In Beautiful Florence.
For to the highest she did still aspyre;
Or, if ought higher were then that, did it desyre.
—Spenser.
CHURCH OF THE ANNUNZIATA, FLORENCE.
One afternoon, about two weeks later, Barbara and Bettina were sitting in their pleasant room in Florence. The wide-open windows looked out upon the slopes of that lovely hill on whose summit is perched Fiesole, the poor little old mother of Florence, who still holds watch over her beautiful daughter stretched at her feet. Scented airs which had swept all the way from distant blue hills over countless orange, olive, and mulberry groves filled the room, and fluttered the paper upon which the girls were writing; it was their weekly letter budget.
The fair faces were flushed as they bent over the crowded sheets so soon to be scanned by dear eyes at home. How much there was to tell of the events of the past week! Drives through the streets of the famous city; through the lovely Cascine; up to San Miniato and Fiesole; visits to churches, palaces, and picture-galleries; days filled to overflowing with the new life among foreign scenes.
Suddenly Barbara, throwing aside her pen, exclaimed:—
"Betty dear, don't you sometimes feel most horribly ignorant?"
"Why? when?"
"Oh! I am just writing about our visit to Santa Croce the other day. I enjoyed so much the fine spaces within the church, the softened light, and some of the monuments. But when we came to those chapels whose walls are covered with paintings,—you remember, where we met that Mr. Sherman and his daughters who came over on the Kaiser with us,—I tried to understand why they were so interested there. They were studying the paintings for such a long time, and I heard some of the things they were saying about them. They thought them perfectly wonderful; and that Miss Sherman who has such lovely eyes said she thought it worth coming from America to Italy just to see them and other works by the same artist. Mr. Sumner, too, heard what she said, and gave her such a pleased, admiring look. After they had gone out from the chapel where are pictures representing scenes in the life of St. Francis, I went in and looked and looked at them; but, try as hard as I could, I could not be one bit interested. The pictures are so queer, the figures so stiff, I could not see a beautiful or interesting thing about them. But I know I am all wrong. I do want to see what they saw, and to feel as they felt!"
"I liked the pictures because of their subject," said Bettina; "that dear St. Francis of Assisi who loved the birds and flowers, and talked to them as if they could understand him. But I did not see any beauty in them."
"We must learn what it is; we must do more than just look at all these early pictures that fill the churches and galleries just as we would look at wall paper, as so many people seemed to do in the Uffizi gallery the other day," said Barbara, emphatically. "This must be one of the things papa meant."
Just here came a knock on the door.
"May we come in, Margery and I?" asked Malcom. "Why! what is the matter? You look as if you had been talking of something unpleasant."
Bettina told of Barbara's trouble.
"How strange!" said Margery. "Mamma has just been talking to us about this very thing. She says that, if you like, Uncle Robert will teach us about the works of the Italian painters. You know he knows everything about them! He has even written a book about these paintings in Florence!"
"Yes," said Malcom with a comical shrug, "the idea is that we all spend one or two mornings every week studying stiff old Madonnas and Magdalenes and saints! I love noble and beautiful paintings as well as any one, but I wonder if I can ever learn anything that will make me care to look twice at some of those old things in the long entrance gallery of the Uffizi. I doubt it. Give me the old palaces where the Medici lived, and let me study up what they did. Or even Dante, or Michael Angelo! He was an artist who is worth studying about. Why! do you know, he built the fortifications of San Miniato and—"
"But," interrupted Barbara, "you know that whenever Italy is written or talked about, her art seems to be the very most important thing. I was reading only the other day an article in which the writer said that undoubtedly the chief mission or gift of Italy to the world is her paintings,—her old paintings,—and that this mission is all fulfilled. Now, if this be true, do we wish to come here and go away without learning all that we possibly can of them? I think that would be foolish."
"And," added Bettina, "I think one of the most interesting studies in the world is about these same old saints whom you dislike so much, Malcom. They were heroes; and I think some of them were a great deal grander than those mythological characters you so dote upon. If your uncle will only be so good as to talk to us of the pictures! Let us go at once and thank him. Now, Malcom, you will be enthusiastic about it, will you not? There will be so much time for all the other things."
Bettina put her arm affectionately about Margery, and smiled into Malcom's face, as they all went to seek Mrs. Douglas and Mr. Sumner.
"Here come the victims, Uncle Rob! three willing ones,—Barbara, who is ever sighing for new worlds to conquer; Betty, who already dotes upon St. Sebastian stuck full of arrows and St. Lucia carrying her eyes on a platter; Madge, who would go to the rack if only you led the way,—and poor rebellious, inartistic I."
"But, my boy—" began Mrs. Douglas.
"Oh! I will do it all if only the girls will climb the Campanile and Galileo's Tower with me and it does not interfere with our drives and walks. If this is to become an æsthetic crowd, I don't wish to be left out," laughed Malcom.
A morning was decided upon for the first lesson.
"We will begin at the beginning," said Mr. Sumner; "one vital mistake often made is in not starting far enough back. In order to realize in the slightest degree the true work of these old masters, one must know in what condition the art was before their time; or rather, that there was no art. So we will first go to the Accademia delle Belle Arti, or Academy, as we will call it, and from there to the church, Santa Maria Novella. And one thing more,—you are welcome to go to my library and learn all you can from the books there. I am sure I do not need to tell those who have studied so much as you already have that the knowledge you shall gain from coming into contact with any new thing must be in a great degree measured by that which you take to it."
"How good you are to give us so much of your time, Mr. Sumner," said Barbara, with sparkling eyes. "How can we ever repay you?"
"By learning to love this subject somewhat as I love it," replied Mr. Sumner; but he thought as he felt the magnetism of her young enthusiasm that he might gain something of compensation which it was impossible to put into words.
"Are you not going with us, dear Mrs. Douglas?" asked Bettina, as the little party were preparing to set forth on the appointed morning.
"Not to-day, dear, for I have another engagement"
"I think I know what mamma is going to do," said Margery as they left the house. "I heard the housemaid, Anita, telling her last evening about the illness of her little brother, and saying that her mother is so poor that she cannot get for the child what he needs. I think mamma is going to see them this morning."
"Just like that blessed mother of ours!" exclaimed Malcom. "There is never anybody in want near her about whom she is not sure to find out and to help! It will be just the same here as at home; Italians or Americans—all are alike to her. She will give up anything for herself in order to do for them."
"I am glad you know her so well," said his uncle, with a smile. "There is no danger that you can ever admire your mother too much."
"Oh!" exclaimed Barbara, as after a little walk they entered a square surrounded by massive buildings, with arcades, all white with the sunshine. "Look at that building! It is decorated with those dear little babies, all swathed, whose photographs we have so often seen in the Boston art stores. What is it? Where are we?"
"In the Piazza dell' Annunziata," replied Mr. Sumner, "and an interesting place it is. That building is the Foundling Hospital, a very ancient and famous institution. And the 'swathed babies' are the work of Andrea della Robbia."
"Poor little innocents! How tired they must be, wrapped up like mummies and stuck on the wall like specimen butterflies!" whispered Malcom in an aside to Bettina.
"Hush! hush!" laughed she. "Your uncle will hear you."
"This beautiful church just here on our right," continued Mr. Sumner, "is the church of the S.S. Annunziata or the most Holy Annunciation. It was founded in the middle of the thirteenth century by seven noble Florentines, who used to meet daily to sing Ave Maria in a chapel situated where the Campanile of the Cathedral now stands. It has been somewhat modernized and is now the most fashionable church in Florence. It contains some very interesting paintings, which we will visit by and by."
"Every step we take in this beautiful city is full of interest, and how different from anything we can find at home!" exclaimed Bettina. "Look at the color of these buildings, and their exquisite arches! See the soft painting over the door of the church, and the sculptured bits everywhere! I begin, just a little, to see why Florence is called the art city."
"But only a little, yet," said Mr. Sumner, with a pleased look. "You are just on the threshold of the knowledge of this fair city. Not what she outwardly is, but what she contains, and what her children have wrought, constitute her wealth of art. Do you remember, Margery, what name the poet Shelley gives Florence in that beautiful poem you were reading yesterday?"
"O Foster-nurse of man's abandoned glory,
Since Athens, its great mother, sunk in splendor,
Thou shadowest forth that mighty shape in story,
As ocean its wrecked fanes, severe yet tender,"
dreamily recited Margery, her sweet face flushing as all eyes looked at her.
"Yes," smiled her uncle. "Florence, as foster-nurse, has cherished for the world the art-treasures of early centuries in Italy, so that there is no other city on earth in which we can learn so much of the 'revival of art,' as it is called, which took place after the barrenness of the Dark Ages, as in this. But here we are at the Academy. I shall not allow you to look at much here this morning. We will go and sit in the farther corner of this first corridor, for I wish to talk a little, and just here we shall find all that I need for illustration."
"You need not put on such a martyr-look, Malcom," continued he, as they walked on. "I prophesy that not one here present will feel more solid interest in the work we are beginning than you will, my boy."
When Mr. Sumner had gathered the little group about him, he began to talk of the beauties of Greek art—how it had flourished for centuries before Christ.
"But I thought Greek art consisted of sculptures," said Barbara.
"Much of it was sculptured,—all of it which remains,—but we have evidence that the Greeks also produced beautiful paintings, which, could they have been preserved, might be not unworthy rivals of modern masterpieces," replied Mr. Sumner. "After the Roman invasion of Greece, these ancient works of art were mostly destroyed. Rome possessed no fine art of her own, but imported Greek artists to produce for her. These, taken away from their native land, and having no noble works around them for inspiration, began simply to copy each other, and so the art degenerated from century to century. The growing Christian religion, which forbade the picturing of any living beauty, gave the death-blow to such excellence as remained. A style of painting followed which received the name of Greek Byzantine. In it was no study of life; all was most strikingly conventional, and it grew steadily worse and worse. A comparison of the paintings and mosaics of the sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries shows the rapid decline of all art qualities. Finally every figure produced was a most arrant libel on nature. It was always painted against a flat gold background; the limbs were wholly devoid of action; the feet and hands hung helplessly; and the eyes were round and staring. The flesh tints were a dull brick red, and all else a dreary brown."
"Come here," said he, rising, "and see an example of this Greek Byzantine art,—this Magdalen. Study it well."
"Oh, oh, how dreadful!" chorussed the voices of all.
"Uncle Rob, do you mean to say there was no painting in the world better than this in the ninth—or thereabouts—century?" asked Malcom, with wondering eyes.
"I mean to say just that, Malcom. But I must tell you something more about this same Greek Byzantine painting, for there is a school of it to-day. Should you go to Southern Italy or to Russia, you would find many booths for trading, in the back of which you would see a Madonna, or some saint, painted in just this style. These pictures have gained a superstitious value among the lower classes of the people, and are believed to possess a miraculous power. In Mt. Athos, Greece, is a school that still produces them. Doubtless this has grown out of the fact that several of these old paintings, notably Madonnas, are treasured in the churches, and the people are taught that miracles have been wrought by them. In the Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome, is an example (the people are told that it was painted by St. Luke), and during the plague in Rome, and also during a great fire which was most disastrous, this painting was borne through the city by priests in holy procession, and the tradition is that both plague and fire were stayed."
"What a painfully ridiculous figure!" exclaimed Barbara, who had been silently absorbed in study. "It is painful because every line looks as if the artist had done his very best, and that is so utterly bad. It means absolutely nothing."
"You have fathomed the woful secret," replied Mr. Sumner. "It shows no evidence of the slightest thought. Only a man's fingers produced this. All power of originality had become lost; all desire for it was unknown."
"Then, how did things ever get better?" asked Malcom.
"An interesting question. I wish you all would read some before I tell you any more. Find something, please, that treats of the beginnings of Christian art in the Catacombs of Rome. Read about the manuscript illuminations produced by monks of the tenth and eleventh centuries, which are to be found in some great libraries. In these we find the best art of that time,"
ACADEMY, FLORENCE. BYZANTINE MAGDALEN.
"If you find anything about Cimabue and Giotto," he added, "you would better read that also, for the work of these old painters will be the subject of our next lesson. For it, we will go to the church Santa Maria Novella."
"And Santa Croce?" asked Barbara, more timidly than was her wont.
"And Santa Croce too," smilingly added Mr. Sumner.
"And now, Malcom, if you can find a wide carriage, we all will drive for an hour before going home."