A Wanderer in Florence

by E. V. Lucas

S. Croce is the Westminster Abbey of Florence. Michelangelo lies here, Machiavelli lies here, Galileo lies here; and here Giotto painted, Donatello carved, and Brunelleschi planned. Although outside the church is disappointing, within it is the most beautiful in Florence. It has the boldest arches, the best light at all seasons, the most attractive floor—of gentle red—and an apse almost wholly made of coloured glass. Not a little of its charm comes from the delicate passage-way that runs the whole course of the church high up on the yellow walls. It also has the finest circular window in Florence, over the main entrance, a "Deposition" by Ghiberti.

The lightness was indeed once so intense that no fewer than twenty-two windows had to be closed. The circular window over the altar upon which a new roof seems to be intruding is in reality the interloper: the roof is the original one, and the window was cut later, in defiance of good architecture, by Vasari, who, since he was a pupil of Michelangelo, should have known better. To him was entrusted the restoration of the church in the middle of the sixteenth century.

The original architect of the modern S. Croce was the same Arnolfo di Cambio, or Lapo, who began the Duomo. He had some right to be chosen since his father, Jacopo, or Lapo, a German, was the builder of the most famous of all the Franciscan churches—that at Assisi, which was begun while S. Francis was still living. And Giotto, who painted in that church his most famous frescoes, depicting scenes in the life of S. Francis, succeeded Arnolfo here, as at the Duomo, with equal fitness. Arnolfo began S. Croce in 1294, the year that the building of the Duomo was decided upon, as a reply to the new Dominican Church of S. Maria Novella, and to his German origin is probably due the Northern impression which the interiors both of S. Croce and the Duomo convey.

The first thing to examine in S. Croce is the floor-tomb, close to the centre door, upon which Ruskin wrote one of his most characteristic passages. The tomb is of an ancestor of Galileo (who lies close by, but beneath a florid monument), and it represents a mediaeval scholarly figure with folded hands. Ruskin writes: "That worn face is still a perfect 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 falling drapery of his cap is, in its few lines, faultless, and subtle beyond description. And now, here is a simple but most useful 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 understand Giotto's drawing, and Botticelli's; Donatello's carving and Luca's. But if you see nothing in this sculpture, you will see nothing in theirs, of theirs. Where they choose to imitate flesh, or silk, or to play any vulgar modern trick with marble—(and they often do)—whatever, in a word, is French, or American, or Cockney, in their work, you can see; but what is Florentine, and for ever great—unless you can see also the beauty of this old man in his citizen's cap,—you will see never."

The passage is in "Mornings in Florence," which begins with S. Croce and should be read by every one visiting the city. And here let me advise another companion for this church: a little dark enthusiast, in a black skull cap, named Alfred Branconi, who is usually to be found just inside the doors, but may be secured as a guide by a postcard to the church. Signor Branconi knows S. Croce and he loves it, and he has the further qualifications of knowing all Florence too and speaking excellent English, which he taught himself.

The S. Croce pulpit, which is by Benedetto da Maiano, is a satisfying thing, accomplished both in proportions and workmanship, with panels illustrating scenes in the life of S. Francis. These are all most gently and persuasively done, influenced, of course, by the Baptistery doors, but individual too, and full of a kindred sweetness and liveliness. The scenes are the "Confirmation of the Franciscan Order" (the best, I think); the "Burning of the Books"; the "Stigmata," which we shall see again in the church, in fresco, for here we are all dedicated to the saint of Assisi, not yet having come upon the stern S. Dominic, the ruler at S. Marco and S. Maria Novella; the "Death of S. Francis," very real and touching, which we shall also see again; and the execution of certain Franciscans. Benedetto, who was also an architect and made the plan of the Strozzi palace, was so unwilling that anything should mar the scheme of his pulpit, that after strengthening this pillar with the greatest care and thoroughness, he hollowed it and placed the stairs inside.

The first tomb on the right, close to this pulpit, is Michelangelo's, a mass of allegory, designed by his friend Vasari, the author of the "Lives of the Artists," the reading of which is perhaps the best preparation for the understanding of Florence. "If life pleases us," Michelangelo once said, "we ought not to be grieved by death, which comes from the same Giver." Michelangelo had intended the Pietà, now in the Duomo, to stand above his grave; but Vasari, who had a little of the Pepys in his nature, thought to do him greater honour by this ornateness. The artist was laid to his rest in 1564, but not before his body was exhumed, by his nephew, at Rome, where the great man had died, and a series of elaborate ceremonies had been performed, which Vasari, who is here trustworthy enough, describes minutely. All the artists in Florence vied in celebrating the dead master in memorial paintings for his catafalque and its surroundings, which have now perished; but probably the loss is not great, except as an example of homage, for that was a bad period. How bad it was may be a little gauged by Vasari's tributory tomb and his window over the high altar.

Opposite Michelangelo's tomb, on the pillar, is the pretty but rather Victorian "Madonna del Latte," surrounded by angels, by Bernardo Rossellino (1409-1464), brother of the author of the great tomb at S. Miniato. This pretty relief was commissioned as a family memorial by that Francesco Nori, the close friend of Lorenzo de' Medici, who was killed in the Duomo during the Pazzi conspiracy in his effort to save Lorenzo from the assassins.

The tomb of Alfieri, the dramatist, to which we now come, was erected at the cost of his mistress, the Countess of Albany, who herself sat to Canova for the figure of bereaved Italy. This curious and unfortunate woman became, at the age of nineteen, the wife of the Young Pretender, twenty-seven years after the '45, and led a miserable existence with him (due chiefly to his depravity, but a little, she always held, to the circumstance that they chose Good Friday for their wedding day) until Alfieri fell in love with her and offered his protection. Together she and the poet remained, apparently contented with each other and received by society, even by the English Royal family, until Alfieri died, in 1803, when after exclaiming that she had lost all—"consolations, support, society, all, all!"—and establishing this handsome memorial, she selected the French artist Fabre to fill the aching void in her fifty-years-old heart; and Fabre not only filled it until her death in 1824, but became the heir of all that had been bequeathed to her by both the Stuart and Alfieri. Such was the Countess of Albany, to whom human affection was so necessary. She herself is buried close by, in the chapel of the Castellani.

Mrs. Piozzi, in her "Glimpses of Italian Society," mentions seeing in Florence in 1785 the unhappy Pretender. Though old and sickly, he went much into society, sported the English arms and livery, and wore the garter.