The morning of Easter-day, Lamberto degli Amidei, this Mosca de’ Lamberti and others, informed that Buondelmonte was to make an excursion on the opposite shore of the Arno, waited his passage at the head of the Ponte Vecchio, where at that time stood a statue of Mars. The young man soon appeared, attired in white robes, and mounted on a superb courser caparisoned with white also. As he arrived near the statue’s pedestal, they rushed upon him, and dragged him from his horse. Mosca Lamberti and Amidei forced him down into the dust and slaughtered him. This was the rallying word: for the murder was hardly perpetrated, when the whole city rose in arms, and divided in two factions: those of Buondelmonte’s party bearing the Guelph banner; those of the Uberti and Amidei fighting beneath the Ghibelline.
Thus the first demonstration of their differences of opinion rose from a private quarrel, as through their bloody feuds in after times, private interests and private vengeance found a mask under the names of pope and emperor.
To Santa Croce this morning. The unfinished façade of the church, destined to be cased in marble, (a work which was begun and abandoned,) closes at its extremity the Piazza where in republican days were spectacles given and rejoicings made. On the right of this melancholy square is the Palazzo Borgo, with its exterior still exhibiting the faded frescoes, which, executed by the best artists of the time, among the rest Giovanni di San Giovanni, were completed in twenty-seven days. The good drawing may be distinguished still; the colours will soon have wholly disappeared. The church is remarkable as containing, besides some fine paintings, the tombs or cenotaphs of some of the greatest of Florence. On the right hand entering, (opposite the inscription on the column to the memory of Francesco Neri, murdered in the cathedral the day young Julian perished,) is the monument to Michael Angelo, whose remains the citizens of Rome, where he died, were anxious to keep possession of after his death, as they had been proud of his presence during his life; but which Florence, loth to yield, seized by stratagem, for the corpse of her glorious child was transported to his birthplace in a case destined for merchandise. He died in 1564, the year in which Galileo was born; the sarcophagus raised over his ashes is surmounted by his bust, and round it weep the figures of Sculpture, Painting and Architecture. The monument which follows this is by Ricci, and dedicated to Dante’s memory, though not raised above his corpse, which Ravenna refused to the ungrateful city. It is a stiff assemblage of colossal figures, the best being that of Poetry, leaning her head on the arm which rests on the cenotaph and dropping the wreath from her hand. Italy stands bolt upright folded in a blanket, and with a tower on her head, one arm stretched upward, the other holding a sceptre, resembling the pole of a French bed. Dante’s figure surmounts the monument heavily and ungracefully, and seated in an arm-chair, looking down on the personages who weep for his loss. A contrast to this is the noble tomb of Victor Alfieri, the work of Canova. The medallion containing his likeness is placed on the sarcophagus, and over it stoops and weeps Italy with the grace of a goddess, and the sorrow of his love; it was erected at the expense of the Countess of Albany. Opposite is the white marble pulpit, whose compartments exhibit the sculptured story of St. Francis, by Benedetto da Maiano; the small figures below are those of Faith, Hope, Charity, Force and Justice, and it is difficult to see anything more beautiful. The next mausoleum is that to the memory of Nicholas Machiavelli, with its fine and perhaps unmerited epitaph, “Tantonomini nullum par eulogium, Machiavelli”—the extraordinary man of whom it remains undecided, whether he wrote to corrupt or warn; who poor, and having a family to provide for, retired in an insignificant village, passed his mornings in superintending his labourers, in taking birds by the net, or in the study of Petrarch and Dante, and his evenings in the composition of the works which remain to his shame or his honour. Near the entrance door on the left hand is the tomb of Galileo, his bust surmounting the funereal urn, the figures of Geometry and Astronomy standing at either side: all honour paid to the memory of the man whose life was calumniated, and whose person persecuted; who, destined when young to the study of medicine, followed alone, and despite his father’s will, that of mathematics, till arrived at the sixth book of Euclid, transported with the utility of his beloved science, he sought his parent, confessed his progress, and implored him to oppose it no farther; whose success conducted him before the tribunal of the Inquisition to abjure there, and on his knees, when aged seventy, the “error of his doctrine, which affirmed the motion of the earth, and the heresy of which he had been guilty;” who murmured, as he arose from a position more humiliating to his ignorant judges than to himself, “E pur si muove;” and who died blind eight years after, in 1642, the year in which Newton was born.
A door beside the church, and on the Place, opens on a corridor, paved and lined with tombstones, forming one side of the cloister, to which, at the extremity of this open funereal gallery, a flight of steps leads down under the monument elevated against the wall, the ancient marble sarcophagus, on which lies the figure of a bishop in his robes, while on the side is carved the Resurrection: it is the tomb of Gaston della Torre, head of the Guelph faction, son of Conrad lord of Milan. The elegant chapel with its cupola and Corinthian columns was raised by command of the Pazzi family, on the design of Brunelleschi. Crossing this cloister, with its well and cabbage garden in the centre, I pushed open the door of a second like itself, similar even to the cabbage crop, but consecrated to the sole use of the friars; for above another door, which shuts in a staircase leading within the convent, was inscribed in large letters, “Silenzium;” so that fearing to disturb the invisible brethren, we went away, and to the church of San Lorenzo, less remarkable for its own beauty than the tombs of its sagrestia by Michael Angelo, and its Cappella de’ Principi separated from it by an iron grating only; a rich homage offered to corruption. We had already gone thither at an undue hour, and to-day also mass was being performed, and the crowd of Florentine poor, whose pious filthiness one fears to approach, kneeling over the floor. We determined on waiting patiently, and stood, fearing to disturb the service, quietly examining the pavement stone, which between the high altar and the Chapel of the Princes is the monument of Cosmo, Pater Patriæ: it bears a simple inscription, indicating that he was so named by a public decree, lived 75 years, and lies below.
A good natured priest, who just then crossed the church with some Italian ladies, seeing we were strangers, made us a sign to follow, which we obeyed; and notwithstanding the just commenced ceremonial, he took the office of cicerone, and led the way into the new sacristy, so is called that built during Clement the Seventh’s pontificate, and after Michael Angelo’s designs. On the right hand on entering is the tomb of Julian of Medicis, duke of Nemours, the warrior above seated in a niche, the celebrated figures of Day and Night couched on the monument. Opposite is the mausoleum of Lorenzo, duke of Urbino, himself in his niche likewise; a similar tomb below bearing the figures of Twilight and Aurora. The face of Twilight is unfinished. They were the nightly task of the sculptor, when employed by day on the fortifications of San Miniato; by a strange contradiction in the character of an honourable man, the first destined to retard the success of the Medici, the last to establish their fame. It was he who, in reply to a verse addressed to his statue of Night, wrote the four lines of melancholy beauty, which prove his feeling for his country:—
Grateful to me, to sleep, to be of stone.
Ever while sorrow and while shame shall last,
The lack of sight and sense is happiness,
Therefore awake me not! I pray speak low.
The Madonna and Child are also the work of Michael Angelo. In this sacristy were laid the mortal remains of the Medicean family—in 1791 transported hence to the subterranean church. Our new friend, the old priest, led the way to the Cappella, which is built above, of octagon shape, with walls and pilasters of precious marbles, ornamented with the arms of the chief cities of the state, executed in “Pietre Dure,” and with the perfection which belongs to the Florentine art; lapis lazuli, verd antique, porphyry, and mother of pearl, and oriental alabaster, with the jaspers of Cyprus and Sicily, for materials. Of the six sarcophagi, constructed in Egyptian granite and green jasper of Corsica, some bear pillows of red jasper, which the weight of the jewelled crowns they carry seems to have pressed down; while in the niches over others are the gilded bronze statues of those who lie below; that of Cosmo by John of Bologna. The painting of the dome is now in progress, and seems rather gaudy than good. The priest led us thence to the old sacristy, built before the church itself; its architect was Brunelleschi, and in its centre is a mausoleum, by Donatello, to the memory of two Medici.