The Story of Florence

Apart from the Brancacci chapel, the interest of the Carmine is mainly confined to the tomb of the noble and simple-hearted ex-Gonfaloniere, Piero Soderini (who died in 1513), in the choir; it was originally by Benedetto da Rovezzano, but has been restored. There are frescoes in the sacristy, representing the life of St. Cecilia, by one of Giotto's later followers, possibly Spinello Aretino, and, in the cloisters, a noteworthy Madonna of the same school, ascribed to Giovanni da Milano.

Beyond the Carmine, westwards, is the Borgo San Frediano, now, as in olden time, the poorest part of Florence. It was the ringing of the bell of the Carmine that gave the signal for the rising of the Ciompi in 1378. Unlike their neighbours, the Augustinians of Santo Spirito, the good fathers of Our Lady of Mount Carmel were for the most part ardent followers of Savonarola, and, on the first of October 1497, one of them preached an open-air sermon near the Porta San Frediano, in which he declared that he himself had had a special revelation from God on the subject of Fra Girolamo's sanctity, and that all who resisted the Friar would be horribly punished; even Landucci admits that he talked arrant nonsense, pazzie. The parish church of this district, San Frediano in Cestello, is quite uninteresting. At the end of the Via San Frediano is the great Porta San Frediano, of which more presently.

The gates and walls of Oltrarno were built between 1324 and 1327, in the days of the Republic's great struggle with Castruccio Interminelli. Unlike those on the northern bank, they are still in part standing. There are five gates on this side of the river–the Porta San Niccolò, the Porta San Miniato, the Porta San Giorgio, the Porta Romana or Por San Piero Gattolino, and the Porta San Frediano. It was all round this part of the city that the imperial army lay during the siege of 1529 and 1530.

On the east of the city, on the banks of the Arno, rises first the Porta San Niccolò–mutilated and isolated, but the only one of the gates that has retained a remnant of its ancient height and dignity. In a lunette on the inner side is a fresco of 1357–Madonna and Child with Saints, Angels and Prophets. Around are carved the lilies of the Commune. On the side facing the hill are the arms of the Parte Guelfa and of the People, with the lily of the Commune between them. Within the gate the Borgo San Niccolò leads to the church of San Niccolò, which contains a picture by Neri di Bicci and one of the Pollaiuoli, and four saints ascribed to Gentile da Fabriano. It is one of the oldest Florentine churches, though not interesting in its present state. There is an altogether untrustworthy tradition that Michelangelo was sheltered in the tower of this church after the capitulation of the city, but he seems to have been more probably in the house of a trusted friend. Pope Clement ordered that he should be sought for, but left at liberty and treated with all courtesy if he agreed to go on working at the Medicean monuments in San Lorenzo; and, hearing this, the sculptor came out from his hiding place. It may be observed that San Niccolò was a most improbable place for him to have sought refuge in, as Malatesta Baglioni had his headquarters close by.

Beyond the Porta San Niccolò is the Piano di Ripoli, where the Prince of Orange had his headquarters. Before his exile Dante possessed some land here. It was here that the first Dominican house was established in Tuscany under St Dominic's companion, Blessed John of Salerno. Up beyond the terminus of the tramway a splendid view of Florence can be obtained.

Near the Porta San Niccolò the long flight of stairs mounts up the hill of San Francesco e San Miniato, which commands the city from the south-east, to the Piazzale Michelangelo just below the church. A long and exceedingly beautiful drive leads also to this Piazzale from the Porta Romana–the Viale dei Colli–and passes down again to the Barriera San Niccolò by the Viale Michelangelo. This Viale dei Colli, at least, is one of those few works which even those folk who make a point of sneering at everything done in Florence since the unification of Italy are constrained to admire. It would seem that even in the thirteenth century there were steps of some kind constructed up the hill-side to the church. In that passage from the Purgatorio (canto xii.) which I have put at the head of this chapter, Dante compares the ascent from the first to the second circle of Purgatory to this climb: "As on the right hand, to mount the hill where stands the church which overhangs the well-guided city, above Rubaconte, the bold abruptness of the ascent is broken by the steps that were made in the age when the ledger and the stave were safe."54

The Piazzale, adorned with bronze copies of Michelangelo's great statues, commands one of the grandest views of Florence, with the valley of the Arno and the mountains round, that "in silence listen for the word said next," as Mrs Browning has it. Up beyond is the exceedingly graceful Franciscan church of San Salvadore al Monte–"the purest vessel of Franciscan simplicity," a modern Italian poet has called it–built by Cronaca in the last years of the fifteenth century. It contains a few works by Giovanni della Robbia. It was as he descended this hill with a few armed followers that Giovanni Gualberto met and pardoned the murderer of his brother; a small chapel or tabernacle, on the way up from the convent to San Miniato, still marks the spot, but the Crucifix which is said to have bowed down its head towards him is now preserved in Santa Trinità.

This Monte di San Francesco e di San Miniato overlooks the whole city, and Florence lay at the mercy of whoever got possession of it. Varchi in his history apologises for those architects who built the walls of the city by reminding us that, in their days, artillery was not even dreamed of, much less invented. Michelangelo armed the campanile of San Miniato, against which the fiercest fire of the imperialists was directed, and erected bastions covering the hill, enclosing it, as it were, within the walls up from the Porta San Miniato and down again to the Porta San Niccolò. It was intrusted to the guard of Stefano Colonna, who finally joined Malatesta Baglioni in betraying the city. Some bits of Michelangelo's work remain near the Basilica, which itself is one of the most venerable edifices of the kind in Tuscany; the earliest Florentine Christians are said to have met here in the woods, during the reign of Nero, and here Saint Miniatus, according to tradition the son of an Armenian king, lived in his hermitage until martyred by Decius outside the present Porta alla Croce. In the days of Gregory the Great, San Frediano of Lucca came every year with his clergy to worship the relics of Miniatus; a basilica already stood here in the time of Charlemagne; and the present edifice is said to have been begun in 1013 by the Bishop Alibrando, with the aid of the Emperor St Henry and his wife Cunegunda. It was held by the Benedictines, first the black monks and then the Olivetans who took it over from Gregory XI. in 1373. The new Bishops of Florence, the first time they set foot out of the city, came here to sing Mass. In 1553 the monastery was suppressed by Duke Cosimo I., and turned into a fortress.

San Miniato al Monte is one of the earliest and one of the finest examples of the Tuscan Romanesque style of architecture. Both interior and exterior are adorned with inlaid coloured marble, of simple design, and the fine "nearly classical" pillars within are probably taken from some ancient Roman building. Fergusson remarks that, but for the rather faulty construction of the façade, "it would be difficult to find a church in Italy containing more of classical elegance, with perfect appropriateness for the purposes of Christian worship." In the crypt beneath the altar is the tomb of San Miniato and others of the Decian martyrs. The great mosaic on the upper part of the apse was originally executed at the end of the thirteenth century. The Early Renaissance chapel in the nave was constructed by Michelozzo in 1448 for Piero dei Medici, to contain Giovanni Gualberto's miraculous Crucifix. In the left aisle is the Cappella di San Jacopo with the monument of the Cardinal James of Portugal, who "lived in the flesh as if he were freed from it, like an Angel rather than a man, and died in the odour of sanctity at the early age of twenty-six," in 1459. This tomb by Antonio Rossellino is the third of the "three finest Renaissance tombs in Tuscany," the other two being those of Leonardo Bruni (1444) by Antonio's brother Bernardo, and Carlo Marsuppini by Desiderio (1453), both of which we have seen in Santa Croce. Mr Perkins observes that the present tomb preserves the golden mean in point of ornament between the other two. The Madonna and Child with the Angels, watching over the young Cardinal's repose, are especially beautiful. The Virtues on the ceiling are by Luca della Robbia, and the Annunciation opposite the tomb by Alessio Baldovinetti. The Gothic sacristy was built for one of the great Alberti family, Benedetto di Nerozzo, in 1387, and decorated shortly after with a splendid series of frescoes by Spinello Aretino, setting forth the life of St. Benedict. These are Spinello's noblest works and the last great creation of the genuine school of Giotto. Especially fine are the scenes with the Gothic king Totila, and the death and apotheosis of the Saint, which latter may be compared with Giotto's St. Francis in Santa Croce. The whole is like a painted chapter of St. Gregory's Dialogues.

The Porta San Miniato, below the hill, almost at the foot of the Basilica, is little more than a gap in the wall. On both sides are the arms of the Commune and the People, the Cross of the latter outside the lily of the former. Upwards from the Porta San Miniato to the Porta San Giorgio a glorious bit of the old wall remains, clad inside and out with olives, running up the hillside of San Giorgio; even some remnants of the old towers are standing, two indeed having been only partially demolished. Beneath the former Medicean fortress and upper citadel of Belvedere stands the Porta San Giorgio. This, although small, is the most picturesque of all the gates of Florence. On its outer side is a spirited bas-relief of St. George and the Dragon in stone–of the end of the fourteenth century–over the lily of the Commune; in the lunette, on the inner side, is a fresco painted in 1330–probably by Bernardo Daddi–of Santa Maria del Fiore enthroned with the Divine Babe between St. George and St. Leonard. This was the only gate held by the nobles in the great struggle of 1343, when the banners of the people were carried across the bridge in triumph, and the Bardi and Frescobaldi fought from street to street; through it the magnates had secretly brought in banditti and retainers from the country, and through it some of the Bardi fled when the people swept down upon their palaces. Inside the gate the steep Via della Costa San Giorgio winds down past Galileo's house to Santa Felicità. Outside the gate the Via San Leonardo leads, between olive groves and vineyards, into the Viale dei Colli. In the curious little church of San Leonardo in Arcetri, on the left, is an old ambone or pulpit from the demolished church of San Piero Scheraggio, with ancient bas-reliefs. This pulpit is traditionally supposed to have been a part of the spoils in the destruction of Fiesole; it appears to belong to the latter part of the twelfth century.

The great Porta Romana, or Porta San Piero Gattolino, was originally erected in 1328; it is still of imposing dimensions, though its immediate surroundings are somewhat prosaic. Many a Pope and Emperor has passed through here, to or from the eternal city; the marble tablets on either side record the entrance of Leo X. in 1515, on his way from Rome to Bologna to meet Francis I. of France, and of Charles V. in 1536 to confirm the infamous Duke Alessandro on the throne–a confirmation which the dagger of Lorenzino happily annulled in the following year. It was here that Pope Leo's brother, Piero dei Medici, had made his unsuccessful attempt to surprise the city on April 28th 1497, with some thousand men or more, horse and foot. A countryman at daybreak had seen them resting and breakfasting on the way, some few miles from the city; by taking short cuts over the country, he evaded their scouts who were intercepting all persons passing northwards, and reached Florence with the news just at the morning opening of the gate. The result was that the Magnifico Piero and his braves found it closed in their faces and the forces of the Signoria guarding the walls, so, after ignominiously skulking for a few hours out of range of the artillery, they fled back towards Siena.

Near the Porta Romana the Viale dei Colli commences to the left, as the Viale Machiavelli; and, straight on, the beautifully shady Stradone del Poggio Imperiale runs up to the villa of that name, built for Maria Maddalena of Austria in 1622. The statues at the beginning of the road were once saints on the second façade of the Duomo. It was on the rising ground that divides the Strada Romana from the present Stradone that the famous convent of Monticelli stood, recorded in Dante's Paradiso and Petrarca's Trionfo della Pudicizia, in which Piccarda Donati took the habit of St. Clare, and from which she was dragged by her brother Corso to marry Rossellino della Tosa:–

"Perfetta vita ed alto merto incieladonna più su, mi disse, alla cui normanel vostro mondo giù si veste e vela,perchè in fino al morir si vegghi e dormacon quello sposo ch'ogni voto accetta,che caritate a suo piacer conforma.Dal mondo, per seguirla, giovinettafuggi'mi, e nel suo abito mi chiusi,e promisi la via della sua setta.Uomini poi, a mal più ch'al bene usi,fuor mi rapiron della dolce chiostra;e Dio si sa qual poi mia vita fusi."55

It was at Poggio Imperiale, then called the Poggio dei Baroncelli, that a famous combat took place during the early days of the siege, in which Ludovico Martelli and Dante da Castiglione fought two Florentines who were serving in the imperial army, Giovanni Bandini and Bertino Aldobrandini. Both Martelli, the original challenger, and Aldobrandini were mortally wounded. Martelli's real motive in sending the challenge is said to have been that he and Bandini were rivals for the favours of a Florentine lady, Marietta de' Ricci. Among the many beautiful villas and gardens which stud the country beyond Poggio Imperiale, are Galileo's Tower, from which he made his astronomical observations, and the villa in which he was visited by Milton. Near Santa Margherita a Montici, to the east, is the villa in which the articles of capitulation were arranged by the Florentine ambassadors with Ferrante Gonzaga, commander of the Imperial troops, and Baccio Valori, commissary of the Pope. But already Malatesta had opened the Porta Romana and turned his artillery against the city which he had solemnly sworn to defend.

Beyond the Porta Romana the road to the right of Poggio Imperiale leads to the valley of the Ema, above which the great Certosa rises on the hill of Montaguto. Shortly before reaching the monastery the Ema is crossed–an insignificant stream in which Cacciaguida (in Paradiso xvi.) rather paradoxically regrets that Buondelmonte was not drowned on his way to Florence: "Joyous had many been who now are sad, had God committed thee unto the Ema the first time that thou camest to the city." The Certosa itself, that "huge battlemented convent-block over the little forky flashing Greve," as Browning calls it, was founded by Niccolò Acciaiuoli, the Florentine Grand Seneschal of Naples, in 1341; it is one of the finest of the later mediæval monasteries. Orcagna is said to have built one of the side chapels of the church, which contains a fine early Giottesque altarpiece; and in a kind of crypt there are noble tombs of the Acciaiuoli–one, the monument of the founder, being possibly by Orcagna, and one of the later ones ascribed (doubtfully) to Donatello. In the chapter-house are a Crucifixion by Mariotto Albertinelli, and the monument of Leonardo Buonafede by Francesco da San Gallo. From the convent and further up the valley, there are beautiful views. About three miles further on is the sanctuary and shrine of the Madonna dell' Impruneta, built for the miraculous image of the Madonna, which was carried down in procession to Florence in times of pestilence and danger. Savonarola especially had placed great faith in the miraculous powers of this image and these processions; and during the siege it remained in Florence ceremoniously guarded in the Duomo, a kind of mystic Palladium.

Between the Porta Romana and Porta San Frediano some tracts of the city wall remain, but the whole is painfully prosaic. The Porta San Frediano itself is a massive structure, erected between 1324 and 1327, possibly by Andrea Pisano; it need hardly be repeated that we cannot judge of the original mediæval appearance of the gates of Florence, with their towers and ante-portals, even from the least mutilated of their present remnants. It was through this gate that the Florentine army passed in triumph in 1363 with their long trains of captured Pisans; and here, after Pisa had shaken off for a while the yoke, Charles of France rode in as a conqueror on November 17, 1494, Savonarola's new Cyrus, and was solemnly received at the gate by the Signoria. Within the gate a strip of wall runs down to the river, with two later towers built by Medicean grand dukes. At the end is a chapel built in 1856, and containing a Pietà from the walls of a demolished convent–ascribed without warrant to Domenico Ghirlandaio.

It was somewhere near here that S. Frediano, coming from Lucca to pay his annual visit to the shrine of San Miniato, miraculously crossed the Arno in flood. Outside the gate, a little off the Leghorn road to the left, is the suppressed abbey of Monte Oliveto, and beyond it, to the south, the hill of Bellosguardo–both points from which splendid views of Florence and its surroundings are obtained.

These dream-like glimpses of the City of Flowers, which every coign of vantage seems to give us round Florence–might we not, sometimes, imagine that we had stumbled unawares upon the Platonic City of the Perfect? There are two lines from one of Dante's canzoni in praise of his mystical lady that rise to our mind at every turn:–

"Io non la vidi tante volte ancora,ch'io non trovassi in lei nuova bellezza,"

CHAPTER XIII

Conclusion

THE setting of Florence is in every way worthy of the gem which it encloses. On each side of the city and throughout its province beautiful walks and drives lead to churches, villas and villages full of historical interest or enriched with artistic treasures. I can here merely indicate a very few such places.

To the north of the city rises Fiesole on its hill, of which the historical connection with Florence has been briefly discussed in chapter i. At its foot stands the Dominican convent, in which Fra Giovanni, whom we know better as the Beato Angelico, took the habit of the order, and in which both his brother, Fra Benedetto, and himself were in turn priors. Savonarola's fellow martyr, Fra Domenico da Pescia, was likewise prior of this house. The church contains a Madonna by Angelico, with the background painted in by Lorenzo di Credi (its exquisitely beautiful predella is now one of the chief ornaments of the National Gallery of London), a Baptism of Christ by Lorenzo di Credi, and an Adoration of the Magi designed by Andrea del Sarto and executed by Sogliani. A little to the left is the famous Badia di Fiesole, originally of the eleventh century, but rebuilt for Cosimo the Elder by Filippo Brunelleschi. It was one of Cosimo's favourite foundations; Marsilio Ficino's Platonic Academy frequently met in the loggia with its beautiful view towards the city. In the church, Lorenzo's second son, Giovanni, was invested with the Cardinalate in 1492; and here, in 1516, his third son, Giuliano, Duke of Nemours, the best of the Medici, died. On the way up to Fiesole itself is the handsome villa Mozzi, built for Giovanni di Cosimo de' Medici by Michelozzo. It was in this villa that the Pazzi had originally intended to murder Lorenzo and the elder Giuliano, but their plan was frustrated by the illness of Giuliano, which prevented his being present.

In Fiesole itself, the remains of the Etruscan wall and the old theatre tell of the classical Faesulae; its Tuscan Romanesque Duomo (of the eleventh and twelfth centuries) recalls the days when the city seemed a rival to Florence itself and was the resort of the robber barons, who preyed upon her ever growing commerce. It contains sculptures by Mino da Fiesole and that later Fiesolan, Andrea Ferrucci (to whom we owe the bust of Marsilio Ficino), and a fine terracotta by one of the Della Robbias. From the Franciscan convent, which occupies the site of the old Roman citadel, a superb view of Florence and its valley is obtained. From Fiesole, towards the south-east, we reach Ponte a Mensola (also reached from the Porta alla Croce), the Mensola of Boccaccio's Ninfale fiesolano, above which is Settignano, where Desiderio was born and Michelangelo nurtured, and where Boccaccio had a podere. The Villa Poggio Gherardo, below Settignano, shares with the Villa Palmieri below Fiesole the distinction of being traditionally one of those introduced into the Decameron.

Northwestwards of the Badia of Fiesole runs the road from Florence to Bologna, past the village of Trespiano, some three or four miles from the Porta San Gallo. In the twelfth century Trespiano was the northern boundary of Florentine territory, as Galluzzo–on the way towards the Certosa and about two miles from the Porta Romana–was its southern limit. Cacciaguida, in Paradiso xvi., refers to this as an ideal golden time when the citizenship "saw itself pure even in the lowest artizan." A little way north of Trespiano, on the old Bolognese road, is the Uccellatoio–referred to in canto xv.–the first point from which Florence is visible. Below Trespiano, at La Lastra, rather more than two miles from the city, the exiled Bianchi and Ghibellines, with auxiliaries from Bologna and Arezzo, assembled in that fatal July of 1304. The leaders of the Neri were absent at Perugia, and, at the first sight of the white standards waving from the hill, terror and consternation filled their partisans throughout the city. Had their enterprise been better organised, the exiles would undoubtedly have captured Florence. Seeing that they were discovered, and urged on by their friends within the city, without waiting for the Uberti, whose cavalry was advancing from Pistoia to their support and whose appointed day of coming they had anticipated, Baschiera della Tosa, in spite of the terrible heat, ordered an immediate advance upon the Porta San Gallo. The walls of the third circle were only in part built at that epoch, and those of the second circle still stood with their gates. The exiles, for the most part mounted, drew up round San Marco and the Annunziata, "with white standards spread, with garlands of olive and drawn swords, crying peace," writes Dino Compagni, who was in Florence at the time, "without doing violence or plundering anyone. A right goodly sight was it to see them, with the sign of peace thus arrayed. The heat was so great, that it seemed that the very air burned." But their friends within did not stir. They forced the Porta degli Spadai which stood at the head of the present Via dei Martelli, but were repulsed at the Piazza San Giovanni and the Duomo, and the sudden blazing up of a palace in the rear completed their rout. Many fell on the way, simply from the heat, while the Neri, becoming fierce-hearted like lions, as Compagni says, hotly pursued them, hunting out those who had hidden themselves among the vineyards and houses, hanging all they caught. In their flight, a little way from Florence, the exiles met Tolosato degli Uberti hastening up with his Ghibellines to meet them on the appointed day. Tolosato, a fierce captain and experienced in civil war, tried in vain to rally them, and, when all his efforts proved unavailing, returned to Pistoia declaring that the youthful rashness of Baschiera had lost him the city. Dante had taken no part in the affair; he had broken with his fellow exiles in the previous year, and made a party for himself as he tells us in the Paradiso.

To the west and north-west of Florence are several interesting villas of the Medici. The Villa Medicea in Careggi, the most famous of all, is not always accessible. It is situated in the loveliest country, within a short walk of the tramway station of Ponte a Rifredi. Built originally by Michelozzo for Cosimo the Elder, it was almost burned down by a band of republican youths shortly before the siege. Here Cosimo died, consoling his last hours with Marsilio Ficino's Platonics; here the elder Piero lived in retirement, too shattered in health to do more than nominally succeed his father at the head of the State. On August 23rd 1466, there was an attempt made to murder Piero as he was carried into Florence from Careggi in his litter. A band of armed men, in the pay of Luca Pitti and Dietisalvi Neroni, lay in wait for the litter on the way to the Porta Faenza; but young Lorenzo, who was riding on in advance of his father's cortège, came across them first, and, without appearing to take any alarm at the meeting, secretly sent back a messenger to bid his father take another way. Under Lorenzo himself, this villa became the centre of the Neo-Platonic movement; and here on November 7th, the day supposed to be the anniversary of Plato's birth and death, the famous banquet was held at which Marsilio Ficino and the chosen spirits of the Academy discussed and expounded the Symposium. Here on April 8th 1492, the Magnifico died (see chap. iii.). In the same neighbourhood, a little further on in the direction of Pistoia, are the villas of Petraia and Castello (for both of which permessi are given at the Pitti Palace, together with that for Poggio a Caiano), both reminiscent of the Medicean grand ducal family; in the latter Cosimo I. lived with his mother, Maria Salviati, before his accession to the throne, and here he died in 1574.