"Italy is a fine climate, but Swansea better. That however is the only spot in Great Britain where we have warmth without wet. Still, Italy is the country I would live in.... In two [years] I hope to have a hundred good peaches every day at table during two months: at present I have had as many bad ones. My land is said to produce the best figs in Tuscany; I have usually six or seven bushels of them."

I have walked through Lander's little paradise—now called the Villa Landor and reached by the narrow rugged road to the right just below the village of S. Domenico. Its cypresses, planted, as I imagine, by Lander's own hand, are stately as minarets and its lawn is as green and soft as that of an Oxford college. The orchard, in April, was a mass of blossom. Thrushes sang in the evergreens and the first swallow of the year darted through the cypresses just as we reached the gates. It is truly a poet's house and garden.

In 1833 a French neighbour accused Landor of robbing him of water by stopping an underground stream, and Landor naturally challenged him to a duel. The meeting was avoided through the tact of Lander's second, the English consul at Florence, and the two men became friends. At his villa Landor wrote much of his best prose—the "Pentameron," "Pericles and Aspasia" and the "Trial of Shakespeare for Deer-stealing "—and he was in the main happy, having so much planting and harvesting to do, his children to play with, and now and then a visitor. In the main too he managed very well with the country people, but one day was amused to overhear a conversation over the hedge between two passing contadini. "All the English are mad," said one, "but as for this one...!" There was a story of Landor current in Florence in those days which depicted him, furious with a spoiled dish, throwing his cook out of the window, and then, realizing where he would fall, exclaiming in an agony, "Good God, I forgot the violets!"

Such was Landor's impossible way on occasion that he succeeded in getting himself exiled from Tuscany; but the Grand Duke was called in as pacificator, and, though the order of expulsion was not rescinded, it was not carried out.

In 1835 Landor wrote some verses to his friend Ablett, who had lent him the money to buy the villa, professing himself wholly happy—

Thou knowest how, and why, are dear to me My citron groves of Fiesole, My chirping Affrico, my beechwood nook, My Naiads, with feet only in the brook, Which runs away and giggles in their faces; Yet there they sit, nor sigh for other places—

but later in the year came a serious break. Landor's relations with Mrs. Landor, never of such a nature as to give any sense of security, had grown steadily worse as he became more explosive, and they now reached such a point that he flung out of the house one day and did not return for many years, completing the action by a poem in which he took a final (as he thought) farewell of Italy:—

I leave thee, beauteous Italy! No more From the high terraces, at even-tide, To look supine into thy depths of sky, The golden moon between the cliff and me, Or thy dark spires of fretted cypresses Bordering the channel of the milky way. Fiesole and Valdarno must be dreams, Hereafter, and my own lost Affrico Murmur to me but the poet's song.

Landor gave his son Arnold the villa, settling a sum on his wife for the other children's maintenance, and himself returned to Bath, where he added to his friends Sir William Napier (who first found a resemblance to a lion in Landor's features), John Forster, who afterwards wrote his life, and Charles Dickens, who named a child after him and touched off his merrier turbulent side most charmingly as Leonard Boythom in "Bleak House". But his most constant companion was a Pomeranian dog; in dogs indeed he found comfort all his life, right to the end.

Landor's love of his villa and estate finds expression again and again in his verse written at this time. The most charming of all these charming poems—the perfection of the light verse of a serious poet—is the letter from England to his youngest boy, speculating on his Italian pursuits. I begin at the passage describing the villa's cat:—

Does Cincirillo follow thee about, Inverting one swart foot suspensively, And wagging his dread jaw at every chirp Of bird above him on the olive-branch? Frighten him then away! 'twas he who slew Our pigeons, our white pigeons peacock-tailed, That feared not you and me—alas, nor him! I flattened his striped sides along my knee, And reasoned with him on his bloody mind, Till he looked blandly, and half-closed his eyes To ponder on my lecture in the shade. I doubt his memory much, his heart a little, And in some minor matters (may I say it?) Could wish him rather sager. But from thee God hold back wisdom yet for many years! Whether in early season or in late It always comes high-priced. For thy pure breast I have no lesson; it for me has many. Come throw it open then! What sports, what cares (Since there are none too young for these) engage Thy busy thoughts? Are you again at work, Walter and you, with those sly labourers, Geppo, Giovanni, Cecco, and Poeta, To build more solidly your broken dam Among the poplars, whence the nightingale Inquisitively watch'd you all day long? I was not of your council in the scheme, Or might have saved you silver without end, And sighs too without number. Art thou gone Below the mulberry, where that cold pool Urged to devise a warmer, and more fit For mighty swimmers, swimming three abreast? Or art though panting in this summer noon Upon the lowest step before the hall, Drawing a slice of watermelon, long As Cupid's bow, athwart thy wetted lips (Like one who plays Pan's pipe), and letting drop The sable seeds from all their separate cells, And leaving bays profound and rocks abrupt, Redder than coral round Calypso's cave?

In 1853 Landor put forth what he thought his last book, under the title "Last Fruit off an Old Tree". Unhappily it was not his last, for in 1858 he issued yet one more, "Dry Sticks faggotted by W. S. Landor," in which was a malicious copy of verses reflecting upon a lady. He was sued for libel, lost the case with heavy damages, and once more and for the last time left England for Florence. He was now eighty-three. At first he went to the Villa Gherardesco, then the home of his son Arnold, but his outbursts were unbearable, and three times he broke away, to be three times brought back. In July, 1859, he made a fourth escape, and then escaped altogether, for Browning took the matter in hand and established him, after a period in Siena, in lodgings in the Via Nunziatina. From this time till his death in 1864 Landor may be said at last to have been at rest. He had found safe anchorage and never left it. Many friends came to see him, chief among them Browning, who was at once his adviser, his admirer and his shrewd observer. Landor, always devoted to pictures, but without much judgment, now added to his collection; Browning in one of his letters to Forster tells how he has found him "particularly delighted by the acquisition of three execrable daubs by Domenichino and Gaspar Poussin most benevolently battered by time". Another friend says that he had a habit of attributing all his doubtful pictures to Corregoio. "He cannot," Browning continues, "in the least understand that he is at all wrong, or injudicious, or unfortunate in anything.... Whatever he may profess, the thing he really loves is a pretty girl to talk nonsense with."

Of the old man in the company of fair listeners we have glimpses in the reminiscences of Mrs. Fields in the "Atlantic Monthly" in 1866. She also describes him as in a cloud of pictures. There with his Pomeranian Giallo within fondling distance, the poet, seated in his arm-chair, fired comments upon everything. Giallo's opinion was asked on all subjects, and Landor said of him that an approving wag of his tail was worth all the praise of all the "Quarterlies ". It was Giallo who led to the profound couplet—

He is foolish who supposes Dogs are ill that have hot noses.

Mrs. Fields tells how, after some classical or fashionable music had been played, Landor would come closer to the piano and ask for an old English ballad, and when "Auld Robin Gray," his favourite of all, was sung, the tears would stream down his face. "Ah, you don't know what thoughts you are recalling to the troublesome old man."

But we have Browning's word that he did not spend much time in remorse or regret, while there was the composition of the pretty little tender epigrams of this last period to amuse him and Italian politics to enchain his sympathy. His impulsive generosity led him to give his old and trusted watch to the funds for Garibaldi's Sicilian expedition; but Browning persuaded him to take it again. For Garibaldi's wounded prisoners he wrote an Italian dialogue between Savonarola and the Prior of S. Marco. The death of Mrs. Browning in 1861 sent Browning back to England, and Landor after that was less cheerful and rarely left the house. His chief solace was the novels of Anthony Trollope and G.P.R. James. In his last year he received a visit from a young English poet and enthusiast for poetry, one Algernon Charles Swinburne, who arrived in time to have a little glowing talk with the old lion and thus obtain inspiration for some fine memorial stanzas. On September 17th, 1864, Death found Landor ready—as nine years earlier he had promised it should—

To my ninth decade I have totter'd on, And no soft arm bends now my steps to steady; She who once led me where she would, is gone, So when he calls me, Death shall find me ready.

Landor was buried, as we saw, in the English cemetery within the city, whither his son Arnold was borne less than seven years later. Here is his own epitaph, one of the most perfect things in form and substance in the English language:—

I strove with none, for none was worth my strife, Nature I loved, and next to Nature, Art; I warmed both hands before the fire of life, It sinks, and I am ready to depart.

It should be cut on his tombstone.



CHAPTER XXV

The Carmine and San Miniato

The human form divine and waxen—Galileo—Bianca Capella—A faithful Grand Duke—S. Spirito—The Carmine—Masaccio's place in art—Leonardo's summary—The S. Peter frescoes—The Pitti side—Romola—A little country walk—The ancient wall—The Piazzale Michelangelo—An evening prospect—S. Miniato—Antonio Rossellino's masterpiece—The story of S. Gualberto—A city of the dead—The reluctant departure.

The Via Maggio is now our way, but first there is a museum which I think should be visited, if only because it gave Dickens so much pleasure when he was here—the Museo di Storia Naturale, which is open three days a week only and is always free. Many visitors to Florence never even hear of it and one quickly finds that its chief frequenters are the poor. All the better for that. Here not only is the whole animal kingdom spread out before the eye in crowded cases, but the most wonderful collection of wax reproductions of the human form is to be seen. These anatomical models are so numerous and so exact that, since the human body does not change with the times, a medical student could learn everything from them in the most gentlemanly way possible. But they need a strong stomach. Mine, I confess, quailed before the end.

The hero of the Museum is Galileo, whose tomb at S. Croce we have seen: here are preserved certain of his instruments in a modern, floridly decorated Tribuna named after him. Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) belongs rather to Pisa, where he was born and where he found the Leaning Tower useful for experiments, and to Rome, where in 1611 he demonstrated his discovery of the telescope; but Florence is proud of him and it was here that he died, under circumstances tragic for an astronomer, for he had become totally blind.

The frescoes in the Tribuna celebrate other Italian scientific triumphs, and in the cases are historic telescopes, astrolabes, binoculars, and other mysteries.

The Via Maggio, which runs from Casa Guidi to the Ponte Trinita, and at noon is always full of school-girls, brings us by way of the Via Michelozzo to S. Spirito, but by continuing in it we pass a house of great interest, now No. 26, where once lived the famous Bianca Capella, that beautiful and magnetic Venetian whom some hold to have been so vile and others so much the victim of fate. Bianca Capella was born in 1543, when Francis I, Cosimo I's eldest son, afterwards to play such a part in her life, was two years of age. While he was being brought up in Florence, Bianca was gaining loveliness in her father's palace. When she was seventeen she fell in love with a young Florentine engaged in a bank in Venice, and they were secretly married. Her family were outraged by the mesalliance and the young couple had to flee to Florence, where they lived in poverty and hiding, a prize of 2000 ducats being offered by the Capella family to anyone who would kill the husband; while, by way of showing how much in earnest they were, they had his uncle thrown into prison, where he died.

One day the unhappy Bianca was sitting at her window when the young prince Francis was passing: he looked up, saw her, and was enslaved on the spot. (The portraits of Bianca do not, I must admit, lay emphasis on this story. Titian's I have not seen; but there is one by Bronzino in our National Gallery—No. 650—and many in Florence.) There was, however, something in Bianca's face to which Francis fell a victim, and he brought about a speedy meeting. At first Bianca repulsed him; but when she found that her husband was unworthy of her, she returned the Prince's affection. (I am telling her story from the pro-Bianca point of view: there are plenty of narrators on the other side.) Meanwhile, Francis's official life going on, he married that archduchess Joanna of Austria for whom the Austrian frescoes in the Palazzo Vecchio were painted; but his heart remained Bianca's and he was more at her house than in his own. At last, Bianca's husband being killed in some fray, she was free from the persecution of her family and ready to occupy the palace which Francis hastened to build for her, here, in the Via Maggio, now cut up into tenements at a few lire a week. The attachment continued unabated when Francis came to the throne, and upon the death of his archduchess in 1578 Bianca and he were almost immediately, but privately, married, she being then thirty-five; and in the next year they were publicly married in the church of S. Lorenzo with every circumstance of pomp; while later in the same year Bianca was crowned.

Francis remained her lover till his death, which was both dramatic and suspicious, husband and wife dying within a few hours of each other at the Medici villa of Poggia a Caiano in 1587. Historians have not hesitated to suggest that Francis was poisoned by his wife; but there is no proof. It is indeed quite possible that her life was more free of intrigue, ambition and falsehood, than that of any one about the court at that time; but the Florentines, encouraged by Francis's brother Ferdinand I, who succeeded him, made up their minds that she was a witch, and few things in the way of disaster happened that were not laid to her charge. Call a woman a witch and everything is possible. Ferdinand not only detested Bianca in life and deplored her fascination for his brother, but when she died he refused to allow her to be buried with the others of the family; hence the Chapel of the Princes at S. Lorenzo lacks one archduchess. Her grave is unknown.

The whole truth we shall never know; but it is as easy to think of Bianca as a harmless woman who both lost and gained through love as to picture her as sinister and scheming. At any rate we know that Francis was devoted to her with a fidelity and persistence for which Grand Dukes have not always been conspicuous.

S. Spirito is one of Brunelleschi's solidest works. Within it resembles the city of Bologna in its vistas of brown and white arches. The effect is severe and splendid; but the church is to be taken rather as architecture than a treasury of art, for although each of its eight and thirty chapels has an altar picture and several have fine pieces of sculpture—one a copy of Michelangelo's famous Pieta in Rome—there is nothing of the highest value. It was in this church that I was asked alms by one of the best-dressed men in Florence; but the Florentine beggars are not importunate: they ask, receive or are denied, and that is the end of it.

The other great church in the Pitti quarter is the Carmine, and here we are on very sacred ground in art—for it was here, as I have had occasion to say more than once in this book, that Masaccio painted those early frescoes which by their innovating boldness turned the Brancacci chapel into an Academy. For all the artists came to study and copy them: among others Michelangelo, whose nose was broken by the turbulent Torrigiano, a fellow-student, under this very roof.

Tommaso di Ser Giovanni, or Masaccio, the son of a notary, was born in 1402. His master is not known, but Tommaso Fini or Masolino, born in 1383, is often named. Vasari states that as a youth Masaccio helped Ghiberti with his first Baptistery doors; and if so, the fact is significant. But all that is really known of his early life is that he went to Rome to paint a chapel in S. Clemente. He returned, apparently on hearing that his patron Giovanni de' Medici was in power again. Another friend, Brunelleschi, having built the church of S. Spirito in 1422, Masaccio began to work there in 1423, when he was only twenty-one.

Masaccio's peculiar value in the history of painting is his early combined power of applying the laws of perspective and representing human beings "in the round". Giotto was the first and greatest innovator in painting—the father of real painting; Masaccio was the second. If from Giotto's influence a stream of vigour had flowed such as flowed from Masaccio's, there would have been nothing special to note about Masaccio at all. But the impulse which Giotto gave to art died down; some one had to reinvigorate it, and that some one was Masaccio. In his remarks on painting, Leonardo da Vinci sums up the achievements of the two. They stood out, he says, from the others of their time, by reason of their wish to go to life rather than to pictures. Giotto went to life, his followers went to pictures; and the result was a decline in art until Masaccio, who again went to life.

From the Carmine frescoes came the new painting. It is not that walls henceforth were covered more beautifully or suitably than they had been by Giotto's followers; probably less suitably very often; but that religious symbolism without much relation to actual life gave way to scenes which might credibly have occurred, where men, women and saints walked and talked much as we do, in similar surroundings, with backgrounds of cities that could be lived in and windows that could open. It was this revolution that Masaccio performed. No doubt if he had not, another would, for it had to come: the new demand was that religion should be reconciled with life.

It is generally supposed that Masaccio had Masolino as his ally in this wonderful series; and a vast amount of ink has been spilt over Masolino's contributions. Indeed the literature of expert art criticism on Florentine pictures alone is of alarming bulk and astonishing in its affirmations and denials. The untutored visitor in the presence of so much scientific variance will be wise to enact the part of the lawyer in the old caricature of the litigants and the cow, who, while they pull, one at the head and the other at the tail, fills his bucket with milk. In other words, the plain duty of the ordinary person is to enjoy the picture.

Without any special knowledge of art one can, by remembering the early date of these frescoes, realize what excitement they must have caused in the studios and how tongues must have clacked in the Old Market. We have but to send our thoughts to the Spanish chapel at S. Maria Novella to realize the technical advance. Masaccio, we see, was peopling a visible world; the Spanish chapel painters were merely allegorizing, as agents of holiness. The Ghirlandaio choir in the same church would yield a similar comparison; but what we have to remember is that Ghirlandaio painted these frescoes in 1490, sixty-two years after Masaccio's death, and Masaccio showed him how.

It is a pity that the light is so poor and that the frescoes have not worn better; but their force and dramatic vigour remain beyond doubt. The upper scene on the left of the altar is very powerful: the Roman tax collector has asked Christ for a tribute and Christ bids Peter find the money in the mouth of a fish. Figures, architecture, landscape, all are in right relation; and the drama is moving, without restlessness. This and the S. Peter preaching and distributing alms are perhaps the best, but the most popular undoubtedly is that below it, finished many years after by Filippino Lippi (although there are experts to question this and even substitute his amorous father), in which S. Peter, challenged by Simon Magus, resuscitates a dead boy, just as S. Zenobius used to do in the streets of this city. Certain more modern touches, such as the exquisite Filippino would naturally have thought of, may be seen here: the little girl behind the boy, for instance, who recalls the children in that fresco by the same hand at S. Maria Novella in which S. John resuscitates Drusiana. In this Carmine fresco are many portraits of Filippino's contemporaries, including Botticelli, just as in the scene of the consecration of the Carmine which Masaccio painted in the cloisters, but which has almost perished, he introduced Brancacci, his employer, Brunelleschi, Donatello, some of whose innovating work in stone he was doing in paint, Giovanni de' Medici and Masolino. The scanty remains of this fresco tell us that it must have been fine indeed.

Masaccio died at the early age of twenty-six, having suddenly disappeared from Florence, leaving certain work unfinished. A strange portentous meteor in art.

The Pitti side of the river is less interesting than the other, but it has some very fascinating old and narrow streets, although they are less comfortable for foreigners to wander in than those, for example, about the Borgo SS. Apostoli. They are far dirtier.

From the Pitti end of the Ponte Vecchio one can obtain a most charming walk. Turn to the left as you leave the bridge, under the arch made by Cosimo's passage, and you are in the Via de' Bardi, the backs of whose houses on the river-side are so beautiful from the Uffizi's central arches, as Mr. Morley's picture shows. At the end of the street is an archway under a large house. Go through this, and you are at the foot of a steep, stone hill. It is really steep, but never mind. Take it easily, and rest half-way where the houses on the left break and give a wonderful view of the city. Still climbing, you come to the best gate of all that is left—a true gate in being an inlet into a fortified city—that of S. Giorgio, high on the Boboli hill by the fort. The S. Giorgio gate has a S. George killing a dragon, in stone, on its outside, and the saint painted within, Donatello's conception of him being followed by the artist. Parsing through, you are in the country. The fort and gardens are on one side and villas on the other; and a great hill-side is in front, covered with crops. Do not go on, but turn sharp to the left and follow the splendid city wall, behind which for a long way is the garden of the Villa Karolath, one of the choicest spots in Florence, occasionally tossing its branches over the top. This wall is immense all the way down to the Porta S. Miniato, and two of the old towers are still standing in their places upon it. Botticini's National Gallery picture tells exactly how they looked in their heyday. Ivy hangs over, grass and flowers spring from the ancient stones, and lizards run about. Underneath are olive-trees.

It was, by the way, in the Via de' Bardi that George Eliot's Romola lived, for she was of the Bardi family. The story, it may be remembered, begins on the morning of Lorenzo the Magnificent's death, and ends after the execution of Savonarola. It is not an inspired romance, and is remarkable almost equally for its psychological omissions and the convenience of its coincidences, but it is an excellent preparation for a first visit in youth to S. Marco and the Palazzo Vecchio, while the presence in its somewhat naive pages of certain Florentine characters makes it agreeable to those who know something of the city and its history. The painter Piero di Cosimo, for example, is here, straight from Vasari; so also are Cronaca, the architect, Savonarola, Capparo, the ironsmith, and even Machiavelli; while Bernardo del Nero, the gonfalonier, whose death sentence Savonarola refused to revise, was Romola's godfather.

The Via Guicciardini, which runs from the foot of the Via de' Bardi to the Pitti, is one of the narrowest and busiest Florentine streets, with an undue proportion of fruit shops overflowing to the pavement to give it gay colouring. At No. 24 is a stable with pillars and arches that would hold up a pyramid. But this is no better than most of the old stables of Florence, which are all solid vaulted caverns of immense size and strength.

From the Porta Romana one may do many things—take the tram, for example, for the Certosa of the Val d'Ema, which is only some twenty minutes distant, or make a longer journey to Impruneta, where the della Robbias are. But just now let us walk or ride up the long winding Viale Macchiavelli, which curves among the villas behind the Boboli Gardens, to the Piazzale Michelangelo and S. Miniato.

The Piazzale Michelangelo is one of the few modern tributes of Florence to her illustrious makers. The Dante memorial opposite S. Croce is another, together with the preservation of certain buildings with Dante associations in the heart of the city; but, as I have said more than once, there is no piazza in Florence, and only one new street, named after a Medici. From the Piazzale Michelangelo you not only have a fine panoramic view of the city of this great man—in its principal features not so vastly different from the Florence of his day, although of course larger and with certain modern additions, such as factory chimneys, railway lines, and so forth—but you can see the remains of the fortifications which he constructed in 1529, and which kept the Imperial troops at bay for nearly a year. Just across the river rises S. Croce, where the great man is buried, and beyond, over the red roofs, the dome of the Medici chapel at S. Lorenzo shows us the position of the Biblioteca Laurenziana and the New Sacristy, both built by him. Immediately below us is the church of S. Niccolo, where he is said to have hidden in 1529, when there was a hue and cry for him. In the middle of this spacious plateau is a bronze reproduction of his David, and it is good to see it, from the cafe behind it, rising head and shoulders above the highest Apennines.

S. Miniato, the church on the hill-top above the Piazzale Michelangelo, deserves many visits. One may not be too greatly attached to marble facades, but this little temple defeats all prejudices by its radiance and perfection, and to its extraordinary charm its situation adds. It crowns the hill, and in the late afternoon—the ideal time to visit it—is full in the eye of the sun, bathed in whose light the green and white facade, with miracles of delicate intarsia, is balm to the eyes instead of being, as marble so often is, dazzling and cold.

On the way up we pass the fine church of S. Salvatore, which Cronaca of the Palazzo Vecchio and Palazzo Strozzi built and Michelangelo admired, and which is now secularized, and pass through the gateway of Michelangelo's upper fortifications. S. Miniato is one of the oldest churches of Florence, some of it eleventh century. It has its name from Minias, a Roman soldier who suffered martyrdom at Florence under Decius. Within, one does not feel quite to be in a Christian church, the effect partly of the unusual colouring, all grey, green, and gold and soft light tints as of birds' bosoms; partly of the ceiling, which has the bright hues of a Russian toy; partly of the forest of great gay columns; partly of the lovely and so richly decorated marble screen; and partly of the absence of a transept. The prevailing feeling indeed is gentle gaiety; and in the crypt this is intensified, for it is just a joyful assemblage of dancing arches.

The church as a whole is beautiful and memorable enough; but its details are wonderful too, from the niello pavement, and the translucent marble windows of the apse, to the famous tomb of Cardinal Jacopo of Portugal, and the Luca della Robbia reliefs of the Virtues. This tomb is by Antonio Rossellino. It is not quite of the rank of Mino's in the Badia; but it is a noble and beautiful thing marked in every inch of it by modest and exquisite thought. Vasari says of Antonio that he "practised his art with such grace that he was valued as something more than a man by those who knew him, who well-nigh adored him as a saint". Facing it is a delightful Annunciation by Alessio Baldovinetti, in which the angel declares the news from a far greater distance than we are accustomed to; and the ceiling is made an abode of gladness by the blue and white figures (designed by Luca della Robbia) of Prudence and Chastity, Moderation and Fortitude, for all of which qualities, it seems, the Cardinal was famous. In short, one cannot be too glad that, since he had to die, death's dart struck down this Portuguese prelate while he was in Rossellino's and Luca's city.

No longer is preserved here the miraculous crucifix which, standing in a little chapel in the wood on this spot, bestowed blessing and pardon—by bending towards him—upon S. Giovanni Gualberto, the founder of the Vallombrosan order. The crucifix is now in S. Trinita. The saint was born in 985 of noble stock and assumed naturally the splendour and arrogance of his kind. His brother Hugo being murdered in some affray, Giovanni took upon himself the duty of avenging the crime. One Good Friday he chanced to meet, near this place, the assassin, in so narrow a passage as to preclude any chance of escape; and he was about to kill him when the man fell on his knees and implored mercy by the passion of Christ Who suffered on that very day, adding that Christ had prayed on the cross for His own murderers. Giovanni was so much impressed that he not only forgave the man but offered him his friendship. Entering then the chapel to pray and ask forgiveness of all his sins, he was amazed to see the crucifix bend down as though acquiescing and blessing, and this special mark of favour so wrought upon him that he became a monk, himself shaving his head for that purpose and defying his father's rage, and subsequently founded the Vallombrosan order. He died in 1073.

I have said something of the S. Croce habit and the S. Maria Novella habit; but I think that when all is said the S. Miniato habit is the most important to acquire. There is nothing else like it; and the sense of height is so invigorating too. At all times of the year it is beautiful; but perhaps best in early spring, when the highest mountains still have snow upon them and the neighbouring slopes are covered with tender green and white fruit blossom, and here the violet wistaria blooms and there the sombre crimson of the Judas-tree.

Behind and beside the church is a crowded city of the Florentine dead, reproducing to some extent the city of the Florentine living, in its closely packed habitations—the detached palaces for the rich and the great congeries of cells for the poor—more of which are being built all the time. There is a certain melancholy interest in wandering through these silent streets, peering through the windows and recognizing over the vaults names famous in Florence. One learns quickly how bad modern mortuary architecture and sculpture can be, but I noticed one monument with some sincerity and unaffected grace: that to a charitable Marchesa, a friend of the poor, at the foot of whose pedestal are a girl and baby done simply and well.

Better perhaps to remain on the highest point and look at the city beneath. One should try to be there before sunset and watch the Apennines turning to a deeper and deeper indigo and the city growing dimmer and dimmer in the dusk. Florence is beautiful from every point of vantage, but from none more beautiful than from this eminence. As one reluctantly leaves the church and passes again through Michelangelo's fortification gateway to descend, one has, framed in its portal, a final lovely Apennine scene.



Historical Chart of Florence and Europe, 1296-1564

Artists' Dates.

1300 (c.) Taddeo Gaddi born (d. 1366) 1302 (c.) Cimabue died (b. c. 1240) 1308 (c.) Andrea Orcagna born (d. 1368) 1310 Arnolfo di Cambio died (b. 1232 ?) 1333 Spinello Aretino born (d. 1410) 1336 Giotto died (b. 1276 ?) 1344 Simone Martini died (b. 1283) 1348 Andrea Pisano died (b. 1270) 1356 Lippo Memmi died 1366 Taddeo Gaddi died (b. c. 1300) 1368 Andrea Orcagna died 1370 (c.) Lorenzo Monaco born (d. 1425) Gentile da Fabriano born (d. 1450) 1371 Jacopo della Quercia born (d. 1438) 1377 Filippo Brunelleschi born (d. 1446) 1378 Lorenzo Ghiberti born (d. 1455) 1386 (?) Donatello born (d. 1466) 1387 Fra Angelico born (d. 1455) 1391 Michelozzo born (d. 1472) 1396 (?) Andrea del Castagno born (d. 1457) 1397 Paolo Uccello born (d. 1475) 1399 or 1400 Luca della Robbia born (d. 1482) 1401 or 1402 Masaccio born (d. 1428?) 1405 Leon Battista Alberti born (d. 1472) 1406 Lippo Lippi born (d. 1469) 1409 Bernardo Rossellino born (d. 1464) 1410 Spinello Aretino died 1415 Piero della Francesca born (d. 1492) 1420 Benozzo Gozzoli born (d. 1498) 1425 Il Monaco died Alessio Baldovinetti born (d. 1499) 1427 Antonio Rossellino born (d. 1478) 1428 (?) Masaccio died 1428 Desiderio da Settignano born (d. 1464) 1429 (?) Giovanni Bellini born (d. 1516) Antonio Pollaiuolo born (d. 1498) 1430 Cosimo Tura died 1431 Andrea Mantegna born (d. 1506) 1432 (?) Mina da Fiesole born (d. 1484) 1435 Andrea Verrocchio born (d. 1488) Andrea della Robbia born (d. 1525) 1438 Melozzo da Forli born (d. 1494) 1439 Cosimo Rosselli born (d. 1507) 1441 Luca Signorelli born (d. 1523) 1442 Benedetto da Maiano born (d. 1497) 1444 Sandro Botticelli born (d. 1510) 1446 Brunelleschi died Perugino born (d. 1523 or 24) Francesco Botticini born (d. 1498) 1449 Domenico Ghirlandaio born (d. 1494) 1450 Gentile da Fabriano died 1452 Leonardi da Vinci born (d. 1519) 1455 Ghiberti died Fra Angelico died 1456 Lorenzo di Credi born (d. 1537) 1457 Cronaca born (d. 1508 or 9) Filippino Lippi born (d. 1504) Andrea del Castagno died 1462 Piero di Cosimo born (d. 1521) 1463 or 4 Desiderio da Settignano died 1464 Bernardo Rossellino died 1466 Donatello died 1469 Giovanni della Robbia born (d. 1529) Lippo Lippi died 1472 Michelozzo died Alberti died 1474 Benedetto da Rovezzano born (d. 1556) Rustici born (d. 1554) Mariotto Albertinelli born (d. 1515) 1475 Fra Bartolommeo born (d. 1517) Michelangelo Buonarroti born (d. 1564) 1477 Titian born (d. 1576) Giorgione born (d. 1510) 1478 Antonio Rossellino died 1482 Francia Bigio born (d. 1523) Guicciardini born (d. 1540) 1483 Raphael born (d. 1520) Ridolfo Ghirlandaio born (d. 1561) 1484 Mino da Fiesole died 1485 Sebastiano del Piombo born (d. 1547) 1486 Jacopo Sansovino born (d. 1570) 1486 or 7 Andrea del Sarto born (d. 1531) 1488 Verrocchio died Baccio Bandinelli born (d. 1560) 1492 Piero della Francesco died 1494 Jacopo da Pontormo born (d. 1556) Correggio born (d. 1534) Domenico Ghirlandaio died Melozzo da Forli died 1497 Benedetto da Maiano died Benozzo Gozzoli died 1498 Antonio Pollaiuolo died Francesco Botticini died 1499 Alessio Baldovinetti died 1500 Benvenuto Cellini born (d. 1572) 1502 Angelo Bronzino born (d. 1572) 1504 Filippino Lippi died 1506 Mantegna died 1507 Cosimo Rosselli died 1508 Cronaca died 1510 Botticelli died Giorgione died 1511 Vasari born (d. 1574) 1515 Albertinelli died 1516 Giovanni Bellini died 1517 Fra Bartolommeo died 1518 Tintoretto born (d. 1594) 1519 Leonardo da Vinci died 1520 Raphael died 1521 Piero di Cosimo died 1523 Signorelli died Perugino died 1524 Giovanni da Bologna born (d. 1608) 1525 Andrea della Robbia died Francia Bigio died 1528 Paolo Veronese born (d. 1588) Federigo Baroccio born (d. 1612) 1529 Giovanni della Robbia died 1531 Andrea del Sarto died 1534 Correggio died 1537 Credi died 1547 Sebastiano del Piombo died 1554 Rustici died 1556 Pontormo died Benedetto da Rovezzano died 1560 Baccio Bandinelli died 1561 Ridolfo Ghirlandaio died 1564 Michael Angelo died

Some Important Florentine Dates

1296 Foundations of the Duomo consecrated 1298 Palazzo Vecchio commenced by Arnolfo di Cambio 1300 Beginning of the feuds of the Bianchi and Xeri Guido Cavalcanti died 1302 Dante exiled, Jan. 27 1304 Petrarch born (d. 1374) 1308 Death of Corso Donati 1312 Siege of Florence by Henry VII 1313 Boccaccio born (d. 1375) 1321 Dante died Sept. 14 (b. 1265) 1333 Destructive floods 1334 Foundations of the Campanile laid 1337 Or San Michele begun 1339 Andrea Pisano's gates finished 1348 Black Death of the Decameron Giovanni Villani died (b. 1275 c.) 1360 Giovanni de' Medici (di Bicci) born 1365 (c) Ponte Vecchio rebuilt by Taddeo Gaddi 1374 Petrarch died 1375 Boccaccio died 1376 Loggia de' Lanzi commenced 1378 Salvestro de' Medici elected Gonfaloniere 1389 Cosimo de' Medici (Pater Patrise) born 1390 War with Milan 1394 Sir John Hawkwood died 1399 Competition for Baptistery Gates 1416 Piero de' Medici (il Gottoso) born 1421 Purchase of Leghorn by Florence Giovanni de' Medici elected Gonfaloniere Spedale degli Innocenti commenced 1424 Ghiberti's first gate set up 1429 Giovanni de' Medici died 1432 Niccolo da Uzzano died 1433 Marsilio Ficino born Cosimo de' Medici banished, Oct. 3 1434 Cosimo returned to power, Sept. 29 Banishment of Albizzi and Strozzi 1435 Francesco Sforza visited Florence 1436 Brunelleschi's dome completed The Duomo consecrated 1439 Council of Florence Gemisthos Plethon in Florence 1440 Cosimo occupied the Medici Palace 1449 Lorenzo de' Medici (the Magnificent born) 1452 Ghiberti's second gates set up Savonarola born 1454 Politian born 1463 Pico della Mirandola born 1464 Cosimo de' Medici died and was succeeded by Piero 1466 Luca Pitti's Conspiracy 1469 Lorenzo's Tournament, Feb. Lorenzo's Marriage to Clarice Orsini, June Death of Piero, Dec. Niccolo Machiavelli born 1471 Piero de' Medici, son of Lorenzo, born Visit of Galeazzo Sforza to Florence Cennini's Press established in Florence 1474 Ariosto born 1475 Giuliano's Tournament 1478 Pazzi Conspiracy Giuliano murdered 1479 Lorenzo's Mission to Naples 1492 Lorenzo the Magnificent died Piero succeeded 1494 Charles VIII invaded Italy Piero banished Charles VIII in Florence. Sack of Medici Palace Florence governed by General Council Savonarola in power Politian died Pico della Mirandola died 1497 Francesco Valori elected Gonfaloniere Piero attempted to return to Florence 1498 Savonarola burnt 1499 Marsilio Ficino died Amerigo Vespucci reached America 1503 Death of Piero di Medici 1512 Cardinal Giovanni and Giuliano, Duke of Nemours, reinstated in Florence Great Council abolished 1519 Cardinal Giulio de' Medici in power Catherine de' Medici born 1524 Ippolito and Alessandro de' Medici in power 1526 Death of Giovanni delle Bande Nere 1527 Ippolito and Alessandro left Florence 1528 Machiavelli died 1529-30 Siege of Florence 1530 Capitulation of Florence 1531 Alessandro de' Medici declared Head of Republic 1537 Cosimo de' Medici made Ruler of Florence Battle of Montemurlo Lorenzino assassinated in Venice 1539 Cosimo married Eleanor di Toledo and moved to Palazzo Vecchio 1553 Cosimo occupied the Pitti Palace 1564 Galileo Galilei born

Popes.

Boniface VIII 1303 Benedict XI 1305 Clement V 1316 John XXII 1334 Benedict XII 1337 Boniface VIII 1342 Clement VI 1352 Innocent VI 1362 Urban V 1370 Gregory XI 1378 Urban VI 1389 Boniface IX 1404 Innocent VII 1406 Gregory XII 1409 Alex. V 1410 John XXIII 1417 Martin V 1431 Eugenius IV 1447 Nicolas V 1455 Calixtus III 1458 Pius II 1464 Paul II 1471 Sixtus IV 1484 Innocent VIII 1492 Alex. VI 1503 Pius III Julius II 1513 Leo X 1522 Hadrian VI 1523 Clement VII 1534 Paul III 1550 Julius III 1555 Marcellus II Paul IV 1559 Pius IV

French Kings.

Philip IV 1314 Louis X 1316 John I Philip V 1322 Charles IV 1328 Philip VI Philip 1350 John II 1364 Charles V 1380 Charles VI 1422 Charles VII 1461 Louis XI 1483 Charles VIII 1498 Louis XII 1515 Francis I 1547 Henry II 1559 Francis II 1560 Charles IX

English Kings.

Edward I 1307 Edward II 1327 Edward III 1377 Richard II 1422 Charles VII 1461 Edward IV 1483 Edward V Richard III 1485 Henry VII 1509 Henry VIII 1547 Edward VI 1553 Mary 1558 Elizabeth

Milan.

1310 Matteo Visconti 1322 Galeazzo Visconti 1328 1329 Azzo Visconti 1339 Luchino and Giovanni Visconti 1349 Giovanni Visconti 1354 Matteo Bernabo Galeazzo 1378 Gian Galeazzo Visconti 1402 Gian Maria Visconti 1412 Filippo Maria Visconti 1447...1450 Francesco Sforza 1466 Galeazzo Sforza 1476 Gian Galeazzo Sforza (Ludovico Sforza Regent) 1495 Ludovico Sforza 1499 Ludovico exiled

Some Important General Dates

1298 Battle of Falkirk 1306 Coronation of Bruce 1314 Battle of Bannockburn 1324 (?) John Wyclif born 1337 Froissart born (d. 1410?) 1339 Beginning of the Hundred Years' War 1346 Battle of Crecy 1347 Rienzi made Tribune of Rome Edward III took Calais 1348-9 Black Death in England 1348 S. Catherine of Siena born 1356 Battle of Poictiers 1362 First draft of Piers Plowman 1379 Thomas a Kempis born 1381 Wat Tyler's Rebellion 1400 Geoffrey Chaucer died 1414 Council of Constance 1428 Siege of Orleans 1431 Joan of Arc burnt 1435 (c.) Hans Meinling born 1450 John Gutenburg printed at Mainz Jack Cade's Insurrection 1453 Fall of Constantinople 1455 Beginning of the Wars of the Roses 1467 Erasmus born (d. 1528) 1470 (c.) Mabuse born (d. 1555) 1471 Albert Duerer born (d. 1528) Caxton's Press established in Westminster 1476 Chevalier Bayard born 1482 Hugo van der Goes died 1483 Rabelais born (d. 1553) Martin Luther born Murder of the Princes in the Tower 1491 Ignatius Loyola born 1492 America discovered by Christopher Columbus 1494 Lucas van Leyden born (d. 1533) 1505 John Knox born (d. 1582) 1509 Calvin born 1516 More's Utopia published 1519 First Voyage round the world (Ferd. Magellan) 1519-21 Conquest of Mexico 1520 Field of the Cloth of Gold 1527 Brantome born (d. 1614) 1528 Albert Duerer died 1531-2 Conquest of Peru 1533 Montaigne born (d. 1592) 1535 Henry VIII became Supreme Head of the Church 1537 Sack of Rome 1544 Torquato Tasso born 1553 Edmund Spenser born 1554 Execution of Lady Jane Grey Sir Philip Sidney born 1555-6 Ridley, Latimer, Cranmer burnt 1558 Calais recaptured by the French 1564 Shakespeare born



NOTES

[1] One of Brunelleschi's devices to bring before the authorities an idea of the dome he projected, was of standing an egg on end, as Columbus is famed for doing, fully twenty years before Columbus was born.

[2] It was Charles V who said of Giotto's Campanile that it ought to be kept in a glass case.

[3] Hence its new name: Loggia de' Lanzi.

[4] In the Victoria and Albert Museum at South Kensington are casts of the two Medici on the tombs and also the Madonna and Child. They are in the great gallery of the casts, together with the great David, two of the Julian tomb prisoners, the Bargello tondo and the Brutus.

[5] Cacus, the son of Vulcan and Medusa, was a famous robber who breathed fire and smoke and laid waste Italy. He made the mistake, however, of robbing Hercules of some cows, and for this Hercules strangled him.

[6] "Thick as leaves in Vallombrosa" has come to be the form of words as most people quote them. But Milton wrote ("Paradise Lost," Book I. 300-304):—

"He called His legions, angel-forms, who lay entranced Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks In Vallombrosa where the Etrurian shades, High over-arched, embower."

Wordsworth, by the way, when he visited Vallombrosa with Crabb Robinson in 1837, wrote an inferior poem there, in a rather common metre, in honour of Milton's association with it.

[7] 27 April, 1859, the day that the war with Austria was proclaimed.

[8] In "A Dictionary of Saintly Women".

[9] The position of easel pictures in the Florentine galleries often changes.

THE END