Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber

by J. A. Wylie

CHAPTER XIX.

FLORENCE AND ITS YOUNG EVANGELISM.

Beauty of Position—Focus of Italian Art—Education on the Æsthetic Principle—Effects as shown in the Character and Manners of the Florentines—The result not Civilization, but Barbarism—The Artizans of Britain surpass the Florentines in Civilization—Early English Scholars at Florence—Man's Power for Good—Savonarolo—History of present Religious Movement in Tuscany—Condition of Tuscan Government and Priesthood prior to 1848—Attempts to introduce Religious Books—The Priests compel the Government to interfere—The Revolution of 1848—The Bible translated and seized—Visit of Vaudois Pastors—Secret Religious Press—Work now carried on by the Converts—Denunciation of Death for Bible Reading—Great Increase of Converts notwithstanding—Present State and Prospects of Movement—Leave Florence—Beauty of the Vale of the Arno—Pisa—Arrive at Leghorn.

Of Florence "the Beautiful," I must say that its beauty appeared scarce equal to its fame. In an age when the capitals of northern Europe were of wood, the Queen of the Arno may have been without a rival on the north of the Alps; but now finer streets, handsomer squares, and nobler façades, may be seen in any of our second-rate towns. But its dome, by Brunelleschi, the largest in the world,—its tall campanile,—its baptistry, with its beautiful gates,—and its public statuary,—are worthy of all admiration. Its environs are superb.

Florence is sweetly embosomed in an amphitheatre of mountains, of the most lovely forms and the richest and brightest colouring. Castles and convents crown their summits; while their slopes display the pillar-like cypress, the gray olive, the festooned vine, with a multitude of embowered villas. On the north-east, right in the fork of the Apennines, lie the bosky and wooded dells of Valombrosa. On the north, seated on a pyramidal hill, is the ancient Fiesole, which the genius of Milton has touched and immortalized. On the west are the spacious lawns and parks of the Grand Duke; while the noble valley runs off to the south-west, carpeted with vines, or covered with chestnut woods, with the Arno stealing silently through it in long reaches to the sea. During my stay, the girdling Apennines were tipped with the snows of winter; and when the sun shone out, they formed a gleaming circlet around the green valley, like a ring of silver enclosing an enormous emerald. I saw the sun but seldom, however. The bad weather which had overtaken me amid the Apennines descended with me into the valley of the Arno; and murky clouds, with torrents of rain, but too often obscured the sky. But I could fancy the delicious beauty of a summer eve in Florence, with the still balmy air enwrapping the purple hills, the tall cypresses, the domes, and the gently stealing waters. In spring the region must be a very paradise. Indeed, spring is seldom absent from the banks of the Arno; for though at times savage Winter is heard growling amid the Apennines, he dare seldom venture farther than midway down their slopes.

I cannot recall the past glories of Florence, or even touch on Cosmo's "immortal century;" I cannot speak of its galleries, so rich in painting, so unrivalled in statuary; nor can I enter its Pitti palace, with its hanging gardens; or the city churches, with their store of frescoes and paintings; or its Santa Crocé, with its six mighty tombs,—those even of Dante, Galileo, Machiavelli, Michael Angelo, Alfieri, Leonardo Aretino. The size of Florence brings all these objects within a manageable distance; and, during my stay of well-nigh a week, I visited them, as any one may do, almost every day. But every traveller has entered largely into their description, and I pass them over, to touch on other things more rarely brought into view.

Florence is the focus of Italian art; and here, if anywhere, one can see the effect of educating a population solely on the æsthetic principle. The Florentines have no books, no reading-rooms, no public lectures, no preaching in their churches even, bating the occasional harangue of a monk. They are left to be trained solely by fine pictures and lovely statues. From these they are expected to learn their duties as men and as citizens. The sole employment of the people is to produce these things; their sole study, to be able to admire them. The result is not civilization, but barbarism. Nor can it well be otherwise. We find the "beautiful" abundantly in nature, but never dissociated from the "useful;" teaching us that it cannot be safely sought but in union with what is true and good; and that we cannot make it "an end" without reversing the whole constitution of our nature. When a people make the love of "the beautiful" their predominant passion, they rapidly decline in the better and nobler qualities. The beautiful yields only enjoyment; and those who live only to enjoy soon become intensely selfish. That enjoyment, moreover, is immediate, and so affords no room for the exercise of patience and foresight. A race of triflers arise, who think only of the present hour. They are wholly undisciplined in the higher qualities of mind,—in perseverance and self-control; and, being withdrawn from the contemplation of facts and principles, they become incapable of attending to the useful duties of life, and are wholly unable to rise to the higher efforts of virtue and patriotism. The Italian Governments, for their own ends, have restricted their subjects to the fine arts, but at the expense of the trade, the agriculture, and the civilization, of their dominions. The fabric of British power was not raised on the æsthetic principle. Take away our books, and give us pictures; shut up our schools and churches, and give us museums and galleries; instead of our looms and forges, substitute chisels and pencils; and farewell to our greatness. The artizan of Birmingham or Glasgow is a more civilised man than the same class in the Italian cities. His dwelling, too, displays an amount of comfort and elegance which few in Italy below the rank of princes, and not always they, can command. The condition of the Italian people shows conclusively that the predominating study of "the beautiful" has a most corrupting and enfeebling effect. In fact, their pictures have paved the way for their tyrants; and when one marks their demoralizing effects, he feels how salutary is the restriction of the Decalogue against their use in Divine worship. If pictures and images lead to idolatry in the Church, their exclusive study as infallibly produces serfdom in the State.

In the early dawn of the Reformation, several of our own countrymen visited the city of the Medici, that they might have access to the works of antiquity which Cosmo had collected, and enjoy the converse of the learned men that thronged his palace. "William Selling," says D'Aubigné, "a young English ecclesiastic, afterwards distinguished at Canterbury by his zeal in collecting valuable manuscripts,—his fellow-countrymen, Grocyn, Lilly, and Latimer, 'more bashful than a maiden,'—and, above all, Linacre, whom Erasmus ranked above all the scholars of Italy,—used to meet in the delicious villa of the Medici, with Politian, Chalcondyles, and other men of learning; and there, in the calm evenings of summer, under that glorious Tuscan sky, they dreamt romantic visions of the Platonic philosophy. When they returned to England, these learned men laid before the youth of Oxford the marvellous treasures of the Greek language." We are repaying the debt, by sending to that land a better philosophy than any these learned men ever brought from it. This leads us to speak of the religious movement in progress in Tuscany.

After all, man's power for evil is extremely limited. The very opposite is the ordinary estimate. When we mark the career of a conqueror like Napoleon, or the withering effects of an organization like that of Rome, and compare these with the feeble results of a preacher like Savonarola, whose body the fire reduced to ashes, and whose disciples persecution speedily scattered, we say that man's power to destroy his species is almost omnipotent,—his power to benefit them scarce appreciable. But spread out the long cycles of history and the long ages of the world, and you learn that the triumphs of evil, though sudden, are temporary, and those of truth slow but eternal. A true word spoken by a single man has in it more power than armies, and will, in the long run, do more to bless than all that tyrannies can do to blight mankind. Savonarola, feeble as he seemed, and unprotected as he was, wielded a power greater than that of Rome. The truths sown by the preacher on the banks of the Arno so many centuries ago are not yet dead. They are springing up; and, long after Rome shall have passed away, they will be a source of liberty, of civilization, of arts, and of eternal life, to his countrymen.