Cathedral Cities of Italy

by W. W. Collins

Assisi is distinctly a sun-baked city; and built of local warm-coloured stone, it looks almost on fire when the rays of the setting sun light up its walls, its roofs, and its towers. Thus does the illustration depict the cathedral's façade and Romanesque campanile. In the piazza stands, on a pedestal, the bronze statue of the saint which replaced that which is inside the building. The street under the houses on the left leads to the Roman theatre, and on the right one proceeds to the church of S. Chiara. The mummified body of S. Clare still rests in the crypt; and the Crucifix which spoke to Giovanni Bernardone in the church of S. Damiano is in the north transept. To this crucifix was due the change which transfigured the life of the young man, and gave to the world one of its greatest saints. Giovanni was nicknamed Francesco by his father, who had an extensive trade connection with France, and a name given in jest has become one of the most remarkable in the history of the Church. The country round Assisi is full of beautiful subjects for pen and pencil; and long meditative rambles are within reach of the poorest pedestrian. The spirit of S. Francis dominates all. It is not far to the carceri, the little dug-out rock chambers that he at first inhabited with his few followers; and the gorge through which one climbs to reach them is that where he was one night attacked by robbers, who finding their victim clad only in a hair shirt, beat him and left him for dead in a drift of snow. The life of S. Francis has ever been an all absorbing one for the painter's art. One of the favourite subjects connected with it is his marriage with the Lady Poverty. The vows he took of Poverty, Chastity and Obedience were demanded from all his followers. His rule once established, his disciples were known as the Frati Minori. When preaching to the poor he often exposed to view a representation of the birth of Christ which he carried about, and it was over this presépio, or manger, that the first Christmas carols were sung.

SIENA

SIENA, the Ghibelline, at one time always at war with Florence the Guelph, no longer disputes with her ancient rival the glory of being the foremost of Tuscan cities. But, though she no longer does this, pride in her Roman origin has never ceased. She still retains the S. P. Q. S. as the head-line of municipal notices; and the she-wolf and twins are to be found sculptured on many a column that adorns some of her little courtyards as well as on odd corners about her walls. Nine gates, one of which boasts a barbican, admit the stranger to her dark up-and-down-hill streets. She possesses many fine palaces. She might have possessed the grandest Gothic cathedral in all Italy had funds permitted its completion. As it is, it is one of the most remarkable and is adjoined by one of the most beautiful campanile in the country. If the visitor braves the heat of August, she can show him the very best survival of mediæval times in her celebrated Palio, or horse-race, that takes place every year in the great piazza. In her streets you will hear the purest Italian spoken. Her women, as the month of May comes round, don the most becoming of straw hats, and her people are justly famed for their courtesy. Fortunately for some of us, the tourist hurries on to Florence or Rome. But for him who loves the repose and personal charm of an old-world city, Siena will always open her arms and gather him in an embrace that will hold him for ever enchanted by the fascination of a delightful memory.

Almost in the centre of the city and occupying a space on the top of the highest hill, Siena's cathedral is to-day a fragment only of what its builders hoped to erect. The west end of the original nave is away at the end of the piazza to the south of the present south transept. The present nave was built as one of the transepts, and when its size is realised the grand scheme that was never completed can be judged. The building was begun in 1229 and the dome over the crossing finished thirty years later. About sixty years after this the scheme to construct the huge nave was commenced. It was only owing to a terrible plague which carried off, it is said, eighty thousand people, that this was abandoned. The tracery of a very beautiful Gothic window remains at the unfinished west end, to make one marvel at the splendid proportions of the intended fabric.

The cathedral, of which a fine view is obtained from the church of S. Domenico on the opposite hill, is approached from the Piazza del Duomo by twelve marble steps. The topmost which forms the platform in front of the façade is inlaid with graffiti designs in black and other colours. Three crocketed gables crown Giovanni Pisano's façade. Their surface is covered with modern mosaics. Under the centre gable, surrounded by a square frame of Gothic niches filled with half-length figures of saints, is an immense round window devoid of all tracery, but filled with good glass. A flat black band of marble frames the niches. Elegant turrets with crocketed pinnacles surmounted by saints are on either side of this gable. The two other gables are flanked by towers, each with a solid turret. The purest piece of architecture is the gallery which is between the centre and these two side gables. Below runs a classic frieze separating the upper from the lower part of the façade. The columns and pilasters of the three portals are of white and red marble; they are so heavily laden with elaborate sculpture of beasts, birds, and foliage that they seem to lose their raison d'être and no longer support anything. The capitals of all these are formed of elongated acanthus leaves, and might be likened to a field of waving maize. It is very interesting to note, by the classic work which Pisano introduced everywhere on the façade, how difficult it apparently was for him to get away from the tradition of his country's classic architecture when designing a Gothic façade.

The whole front is covered with white marble statues perched on every available place. Gargoyles, like chevaux de frise, protrude from every angle and corner. On the brackets over the four main columns of the porches are two horses, a winged lion, and a lion regardant. The whole of the front lacks repose, a condition which is intensified by the black and white inlay of the flat surfaces. The centre gable overlaps the portal beneath, and the apexes of the two side gables are beyond the middle of the two side portals. This is a good arrangement, and assists the balance of the composition, which is well restrained by the deep-set gallery and dark shade of the flanking towers.

The pointed windows of the south aisle and transept are canopied. On top of each of the buttresses between them is a white marble figure. The magnificent campanile rises above the chapel close to the south door. Like the rest of the cathedral it is banded in black and white marble. The lowest of its seven courses is constructed with a solid exterior, the next is pierced by an arch, the third by two arches, and so on, increasing until at the top stage there are six arches. Four turrets with slender spires finish off the corners at the top, and a good hexagonal spire rises from the centre. The dome is supported by an open gallery. The idea of a central tower never seems to have appealed to the Italian in his Gothic work; even at Milan the spire of the cathedral can hardly be said to rise from a tower.

The interior of the cathedral, by reason of the very decided black and white bands of marble, although mellowed with age, is not restful to the eye. The nave consists of five bays on each side. The aisles have round arches. The transepts are double and of unequal length. All the windows are pointed with the exception of the two round ones at the east and west ends. The clustered columns of the nave are of very good proportion; above them is a heavy frieze. Between the numerous consoles of this is a series of terra cotta busts of all the Popes. Executed at one time, they are, like the medallion portraits of the Pontiffs in S. Paolo fuori at Rome, not authentic likenesses. What gilding there is, is away up in the roof and on the bosses in the soffits of the arches, but it is old and not really obtrusive. The same may be said for the star-spangled blue vault. The illustration shows the cold light from the north transept window striking Niccolò Pisano's beautiful pulpit, in contradistinction to the warm rays that penetrate this noble fabric through the clerestory windows of the nave. Arnolfo di Cambio and Niccolò's son Giovanni had a share in the execution of this splendid work, which may be ranked next to the pulpit in the Baptistery at Pisa. The pavement of the whole cathedral is composed of graffiti in coloured marble pictures. To preserve this unique pavement the authorities have wisely covered the nave and aisles with a wooden floor; and except during the month of August and on great festivals, when this covering is taken away, the only portion in the lower part of the church exposed to view is that under the dome. This is railed off.

The six niches at the top of the clustered columns that support the cupola are filled with colossal metal figures. On bronze brackets, fixed to each pier of the choir, are thirteenth-century bronze figures of angels holding lamps. One admires the good taste that has always left these bronzes ungilded. The same praise may be accorded in the case of the grand bronze candlesticks on the high altar, and the magnificent tabernacle by Lorenzo di Pietro which rests on it. The only note which really jars is the crescent of hideous gilded cherubims that partially surround the east window. The choir stalls, which were exchanged for those in the convent of Mont' Oliveto Maggiore, nineteen miles out of Siena, have extremely good intarsia work of architectural and "still-life" panels.