The famous Gallery surrounds three sides of a court which opens into this square; the upper story was originally an open gallery, which it has been found necessary to inclose, to protect the works of art which are treasured there. The architecture perhaps was never very good, but the building must have been much handsomer before this alteration.
The Palazzo Pitti, the present residence of the grand duke, though of a much later, is hardly of a less massive construction than the Palazzo Vecchio. It was built by Luca Pitti, a friend of the Medici, from designs by Brunelleschi; and the court, which is the part most admired, is an attempt to engraft the Roman orders on the bold and irregular rustics of the Florentine architecture. It has three orders of pilasters banded with rustics of the rudest appearance, and half buried in them. The inside contains some fine rooms, and a matchless collection of pictures, but of this I must not say a word. I might mention a great many other palaces, some of which boast peculiar excellences in particular parts, but on the whole I think the Palazzo Riccardi is the best example of the true Florentine style. It was built by Cosmo, (pater patriæ) from designs of Michelozzo, but was purchased by the Marchese Riccardi in 1659, for 41,000 scudi, and considerably enlarged. The principal story now exhibits a range of seventeen large arched windows, each divided by a mullion into two parts, which are likewise arched. These windows are very large, and the space between is not quite equal to the opening and mouldings; but the width of the latter is not great, as there is no architrave or archivolt. The arch-stones are long, and strongly rusticated, the external line forming a portion of a circle not concentric with that of the opening. The height of the windows occupies about half the space between the two cornices. On the ground floor are five large doorways, and ten small square windows. This story is very lofty: a continued stone projection forms a seat along the base of the building. The rustications are some of them very deep, more so in this story than in the upper ones, but they are very unequal, as they usually are in the Florentine buildings. I have measured in the same front, some of more than a foot in projection, and others of less than two inches. In this story, we frequently see a small opening, at which wine is, or has been sold. The upper story is like the principal, except in height, and it is crowned with an enormous cornice, occupying about one-tenth of the whole elevation of the building. A corresponding frieze and architrave would include the whole upper story. It is objected as a fault to this building that the openings in the lower story do not correspond with the upper ones, and the criticism is very just, as applied to the larger openings, but with respect to the above-mentioned ten small windows, it is perhaps rather an advantage. Without disputing the general rule, that the openings should be perpendicularly over one another, it seems to me that two exceptions may fairly be made: the first in small buildings of no pretension to magnificence, where the appearance of convenience may be allowed to outweigh the character of durability; for it is to be observed, that a building may both be, and appear, perfectly sufficient for its present existence, where this rule is not adhered to; but it will not have the air of being intended to last for centuries. It is the habitation of an individual, not that of an illustrious family. The other, is where the general appearance is so solid, and the openings are so small, that it seems not to matter where they are put; and in that case, their very want of correspondence announces an exuberance of power which disdains attention to trifles, and what is in some degree a source of absolute weakness, becomes a mean of expressing strength.
The Strozzi Palace is more generally admired than the Riccardi; partly on account of the irregularity just mentioned in the windows of the latter, and partly from the greater beauty and finish of the subordinate parts of the former. The enormous cornice in particular, seven feet, nine inches in height, is highly valued, both for its proportions, and its execution. I fully acknowledge its merits in both respects, but I think it too large even for the gigantic building which it crowns; and its highly finished character is not in harmony with the massive rudeness of the lower parts. In every building where this great cornice is adopted, it gives to the upper story the appearance of being much higher than the others, but without larger windows. In fact there seems to be a want of good sense in this ponderous architecture as applied to private buildings; and I admire without being pleased. Yet I acknowledge that even some of the smaller mansions of this style have considerable merit, but it would appear ridiculous in houses so small as ours in London. The parts must be large, though they need not be numerous. Sometimes, a striking contrast is produced by a light open gallery surmounting these solid masses, and the effect is highly picturesque. A house in the Piazza del Granduca (Pandolfini) is attributed to Raphael, but perhaps without sufficient authority. The lower story is rustic; the next has an Ionic order of coupled pilasters on high plinths; the third, a similar Corinthian one, on pedestals so lofty, that they might rather be called stilts: the composition is not pleasing, but only a very small part of the design has been executed, and it would look better if more extended. The Casa Michelozzi is sometimes said to be the production of Michael Angelo, but is more probably that of G. Antonio Dosio. It is small, but handsome, though perhaps rather clumsy in the details.
LETTER XXII.
JOURNEY TO ROME.
Rome, 2nd January, 1817.
My impatience to arrive at Rome did not permit me to remain long at Florence, and I must postpone any account of its neighbourhood to my next visit, which I hope will be in a more favourable time of year; but I must say a few words on Fiesole, which I have visited, and found the walk to it most delightful, even on Christmas-day; as it is situated on a hill, the ascent to which completely commands the rich and beautiful valley of the Arno. There are some fragments of Ionic columns near the convent of St. Francis, which is supposed to occupy the situation of the ancient citadel of this little rival of Florence; and there are some ancient graves, hollowed in the slaty rock, about six feet long, eighteen inches wide, and two feet and a half deep. I observed also a larger pit, of a circular plan, but enlarging, like a bell, as it descends, and was informed that two other similar ones had been discovered and filled up. If these were repositories for corn, it seems singular that we should find them in such close neighbourhood with those for the dead. Here is a Cathedral which pleased me by the uniformity of its sober brown colour, after my eye had been disgusted with the gaudy dressings of the Florentine churches; but it is a rude, and not otherwise a handsome building. A little out of the road to Fiesole is the church of the Badia, said to have been built by Brunelleschi for Cosmo, P. P. Nothing of the front is finished except a portion in marble, whose style is at least as early as the lower part of the façade of Santa Maria Novella.
I left Florence, in company with Mr. Scott, on the 26th of December, at about half past ten in the morning. Our companions were two German artists. One had been travelling about for several years, drawing landscape, which he touches very prettily. The other was a young student of eighteen, who means to spend four or five years in Rome. The journey is hilly, with more cultivation and less wood than that I had passed in coming from Bologna; yet there are some woods, and some large trees (many of which are stone pines) scattered here and there, and the cultivated land is frequently shaded with olives and vines; so that the same ground produces at one time corn, wine, and oil. The Apennines run into long lines, rising frequently into obtusely conical summits, each of which is crowned by a castle, a village, or a convent. They present no precipitous faces, but their successive ranges fall in well varied, sweeping lines, with occasionally a detached hill standing out from the great body. We slept at a little place called Poggi Bonzi, once an independent republic, which we left at five the next morning. There are some very picturesque castelli on the road. The English castle is, or was, a fortified house; these Italian castelli were fortified villages. As we approach Siena, the villas are numerous; and as the Vetturino enumerated the excellences of each, he never failed to mention the ice-house and the garden-theatre.
Siena occupies the irregular summit of a commanding eminence, and contains in itself many interesting objects; but I was rather surprised to find the Florentine guttural so strongly retained in the pronunciation. The first time I heard this Tuscan peculiarity, it was in the expression Riveris-ho vossignoria, but though called a guttural, it would be more correct (in Florence, at least,) to call it a very strong aspiration. “How is this room called?” I asked at the Corsini Palace at Florence, which was the first I went to see, La sehonda antihamera was the reply. At Siena, in the chapel of the hospital, I inquired the name of the author of one of the pictures, and was told in reply, that it was Sebastiano Honha. I thought the sound more guttural than at Florence; but my guide was a native of Siena. This pronunciation is not peculiar to the common people of Tuscany; you hear it from all ranks. To make amends, they pronounce the h in Latin words as if it were k. The Florentines also pronounce ci, ce, in the manner which, in our mode of spelling, would be indicated by she, sha, and they often give a nasal tone to their words. I do not know how far these customs extend.
The Piazza, i. e. the principal opening in the city, the square, if you please, only it is frequently, as in this instance, not rectangular, is like half a great shallow basin, or rather like half a tea-saucer, with the government palace and its lofty tower at the bottom.
The Cathedral is only a small part of what was intended. It was founded, as we are told, in the thirteenth century, but it is not all of one date; and the tower appears to be older than the rest, as it much resembles that of S. Zeno at Verona. The front was erected in 1284 by Giovanni di Pisa. It a good deal resembles that of the cathedral at Orvieto, erected probably about the same time by Lorenzo Maytani, a Sienese, whose name I have met with on no other occasion; it is ornamented with horizontal bands of black and white marble; and this disposition, which prevails all through the building, is said to have been adopted because the banner of Siena is in black and white stripes; but the Italians are fond of stripes, and they frequently occur where no such explanation can be given. It is a rich, but hardly handsome front. Its great defect is that the apparent solids are not placed well above each other. A great many fragments remain, of the parts once intended, and begun, but not completed. They prove the immense size of the design. The present nave and choir were to have formed the two arms of the cross; but as the dome at the intersection rises on an hexagonal plan, two sides of which open into the present nave and choir, it follows that an angle and its supporting pier would have been in the middle of the opening of the new nave. The walls are striped internally, in the same manner as on the outside, but in the lower part this is not very offensive, because the marble has there acquired a warm tinge, which does not extend equally to the upper part; however, the effect is much softened by the painting and gilding of the vaults. The piers are crippled, and it appears by the swelling of the pavement, that they have sunk a little into the ground. The lower arches of the nave are semicircular, but those of the clerestory, and the windows in them, are painted; with tracery such as in England we might refer to the beginning of the reign of Edward III. The continued vaulting of the nave, as well as of the side aisles, is semicircular. The capitals are ornamented with foliage and figures. There is no triforium.