Meanwhile that noble city of Florence has ordered her merchants resident abroad to send her at any cost the best foreign masters. In the year 1420, these best foreign masters, and best Italian masters besides, and the syndics and superintendents, and a select number of distinguished citizens, and little Filippo himself, just returned from Rome, are all assembled in the hall of the wardens of Santa Maria del Fiore. After listening to a hundred absurd plans, Brunelleschi unfolds his own at full length. Whereupon the assembled syndics, superintendents, and citizens, instead of being at all edified by his remarks, proceeded to call him a simpleton, an ass, a madman, and bade him discourse of something else. Which he, instead of doing, stuck to his point, and finally lost his temper and flew in their faces. Whereupon they called him a fool and a babbler; and considering him absolutely mad, arose against him as one man, and incontinently turned him out of doors by the head and heels. Imagine the rage of Arnolfo the Goth, after such treatment; or Angelo the mighty, stalking down the Via Romana; or Dante, wandering ghost-like into eternal exile! The indomitable, practical Filippo did none of these things, but prudently shut himself up at home lest people in the streets should call out, "See where goes that fool!" "It was not the fault of these men," says the sympathetic Vasari, "that Filippo did not break in pieces the models, set fire to the designs, and in one half-hour destroy all the labors so long endured, and ruin the hopes of so many years." But Filippo was less a poet, enamoured of an inward vision of beauty, than an architect determined to solve an architectural problem. Plainly enough, since Arnolfo had set the example in the clerestory, the windows of the cupola were also to be circular instead of pointed. His inventive faculties were therefore restricted to the organization of that vast dream, to the determination of the ascending curves and the conception of the lantern. It was not the offspring of his soul, but of his mind, that Filippo had offered the syndics and superintendents; and the inventor of new combinations and possibilities of matter is apt to possess a more elastic temperament than the creator of new forms of beauty. Instead of fretting himself to death or cultivating the princely revenge of silence, Filippo, strong in his mission and calculating on the proverbial caprice of his native Florence, began to experiment on individuals instead of assemblies; so successfully, too, that another session was soon convened. Profiting by discomfiture, Filippo modified his tactics. He salutes the superintendents as "magnificent signors and wardens," and condescends to be more explicit about his still hidden model. He even goes so far as to prove the dome-within-a-dome, which had so enraged their excellencies, a possibility. He spoke with such emphasis and confidence, that "he had all the appearance of having vaulted ten such cupolas." In a word, they surrendered at discretion; and, rather in despair than hope, made him principal master of the works. The man of talents was victorious where a mere man of genius would have been badly beaten. But—in these artistic complications there is always a but—Lorenzo Ghiberti, just famous for his doors of Paradise, was a favorite in Florence; so Florence resolved to associate Lorenzo with Filippo. This was a bitter pill to Ser Brunelleschi, but he swallowed it; and for two years they worked together at the twelve braccia to which their labors were limited by the wardens. But—there was also a 'but' on the right side—when the closing in of the cupola toward the top commenced, and the masons and other masters were wailing in expectation of directions as to the manner in which the chains were to be applied and the scaffoldings erected, it chanced on one fine morning that Filippo did not appear at the works. On inquiry, it turned out that he had tied up his head, called for hot plates and towels, and gone to bed complaining bitterly. An attack of pleurisy. Most inopportunely; for at this most critical moment in the enterprise the whole burthen fell on Lorenzo. Lorenzo was besieged by practical questions; Lorenzo was persecuted with a thousand interrogatories; Lorenzo waded completely out of his depth into a sea of troubles; the masons and stone-cutters came to a stand, and finally the work stood still. At this juncture, the syndics and wardens resolved to pay the sick man a visit. They condoled with him in his illness and also lamented the disorder which had attacked the building. "Is not Lorenzo there?" asked the sufferer. "He will not do anything without you," replied the wardens. "But I could do well enough without him," murmured the invalid. The wardens withdrew, and sent Filippo a prescription in the shape of an announcement of their intention to remove Lorenzo. Filippo instantly recovered, but only to find his rival still in place and power. Whereupon he made one more prayer to their worships, namely, to divide the labor as they divided the salary, and give each his own separate sphere of action. This was granted: the chain-work assigned to Lorenzo, the scaffolding to Filippo. The scaffolding proved a miracle of success, the chain-work a monument of failure. The wardens, and syndics, and superintendents, and influential citizens, fairly driven to the wall, made Filippo chief superintendent of the whole fabric for life, commanding that nothing should be done in the work save by his direction. How much richer the world would now be in every department of art, had half its men of genius but possessed a tithe of Brunelleschi's elasticity and determination.
Left to himself, Filippo worked with so much zeal and minute attention, that not a stone was placed in the building which he had not examined. The very bricks, fresh from the oven, are said to have been set apart with his own hands. So conscientious were the builders of those days when art was supreme and religion a practical inspiration. The energy and resources of this model architect are inexhaustible. Nothing escapes him. Outlets and apertures are provided, both in security against the force of the winds, and against the vapors and vibrations of the earth. Wine-shops and eating-houses are opened in the cupola. High over Florence, Filippo is undisputed lord and master of a small town of his own.
And so, for twenty-six years, they wrought under his eyes at this architectural miracle. He lived to see the lantern carried to the height of several braccia: it was not finished till fifteen years after his death. He left plans for the gallery, which were either lost, stolen, or destroyed. That great, broad belt of dingy brick and mortar clamoring to earth and heaven for completion, ruins the effect of the dome and gives the whole edifice a shabby appearance. Only one of the eight sides is finished. This was done in Carrara marble by Baccio d'Agnolo, and would have been carried all around the dome but for the interference of Michael Angelo, then omnipotent in Italy, who denounced it as a mere cage for crickets; adding that he himself would show Baccio what he ought to do. The old art-dictator made a model accordingly, which, after long debate, was rejected. So our Lady of Flowers still lacks her girdle. It is much to be regretted, since Michael could suggest nothing better, that he did not hold his peace. The present model may not be faultless, but it is infinitely better than nothing; and no one else has suggested anything as good. It was condemned, not as defective in itself, but unequal to the magnificence of the building; and, also, because it seemed to violate some secret purpose of Brunelleschi's in cutting off, as it did, the line of stones which he had left projecting. Be this as it may, Filippo's purpose has never been divined and never can be; all the plans of the great masters are lost; and there seems to be small use in continuing the interdict of a much over-estimated authority till doomsday. That cestus of alternate head and garland just under the colonnade is abominable, but it is difficult to see how the present design could otherwise be improved. It harmonizes with all the windows, and niches, and arches in the tribune; it relieves the blankness of the perforations, and is in sympathy both with the windows of the lantern and the upper window of the campanile. It is the sub-dominant without which the blended Gothic and classic is a discord. Arnolfo might have done it better, but no one else. It is a poem which Baccio was as well qualified to trace as any of the rest of them.
Apart from his glorious consummation of the Duomo, I do not like Brunelleschi. He did more than any other man to repel the Gothic influences, which, under Arnolfo and others, were penetrating Tuscany; he insured the triumph of the round arch over the pointed, and paved the way to the monstrosities of the Renaissance. But his cupola of Santa Maria del Fiore is the supreme miracle of architecture. It exceeds the cupola of the Vatican, both in height and circumference, by eight feet; and although supported by eight ribs only, which renders it lighter than that of Saint Peter's, which has sixteen flanked buttresses, is nevertheless more solid and firm. Unlike the Roman dome, it has stood unassisted and unstrengthened from the first; so firmly grounded by the forethought of Arnolfo, so closely knit by the energies of Filippo, that it has not sunk or swerved an inch in four centuries. The noblest speech that Buonarotti ever made was, that he would not copy, but could not surpass it; the finest compliment ever paid by one man of genius to another was his dying wish to be buried where he might arise, not in sight of his own Pantheon in the air, but in full view of the vaulted tribune of Santa Maria del Fiore. Another name, however, is associated with the growth of the Duomo—a name not inferior to either Arnolfo or Filippo. Just beside the vast cathedral is the wondrous bell-tower Giotto reared—his solitary, or only conspicuous architectural feat. Before Giotto's time, the modern painters copied nature about as closely as most actors and orators now do; that is, their men and women bore only a weak, conventional resemblance to humanity. The son of Bondone inaugurated the naturalistic movement which culminated in Da Vinci and Raphael; unquestionably a most honorable distinction. But what can all he ever painted, judged as a living fact, amount to when weighed against the startling splendor of this divine campanile? I have seen something of Giotto, far from all, but enough to know that, save as undeveloped germs and hints, his pictures are little more than crudities belonging to the infancy of art, amazing at his time, but not more than curious at ours. But this campanile, into which he suddenly ascended without an effort, is the transfiguration of architecture—the product of an art at its best and highest. Architecture never had advanced, never has advanced a step beyond it. It might be added, never can advance; for beyond a certain recognized point in the realization of beauty, human genius is not permitted to push its way. Vasari devotes thirty pages to the consideration of Giotto's pictures, and but one to the campanile. Yet these pictures are mouldering in convents or shrouded in chapels, or buried in dim galleries, scattered far and wide over the world; and, save over some ambitious student or patient virtuoso, they no longer exist as a spell or a power. But this lofty campanile is a perpetual influence; an influence as indestructible as the Iliad—a joy as unceasing as the joy of sunrise—the joy of a work that is perfection of its kind. So fair, so frail, and yet so firm! It does not need the glass case suggested by imperial condescension. It knows how to take the lightning and the storm. It knows how to bear the weight and thunder of its mellow bells. Its beautiful head is at home in the skies, and seems to belong to heaven as much as the flowers belong to earth.
Giotto's plan would have crowned it with a spire of a hundred feet; but, whether for true artistic considerations, or because it was Gothic, or because it was too expensive, succeeding architects have always advised its omission.
Besides its own independent loveliness, this bell-tower exercises an important influence over the group to which it belongs, not only by the development of form, but also by the subtler qualification of style. But for the pure Gothic of Giotto, the predominance of the round in the tribunes and cupola would overwhelm Arnolfo's pointed witchery beneath the clerestory. As it is, the supremacy of the classic at one end of the stately pile is balanced by the ascendency of the Gothic at the other. High up in air the pious rivalry between the two great styles is continued, each lifting its choicest offering to the very footstool of the Padre Eterno, each doing its best in honor of our Lady of Flowers.
The facade of Santa Maria is wanting, like her girdle. Giotto is said to have finished two thirds of it, subsequently torn down to be restored in a more modern style! The fresco in the cloister of San Marco gives only part of it, and I could make but little of that. As I remember the fresco of Arnolfo's facade, it was meant to be composed of statues, niches, and pillars—something as deep and rich as the façade at Pisa. Whoever may finish it, let us trust that the shallow mosaic of Santa Croce will be avoided. The baptistery completes this memorable group; faded, unattractive without, sombre and majestic within.
The interior of Santa Maria is a disappointment. Glorious stained glass, splendid arches, but none of the light, the joy, the shining paradise of Saint Peter's. If we may believe Vasari, the interior, like the exterior was to have been crusted with Florentine mosaic, even to the minutest corners of the edifice. But the days are dead when such a deed was practicable. Instead of colored marbles, we have a pale olive overspreading all the edifice; instead of the mosaic for which Filippo had provided iron supports, the lack-lustre frescoes of Vasari and his successors, which Florence ought to have summarily whitewashed, as suggested in Lasca's madrigal. Fortunately, these frescoes are the only pictures. Pictures in large churches are distracting and insignificant; and moreover, you can rarely more than half see them, try your best. Least of all, has a picture any business in a Gothic church. For my own part I would as soon see the pyramid of Cheops hung with pictures as the Duomo. In a church, you want all the superhuman you can get—nothing human but human souls. Angels and dragons and effigies are more in keeping there than the best statues; those ghostly groups and faces in the old stained glass look better than if they were a thousand times more natural. The old mosaics harmonize because they are not only typical, but imperishable as the structure itself. The decisive objection to a picture in a church is its apparent fragility.
The outer robes of our Lady of Flowers are dull with the dust and wear of five centuries. See how those new bits of marble which the workmen are inserting, green, white, and red, flash and sparkle in the sun! What a celestial vision it must have been when all that world of mosaic was fresh and stainless! But even as she is, faded and unfinished, what an invaluable possession! What would Florence be without it? It is a central magnet that holds together her present, past, and future; that unites all her children in one vast family, making her, in the truest sense of the word, a community. It stands before her everlastingly, a memorial of her youthful wealth and power; a monument of present greatness, a protest against decrepitude to come. It binds her fast to her renown, her honor, and her faith; it is the solemn, visible bond between her and God. The Duomo belongs not only to Florence, but to all the hills and valleys around, to the villas of Morello, to the cloisters of Fiesole, to the huts on the Apennines. Every peasant within sight of its cupola, within sound of its campanile, has a share in its daily benediction. For four centuries, the generations that people that fair amphitheatre have found it the most unchanging feature in their landscape. It is as much the portion of their lives as the stars, their river, or their own vineyards. In the first blush of every morning, it rises before the sun; and when the stars and moon are shining, the lantern of Santa Maria del Fiore takes its place amongst them as part of the pageantry of the skies.