The Church of San Lorenzo we must visit, to view: the wonders it contains in monuments from Angelo's chisel. In the new sacristy of this church, which is a monumental chapel designed by Michael Angelo, are his two great marble monuments, one to Lorenzo, father of Catherine de' Medici, and the other to Giuliano de' Medici. Each of these monuments is a casket or sarcophagus supported by two colossal reclining figures on each side, and surmounted above by colossal statues of the deceased in armor, seated, with a background of pillars, cornice, and elegant architectural design. The two colossal reclining figures on Lorenzo's tomb are called "Day" and "Night," and those on Giuliano's "Morning" and "Evening." All of these four figures were of wonderful power, and make a strong impression on the spectator; but there are two more.
Upon the top of Giuliano's tomb sits his statue, that of a Roman general partly clad in armor, with a truncheon lying across his lap, and his head turned on one side, as if thoughtfully gazing at something in the distance. On Lorenzo's sits a figure we recognize instantly as one we have seen a hundred times in bronze, in shop windows, and upon marble clock tops; but did we ever recognize in the base copies the marvellous beauty and the grandeur of expression seen in the original? A man in full armor, seated, absorbed in thought, his face resting upon his hand, and that face beneath his over-shadowing helm, so full of deep, quiet, meditative thought, that you involuntarily wait for a play of the features to reveal the deep, calm workings of the great mind behind it. The whole attitude of the figure is unstudied, graceful, and natural—the most natural attitude of a great warrior absorbed in profound meditation. It was hard to tear yourself away from quiet, wondrous admiration of this superb statue.
The first thing one inquires for on shopping excursions in Florence is the Florentine mosaics, those ingenious specimens of painting in colored stone, in breast-pins, bracelets, or sleeve buttons. As all know, these mosaic pictures are made by joining together small pieces of stone of the natural color into figures of flowers, fruits, animals, and birds, the stone being first sawed by fine saws into very thin veneers, and the design fitted upon a background of polished slate. These differ from the Roman mosaic, inasmuch as the color of the latter is artificial; the workmanship of the Florentine is also more elegant. Tourists are apt here, as elsewhere on the continent, to be imposed upon by venders of cheap and spurious imitations of originals, and will find that the really beautiful and artistic ones, although surprisingly cheap in comparison with the prices charged in America, cost a tolerably good sum, for the manufacture of them is tedious, requiring much care and patience. Besides, there were so many American tourists, before the present war, constantly passing through Florence, as to make a constant good, fair retail demand for them. Cheap ones could be purchased from two to ten francs each, of course unmounted, while the price of the more beautiful ranged from fifteen to sixty francs. We purchased an elegant one for a lady's pin at forty-five, which, as usual, was marked fifty, and which a native might possibly have bought for forty. The difference in the price of Italian and American labor was discovered in the price charged by a Boston jeweller in setting up this bauble in the plainest possible style, which nearly trebled its price.
After having visited the mosaic shops, the tourist is, in a measure, prepared for the elaborate specimens of the art which are exhibited in the construction of the Medicean Chapel, which is attached to the Church of San Lorenzo, and which is the most extravagant and costly interior of its kind that can possibly be imagined. It is a huge octagonal room, surmounted by a beautiful cupola elegantly painted in fresco; the scenes are of various scriptural subjects, such as Adam and Eve, the crucifixion, resurrection, last judgment, &c.
The lofty sides of this chapel or costly mausoleum, to the grand ducal family, are completely sheathed in the richest marbles, elegantly polished jasper and chalcedony, glittering agate of different colors, malachite, and lapis lazuli. All around, rising tier above tier, are sarcophagi and cenotaphs of the Medici, wrought from the richest and costliest stone, polished to a mirror-like surface, and decorated with unparalleled richness. At different points in the walls were the armorial bearings of different families, the shields, the richest and most beautiful Florentine mosaic work imaginable, even carnelian and coral being employed in some of the coats to give the proper shadings to the elegant emblematical designs. The sarcophagi are inscribed each with the name of the illustrious personage whose ashes they represent the casket of, the remains of the different grand dukes being deposited in a crypt below this chapel. A representation of a large cushion, upon which rests the ducal crown, all carved from colored stone, is a most wonderful work of art, and the beautiful tomb of Cosimo II., by John of Bologna, rich and elegant. This wondrous funeral chamber, in costly marble, sparkling with precious stones and elegant decorations, is said to have cost over seventeen millions of dollars, and, as a distinguished writer remarks, "recalls our youthful visions of Aladdin's palace."
He who takes pleasure in visiting old churches and cathedrals may keep tolerably busy for many days, even weeks, in Florence; as for ourselves, we found the plethora of scriptural pictures, architectural effects, and wondrous carvings, memorial cenotaphs, and historical relics was beginning to work confusion in our mind, and destroy the pleasant effect of those already viewed; it was, therefore, not without reluctance that we gave up our design of seeing all the churches in Florence; indeed, we cannot undertake, in the space of these pages, to attempt description of all that we did see in this city, so crammed with objects of interest to the lover of art or enthusiastic tourist. The old church and convent of San Marco, with its pictures by Fra Angelico, and its convent, into which no female tourist is admitted; Santa Maria Novella, full of pictures and frescoes; Santo Spirito and others, will give the traveller all he wants of the wonders of Florence's religious edifices, and he may also find, as we did, that there is apparently more thoroughly honest support, or we may say blind attachment, to the Romish church by its adherents in the city of New York, than in this Roman Catholic Italian city. The better portion of the common people have lost respect for the idle priests by whom they have been surrounded, and several with whom we conversed did not hesitate to express their hopes in favor of Garibaldi, and that be might ere long "drive out the pope from Rome, who ought to wield no temporal power."
The carriage-driver, who drove us about to various sacred edifices, and who spoke French tolerably, bent his knee reverently when passing the high altar, but, on finding the portals of one church closed, left, with not very pious ejaculations, to find the attendant priest to admit us, vowing that they did more eating than kneeling, more drinking than praying, and were of more injury than service to Italy. Rather strong expressions these appeared to us from an Italian Romanist, in one of the strongholds of the church; but judging from recent accounts from Rome, some of this pious individual's wishes respecting the head of the church appear likely to be gratified.
The surfeit of art in Florence fairly confounds the American tourist who has any taste that way, and who has resolved to give, in his fashion of reckoning, the liberal time of eight or ten days to seeing the city and its treasures. The splendid Pitti Palace contains a better collection of paintings, as a whole, than the Uffizi Gallery. They are also well arranged; and O, boon to sight-seers! chairs and sofas are placed in various places, where one may rest the tired limbs and aching vertebræ.
Besides vestibules, corridors, &c., there are fifteen grand halls, named from the heathen deities, and each elegantly decorated in great frescoes on the ceiling, illustrative of the deity for which it is named. Thus the Hall of Mars has its ceiling decorated with battle scenes, and allegorical figures of War, Peace, and Victory. The Hall of Jupiter has a grand painting of Hercules presenting some other individual to the Thunderer, and the Hall of the Iliad has scenes from the Homeric poem.
Here, in the Hall of Venus, we saw great views of coast scenery from Salvator Rosa's pencil, Titian's Marriage of St. Catherine, and splendid landscapes from the industrious brush of Rubens.