It was quite by accident, also, on this same evening that I came upon the Piazza del Duomo where the street cars are. I did not know where I was going until suddenly turning a corner there I saw it—the Campanile at last and a portion of the Cathedral standing out soft and fair in the moonlight! I shall always be glad that I saw it so, for the strange stripe and arabesque of its stone work,—slabs of white or cream-colored stone interwoven in lovely designs with slabs of slate-colored granite, had an almost eerie effect. It might have been something borrowed from Morocco or Arabia or the Far East. The dome, too, as I drew nearer, and the Baptistery soared upwards in a magnificent way and, although afterwards I was sorry that the municipality has never had sense enough to tear out the ruck of buildings surrounding it and leave these three monuments—the Cathedral, the Campanile, and the Baptistery—standing free and clear, as at Pisa, on a great stone platform or square,—nevertheless, cramped as I think they are, they are surely beautiful.
I was not so much impressed by the interior of the cathedral. Its beauty is largely on the outside.
I ascended the Campanile still another day and from its height viewed all Florence, the windings of the Arno, San Miniato, Fiesole, but, try as I might, I could not think of it in modern terms. It was too reminiscent of the Italy of the Medici, of the Borgias, Julius II, Michelangelo and all the glittering company who were their contemporaries. One thing that was strongly impressed upon me there was that every city should have a great cathedral. Not so much as a symbol or theory of religion as an object of art, something which would indicate the perfection of the religious ideal taken from an artistic point of view. Here you can stand and admire the exquisite double windows with twisted columns, the infinite variety of the inlaid marble work, and the quaint architecture of the niches supported by columns. It was after midnight and the moon was high in the heavens shining down with a rich springlike effect before I finally returned from the Duomo Square, following the banks of the Arno and admiring the shadows cast by the cornices and so finally reached my hotel and my bed.
The Uffizi and Pitti collections of paintings are absolutely the most amazing I saw abroad. There are other wonderful collections, the Louvre being absolutely unbelievable for size; but here the art is so uniformly relative to Italy, so identified with the Renaissance, so suggestive of the influence and the patronage which gave it birth. The influence of religion, the wealth of the Catholic Church, the power of individual families such as the Medici and the Dukes of Venice are all clearly indicated. Botticelli’s “Adoration of the Magi” in the Uffizi, showing the proud Medici children, the head of Cosimo Pater Patriae, and the company of men of letters and statesmen of the time, all worked in as figures about the Christ child, tell the whole story. Art was flattering to the nobility of the day. It was dependent for its place and position upon religion, upon the patronage of the Church, and so you have endless “Annunciations,” “Adorations,” “Flights into Egypt,” “Crucifixions,” “Descents from the Cross,” “Entombments,” “Resurrections,” and the like. The sensuous “Magdalena,” painted for her form and the beauty of suggestion, you will encounter over and over again. All the saints in the calendar, the proud Popes and Cardinals of a dozen families, the several members of the Medici family—they are all there. Now and then you will encounter a Rubens, a Van Dyck, a Rembrandt, or a Frans Hals from the Netherlands, but they are rare. Florence, Rome, Venice, Pisa, and Milan, are best represented by their own sculptors, painters and architects and it is the local men largely in whom you rejoice. The bits from other lands are few and far between.
Rome for sculptures, frescoes, jewel-box churches, ancient ruins, but Florence for paintings and the best collections of medieval artistic craftsmanship.
In the Uffizi, the Pitti, and the Belle Arti I browsed among the vast collections of paintings sharpening my understanding of the growth of Italian art. I never knew until I reached Florence how easy it is to trace the rise of Christian art, to see how one painter influenced another, how one school borrowed from another. It is all very plain. If by the least effort you fix the representatives of the different Italian schools in mind, you can judge for yourself.
I returned three times to look at Botticelli’s “Spring” in the Belle Arti, that marvelous picture which I think in many respects is the loveliest picture in the world, so delicate, so poetically composed, so utterly suggestive of the art and refinement of the painter and of life at its best. The “Three Graces,” so lightly clad in transparent raiment, are so much the soul of joy and freshness, the utter significance of spring. The ruder figures to the left do so portray the cold and blue of March, the warmer April, and the flower-clad May! I could never tire of the artistry which could have March blowing on April’s mouth from which flowers fall into the lap of May. Nor could I weary of the spirit that could select green, sprouting things for the hem of April’s garment; or above Spring’s head place a wingèd and blindfolded baby shooting a fiery arrow at the Three Graces. To me Botticelli is the nearest return to the Greek spirit of beauty, grace and lightness of soul, combined with later delicacy and romance that the modern world has known. It is so beautiful that for me it is sad—full of the sadness that only perfect beauty can inspire.
I sated myself on the house fronts or backs below the Ponte Vecchio
I think now, of all the places I saw in Italy, perhaps Florence really preserves in spite of its changes most of the atmosphere of the past, but that is surely not for long, either; for it is growing and the Germans are arriving. They were in complete charge of my hotel here and of other places, as I shortly saw, and I fancy that the future of northern Italy is to be in the hands of the Germans.