In Santa Croce we hastily visited the monument erected to Alfieri by the Countess of Albany, and the tombs of Machiavelli, Galileo, and Raphael Morghen. The last has a mural background of florid marble, of a light red color, with a recumbent figure in white marble, and an elaborate medallion of the same material, representing the Madonna, infant and saints. I fully hoped and intended to revisit this venerable and interesting church, but was never able to do so. It has lately received, as all the world knows, a fine front in pure white marble, adorned by bas-reliefs executed by the popular sculptor Fedi. In the square before the church stands the new statue of Dante, which I found graceful, but not grandiose, nor indeed characteristic. The face bears no trace of the great poem; the awe and dignity of super-human visions do not appear in its lines. He, making hell and heaven present to our thoughts, did a far deeper and more difficult work than those accomplished who made their material semblance present to our eyes.
The remainder of this morning we devoted to the gallery of the Uffizi, the artistic pendant of the Pitti. We hastily make its circuit with a friend who points out to us the portraits of Alfieri and the Countess of Albany, his lady and companion. The head of Alfieri is bold and striking, the hair red, the temperament showing more of the northern energy than of the southern passion. The sobriety of his works and laborious character of his composition also evince this. The countess, painted from mature life, shows no very marked characteristic. Hers is the face of an intelligent woman, but her especial charm does not appear in this portrait.
The Uffizi collection appears to have been at once increased and rearranged during the three and twenty years of our absence. We find the Niobides grouped in an order different from that in which we remember them. The portrait gallery of modern artists is for us a new feature, and one which, alas! we have not time to study, seeing that the great chefs-d'œuvres imperiously challenge our attention, and that our time is very short for them. We spend a dreamy hour in the Tribune, whose very circumscription is a relief. Here we are not afraid of missing anything. This étui of gems is so perfectly arranged and inventoried that the absence of any one of them would at once be perceived. Here stands the Venus, in incomparable nudity. Here the Slave still sharpens his instrument—the classic Boxers hold each other in close struggle. Raphael, Correggio, Michael Angelo, Carlo Dolce, are all here in concentration. You can look from one to the other, and read the pictorial language of their dissents and arguments. A splendid Paul Veronese, in half figures, merits well its place here. It represents a Madonna and attendant female saint: the hair and costumes are of the richest Venetian type; and though the crinkles of the one and the stripes of the other scarcely suggest the fashions of Palestine, they make in themselves a very gorgeous presentment. In the other rooms we remember some of the finest Raphaels, a magnificent Perugino, Sodoma's beautiful St. Sebastian, a famous Salutation of Mary and Elizabeth, by Albertinelli, a very tipsy and impudent Silenus by Rubens, with other pictures of his which I cannot characterize. The Vandykes were all hung too high to be well seen. They did not seem nearly so fine as the Vandykes in the Brignoli Palace in Genoa. Here are some of Beato Angelico's finest works, among others his famous triptych, from whose bordering of miniature angels so many copies are constantly made. Here is also a well-known Leonardo da Vinci, as well as Raphael's portraits of Leo Tenth, attended by a cardinal and another dignitary. A narrow gallery is occupied by numerous marble alto relievos by Luca della Robbia and Donatello; here is also a marble bas-relief of the Madonna and Child, the work of the great Michael.
By knocking at a side door you gain admittance into a small chamber, whose glass cases contain works of art in gold, crystal, and precious stones. Here is a famous cup, upon whose cover a golden Hercules encounters the many heads of the Hydra, brilliant with varied enamels, the work of Benvenuto Cellini. Miniature busts in agate and jasper, small columns of the same materials,—these are some of the features which my treacherous memory records. It has, however, let slip most of what is precious and characteristic in this collection. The Uffizi demands at least a week's study for even the slightest sketch of its contents. We had but a week for all Florence, and tasted of the great treasure only on this day, and a subsequent one still more hurried. In remembrance, therefore, we can only salute it with a free confession of our insufficiency.
Thursday.—A dies non for the galleries. It was a Festa, and they were all closed. So was the Bargello. The Boboli gardens were not open till noon, at which time the heat made them scarcely occupable. We visited the Church of San Michele, which was formerly a Loggia, or building with open sides and arches, like others still existing in various parts of the city. The filling up of these open arches changed it into a church. They tell us that it is to be reconverted into a Loggia, to answer the present necessities of the over-crowded city. Here we found a curious tabernacle, carved in marble—a square enclosure, with much detail of execution, and, on the whole, a Gothic effect. Tombs, monuments, and old mosaic pavement this temple also contains; but I cannot recall its details.
The afternoon of this day we employed partly in a visit to the two tombs beside which American feet will be sure to pause. Here, in this sculptured sarcophagus, sleeps the dust of E. B. B. Here, beneath this granite cross, lie the remains of Theodore Parker. At the first, I seemed to hear the stifled sobs that mourned a private sorrow too great to take account of the public loss. For what she gave the world, rich and precious as it was, was less than that inner, unalienable jewel which she could not give but in giving herself. And he who had both, the singer and her song, now goes through the world interrogating the ranks of womanhood for her peer. Seek it not! She was unique. She died and left no fellow.
A soberer cortege, probably, followed Theodore to his final resting-place. The grief of poets is ecstatic, and cannot be thought of without dramatic light and shade, imagined, if not known of. A sorrowing, patient woman, faithful through all reverses, stood beside the grave of the great preacher, the mighty disputant. She remembered that it had always been peace between her and this church militant. From every raid, every foray, into the disputed grounds of theory and opinion, she kept open for him a return to the orthodoxy of domestic life. The basis of his days was a calm, well-ordered household, whose doors were opened or shut in accordance with his desire of the moment. Would he receive his whole congregation, or a meeting of the clergy, or a company more mixed and fashionable? The simple, well-appointed rooms were always in order; the lights were always clear; the carpets swept; the books and engravings in nice order. The staid New England women-servants brought in the refreshments, excellent of their kind, and carefully selected for their suitableness to the occasion. The wife sat or moved unobtrusively among her guests; but she loved Theodore's friends, and made his visitors welcome. If Theodore had war without, and it became his business to have it, he had ever peace within. And this it was pleasant and exemplary to remember, standing beside his grave.
How often have I, in thought, linked these two graves together, striving to find a middle term or point of meeting for them both! The distant image of the spot was sacred and dear to me. The person of the one, the character of the other, were fixed among my affections. For let me say here that though I have criticised Parker's theology, adopting neither his methods nor his conclusions, of Parker himself I have never ceased to think as of a person with a grand and earnest scope, of large powers and generous nature. He was tender in large and in little, a sympathist in practice as well as a philanthropist in theory. My heart still warms and expands at the remembrance of what he was in the pulpit and at the fireside. Nor was he the less a stern moralist because he considered the ordinary theories of sin as unjust and insufficient. No one would better console you for a sin deplored, no one could more forcibly deprecate a sin contemplated. He painted his time more wicked than it was, and saw it so. A modern Dante, all in the force of prose, E. B. B. lies here like the sweet Beatrice, who was at hand when the cruel task of criticism was over, to build before the corrected vision of the great pilgrim the silvery shrines and turrets of the New Jerusalem. So will we leave them—a lesser Dante, a greater Beatrice, and one who has borne record of herself.
VENICE.
Venice, which I seek to hold fast, is already a thing of yesterday. "Haste is of the devil," truly says the Koran, whose prophet yet knew its value. But the strokes of the pen need deliberation as much as those of the sword need swiftness. Strength goes with Time, and skill against him.