All the way down the gallery are statues and busts. There are the Roman emperors, far more familiar to me through their counterfeit presentments than through the pages of history. Augustus, Diocletian, Trajan: to us girls they were studies in hair-dressing, if in nothing else. Some of them with flowing locks, some with close, short curls, some with hair parted in the middle and laid in long, smooth curls, like a woman. Of such was Heliogabulus, and of such was Vitellius.
One morning—soon after we came to Florence—we started off upon a quest—through the Uffizi—Millie, Eva and I, and our elders. The object of our quest was no less a goddess than she called of the Medici.
I remember that we wandered down the long gallery I have described, and through room after room. It was the fancy of our mamma, and the uncle who was taking care of us all, to find their way about for themselves. For instance: if we had been told that a certain picture, by a certain master, was to be found in a certain palace, we roamed in and out around the other pictures until the picture revealed itself to us. It was surprising how seldom we were deceived in this method of ours. We would pass by dozens of pictures by inferior artists, completely unmoved; then, suddenly, a thrilling vision of beauty would glow upon us, and we would acknowledge ourselves to be in a royal presence-chamber.
Such a presence-chamber is the Tribune in the Uffizi palace. We came upon many marble Venuses before we arrived in this Tribune, a large, octagon room, with a domed ceiling, blue, flecked with gold stars; but we passed them all by—until finally we entered the reverent stillness which is kept about the Venus of Venuses. We recognized her at once. There she stood, in that silent room, the light subdued to a judicious mellowness—beautiful with the fresh, smiling beauty of perpetual youth; beautiful with the same beauty that gladdened the heart of the Greek artist who carved her, hundreds of years ago; so many hundreds of years that the marble has in consequence, the rich cream-color of old ivory.
In this same Tribune hangs the portrait of a beautiful young woman, called the Fornarina. Of her only this is known, that she was the beloved of Raphael, and that she was the daughter of a baker in Rome. Fornarina means little bakeress, or, perhaps we should say, baker-girl. But this Fornarina might be a princess. An “ox-eyed Juno” princess, dark and glowing, with a serene composure about her that one remembers as her most striking characteristic.
Raphael’s lady-love. Millie and I knew more about her than was ever written in books. Not reliable gossip—gossip of our own invention, but gossip that delighted our hearts.
Other pictures by Raphael hang here, too. How distinctly I recall them. How vivid are all the works of this great painter! The critics say that one who excelled in so many things, excelled also in expression. Yes. It is this which gives to his pictures the distinctness of photographs from life. They are dramatic. They take you at once into the spirit of the scene represented. They are full of soul, and herein lies the great difference between Raphael’s works and those of other schools, the Venetian, for instance. The painters of Venice aimed at effects of color; Raphael used color only in order to express a loftier thought.
Are you tired of the Uffizi? Come with me, for a few minutes, before we go, into the Hall of Niobe. Words fail me to relate with what mingled emotions of sympathy, distress and delight we children used to haunt this hall, and examine each sculptured form in turn. The story goes that Niobe incurred the displeasure of Diana and Apollo, who wreaked their vengeance upon the mother by killing her fourteen children. At the head of the hall stands Niobe, convulsed with grief, vainly imploring the angry brother and sister to show compassion, and at the same time protecting the youngest child, who is clinging to her. But we feel that both intercession and protection will be in vain. On the other side of the hall are her sons and daughters. Some already pierced with arrows, stiff in death; some in the attitude of flight, some staggering to the ground. It is an easy matter for the imagination to picture the supreme moment when, bereft of all her children, the mother’s heart breaks, and she is turned to stone. The legend relates that that stone wept tears. Nor was it a difficult matter for me to take this on faith. What is more, many is the time I have planted myself before the very marble Niobe in the Uffizi, firmly expecting to see the tears flow down her cheeks.
