the painter's freehand working
of the complex moldings of the table — •
also resolvedly oblong, not square; see
central flower.

6. Tulal Cain.

Still Giotto's, and entirely exquisite ; fin-
ished with no less care than the shepherd,
to mark the vitality of this art to humanity ;

1 Prints of these photographs which do not show
the masonry all round the kexagon are quite value*
less for study.

214 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

the spade and hoe— its heraldic bearing--
hung on the hinged door.1 For subtlety of
execution, note the texture of wooden block
under anvil, and of its iron hoop.

The workman's face is the best sermon on
the dignity of labor yet spoken by thought-
ful man. Liberal Parliaments and fraternal
Reformers have nothing essential to say
more.

7. Noah.

Andrea Pisano's again, more or less imita-
tive of Giotto's work.

8. Astronomy.

We have a new hand here altogether.
The hair and drapery bad ; the face expres-
sive, but blunt in cutting ; the small upper
heads, necessarily little more than blocked
out, on the small scale ; but not suggestive

1 Pointed out to me by Mr. Caird, who adds farther,
" I saw a forge identical with this one at Pelago the
other day, — the anvil resting on a tree-stump : the
same fire, bellows, and implements; the door in two
parts, the upper part like a shutter, and used for the
exposition of finished work as a sign of the craft; and
I saw upon it the same finished work of the
shape as in the bas-relief — a spade and a boo.

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 215

of grace in completion: the minor detail
worked with great mechanical precision,
but little feeling; the lion's head, with
leaves in its ears, is quite ugly; and by
comparing the work of the small cusped
arch at the bottom with Giotto's soft hand-
ling of the moldings of his, in 5, you may
for ever know common mason's work from
fine Gothic. The zodiacal signs are quite
hard and common in the method of bas-re-
lief, but quaint enough in design : Capri-
corn, Aquarius, and Pisces, on the broad
heavenly belt ; Taurus upside down, Gemini,
and Cancer, on the small globe.

I think the whole a restoration of the
original panel, or else an inferior worlonan'g
rendering of Giotto's design, which the next
piece is, with less question.

9. Building.

The larger figure, I am disposed finally to
think, represents civic power, as in Loren-
aetti's fresco at Siena. The extreme rude-
ness of the minor figures may be guarantee
of their originality ; it is the smooth in
mass and hard edge work that make uie
•aspect the 8th for a restoration.

116 MO&NINQS IX FLORENCE.

10. Pottery.

Very grand ; with much painter's feeling,
and fine moldings again. The tiled roof
projecting in the shadow above, protects the
first Ceramicus-home. I think the women
are meant to be carrying some kind of
wicker or reed-bound water-vessel. The
Potter's servant explains to them the ex-
treme advantages of the new invention. I
can't make any conjecture about the author
of this piece.

11. Riding.

Again Andrea Pisano's, it seems to me.
Compare the tossing up of the dress behind
the shoulders, in 3 and 2. The head is
grand, having nearly an Athenian profile;
the loss of the horse's fore-leg prevents me
from rightly judging of the entire action. I
must leave riders to say.

12. Weaving.

Andrea's again, and of extreme loveliness ;
the stooping face of the woman at the loom
is more like a Leonardo drawing than sculpt-
ure. The action of throwing the large
shuttle, and all the structure of the loom,

Iti FLOUtiNCfi. 21?

and Its threads, distinguishing rude or
smooth surface, are quite wonderful. The
figure on the right shows the use and grace
of finely woven tissue, under and upper —
that over the bosom so delicate that the line
of separation from the flesh of the neck is
unseen.

If you hid with your hand the carved
masonry at the bottom, the composition
separates it .ilf into two pieces, one disagree-
ably rectangular. The still more severely
rectangular masonry throws out by contrast
all that is curved and rounded in the loom
and unites the whole composition; that is
its aesthetic function ; its historical one is
to show that weaving is queen's work, not
peasant's : for this is palace masonry.

13. The Giving of Law.

More strictly, of the Book of God's Law :
the only one which can ultimately be
obeyed.1

1 Mr. Caird convinced me of the real meaning of
this sculpture. I had taken it for the giving of a
book, writing further of it as follows : —

All books, rightly so called, are Books of Law, and
•11 Scripture is given by inspiration of God. (What
we now mostly call a book, the infinite reduplication

218 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

The authorship of this is very embar-
rassing to me. The face of the central
figure is most noble, and all the work good,
but not delicate ; it is like original work of
the master whose design No. 8 might be a
restoration.

14. Dcedalus.

Andrea Pisano again; the head superb,
founded on Greek models, feathers of wings
"Wrought with extreme care; but with no
precision of arrangement or feeling. How
far intentional in awkwardness, I cannot

and vibratory echo of a lie, is not given but belched
up out of volcanic clay by the inspiration of the
devil.) On the Book-giver's right hand the students
in cell, restrained by the lifted right hand;

"Silent, you, — till you know"; then, perhaps,
you also.

On the left, the men of the world, kneeling, re»
ceive the gift.

Recommendable seal, this, for Mr. Mudie !

Mr. Caird says : "The book is written law, which
Is given by Justice to the inferiors, that they may
know the laws regulating their relations to their
superiors — who are also under the hand of law. The
vassal is protected by the accessibility of f ormularized
law. The superior is restrained by the right hand of
power."

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 219

say; but note the good mechanism of the
whole plan, with strong standing board for
the feet.

15. Navigation.

An intensely puzzling one; coarse (per-
haps unfinished) in work, and done by a
man who could not row ; the plaited bands
used for rowlocks being pulled the wrong
way. Right, had the rowers been rowing
English-wise ; but the water at the boat's
head shows its motion forwards, the way
the oarsmen look. I cannot make out the
action of the figure at the stern ; it ought
to be steering with the stern oar.

The water seems quite unfinished. Meant,
I suppose, for surface and section of sea,
with slimy rock at the bottom; but all
stupid and inefficient.

16. Hercules and Antceus.

The Earth power, half hidden by the
earth, its hair and hand becoming roots, the
strength of its life passing through the
ground into the oak tree. With Cercyon,
but first named, (Plato, Laws, Book VII.,
796), Antaeus is the master of contest with-

MORtfiN&S

out use ; — 0i\<w«aas dxp^rou — and is
ally the power of pure selfishness and its
various inflation to insolence and degrada-
tion to cowardice; — finding its strength
only in fall back to its Earth, — he is the
master, in a word, of all such kind of per-
sons as have been writing lately about the
"interests of England." He is, therefore,
the Power invoked by Dante to place Virgil
and him in the lowest circle of Hell;—
"Alcides whilom felt, — that grapple, strait*
ened sore," etc. The Antaeus in the sculpt-
ure is very grand ; but the authorship pus*
zles me, as of the next piece, by the same
hand. I believe both Giotto's design.

17. Plowing.

The sword hi its Christian form. Magnif-
icent : the grandest expression of the power
of man over the earth and its strongest creat-
ures that I remember in early sculpture, —
(or, for that matter in late). It is the sub-
duing of the bull which the sculptor thinks
most of ; the plow, though large, is of
wood,' and the handle slight. But the
pawing and bellowing laborer he has bound
to it ! — here is victory.

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 221

18. The Chariot.

The horse also subdued to draught-^
Achilles' chariot in its first, and to be its
last, simplicity. The face has probably
been grand — the figure is so still. Andrea's,
I think, by the flying drapery.

19. The Lamb) with the symbol of R
rection.

Over the door : "I am the door; — by me,
if any man enter in," etc. Put to the right
of the tower, you see, fearlessly, for the
convenience of staircase ascent ; all external
symmetry being subject with the great
builders to interior use; and then, out of
the rightly ordained infraction of formal
law, comes perfect beauty ; and when, as
here, the Spirit of Heaven is working with
the designer, his thoughts are suggested hi
truer order, by the concession to use. After
this sculpture conies the Christian arts, —
those which necessarily imply the convic-
tion of immortality. Astrcnomy without
Christianity only reaches as far as — " Thou
hast made him a little lower than the angels
— and put all things under His feet " : —
Christianity says beyond this, — " Know VQ

222 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

not that we shall judge angels (as also the
lower creatures shall judge us !) " l The se»
ries of sculptures now beginning, show the
arts which can only be accomplished through
belief in Christ.

20. Geometry.

Not " mathematics : " they have been im-
plied long ago in astronomy and architect-
ure; but the due Measuring of the Earth
and all that is on it. Actually done only
by Christian faith — first inspiration of the
great Earth-measurers. Your Prince Henry
of Spain, your Columbus, your Captain Cook,
(whose tomb, with the bright artistic in-
vention and religious tenderness which are
so peculiarly the gifts of the nineteenth
century, we have just provided a fence for,
of old cannon open-mouthed, straight up
towards Heaven — your modern method of
symbolizing the only appeal to Heaven of
which the nineteenth century has left itself

« fn the deep sense of this truth, which underlies
all the bright fantasy and humor of Mr. Courthope's
*4 Paradise of Birds," that rhyme of the risen spirit
of Aristophanes may well be read under the towel
of Giotto, besides his watch-dog of the fold.

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 223

capable — " The voice of thy Brother's blood
crieth to me " — your outworn cannon, now
silently agape, but sonorous in the ears of
angels with that appeal ) — first inspiration,
I say, of these ; constant inspiration of all
who set true landmarks and hold to them,
knowing their measure ; the devil interfer-
ing, I observe, lately in his own way, with
the Geometry of Yorkshire, where the landed
proprietors,1 when the neglected walls by
the roadside tumble down, benevolently re-
pair the same, with better stonework, out-
aide always of the fallen heaps; — which,
the wall being thus built on what was the
public road, absorb themselves, with help

1 I mean no accusation against any class ; probably
the one fielded statesman is more eager for his little
gain of fifty yards of grass than the square for his
bite and sup out of the gypsy's part of the roadside.
But it is notable enough to the passing traveler, to
find himself shut into a narrow road between high
Btone dykes which he can neither see over nor climb
over, (I always deliberately pitch them down myself,
wherever I need a gap,) instead of on a broad road
between low gray walls with all the moor beyond —
and the power of leaping over when he chooses, in
innocent trespass for herb, or view, or splinter of
gray rock.

224 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

of moss and time, into the heaving swells
of the rocky field — and behold, gain of a
couple of feet — along so much of the road
as needs repairing operations.

This, then, is the first of the Christian
sciences :— division of land rightly, and the
general law of measuring between wisely-
held compass points. The type of mensura-
tion, circle in square, on his desk, I use for
my first exercise in the laws of Fesole.

21. Sculpture.

The first piece of the closing series on
the north side of the Campanile, of which
some general points must be first noted,
before any special examination.

The two initial ones, Sculpture and Paint-
ing, are by tradition the only ones attribu-
ted to Giotto's own hand. The fifth, Song,
Is known, and recognizable in its magnifi-
oemce, to be by Luca della Robbia. The
remaining four are all of Luca's school, —
later work therefore, all these five, than
any we have been hitherto examining, en-
tirely different hi manner, and with late
flower- work beneath them instead of OUT
hitherto severe Gothic arches. And it be-

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 2&

comes of course instantly a vital question-
Did Giotto die leaving the series incomplete,
only its subjects chosen, and are these two
bas-reliefs of Sculpture and Painting among
his last works ? or was the series ever com-
pleted, and these later bas-reliefs substitu-
ted for the earlier ones, under Luca's influ-
ence, by way of conducting the whole to a
grander close, and making their order more
representative of Florentine art in its full-
ness of power ?

I must repeat, once more, and with greater
Insistence respecting Scripture than Paint-
ing, that I do not in the least set my-
self up for a critic of authenticity, — but
only of absolute goodness. My readers may
trust me to tell them what is well done
or ill; but by whom, is quite a separate
question, needing for any certainty, in this
school of much-associated masters and pu-
pils, extremest attention to minute partic-
ulars not at all bearing on my objects in
teaching.

Of this closing group of sculptures, then,
all I can tell you is that the fifth is a quite
magnificent piece of work, and recogniz-
ably, to my extreme conviction, Luca della
'5

228 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

Robbia's; that the last, Harmonia, is also
fine work; that those attributed to Giotto
are fine in a different way, — and the other
three in reality the poorest pieces in the
series, though done with much more ad-
vanced sculptural dexterity.

But I am chiefly puzzled by the two at-
tributed to Giotto, because they are much
coarser than those which seem to me so
plainly his on the west side, and slightly
different in workmanship — with much that
is common to both, however, in the casting
of drapery and mode of introduction of de-
tails. The difference may be accounted for
partly by haste or failing power, partly by
the artist's less deep feeling of the impor-
tance of these merely symbolic figures, as
compared with those of the Fathers of the
Arts ; but it is very notable and embarrass-
ing notwithstanding, complicated as it is
with extreme resemblance in other particu-
lars.

You cannot compare the subjects on the
tower itself ; but of my series of photographs
take 6 and 21, and put them side by side.

I need not dwell on the conditions of
resemblance, which are instantly visible;

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 227

but the difference in the treatment of the
heads is incomprehensible. That of the
Tubal Cain is exquisitely finished, and with
a painter's touch; every lock of the hair
laid with studied flow, as in the most beau-
tiful drawing. In the "Sculpture," it is
struck out with ordinary tricks of rapid
sculptor trade, entirely unfinished, and with
offensively frank use of the drill hole to
give picturesque rustication to the beard

Next, put 22 and 5 back to back, You
•ee again the resemblance in the earnest-
ness of both figures, in the unbroken arc*
of their backs, in the breaking of the octa-
gon molding by the pointed angles ; and
here, even also in the general conception of
the heads. But again, in the one of Paint-
ing, the hair is struck with more vulgar
indenting and drilling, and the Gothic of
the picture frame is less precise in touch
and later in style. Observe, however,—
and this i my perhaps give us some definite
hint for clearing the question, — a picture-
frame would be less precise in making and
later in style, properly, than cusped arches
to be put under the feet of the inventor of
all musical sound by breath of man. And

228 MORtflfrGS IN FLORENCE.

if you will now compare finally the eager
tilting of the workman's seat in 22 and 6,
and the working of the wood in the paint-
er's low table for his pots of color, and his
three-legged stool, with that of Tubal Cain's
anvil block; and the way in which the
lines of the forge and upper "triptych are in
each composition used to set off the round-
ing of the head, I believe you will have little
hesitation in accepting my own v^ew of the
matter — namely, that the three pieces of
the Fathers of the Arts were wrought with
Giotto's extr ernes t care for the most pre-
cious stones of his tower ; that also, being
a sculptor and painter, he did the other two,
but with quite definite and willful resolve
that they should be, as mere symbols of his
own two trades, wholly inferior to the
other subjects of the patriarchs ; that he
made the Sculpture picturesque and bold as
you see it is, and showed all a sculptor's
tricks in the work of it ; and a sculptor's
Greek subject, Bacchus, for the model of
it; that he wrought the Painting, as the
higher art, with more care, still keeping it
subordinate to the primal subjects, but
showed, for a lesson to all the generations

IN FLORENCE. 229

of painters for evermore, — this one lesson,
like his circle of pure line, containing all
others, — " Your soul and body must be all
in every touch."

I can't resist the expression of a little
piece of personal exultation, in noticing
that he holds hig pencil as I do myself : no
writing master, and no effort (at one time
Tery steady for many months), having ever
cured me of that way of holding both pen
and pencil between my fore and second fin-
ger ; the third and fourth resting the backs
of them on my paper.

As I finally arrange these notes for press,
I am further confirmed in my opinion by
discovering little finishings in the two later
pieces which I was not before aware of. I
beg the masters of High Art, and sublime
generalization, to take a good magnifying
glass to the " Sculpture " and look at the way
Giotto has cut the compasses, the edges of
the chisels, and the keyhole of the lock of the
toolbox.

For the rest, nothing could be more prob-
able, in the confused and perpetually false
mass of Florentine tradition, than the pres-
•nration of the memory of Giotto's carving

MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

his own two trades And the forgetf ulness, ot
quite as likely igr />rance, of the part he took
with Andrea Pi'^ano in the initial sculptures.

I now take up the series of subjects at the
point where we broke off, to trace their chain
of philosophy to its close.

To Geometry, which gives to every man
his possession of house and land, succeed 21.
Sculpture, and 22, Renting, the adornments
of permanent habitation. And then, the
great arts of education in a Christian home.
First—

23. Grammar, or more properly Litera-
ture altogether, of which we have already
seen the ancient power in the Spanish
Chapel series ; then,

24. Arithmetic, central here as also in the
Spanish Chapel, for the same reasons ; here,
more impatiently asserting, with both hands,
that two, on the right, you observe — and two
on the left — do indeed and forever make
Four. Keep your accounts, you, with your
book of double entry, on that principle ; and
you will be safe in this world and the next,
In your steward's office. But by no

HORNINOS IN FLORENCE. 231

•o, if you ever admit the usurer's Gospel of
Arithmetic, that two and two make Five.

You see by the rich hem of his robe that
the asserter of this economical first princi-
pie is a man well to do in the world.

25 Logic.

The art of Demonstration. Vulgarest ol
the whole series ; far too expressive of the
mode in which argument is conducted by
those who are not masters of its reins.

26. Song.

The essential power of music in animal
life. Orpheus, the symbol of it all, the inven-
tor properly of Music, the Law of Kindness,
as Daedalus of Music, the Law of Construc-
tion. Hence the " Orphic life " is one of
ideal mercy, (vegetarian,) — Plato, Laws^
Book VI., 782, — and he is named first after
Daedalus, and in balance to him as head of
the school of harmonists, in Book III., 677,
(Steph.) Look for the two singing birds
clapping their wings in the tree above him :
then the five mystic beasts, — closest to his
feet the irredeemable boar ; then lion and
bear, tiger, unicorn, and fiery dragon closest

282 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE.

to his head, the flames of its mouth min-
gling with his breath as he sings. The au-
dient eagle, alas ! has lost the beak, and is
only recognizable by his proud holding of
himself; the duck, sleepily delighted after
muddy dinner, close to his shoulder, is a
true conquest. Hoopoe, or indefinite bird of
crested race, behind ; of the other three no
clear certainty. The leafage throughout
such as only Luca could do, and the whole
consummate in skill and understanding.

27. Harmony.

Music of Song, in the full power of ifc,
meaning perfect education hi all art of the
Muses and of civilized life : the mystery of its
concord is taken for the symbol of that of a
perfect state ; one day, doubtless, of the per-
fect world. So prophesies the last corner
•tone of the Shepherd's Tower.

— » -S3SS3S'"*

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