To return to San Lorenzo. The chapel of the Medici, begun by Ferdinand the First, where coarse brickwork and plaster mingle with marble and gems, is still unfinished and likely to remain so: it did not interest me. The fine bronze sarcophagus, which encloses the ashes of Lorenzo the Magnificent, and of his brother Giuliano, assassinated by the Pazzi, interested me far more. While I was standing carelessly in front of the high altar, I happened to look down, and under my feet were these words, "To Cosmo The Venerable, the Father of his Country." I moved away in haste, and before I had decided to my own satisfaction upon Cosmo's claims to the gratitude and veneration of posterity, we left the church.
At the Laurentian library we were edified by the sight of some famous old manuscripts, invaluable to classical scholars. To my unlearned eyes the manuscript of Petrarch, containing portraits of himself and Laura, was more interesting. Petrarch is hideous—but I was pleased with the head of Laura, which in spite of the antique dryness and stiffness of the painting, has a soft and delicate expression not unlike one of Carlo Dolce's Madonnas. Here we saw Galileo's forefinger, pointing up to the skies from a white marble pedestal; and exciting more derision than respect.
At the Pietra Dura, notwithstanding the beauty and durability of some of the objects manufactured, the result seemed to me scarce worth the incredible time, patience, and labour required in the work. Par exemple, six months' hard labour spent upon a butterfly in the lid of a snuff-box seems a most disproportionate waste of time. Thirty workmen are employed here at the Grand Duke's expense; for this manufacture, like that of the Gobelins at Paris, is exclusively carried on for the sovereign.
Nov. 20.—I am struck in this place with grand beginnings and mean endings. I have not yet seen a finished church, even the Duomo has no façade.
Yesterday we visited the Palazzo Mozzi to see Benvenuto's picture, "The Night after the Battle of Jena." Then several churches—the Santa Croce, which is hallowed ground: the Annonciata, celebrated for the frescos of Andrea del Sarto; and the Carmine, which pleased me by the light elegance of its architecture, and its fine alto-relievos in white marble. In this church is the chapel of the Madonna del Carmele, painted by Masuccio, and the most ancient frescos extant: they are curious rather than beautiful, and going to decay.
To-day we visited the school of the Fine Arts: it contains a very fine and ample collection of casts after the antique; and some of the works of modern artists and students are exhibited. Were I to judge from the specimens I have seen here and elsewhere, I should say that a cold, glaring, hard tea-tray style prevails in painting, and a still worse taste, if possible, in sculpture. No soul, no grandeur, no simplicity; a meagre insipidity in the conception, a nicety of finish in the detail; affectation instead of grace, distortion instead of power, and prettiness instead of beauty. Yet the artists who execute these works, and those who buy them, have free access to the marvels of the gallery, and the treasures of the Pitti Palace. Are they sans eyes, sans souls, sans taste, sans every thing, but money and self-conceit?
Nov. 22.—Our mornings, however otherwise occupied, are generally concluded by an hour in the gallery or at the Pitti Palace; the evenings are spent in the Mercato Nuovo, in the workshops of artists, or at the Cascina.
To-day at the gallery I examined the Dutch school and the Salle des Portraits, and ended as usual with the Tribune. The Salle des Portraits contains a complete collection of the portraits of painters down to the present day. In general their respective countenances are expressive of their characters and style of painting. Poor Harlow's picture, painted by himself, is here.
The Dutch and Flemish painters (in spite of their exquisite pots and pans, and cabbages and carrots, their birch-brooms, in which you can count every twig, and their carpets, in which you can reckon every thread) do not interest me; their landscapes too, however natural, are mere Dutch nature (with some brilliant exceptions), fat cattle, clipped trees, boors, and windmills. Of course I am not speaking of Vandyke, nor of Rubens, he that "in the colours of the rainbow lived," nor of Rembrandt, that king of clouds and shadows; but for mine own part, I would give up all that Mieris, Netscher, Teniers, and Gerard Douw ever produced, for one of Claude's Eden-like creations, or one of Guido's lovely heads—or merely for the pleasure of looking at Titian's Flora once a day, I would give a whole gallery of Dutchmen, if I had them.
In the daughter of Herodias, by Leonardo da Vinci, there is the same eternal face he always paints, but with a peculiar expression—she turns away her head with the air of a fine lady, whose senses are shocked by the sight of blood and death, while her heart remains untouched either by remorse or pity.