with as much familiarity as if for a long time they had held great friendship; but all the while neither the one nor the other spoke, but stayed, so embraced, with such signs of charitable love, in silence. And so having remained for a great while, they parted from one another, and St. Louis went on his way, and Brother Giles returned to his cell. And the King being gone, one of the brethren asked of his companion who he was, who answered that he was the King of France. Of which the other brothers being told, were in the greatest melancholy because Brother Giles had never said a word to him; and murmuring at it, they said, ‘Oh, Brother Giles, wherefore hadst thou so country manners that to so holy a king, who had come from France to see thee and hear from thee some good word, thou hast spoken nothing?’
“Answered Brother Giles: ‘Dearest brothers, wonder not ye at this, that neither I to him, nor he to me, could speak a word; for so soon as we had embraced, the light of the divine wisdom revealed and manifested, to me, his heart, and to him, mine; and so by divine operation we looked each in the other’s heart on what we would have said to one another, and knew it better far than if we had spoken with the mouth, and with more consolation, because of the defect of the human tongue, which cannot clearly express the secrets of God, and would have been for discomfort rather than comfort. And know, therefore, that the King parted from me marvellously content, and comforted in his mind.'”
Of all which story, not a word, of course, is credible by any rational person.
Certainly not: the spirit, nevertheless, which created the story, is an entirely indisputable fact in the history of Italy and of mankind. Whether St. Louis and Brother Giles ever knelt together in the street of Perugia matters not a whit. That a king and a poor monk could be conceived to have thoughts of each other which no words could speak; and that indeed the King’s tenderness and humility made such a tale credible to the people,–this is what you have to meditate on here.
Nor is there any better spot in the world,–whencesoever your pilgrim feet may have journeyed to it, wherein to make up so much mind as you have in you for the making, concerning the nature of Kinghood and Princedom generally; and of the forgeries and mockeries of both which are too often manifested in their room. For it happens that this Christian and this Persian King are better painted here by Giotto than elsewhere by any one, so as to give you the best attainable conception of the Christian and Heathen powers which have both received, in the book which Christians profess to reverence, the same epithet as the King of the Jews Himself; anointed, or Christos:–and as the most perfect Christian Kinghood was exhibited in the life, partly real, partly traditional, of St. Louis, so the most perfect Heathen Kinghood was exemplified in the life, partly real, partly traditional, of Cyrus of Persia, and in the laws for human government and education which had chief force in his dynasty. And before the images of these two Kings I think therefore it will be well that you should read the charge to Cyrus, written by Isaiah. The second clause of it, if not all, will here become memorable to you–literally illustrating, as it does, the very manner of the defeat of the Zoroastrian Magi, on which Giotto founds his Triumph of Faith. I write the leading sentences continuously; what I omit is only their amplification, which you can easily refer to at home. (Isaiah xliv. 24, to xlv. 13.)
“Thus saith the Lord, thy Redeemer, and he that formed thee from the womb. I the Lord that maketh all; that stretcheth forth the heavens, alone; that spreadeth abroad the earth, alone; _that turneth wise men backward, and maketh their knowledge, foolish; that confirmeth the word of his Servant, and fulfilleth the counsel of his messengers_: that saith of Cyrus, He is my Shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure, even saying to Jerusalem, ‘thou shalt be built,’ and to the temple, ‘thy foundations shall be laid.”
“Thus saith the Lord to his Christ;–to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him, and I will loose the loins of Kings.
“I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight; I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron; and I will give _thee_ the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I the Lord, which call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel.
“For Jacob my servant’s sake, and Israel mine elect, I have even called thee by thy name; I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me.
“I am the Lord, and there is none else; there is no God beside me. I girded thee, though thou hast not known me. That they may know, from the _rising of the sun_, and from the west, that there is none beside me; I am the Lord and there is none else. _I form the light_, and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil. I the Lord do all these things.
“I have raised him up in Righteousness, and will direct all his ways; he shall build my city, and let go my captives, not for price nor reward, saith the Lord of Nations.”
To this last verse, add the ordinance of Cyrus in fulfilling it, that you may understand what is meant by a King’s being “raised up in Righteousness,” and notice, with respect to the picture under which you stand, the Persian King’s thought of the Jewish temple.
“In the first year of the reign of Cyrus, [Footnote: 1st Esdras vi. 24.] King Cyrus commanded that the house of the Lord at Jerusalem should be built again, _where they do service with perpetual fire_; (the italicized sentence is Darius’s, quoting Cyrus’s decree –the decree itself worded thus), Thus saith Cyrus, King of Persia: [Footnote: Ezra i. 3, and 2nd Esdras ii. 3.] The Lord God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he hath charged me to build him an house at Jerusalem.
“Who is there among you of all his people?–his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem which is in Judah, and let the men of his place help him with silver and with gold, and with goods and with beasts.”
Between which “bringing the prisoners out of captivity” and modern liberty, free trade, and anti-slavery eloquence, there is no small interval.
To these two ideals of Kinghood, then, the boy has reached, since the day he was drawing the lamb on the stone, as Cimabue passed by. You will not find two other such, that I know of, in the west of Europe; and yet there has been many a try at the painting of crowned heads,–and King George III and Queen Charlotte, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, are very fine, no doubt. Also your black-muzzled kings of Velasquez, and Vandyke’s long-haired and white-handed ones; and Rubens’ riders–in those handsome boots. Pass such shadows of them as you can summon, rapidly before your memory–then look at this St. Louis.
His face–gentle, resolute, glacial-pure, thin-cheeked; so sharp at the chin that the entire head is almost of the form of a knight’s shield–the hair short on the forehead, falling on each side in the old Greek-Etruscan curves of simplest line, to the neck; I don’t know if you can see without being nearer, the difference in the arrangement of it on the two sides-the mass of it on the right shoulder bending inwards, while that on the left falls straight. It is one of the pretty changes which a modern workman would never dream of–and which assures me the restorer has followed the old lines rightly.
He wears a crown formed by an hexagonal pyramid, beaded with pearls on the edges: and walled round, above the brow, with a vertical fortress-parapet, as it were, rising into sharp pointed spines at the angles: it is chasing of gold with pearl–beautiful in the remaining work of it; the Soldan wears a crown of the same general form; the hexagonal outline signifying all order, strength, and royal economy. We shall see farther symbolism of this kind, soon, by Simon Memmi, in the Spanish chapel.
I cannot tell you anything definite of the two other frescos–for I can only examine one or two pictures in a day; and never begin with one till I have done with another; and I had to leave Florence without looking at these–even so far as to be quite sure of their subjects. The central one on the left is either the twelfth subject of Assisi–St. Francis in Ecstacy; [Footnote: “Represented” (next to St. Francis before the Soldan, at Assisi) “as seen one night by the brethren, praying, elevated from the ground, his hands extended like the cross, and surrounded by a shining cloud.”–_Lord Lindsay_.] or the eighteenth, the Apparition of St. Francis at Arles; [Footnote: “St. Anthony of Padua was preaching at a general chapter of the order, held at Arles, in 1224, when St. Francis appeared in the midst, his arms extended, and in an attitude of benediction.”–_Lord Lindsay_.] while the lowest on the right may admit choice between two subjects in each half of it: my own reading of them would be–that they are the twenty-first and twenty-fifth subjects of Assisi, the Dying Friar [Footnote: “A brother of the order, lying on his deathbed, saw the spirit of St. Francis rising to heaven, and springing forward, cried, ‘Tarry, Father, I come with thee!’ and fell back dead.” –_Lord Lindsay_.] and Vision of Pope Gregory IX.; [Footnote: “He hesitated, before canonizing St. Francis; doubting the celestial infliction of the stigmata. St. Francis appeared to him in a vision, and with a severe countenance reproving his unbelief, opened his robe, and, exposing the wound in his side, filled a vial with the blood that flowed from it, and gave it to the Pope, who awoke and found it in his hand.”–_Lord Lindsay_.] but Crowe and Cavalcasella may be right in their different interpretation; [Footnote: “As St. Francis was carried on his bed of sickness to St. Maria degli Angeli, he stopped at an hospital on the roadside, and ordering his attendants to turn his head in the direction of Assisi, he rose in his litter and said, ‘Blessed be thou amongst cities! may the blessing of God cling to thee, oh holy place, for by thee shall many souls be saved;’ and, having said this, he lay down and was carried on to St. Maria degli Angeli. On the evening of the 4th of October his death was revealed at the very hour to the bishop of Assisi on Mount Sarzana.”–_Crowe and Cavalcasella._] in any case, the meaning of the entire system of work remains unchanged, as I have given it above.
THE FOURTH MORNING.
THE VAULTED BOOK.
As early as may be this morning, let us look for a minute or two into the cathedral:–I was going to say, entering by one of the side doors of the aisles;–but we can’t do anything else, which perhaps might not strike you unless you were thinking specially of it. There are no transept doors; and one never wanders round to the desolate front. From either of the side doors, a few paces will bring you to the middle of the nave, and to the point opposite the middle of the third arch from the west end; where you will find yourself–if well in the mid-wave–standing on a circular slab of green porphyry, which marks the former place of the grave of the bishop Zenobius. The larger inscription, on the wide circle of the floor outside of you, records the translation of his body; the smaller one round the stone at your feet–“quiescimus, domum hanc quum adimus ultimam”–is a painful truth, I suppose, to travellers like us, who never rest anywhere now, if we can help it.
Resting here, at any rate, for a few minutes, look up to the whitewashed vaulting of the compartment of the roof next the west end.
You will see nothing whatever in it worth looking at. Nevertheless, look a little longer.
But the longer you look, the less you will understand why I tell you to look. It is nothing but a whitewashed ceiling: vaulted indeed,–but so is many a tailor’s garret window, for that matter. Indeed, now that you have looked steadily for a minute or so, and are used to the form of the arch, it seems to become so small that you can almost fancy it the ceiling of a good-sized lumber-room in an attic.
Having attained to this modest conception of it, carry your eyes back to the similar vault of the second compartment, nearer you. Very little further contemplation will reduce that also to the similitude of a moderately-sized attic. And then, resolving to bear, if possible–for it is worth while,–the cramp in your neck for another quarter of a minute, look right up to the third vault, over your head; which, if not, in the said quarter of a minute, reducible in imagination to a tailor’s garret, will at least sink, like the two others, into the semblance of a common arched ceiling, of no serious magnitude or majesty.
Then, glance quickly down from it to the floor, and round at the space, (included between the four pillars), which that vault covers. It is sixty feet square,[Footnote: Approximately. Thinking I could find the dimensions of the duomo anywhere, I only paced it myself,–and cannot, at this moment, lay my hand on English measurements of it.]–four hundred square yards of pavement,–and I believe you will have to look up again more than once or twice, before you can convince yourself that the mean-looking roof is swept indeed over all that twelfth part of an acre. And still less, if I mistake not, will you, without slow proof, believe, when you turn yourself round towards the east end, that the narrow niche (it really looks scarcely more than a niche) which occupies, beyond the dome, the position of our northern choirs, is indeed the unnarrowed elongation of the nave, whose breadth extends round you like a frozen lake. From which experiments and comparisons, your conclusion, I think, will be, and I am sure it ought to be, that the most studious ingenuity could not produce a design for the interior of a building which should more completely hide its extent, and throw away every common advantage of its magnitude, than this of the Duomo of Florence.
Having arrived at this, I assure you, quite securely tenable conclusion, we will quit the cathedral by the western door, for once, and as quickly as we can walk, return to the Green cloister of Sta. Maria Novella; and place ourselves on the south side of it, so as to see as much as we can of the entrance, on the opposite side, to the so-called ‘Spanish Chapel.’
There is, indeed, within the opposite cloister, an arch of entrance, plain enough. But no chapel, whatever, externally manifesting itself as worth entering. No walls, or gable, or dome, raised above the rest of the outbuildings–only two windows with traceries opening into the cloister; and one story of inconspicuous building above. You can’t conceive there should be any effect of _magnitude_ produced in the interior, however it has been vaulted or decorated. It may be pretty, but it cannot possibly look large.
Entering it, nevertheless, you will be surprised at the effect of height, and disposed to fancy that the circular window cannot surely be the same you saw outside, looking so low, I had to go out again, myself, to make sure that it was.
And gradually, as you let the eye follow the sweep of the vaulting arches, from the small central keystone-boss, with the Lamp carved on it, to the broad capitals of the hexagonal pillars at the angles,–there will form itself in your mind, I think, some impression not only of vastness in the building, but of great daring in the builder; and at last, after closely following out the lines of a fresco or two, and looking up and up again to the coloured vaults, it will become to you literally one of the grandest places you ever entered, roofed without a central pillar. You will begin to wonder that human daring ever achieved anything so magnificent.
But just go out again into the cloister, and recover knowledge of the facts. It is nothing like so large as the blank arch which at home we filled with brickbats or leased for a gin-shop under the last railway we made to carry coals to Newcastle. And if you pace the floor it covers, you will find it is three feet less one way, and thirty feet less the other, than that single square of the Cathedral which was roofed like a tailor’s loft,–accurately, for I did measure here, myself, the floor of the Spanish chapel is fifty-seven feet by thirty-two.
I hope, after this experience, that you will need no farther conviction of the first law of noble building, that grandeur depends on proportion and design–not, except in a quite secondary degree, on magnitude. Mere size has, indeed, under all disadvantage, some definite value; and so has mere splendour. Disappointed as you may be, or at least ought to be, at first, by St. Peter’s, in the end you will feel its size,–and its brightness. These are all you _can_ feel in it–it is nothing more than the pump-room at Leamington built bigger;–but the bigness tells at last: and Corinthian pillars whose capitals alone are ten feet high, and their acanthus leaves, three feet six long, give you a serious conviction of the infallibility of the Pope, and the fallibility of the wretched Corinthians, who invented the style indeed, but built with capitals no bigger than hand-baskets.
Vastness _has_ thus its value. But the glory of architecture is to be–whatever you wish it to be,–lovely, or grand, or comfortable,–on such terms as it can easily obtain. Grand, by proportion–lovely, by imagination–comfortable, by ingenuity–secure, by honesty: with such materials and in such space as you have got to give it.
Grand–by proportion, I said; but ought to have said by _dis_proportion. Beauty is given by the relation of parts–size, by their comparison. The first secret in getting the impression of size in this chapel is the _dis_proportion between pillar and arch. You take the pillar for granted,–it is thick, strong, and fairly high above your head. You look to the vault springing from it–and it soars away, nobody knows where.
Another great, but more subtle secret is in the _in_equality and immeasurability of the curved lines; and the hiding of the form by the colour.
To begin, the room, I said, is fifty-seven feet wide, and only thirty-two deep. It is thus nearly one-third larger in the direction across the line of entrance, which gives to every arch, pointed and round, throughout the roof, a different spring from its neighbours.
The vaulting ribs have the simplest of all profiles–that of a chamfered beam. I call it simpler than even that of a square beam; for in barking a log you cheaply get your chamfer, and nobody cares whether the level is alike on each side: but you must take a larger tree, and use much more work to get a square. And it is the same with stone.
And this profile is–fix the conditions of it, therefore, in your mind,–venerable in the history of mankind as the origin of all Gothic tracery-mouldings; venerable in the history of the Christian Church as that of the roof ribs, both of the lower church of Assisi, bearing the scroll of the precepts of St. Francis, and here at Florence, bearing the scroll of the faith of St. Dominic. If you cut it out in paper, and cut the corners off farther and farther, at every cut, you will produce a sharper profile of rib, connected in architectural use with differently treated styles. But the entirely venerable form is the massive one in which the angle of the beam is merely, as it were, secured and completed in stability by removing its too sharp edge.
Well, the vaulting ribs, as in Giotto’s vault, then, have here, under their painting, this rude profile: but do not suppose the vaults are simply the shells cast over them. Look how the ornamental borders fall on the capitals! The plaster receives all sorts of indescribably accommodating shapes–the painter contracting and stopping his design upon it as it happens to be convenient. You can’t measure anything; you can’t exhaust; you can’t grasp,–except one simple ruling idea, which a child can grasp, if it is interested and intelligent: namely, that the room has four sides with four tales told upon them; and the roof four quarters, with another four tales told on those. And each history in the sides has its correspondent history in the roof. Generally, in good Italian decoration, the roof represents constant, or essential facts; the walls, consecutive histories arising out of them, or leading up to them. Thus here, the roof represents in front of you, in its main quarter, the Resurrection–the cardinal fact of Christianity; opposite (above, behind you), the Ascension; on your left hand, the descent of the Holy Spirit; on your right, Christ’s perpetual presence with His Church, symbolized by His appearance on the Sea of Galilee to the disciples in the storm.
The correspondent walls represent: under the first quarter, (the Resurrection), the story of the Crucifixion; under the second quarter, (the Ascension), the preaching after that departure, that Christ will return–symbolized here in the Dominican church by the consecration of St. Dominic; under the third quarter, (the descent of the Holy Spirit), the disciplining power of human virtue and wisdom; under the fourth quarter, (St. Peter’s Ship), the authority and government of the State and Church.
The order of these subjects, chosen by the Dominican monks themselves, was sufficiently comprehensive to leave boundless room for the invention of the painter. The execution of it was first intrusted to Taddeo Gaddi, the best architectural master of Giotto’s school, who painted the four quarters of the roof entirely, but with no great brilliancy of invention, and was beginning to go down one of the sides, when, luckily, a man of stronger brain, his friend, came from Siena. Taddeo thankfully yielded the room to him; he joined his own work to that of his less able friend in an exquisitely pretty and complimentary way; throwing his own greater strength into it, not competitively, but gradually and helpfully. When, however, he had once got himself well joined, and softly, to the more simple work, he put his own force on with a will and produced the most noble piece of pictorial philosophy [Footnote: There is no philosophy _taught_ either by the school of Athens or Michael Angelo’s ‘Last Judgment,’ and the ‘Disputa’ is merely a graceful assemblage of authorities, the effects of such authority not being shown.] and divinity existing in Italy.
This pretty, and, according to all evidence by me attainable, entirely true, tradition has been all but lost, among the ruins of fair old Florence, by the industry of modern mason-critics–who, without exception, labouring under the primal (and necessarily unconscious) disadvantage of not knowing good work from bad, and never, therefore, knowing a man by his hand or his thoughts, would be in any case sorrowfully at the mercy of mistakes in a document; but are tenfold more deceived by their own vanity, and delight in overthrowing a received idea, if they can.
Farther: as every fresco of this early date has been retouched again and again, and often painted half over,–and as, if there has been the least care or respect for the old work in the restorer, he will now and then follow the old lines and match the old colours carefully in some places, while he puts in clearly recognizable work of his own in others,–two critics, of whom one knows the first man’s work well, and the other the last’s, will contradict each other to almost any extent on the securest grounds. And there is then no safe refuge for an uninitiated person but in the old tradition, which, if not literally true, is founded assuredly on some root of fact which you are likely to get at, if ever, through it only. So that my general directions to all young people going to Florence or Rome would be very short: “Know your first volume of Vasari, and your two first books of Livy; look about you, and don’t talk, nor listen to talking.”
On those terms, you may know, entering this chapel, that in Michael Angelo’s time, all Florence attributed these frescos to Taddeo Gaddi and Simon Memmi.
I have studied neither of these artists myself with any speciality of care, and cannot tell you positively, anything about them or their works. But I know good work from bad, as a cobbler knows leather, and I can tell you positively the quality of these frescos, and their relation to contemporary panel pictures; whether authentically ascribed to Gaddi, Memmi, or any one else, it is for the Florentine Academy to decide.
The roof, and the north side, down to the feet of the horizontal line of sitting figures, were originally third-rate work of the school of Giotto; the rest of the chapel was originally, and most of it is still, magnificent work of the school of Siena. The roof and north side have been heavily repainted in, many places; the rest is faded and injured, but not destroyed in its most essential qualities. And now, farther, you must bear with just a little bit of tormenting history of painters.
There were two Gaddis, father and son,–Taddeo and Angelo. And there were two Memmis, brothers,–Simon and Philip.
I daresay you will find, in the modern books, that Simon’s real name was Peter, and Philip’s real name was Bartholomew; and Angelo’s real name was Taddeo, and Taddeo’s real name was Angelo; and Memmi’s real name was Gaddi, and Gaddi’s real name was Memmi. You may find out all that at your leisure, afterwards, if you like. What it is important for you to know here, in the Spanish Chapel, is only this much that follows:–There were certainly two persons once called Gaddi, both rather stupid in religious matters and high art; but one of them, I don’t know or care which, a true decorative painter of the most exquisite skill, a perfect architect, an amiable person, and a great lover of pretty domestic life. Vasari says this was the father, Taddeo. He built the Ponte Vecchio; and the old stones of it–which if you ever look at anything on the Ponte Vecchio but the shops, you may still see (above those wooden pent-houses) with the Florentine shield–were so laid by him that they are unshaken to this day.
He painted an exquisite series of frescos at Assisi from the Life of Christ; in which,–just to show you what the man’s nature is,–when the Madonna has given Christ into Simeon’s arms, she can’t help holding out her own arms to him, and saying, (visibly,) “Won’t you come back to mamma?” The child laughs his answer–“I love _you_, mamma; but I’m quite happy just now.”
Well; he, or he and his son together, painted these four quarters of the roof of the Spanish Chapel. They were very probably much retouched afterwards by Antonio Veneziano, or whomsoever Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcasella please; but that architecture in the descent of the Holy Ghost is by the man who painted the north transept of Assisi, and there need be no more talk about the matter,–for you never catch a restorer doing his old architecture right again. And farther, the ornamentation of the vaulting ribs _is_ by the man who painted the Entombment, No. 31 in the Galerie des Grands Tableaux, in the catalogue of the Academy for 1874. Whether that picture is Taddeo Gaddi’s or not, as stated in the catalogue, I do not know; but I know the vaulting ribs of the Spanish Chapel are painted by the same hand.
Again: of the two brothers Memmi, one or other, I don’t know or care which, had an ugly way of turning the eyes of his figures up and their mouths down; of which you may see an entirely disgusting example in the four saints attributed to Filippo Memmi on the cross wall of the north (called always in Murray’s guide the south, because he didn’t notice the way the church was built) transept of Assisi. You may, however, also see the way the mouth goes down in the much repainted, but still characteristic No. 9 in the Uffizii. [Footnote: This picture bears the inscription (I quote from the French catalogue, not having verified it myself), “Simon Martini, et Lippus Memmi de Senis me pinxerunt.” I have no doubt whatever, myself, that the two brothers worked together on these frescoes of the Spanish Chapel: but that most of the Limbo is Philip’s, and the Paradise, scarcely with his interference, Simon’s.]
Now I catch the wring and verjuice of this brother again and again, among the minor heads of the lower frescoes in this Spanish Chapel. The head of the Queen beneath Noah, in the Limbo,–(see below) is unmistakable.
Farther: one of the two brothers, I don’t care which, had a way of painting leaves; of which you may see a notable example in the rod in the hand of Gabriel in that same picture of the Annunciation in the Uffizii. No Florentine painter, or any other, ever painted leaves as well as that, till you get down to Sandro Botticelli, who did them much better. But the man who painted that rod in the hand of Gabriel, painted the rod in the right hand of Logic in the Spanish Chapel,–and nobody else in Florence, or the world, _could_.
Farther (and this is the last of the antiquarian business); you see that the frescoes on the roof are, on the whole, dark with much blue and red in them, the white spaces coming out strongly. This is the characteristic colouring of the partially defunct school of Giotto, becoming merely decorative, and passing into a colourist school which connected itself afterwards with the Venetians. There is an exquisite example of all its specialities in the little Annunciation in the Uffizii, No. 14, attributed to Angelo Gaddi, in which you see the Madonna is stupid, and the angel stupid, but the colour of the whole, as a piece of painted glass, lovely; and the execution exquisite,–at once a painter’s and jeweller’s; with subtle sense of chiaroscuro underneath; (note the delicate shadow of the Madonna’s arm across her breast).
The head of this school was (according to Vasari) Taddeo Gaddi; and henceforward, without further discussion, I shall speak of him as the painter of the roof of the Spanish Chapel,–not without suspicion, however, that his son Angelo may hereafter turn out to have been the better decorator, and the painter of the frescoes from the life of Christ in the north transept of Assisi,–with such assistance as his son or scholars might give–and such change or destruction as time, Antonio Veneziano, or the last operations of the Tuscan railroad company, may have effected on them.
On the other hand, you see that the frescos on the walls are of paler colours, the blacks coming out of these clearly, rather than the whites; but the pale colours, especially, for instance, the whole of the Duomo of Florence in that on your right, very tender and lovely. Also, you may feel a tendency to express much with outline, and draw, more than paint, in the most interesting parts; while in the duller ones, nasty green and yellow tones come out, which prevent the effect of the whole from being very pleasant. These characteristics belong, on the whole, to the school of Siena; and they indicate here the work _assuredly_ of a man of vast power and most refined education, whom I shall call without further discussion, during the rest of this and the following morning’s study, Simon Memmi.
And of the grace and subtlety with which he joined his work to that of the Gaddis, you may judge at once by comparing the Christ standing on the fallen gate of the Limbo, with the Christ in the Resurrection above. Memmi has retained the dress and imitated the general effect of the figure in the roof so faithfully that you suspect no difference of mastership–nay, he has even raised the foot in the same awkward way: but you will find Memmi’s foot delicately drawn-Taddeo’s, hard and rude: and all the folds of Memmi’s drapery cast with unbroken grace and complete gradations of shade, while Taddeo’s are rigid and meagre; also in the heads, generally Taddeo’s type of face is square in feature, with massive and inelegant clusters or volutes of hair and beard; but Memmi’s delicate and long in feature, with much divided and flowing hair, often arranged with exquisite precision, as in the finest Greek coins. Examine successively in this respect only the heads of Adam, Abel, Methuselah, and Abraham, in the Limbo, and you will not confuse the two designers any more. I have not had time to make out more than the principal figures in the Limbo, of which indeed the entire dramatic power is centred in the Adam and Eve. The latter dressed as a nun, in her fixed gaze on Christ, with her hands clasped, is of extreme beauty: and however feeble the work of any early painter may be, in its decent and grave inoffensiveness it guides the imagination unerringly to a certain point. How far you are yourself capable of filling up what is left untold and conceiving, as a reality, Eve’s first look on this her child, depends on no painter’s skill, but on your own understanding. Just above Eve is Abel, bearing the lamb: and behind him, Noah, between his wife and Shem: behind them, Abraham, between Isaac and Ishmael; (turning from Ishmael to Isaac), behind these, Moses, between Aaron and David. I have not identified the others, though I find the white-bearded figure behind Eve called Methuselah in my notes: I know not on what authority. Looking up from these groups, however, to the roof painting, you will at once feel the imperfect grouping and ruder features of all the figures; and the greater depth of colour. We will dismiss these comparatively inferior paintings at once.
The roof and walls must be read together, each segment of the roof forming an introduction to, or portion of, the subject on the wall below. But the roof must first be looked at alone, as the work of Taddeo Gaddi, for the artistic qualities and failures of it.
I. In front, as you enter, is the compartment with the subject of the Resurrection. It is the traditional Byzantine composition: the guards sleeping, and the two angels in white saying to the women, “He is not here,” while Christ is seen rising with the flag of the Cross.
But it would be difficult to find another example of the subject, so coldly treated–so entirely without passion or action. The faces are expressionless; the gestures powerless. Evidently the painter is not making the slightest effort to conceive what really happened, but merely repeating and spoiling what he could remember of old design, or himself supply of commonplace for immediate need. The “Noli me tangere,” on the right, is spoiled from Giotto, and others before him; a peacock, woefully plumeless and colourless, a fountain, an ill drawn toy-horse, and two toy-children gathering flowers, are emaciate remains of Greek symbols. He has taken pains with the vegetation, but in vain. Yet Taddeo Gaddi was a true painter, a very beautiful designer, and a very amiable person. How comes he to do that Resurrection so badly?
In the first place, he was probably tired of a subject which was a great strain to his feeble imagination; and gave it up as impossible: doing simply the required figures in the required positions. In the second, he was probably at the time despondent and feeble because of his master’s death. See Lord Lindsay, II. 273, where also it is pointed out that in the effect of the light proceeding from the figure of Christ, Taddeo Gaddi indeed was the first of the Giottisti who showed true sense of light and shade. But until Lionardo’s time the innovation did not materially affect Florentine art.
II. The Ascension (opposite the Resurrection, and not worth looking at, except for the sake of making more sure our conclusions from the first fresco). The Madonna is fixed in Byzantine stiffness, without Byzantine dignity.
III. The Descent of the Holy Ghost, on the left hand. The Madonna and disciples are gathered in an upper chamber: underneath are the Parthians, Medes, Elamites, etc., who hear them speak in their own tongues.
Three dogs are in the foreground–their mythic purpose the same as that of the two verses which affirm the fellowship of the dog in the journey and return of Tobias: namely, to mark the share of the lower animals in the gentleness given by the outpouring of the Spirit of Christ.
IV. The Church sailing on the Sea of the World. St. Peter coming to Christ on the water.
I was too little interested in the vague symbolism of this fresco to examine it with care–the rather that the subject beneath, the literal contest of the Church with the world, needed more time for study in itself alone than I had for all Florence.
On this, and the opposite side of the chapel, are represented, by Simon Memmi’s hand, the teaching power of the Spirit of God, and the saving power of the Christ of God, in the world, according to the understanding of Florence in his time.
We will take the side of Intellect first, beneath the pouring forth of the Holy Spirit.
In the point of the arch beneath, are the three Evangelical Virtues. Without these, says Florence, you can have no science. Without Love, Faith, and Hope–no intelligence.
Under these are the four Cardinal Virtues, the entire group being thus arranged:–
A
B C
D E F G
A, Charity; flames issuing from her head and hands. B, Faith; holds cross and shield, quenching fiery darts. This symbol, so frequent in modern adaptation from St. Paul’s address to personal faith, is rare in older art.
C, Hope, with a branch of lilies.
D, Temperance; bridles a black fish, on which she stands. E, Prudence, with a book.
F, Justice, with crown and baton.
G, Fortitude, with tower and sword.
Under these are the great prophets and apostles; on the left,[Footnote: I can’t find my note of the first one on the left; answering to Solomon, opposite.] David, St. Paul, St. Mark, St. John; on the right, St. Matthew, St. Luke, Moses, Isaiah, Solomon. In the midst of the Evangelists, St. Thomas Aquinas, seated on a Gothic throne.
Now observe, this throne, with all the canopies below it, and the complete representation of the Duomo of Florence opposite, are of finished Gothic of Orecagna’s school–later than Giotto’s Gothic. But the building in which the apostles are gathered at the Pentecost is of the early Romanesque mosaic school, with a wheel window from the duomo of Assisi, and square windows from the Baptistery of Florence. And this is always the type of architecture used by Taddeo Gaddi: while the finished Gothic could not possibly have been drawn by him, but is absolute evidence of the later hand.
Under the line of prophets, as powers summoned by their voices, are the mythic figures of the seven theological or spiritual, and the seven _ge_ological or natural sciences: and under the feet of each of them, the figure of its Captain-teacher to the world.
I had better perhaps give you the names of this entire series of figures from left to right at once. You will see presently why they are numbered in a reverse order.
Beneath whom
8. Civil Law. The Emperor Justinian. 9. Canon Law. Pope Clement V.
10. Practical Theology. Peter Lombard. 11. Contemplative Theology. Dionysius the Areopagite. 12. Dogmatic Theology. Boethius.
13. Mystic Theology. St. John Damascene. 14. Polemic Theology. St. Augustine.
7. Arithmetic. Pythagoras.
6. Geometry. Euclid.
5. Astronomy. Zoroaster.
4. Music. Tubalcain.
3. Logic. Aristotle.
2. Rhetoric. Cicero.
1. Grammar. Priscian.
Here, then, you have pictorially represented, the system of manly education, supposed in old Florence to be that necessarily instituted in great earthly kingdoms or republics, animated by the Spirit shed down upon the world at Pentecost. How long do you think it will take you, or ought to take, to see such a picture? We were to get to work this morning, as early as might be: you have probably allowed half an hour for Santa Maria Novella; half an hour for San Lorenzo; an hour for the museum of sculpture at the Bargello; an hour for shopping; and then it will be lunch time, and you mustn’t be late, because you are to leave by the afternoon train, and must positively be in Rome to-morrow morning. Well, of your half-hour for Santa Maria Novella,–after Ghirlandajo’s choir, Orcagna’s transept, and Cimabue’s Madonna, and the painted windows, have been seen properly, there will remain, suppose, at the utmost, a quarter of an hour for the Spanish Chapel. That will give you two minutes and a half for each side, two for the ceiling, and three for studying Murray’s explanations or mine. Two minutes and a half you have got, then–(and I observed, during my five weeks’ work in the chapel, that English visitors seldom gave so much)–to read this scheme given you by Simon Memmi of human spiritual education. In order to understand the purport of it, in any the smallest degree, you must summon to your memory, in the course of these two minutes and a half, what you happen to be acquainted with of the doctrines and characters of Pythagoras, Zoroaster, Aristotle, Dionysius the Areopagite, St. Augustine, and the emperor Justinian, and having further observed the expressions and actions attributed by the painter to these personages, judge how far he has succeeded in reaching a true and worthy ideal of them, and how large or how subordinate a part in his general scheme of human learning he supposes their peculiar doctrines properly to occupy. For myself, being, to my much sorrow, now an old person; and, to my much pride, an old-fashioned one, I have not found my powers either of reading or memory in the least increased by any of Mr. Stephenson’s or Mr. Wheatstone’s inventions; and though indeed I came here from Lucca in three hours instead of a day, which it used to take, I do not think myself able, on that account, to see any picture in Florence in less time than it took formerly, or even obliged to hurry myself in any investigations connected with it.
Accordingly, I have myself taken five weeks to see the quarter of this picture of Simon Memmi’s: and can give you a fairly good account of that quarter, and some partial account of a fragment or two of those on the other walls: but, alas! only of their pictorial qualities in either case; for I don’t myself know anything whatever, worth trusting to, about Pythagoras, or Dionysius the Areopagite; and have not had, and never shall have, probably, any time to learn much of them; while in the very feeblest light only,–in what the French would express by their excellent word ‘lueur,’–I am able to understand something of the characters of Zoroaster, Aristotle, and Justinian. But this only increases in me the reverence with which I ought to stand before the work of a painter, who was not only a master of his own craft, but so profound a scholar and theologian as to be able to conceive this scheme of picture, and write the divine law by which Florence was to live. Which Law, written in the northern page of this Vaulted Book, we will begin quiet interpretation of, if you care to return hither, to-morrow morning.
THE FIFTH MORNING.
THE STRAIT GATE.
As you return this morning to St. Mary’s, you may as well observe–the matter before us being concerning gates,–that the western facade of the church is of two periods. Your Murray refers it all to the latest of these; –I forget when, and do not care;–in which the largest flanking columns, and the entire effective mass of the walls, with their riband mosaics and high pediment, were built in front of, and above, what the barbarian renaissance designer chose to leave of the pure old Dominican church. You may see his ungainly jointings at the pedestals of the great columns, running through the pretty, parti-coloured base, which, with the ‘Strait’ Gothic doors, and the entire lines of the fronting and flanking tombs (where not restored by the Devil-begotten brood of modern Florence), is of pure, and exquisitely severe and refined, fourteenth century Gothic, with superbly carved bearings on its shields. The small detached line of tombs on the left, untouched in its sweet colour and living weed ornament, I would fain have painted, stone by stone: but one can never draw in front of a church in these republican days; for all the blackguard children of the neighbourhood come to howl, and throw stones, on the steps, and the ball or stone play against these sculptured tombs, as a dead wall adapted for that purpose only, is incessant in the fine days when I could have worked.
If you enter by the door most to the left, or north, and turn immediately to the right, on the interior of the wall of the facade is an Annunciation, visible enough because well preserved, though in the dark, and extremely pretty in its way,–of the decorated and ornamental school following Giotto:–I can’t guess by whom, nor does it much matter; but it is well To look at it by way of contrast with the delicate, intense, slightly decorated design of Memmi,–in which, when you return into the Spanish chapel, you will feel the dependence for its effect on broad masses of white and pale amber, where the decorative school would have had mosaic of red, blue, and gold.
Our first business this morning must be to read and understand the writing on the book held open by St. Thomas Aquinas, for that informs us of the meaning of the whole picture.
It is this text from the Book of Wisdom VII. 6.
“Optavi, et datus est mihi sensus. Invocavi, et venit in me Spiritus Sapientiae, Et preposui illam regnis et sedibus.”
“I willed, and Sense was given me. I prayed, and the Spirit of Wisdom came upon me. And I set her before, (preferred her to,) kingdoms and thrones.”
The common translation in our English Apocrypha loses the entire meaning of this passage, which–not only as the statement of the experience of Florence in her own education, but as universally descriptive of the process of all noble education whatever–we had better take pains to understand.
First, says Florence “I willed, (in sense of resolutely desiring,) and Sense was given me.” You must begin your education with the distinct resolution to know what is true, and choice of the strait and rough road to such knowledge. This choice is offered to every youth and maid at some moment of their life;–choice between the easy downward road, so broad that we can dance down it in companies, and the steep narrow way, which we must enter alone. Then, and for many a day afterwards, they need that form of persistent Option, and Will: but day by day, the ‘Sense’ of the rightness of what they have done, deepens on them, not in consequence of the effort, but by gift granted in reward of it. And the Sense of difference between right and wrong, and between beautiful and unbeautiful things, is confirmed in the heroic, and fulfilled in the industrious, soul.
That is the process of education in the earthly sciences, and the morality connected with them. Reward given to faithful Volition.
Next, when Moral and Physical senses are perfect, comes the desire for education in the higher world, where the senses are no more our Teachers; but the Maker of the senses. And that teaching, we cannot get by labour, but only by petition.
“Invocavi, et venit in me Spiritus Sapientiae”–“I prayed, and the Spirit of Wisdom,” (not, you observe, _was given_, [Footnote: I in careless error, wrote “was given” in ‘Fors Clavigera.] but,) “_came_ upon me.” The _personal_ power of Wisdom: the “[Greek: sophia]” or Santa Sophia, to whom the first great Christian temple was dedicated. This higher wisdom, governing by her presence, all earthly conduct, and by her teaching, all earthly art, Florence tells you, she obtained only by prayer.
And these two Earthly and Divine sciences are expressed beneath in the symbols of their divided powers;–Seven terrestrial, Seven celestial, whose names have been already indicated to you:–in which figures I must point out one or two technical matters, before touching their interpretation. They are all by Simon Memmi originally; but repainted, many of them all over, some hundred years later,–(certainly after the discovery of America, as you will see)–by an artist of considerable power, and some feeling for the general action of the figures; but of no refinement or carelessness. He dashes massive paint in huge spaces over the subtle old work, puts in his own chiaro-oscuro where all had been shadeless, and his own violent colour where all had been pale, and repaints the faces so as to make them, to his notion, prettier and more human: some of this upper work has, however, come away since, and the original outline, at least, is traceable; while in the face of the Logic, the Music, and one or two others, the original work is very pure. Being most interested myself in the earthly sciences, I had a scaffolding put up, made on a level with them, and examined them inch by inch, and the following report will be found accurate until next repainting.
For interpretation of them, you must always take the central figure of the Science, with the little medallion above it, and the figure below, all together. Which I proceed to do, reading first from left to right for the earthly sciences, and then from right to left the heavenly ones, to the centre, where their two highest powers sit, side by side.
We begin, then, with the first in the list given above, (Vaulted Book, page 75):–Grammar, in the corner farthest from the window.
1. GRAMMAR: more properly Grammatice, “Grammatic Act” the Art of _Letters_ or “Literature,” or using the word which to some English ears will carry most weight with it,–“Scripture,” and its use. The Art of faithfully reading what has been written for our learning; and of clearly writing what we would make immortal of our thoughts. Power which consists first in recognizing letters; secondly, in forming them; thirdly, in the understanding and choice of words which errorless shall express our thought. Severe exercises all, reaching–very few living persons know, how far: beginning properly in childhood, then only to be truly acquired. It is wholly impossible–this I say from too sorrowful experience–to conquer by any effort or time, habits of the hand (much more of head and soul) with which the vase of flesh has been formed and filled in youth,–the law of God being that parents shall compel the child in the day of its obedience into habits of hand, and eye, and soul, which, when it is old, shall not, by any strength, or any weakness, be departed from.
“Enter ye in,” therefore, says Grammatice, “at the Strait Gate.” She points through it with her rod, holding a fruit(?) for reward, in her left hand. The gate is very strait indeed–her own waist no less so, her hair fastened close. She had once a white veil binding it, which is lost. Not a gushing form of literature, this,–or in any wise disposed to subscribe to Mudie’s, my English friends–or even patronize Tauchnitz editions of–what is the last new novel you see ticketed up today in Mr. Goodban’s window? She looks kindly down, nevertheless, to the three children whom she is teaching–two boys and a girl: (Qy. Does this mean that one girl out of every two should not be able to read or write? I am quite willing to accept that inference, for my own part,–should perhaps even say, two girls out of three). This girl is of the highest classes, crowned, her golden hair falling behind her the Florentine girdle round her hips–(not waist, the object being to leave the lungs full play; but to keep the dress always well down in dancing or running). The boys are of good birth also, the nearest one with luxuriant curly hair–only the profile of the farther one seen. All reverent and eager. Above, the medallion is of a figure looking at a fountain. Underneath, Lord Lindsay says, Priscian, and is, I doubt not, right.
_Technical Points_.–The figure is said by Crowe to be entirely repainted. The dress is so throughout–both the hands also, and the fruit, and rod. But the eyes, mouth, hair above the forehead, and outline of the rest, with the faded veil, and happily, the traces left of the children, are genuine; the strait gate perfectly so, in the colour underneath, though reinforced; and the action of the entire figure is well preserved: but there is a curious question about both the rod and fruit. Seen close, the former perfectly assumes the shape of folds of dress gathered up over the raised right arm, and I am not absolutely sure that the restorer has not mistaken the folds–at the same time changing a pen or style into a rod. The fruit also I have doubts of, as fruit is not so rare at Florence that it should be made a reward. It is entirely and roughly repainted, and is oval in shape. In Giotto’s Charity, luckily not restored, at Assisi, the guide-books have always mistaken the heart she holds for an apple:–and my own belief is that originally, the Grammatice of Simon Memmi made with her right hand the sign which said, “Enter ye in at the Strait Gate,” and with her left, the sign which said, “My son, give me thine Heart.”
II. RHETORIC. Next to learning how to read and write, you are to learn to speak; and, young ladies and gentlemen, observe,–to speak as little as possible, it is farther implied, till you _have_ learned.
In the streets of Florence at this day you may hear much of what some people call “rhetoric”–very passionate speaking indeed, and quite “from the heart”–such hearts as the people have got. That is to say, you never hear a word uttered but in a rage, either just ready to burst, or for the most part, explosive instantly: everybody–man, woman, or child–roaring out their incontinent, foolish, infinitely contemptible opinions and wills, on every smallest occasion, with flashing eyes, hoarsely shrieking and wasted voices,–insane hope to drag by vociferation whatever they would have, out of man and God.
Now consider Simon Memmi’s Rhetoric. The Science of Speaking, primarily; of making oneself _heard_ therefore: which is not to be done by shouting. She alone, of all the sciences, carries a scroll: and being a speaker gives you something to read. It is not thrust forward at you at all, but held quietly down with her beautiful depressed right hand; her left hand set coolly and strongly on her side.
And you will find that, thus, she alone of all the sciences _needs no use of her hands_. All the others have some important business for them. She none. She can do all with her lips, holding scroll, or bridle, or what you will, with her right hand, her left on her side.
Again, look at the talkers in the streets of Florence, and see how, being essentially _un_able to talk, they try to make lips of their fingers! How they poke, wave, flourish, point, jerk, shake finger and fist at their antagonists–dumb essentially, all the while, if they knew it; unpersuasive and ineffectual, as the shaking of tree branches in the wind.
You will at first think her figure ungainly and stiff. It is so, partly, the dress being more coarsely repainted than in any other of the series. But she is meant to be both stout and strong. What she has to say is indeed to persuade you, if possible; but assuredly to overpower you. And _she_ has not the Florentine girdle, for she does not want to move. She has her girdle broad at the waist–of all the sciences, you would at first have thought, the one that most needed breath! No, says Simon Memmi. You want breath to run, or dance, or fight with. But to speak!–If you know _how_, you can do your work with few words; very little of this pure Florentine air will be enough, if you shape it rightly.
Note, also, that calm setting of her hand against her side. You think Rhetoric should be glowing, fervid, impetuous? No, says Simon Memmi. Above all things,–_cool_.
And now let us read what is written on her scroll:–Mulceo, dum loquor, varios induta colores.
Her chief function, to melt; make soft, thaw the hearts of men with kind fire; to overpower with peace; and bring rest, with rainbow colours. The chief mission of all words that they should be of comfort.
You think the function of words is to excite? Why, a red rag will do that, or a blast through a brass pipe. But to give calm and gentle heat; to be as the south wind, and the iridescent rain, to all bitterness of frost; and bring at once strength, and healing. This is the work of human lips, taught of God.
One farther and final lesson is given in the medallion above. Aristotle, and too many modern rhetoricians of his school, thought there could be good speaking in a false cause. But above Simon Memmi’s Rhetoric is _Truth_, with her mirror.
There is a curious feeling, almost innate in men, that though they are bound to speak truth, in speaking to a single person, they may lie as much as they please, provided they lie to two or more people at once. There is the same feeling about killing: most people would shrink from shooting one innocent man; but will fire a mitrailleuse contentedly into an innocent regiment.
When you look down from the figure of the Science, to that of Cicero, beneath, you will at first think it entirely overthrows my conclusion that Rhetoric has no need of her hands. For Cicero, it appears, has three instead of two.
The uppermost, at his chin, is the only genuine one. That raised, with the finger up, is entirely false. That on the book, is repainted so as to defy conjecture of its original action.
But observe how the gesture of the true one confirms instead of overthrowing what I have said above. Cicero is not speaking at all, but profoundly thinking _before_ he speaks. It is the most abstractedly thoughtful face to be found among all the philosophers; and very beautiful. The whole is under Solomon, in the line of Prophets.
_Technical Points_.–These two figures have suffered from restoration more than any others, but the right hand of Rhetoric is still entirely genuine, and the left, except the ends of the fingers. The ear, and hair just above it, are quite safe, the head well set on its original line, but the crown of leaves rudely retouched, and then faded. All the lower part of the figure of Cicero has been not only repainted but changed; the face is genuine–I believe retouched, but so cautiously and skilfully, that it is probably now more beautiful than at first.
III. LOGIC. The science of reasoning, or more accurately Reason herself, or pure intelligence.
Science to be gained after that of Expression, says Simon Memmi; so, young people, it appears, that though you must not speak before you have been taught how to speak, you may yet properly speak before you have been taught how to think.
For indeed, it is only by frank speaking that you _can_ learn how to think. And it is no matter how wrong the first thoughts you have may be, provided you express them clearly;–and are willing to have them put right.
Fortunately, nearly all of this beautiful figure is practically safe, the outlines pure everywhere, and the face perfect: the _prettiest_, as far as I know, which exists in Italian art of this early date. It is subtle to the extreme in gradations of colour: the eyebrows drawn, not with a sweep of the brush, but with separate cross touches in the line of their growth–exquisitely pure in arch; the nose straight and fine; the lips–playful slightly, proud, unerringly cut; the hair flowing in sequent waves, ordered as if in musical time; head perfectly upright on the shoulders; the height of the brow completed by a crimson frontlet set with pearls, surmounted by a _fleur-de-lys_.
Her shoulders were exquisitely drawn, her white jacket fitting close to soft, yet scarcely rising breasts; her arms singularly strong, at perfect rest; her hands, exquisitely delicate. In her right, she holds a branching and leaf-bearing rod, (the syllogism); in her left, a scorpion with double sting, (the dilemma)–more generally, the powers of rational construction and dissolution.
Beneath her, Aristotle,–intense keenness of search in his half-closed eyes.
Medallion above, (less expressive than usual) a man writing, with his head stooped.
The whole under Isaiah, in the line of Prophets.
_Technical Points_.–The only parts of this figure which have suffered seriously in repainting are the leaves of the rod, and the scorpion. I have no idea, as I said above, what the background once was; it is now a mere mess of scrabbled grey, carried over the vestiges, still with care much redeemable, of the richly ornamental extremity of the rod, which was a cluster of green leaves on a black ground. But the scorpion is indecipherably injured, most of it confused repainting, mixed with the white of the dress, the double sting emphatic enough still, but not on the first lines.
The Aristotle is very genuine throughout, except his hat, and I think that must be pretty nearly on the old lines, through I cannot trace them. They are good lines, new or old.
IV. MUSIC. After you have learned to reason, young people, of course you will be very grave, if not dull, you think. No, says Simon Memmi. By no means anything of the kind. After learning to reason, you will learn to sing; for you will want to. There is so much reason for singing in the sweet world, when one thinks rightly of it. None for grumbling, provided always you _have_ entered in at the strait gate. You will sing all along the road then, in a little while, in a manner pleasant for other people to hear.
This figure has been one of the loveliest in the series, an extreme refinement and tender severity being aimed at throughout. She is crowned, not with laurel, but with small leaves,–I am not sure what they are, being too much injured: the face thin, abstracted, wistful; the lips not far open in their low singing; the hair rippling softly on the shoulders. She plays on a small organ, richly ornamented with Gothic tracery, the down slope of it set with crockets like those of Santa Maria del Fiore. Simon Memmi means that _all_ music must be “sacred.” Not that you are never to sing anything but hymns, but that whatever is rightly called music, or work of the Muses, is divine in help and healing.
The actions of both hands are singularly sweet. The right is one of the loveliest things I ever saw done in painting. She is keeping down one note only, with her third finger, seen under the raised fourth: the thumb, just passing under; all the curves of the fingers exquisite, and the pale light and shade of the rosy flesh relieved against the ivory white and brown of the notes. Only the thumb and end of the forefinger are seen of the left hand, but they indicate enough its light pressure on the bellows. Fortunately, all these portions of the fresco are absolutely intact.
Underneath, Tubal-Cain. Not Jubal, as you would expect. Jubal is the inventor of musical instruments. Tubal-Cain, thought the old Florentines, invented harmony. They, the best smiths in the world, knew the differences in tones of hammer strokes on anvil. Curiously enough, the only piece of true part-singing, done beautifully and joyfully, which I have heard this year in Italy, (being south of Alps exactly six months, and ranging from Genoa to Palermo) was out of a busy smithy at Perugia. Of bestial howling, and entirely frantic vomiting up of hopelessly damned souls through their still carnal throats, I have heard more than, please God, I will ever endure the hearing of again in one of His summers.
You think Tubal-Cain very ugly? Yes. Much like a shaggy baboon: not accidentally, but with most scientific understanding of baboon character. Men must have looked like that, before they had invented harmony, or felt that one note differed from another, says, and knows Simon Memmi. Darwinism, like all widely popular and widely mischievous fallacies, has many a curious gleam and grain of truth in its tissue.
Under Moses.
Medallion, a youth drinking. Otherwise, you might have thought only church music meant, and not feast music also.
_Technical Points_.–The Tubal-Cain, one of the most entirely pure and precious remnants of the old painting, nothing lost: nothing but the redder ends of his beard retouched. Green dress of Music, in the body and over limbs entirely repainted: it was once beautifully embroidered; sleeves, partly genuine, hands perfect, face and hair nearly so. Leaf crown faded and broken away, but not retouched.
V. ASTRONOMY. Properly Astro-logy, as (Theology) the knowledge of so much of the stars as we can know wisely; not the attempt to define their laws for them. Not that it is unbecoming of us to find out, if we can, that they move in ellipses, and so on; but it is no business of ours. What effects their rising and setting have on man, and beast, and leaf; what their times and changes are, seen and felt in this world, it is our business to know, passing our nights, if wakefully, by that divine candlelight, and no other.
She wears a dark purple robe; holds in her left hand the hollow globe with golden zodiac and meridians: lifts her right hand in noble awe.
“When I consider the heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained.”
Crowned with gold, her dark hair in elliptic waves, bound with glittering chains of pearl. Her eyes dark, lifted.
Beneath her, Zoroaster,[Footnote: Atlas! according to poor Vasari, and sundry modern guides. I find Vasari’s mistakes usually of this _brightly_ blundering kind. In matters needing research, after a while, I find _he_ is right, usually.] entirely noble and beautiful, the delicate Persian head made softer still by the elaborately wreathed silken hair, twisted into the pointed beard, and into tapering plaits, falling on his shoulders. The head entirely thrown back, he looks up with no distortion of the delicately arched brow: writing, as he gazes.
For the association of the religion of the Magi with their own in the mind of the Florentines of this time, see “Before the Soldan.”
The dress must always have been white, because of its beautiful opposition to the purple above and that of Tubal-Cain beside it. But it has been too much repainted to be trusted anywhere, nothing left but a fold or two in the sleeves. The cast of it from the knees down is entirely beautiful, and I suppose on the old lines; but the restorer could throw a fold well when he chose. The warm light which relieves the purple of Zoroaster above, is laid in by him. I don’t know if I should have liked it better, flat, as it was, against the dark purple; it seems to me quite beautiful now. The full red flush on the face of the Astronomy is the restorer’s doing also. She was much paler, if not quite pale.
Under St. Luke.
Medallion, a stern man, with sickle and spade. For the flowers, and for us, when stars have risen and set such and such times;–remember.
_Technical Points_.–Left hand globe, most of the important folds of the purple dress, eyes, mouth, hair in great part, and crown, genuine. Golden tracery on border of dress lost; extremity of falling folds from left sleeve altered and confused, but the confusion prettily got out of. Right hand and much of face and body of dress repainted.
Zoroaster’s head quite pure. Dress repainted, but carefully, leaving the hair untouched. Right hand and pen, now a common feathered quill, entirely repainted, but dexterously and with feeling. The hand was once slightly different in position, and held, most probably, a reed.
VI. GEOMETRY. You have now learned, young ladies and gentlemen, to read, to speak, to think, to sing, and to see. You are getting old, and will have soon to think of being married; you must learn to build your house, therefore. Here is your carpenter’s square for you, and you may safely and wisely contemplate the ground a little, and the measures and laws relating to that, seeing you have got to abide upon it:–and that you have properly looked at the stars; not before then, lest, had you studied the ground first, you might perchance never have raised your heads from it. This is properly the science of all laws of practical labour, issuing in beauty.
She looks down, a little puzzled, greatly interested, holding her carpenter’s square in her left hand, not wanting that but for practical work; following a diagram with her right.
Her beauty, altogether soft and in curves, I commend to your notice, as the exact opposite of what a vulgar designer would have imagined for her. Note the wreath of hair at the back of her head, which though fastened by a _spiral_ fillet, escapes at last, and flies off loose in a sweeping curve. Contemplative Theology is the only other of the sciences who has such wavy hair.
Beneath her, Euclid, in white turban. Very fine and original work throughout; but nothing of special interest in him.
Under St. Matthew.
Medallion, a soldier with a straight sword (best for science of defence), octagon shield, helmet like the beehive of Canton Vaud. As the secondary use of music in feasting, so the secondary use of geometry in war–her noble art being all in sweetest peace–is shown in the medallion.
_Technical Points_.–It is more than fortunate that in nearly every figure, the original outline of the hair is safe. Geometry’s has scarcely been retouched at all, except at the ends, once in single knots, now in confused double ones. The hands, girdle, most of her dress, and her black carpenter’s square are original. Face and breast repainted.
VII. ARITHMETIC. Having built your house, young people, and understanding the light of heaven, and the measures of earth, you may marry–and can’t do better. And here is now your conclusive science, which you will have to apply, all your days, to all your affairs.
The Science of Number. Infinite in solemnity of use in Italy at this time; including, of course, whatever was known of the higher abstract mathematics and mysteries of numbers, but reverenced especially in its vital necessity to the prosperity of families and kingdoms, and first fully so understood here in commercial Florence.
Her hand lifted, with two fingers bent, two straight, solemnly enforcing on your attention her primal law–Two and two are–four, you observe,–not five, as those accursed usurers think.
Under her, Pythagoras.
Above, medallion of king, with sceptre and globe, counting money. Have you ever chanced to read carefully Carlyle’s account of the foundation of the existing Prussian empire, in economy?
You can, at all events, consider with yourself a little, what empire this queen of the terrestrial sciences must hold over the rest, if they are to be put to good use; or what depth and breadth of application there is in the brief parables of the counted cost of Power, and number of Armies.
To give a very minor, but characteristic, instance. I have always felt that with my intense love of the Alps, I ought to have been able to make a drawing of Chamouni, or the vale of Cluse, which should give people more pleasure than a photograph; but I always wanted to do it as I saw it, and engrave pine for pine, and crag for crag, like Albert Durer. I broke my strength down for many a year, always tiring of my work, or finding the leaves drop off, or the snow come on, before I had well begun what I meant to do. If I had only _counted_ my pines first, and calculated the number of hours necessary to do them in the manner of Durer, I should have saved the available drawing time of some five years, spent in vain effort.
But Turner counted his pines, and did all that could be done for them, and rested content with that.
So in all the affairs of life, the arithmetical part of the business is the dominant one. How many and how much have we? How many and how much do we want? How constantly does noble Arithmetic of the finite lose itself in base Avarice of the Infinite, and in blind imagination of it! In counting of minutes, is our arithmetic ever solicitous enough? In counting our days, is she ever severe enough? How we shrink from putting, in their decades, the diminished store of them! And if we ever pray the solemn prayer that we may be taught to number them, do we even try to do it after praying?
_Technical Points_.–The Pythagoras almost entirely genuine. The upper figures, from this inclusive to the outer wall, I have not been able to examine thoroughly, my scaffolding not extending beyond the Geometry.
Here then we have the sum of sciences,–seven, according to the Florentine mind–necessary to the secular education of man and woman. Of these the modern average respectable English gentleman and gentlewoman know usually only a little of the last, and entirely hate the prudent applications of that: being unacquainted, except as they chance here and there to pick up a broken piece of information, with either grammar, rhetoric, music, [Footnote: Being able to play the piano and admire Mendelssohn is not knowing music.] astronomy, or geometry; and are not only unacquainted with logic, or the use of reason, themselves, but instinctively antagonistic to its use by anybody else.
We are now to read the series of the Divine sciences, beginning at the opposite side, next the window.
VIII. CIVIL LAW. Civil, or ‘of citizens,’ not only as distinguished from Ecclesiastical, but from Local law. She is the universal Justice of the peaceful relations of men throughout the world, therefore holds the globe, with its _three_ quarters, white, as being justly governed, in her left hand.
She is also the law of eternal equity, not erring statute; therefore holds her sword _level_ across her breast. She is the foundation of all other divine science. To know anything whatever about God, you must begin by being Just.
Dressed in red, which in these frescoes is always a sign of power, or zeal; but her face very calm, gentle and beautiful. Her hair bound close, and crowned by the royal circlet of gold, with pure thirteenth century strawberry leaf ornament.
Under her, the Emperor Justinian, in blue, with conical mitre of white and gold; the face in profile, very beautiful. The imperial staff in his right hand, the Institutes in his left.
Medallion, a figure, apparently in distress, appealing for justice. (Trajan’s suppliant widow?)
_Technical Points_.–The three divisions of the globe in her hand were originally inscribed ASIA, AFRICA, EUROPE. The restorer has ingeniously changed AF into AME–RICA. Faces, both of the science and emperor, little retouched, nor any of the rest altered.
IX. CHRISTIAN LAW. After the justice which rules men, comes that which rules the Church of Christ. The distinction is not between secular law, and ecclesiastical authority, but between the equity of humanity, and the law of Christian discipline.
In full, straight-falling, golden robe, with white mantle over it; a church in her left hand; her right raised, with the forefinger lifted; (indicating heavenly source of all Christian law? or warning?)
Head-dress, a white veil floating into folds in the air. You will find nothing in these frescoes without significance; and as the escaping hair of Geometry indicates the infinite conditions of lines of the higher orders, so the floating veil here indicates that the higher relations of Christian justice are indefinable. So her golden mantle indicates that it is a glorious and excellent justice beyond that which unchristian men conceive; while the severely falling lines of the folds, which form a kind of gabled niche for the head of the Pope beneath, correspond with the strictness of true Church discipline firmer as well as more luminous statute.
Beneath, Pope Clement V., in red, lifting his hand, not in the position of benediction, but, I suppose, of injunction,–only the forefinger straight, the second a little bent, the two last quite. Note the strict level of the book; and the vertical directness of the key.
The medallion puzzles me. It looks like a figure counting money.
_Technical Points_.–Fairly well preserved; but the face of the science retouched: the grotesquely false perspective of the Pope’s tiara, one of the most curiously naive examples of the entirely ignorant feeling after merely scientific truth of form which still characterized Italian art.
Type of church interesting in its extreme simplicity; no idea of transept, campanile, or dome.
X. PRACTICAL THEOLOGY. The beginning of the knowledge of God being Human Justice, and its elements defined by Christian Law, the application of the law so defined follows, first with respect to man, then with respect to God.
“Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s–and to God the things that are God’s.”
We have therefore now two sciences, one of our duty–to men, the other to their Maker.
This is the first: duty to men. She holds a circular medallion, representing Christ preaching on the Mount, and points with her right hand to the earth.
The sermon on the Mount is perfectly expressed by the craggy pinnacle in front of Christ, and the high dark horizon. There is curious evidence throughout all these frescos of Simon Memmi’s having read the Gospels with a quite clear understanding of their innermost meaning.
I have called this science Practical Theology:–the instructive knowledge, that is to say, of what God would have us do, personally, in any given human relation: and the speaking His Gospel therefore by act. “Let your light so shine before men.”
She wears a green dress, like Music her hair in the Arabian arch, with jewelled diadem.
Under David.
Medallion, Almsgiving.
Beneath her, Peter Lombard,
_Technical Points_.–It is curious that while the instinct of perspective was not strong enough to enable any painter at this time to foreshorten a foot, it yet suggested to them the expression of elevation by raising the horizon.
I have not examined the retouching. The hair and diadem at least are genuine, the face is dignified and compassionate, and much on the old lines.
XI. DEVOTIONAL THEOLOGY.–Giving glory to God, or, more accurately, whatever feelings He desires us to have towards Him, whether of affection or awe.
This is the science or method of _devotion_ for Christians universally, just as the Practical Theology is their science or method of _action_.
In blue and red: a narrow black rod still traceable in the left hand; I am not sure of its meaning. (“Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me?”) The other hand open in admiration, like Astronomy’s; but Devotion’s is held at her breast. Her head very characteristic of Memmi, with upturned eyes, and Arab arch in hair. Under her, Dionysius the Areopagite–mending his pen! But I am doubtful of Lord Lindsay’s identification of this figure, and the action is curiously common and meaningless. It may have meant that meditative theology is essentially a writer, not a preacher.
The medallion, on the other hand, is as ingenious. A mother lifting her hands in delight at her child’s beginning to take notice.
Under St. Paul.
_Technical Points_.–Both figures very genuine, the lower one almost entirely so. The painting of the red book is quite exemplary in fresco style.
XII. DOGMATIC THEOLOGY.–After action and worship, thought becoming too wide and difficult, the need of dogma becomes felt; the assertion, that is, within limited range, of the things that are to be believed.
Since whatever pride and folly pollute Christian scholarship naturally delight in dogma, the science itself cannot but be in a kind of disgrace among sensible men: nevertheless it would be difficult to overvalue the peace and security which have been given to humble persons by forms of creed; and it is evident that either there is no such thing as theology, or some of its knowledge must be thus, if not expressible, at least reducible within certain limits of expression, so as to be protected from misinterpretation.
In red,–again the sign of power,–crowned with a black (once golden?) triple crown, emblematic of the Trinity. The left hand holding a scoop for winnowing corn; the other points upwards. “Prove all things–hold fast that which is good, or of God.”
Beneath her, Boethius.
Under St. Mark.
Medallion, female figure, laying hands on breast.
_Technical Points_.–The Boethius entirely genuine, and the painting of his black book, as of the red one beside it, again worth notice, showing how pleasant and interesting the commonest things become, when well painted.
I have not examined the upper figure.
XIII. MYSTIC THEOLOGY. [Footnote: Blunderingly in the guide-books called ‘Faith!’] Monastic science, above dogma, and attaining to new revelation by reaching higher spiritual states.
In white robes, her left hand gloved (I don’t know why)–holding chalice. She wears a nun’s veil fastened under her chin, her hair fastened close, like Grammar’s, showing her necessary monastic life; all states of mystic spiritual life involving retreat from much that is allowable in the material and practical world.
There is no possibility of denying this fact, infinite as the evils are which have arisen from misuse of it. They have been chiefly induced by persons who falsely pretended to lead monastic life, and led it without having natural faculty for it. But many more lamentable errors have arisen from the pride of really noble persons, who have thought it would be a more pleasing thing to God to be a sibyl or a witch, than a useful housewife. Pride is always somewhat involved even in the true effort: the scarlet head-dress in the form of a horn on the forehead in the fresco indicates this, both here, and in the Contemplative Theology.
Under St. John.
Medallion unintelligible, to me. A woman laying hands on the shoulders of two small figures.
_Technical Points_.–More of the minute folds of the white dress left than in any other of the repainted draperies. It is curious that minute division has always in drapery, more or less, been understood as an expression of spiritual life, from the delicate folds of Athena’s peplus down to the rippled edges of modern priests’ white robes; Titian’s breadth of fold, on the other hand, meaning for the most part bodily power. The relation of the two modes of composition was lost by Michael Angelo, who thought to express spirit by making flesh colossal.
For the rest, the figure is not of any interest, Memmi’s own mind being intellectual rather than mystic.
XIV. POLEMIC THEOLOGY.[Footnote: Blunderingly called ‘Charity’ in the guide-books.]
“Who goes forth, conquering and to conquer?” “For we war, not with flesh and blood,” etc.
In red, as sign of power, but not in armour, because she is herself invulnerable. A close red cap, with cross for crest, instead of helmet. Bow in left hand; long arrow in right.
She partly means Aggressive Logic: compare the set of her shoulders and arms with Logic’s.
She is placed the last of the Divine sciences, not as their culminating power, but as the last which can be rightly learned. You must know all the others, before you go out to battle. Whereas the general principle of modern Christendom is to go out to battle without knowing _any one_ of the others; one of the reasons for this error, the prince of errors, being the vulgar notion that truth may be ascertained by debate! Truth is never learned, in any department of industry, by arguing, but by working, and observing. And when you have got good hold of one truth, for certain, two others will grow out of it, in a beautifully dicotyledonous fashion, (which, as before noticed, is the meaning of the branch in Logic’s right hand). Then, when you have got so much true knowledge as is worth fighting for, you are bound to fight for it. But not to debate about it, any more.
There is, however, one further reason for Polemic Theology being put beside Mystic. It is only in some approach to mystic science that any man becomes aware of what St. Paul means by “spiritual wickedness in heavenly [Footnote: With cowardly intentional fallacy, translated ‘high’ in the English Bible.] places;” or, in any true sense, knows the enemies of God and of man.
Beneath St. Augustine. Showing you the proper method of controversy; –perfectly firm; perfectly gentle.
You are to distinguish, of course, controversy from rebuke. The assertion of truth is to be always gentle: the chastisement of wilful falsehood may be–very much the contrary indeed. Christ’s sermon on the Mount is full of polemic theology, yet perfectly gentle:–“Ye have heard that it hath been said–but _I_/ say unto you”;–“And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others?” and the like. But His “Ye fools and blind, for whether is greater,” is not merely the exposure of error, but rebuke of the avarice which made that error possible.
Under the throne of St. Thomas; and next to Arithmetic, of the terrestrial sciences.
Medallion, a soldier, but not interesting.
Technical Points.–Very genuine and beautiful throughout. Note the use of St. Augustine’s red bands, to connect him with the full red of the upper figures; and compare the niche formed by the dress of Canon Law, above the Pope, for different artistic methods of attaining the same object,–unity of composition.
But lunch time is near, my friends, and you have that shopping to do, you know.
THE SIXTH MORNING.
THE SHEPHERD’S TOWER.
I am obliged to interrupt my account of the Spanish chapel by the following notes on the sculptures of Giotto’s Campanile: first because I find that inaccurate accounts of those sculptures are in course of publication; and chiefly because I cannot finish my work in the Spanish chapel until one of my good Oxford helpers, Mr. Caird, has completed some investigations he has undertaken for me upon the history connected with it. I had written my own analysis of the fourth side, believing that in every scene of it the figure of St. Dominic was repeated. Mr. Caird first suggested, and has shown me already good grounds for his belief,[Footnote: He wrote thus to me on 11th November last: “The three preachers are certainly different. The first is Dominic; the second, Peter Martyr, whom I have identified from his martyrdom on the other wall; and the third, Aquinas.”] that the preaching monks represented are in each scene intended for a different person. I am informed also of several careless mistakes which have got into my description of the fresco of the Sciences; and finally, another of my young helpers, Mr. Charles F. Murray,–one, however, whose help is given much in the form of antagonism,–informs me of various critical discoveries lately made, both by himself, and by industrious Germans, of points respecting the authenticity of this and that, which will require notice from me: more especially he tells me of certification that the picture in the Uffizii, of which I accepted the ordinary attribution to Giotto, is by Lorenzo Monaco,–which indeed may well be, without in the least diminishing the use to you of what I have written of its predella, and without in the least, if you think rightly of the matter, diminishing your confidence in what I tell you of Giotto generally. There is one kind of knowledge of pictures which is the artist’s, and another which is the antiquary’s and the picture-dealer’s; the latter especially acute, and founded on very secure and wide knowledge of canvas, pigment, and tricks of touch, without, necessarily, involving any knowledge whatever of the qualities of art itself. There are few practised dealers in the great cities of Europe whose opinion would not be more trustworthy than mine, (if you could _get_ it, mind you,) on points of actual authenticity. But they could only tell you whether the picture was by such and such a master, and not at all what either the master or his work were good for. Thus, I have, before now, taken drawings by Varley and by Cousins for early studies by Turner, and have been convinced by the dealers that they knew better than I, as far as regarded the authenticity of those drawings; but the dealers don’t know Turner, or the worth of him, so well as I, for all that. So also, you may find me again and again mistaken among the much more confused work of the early Giottesque schools, as to the authenticity of this work or the other; but you will find (and I say it with far more sorrow than pride) that I am simply the only person who can at present tell you the real worth of _any_; you will find that whenever I tell you to look at a picture, it is worth your pains; and whenever I tell you the character of a painter, that it _is_ his character, discerned by me faithfully in spite of all confusion of work falsely attributed to him in which similar character may exist. Thus, when I mistook Cousins for Turner, I was looking at a piece of subtlety in the sky of which the dealer had no consciousness whatever, which was essentially Turneresque, but which another man might sometimes equal; whereas the dealer might be only looking at the quality of Whatman’s paper, which Cousins used, and Turner did not.
Not, in the meanwhile, to leave you quite guideless as to the main subject of the fourth fresco in the Spanish chapel,–the Pilgrim’s Progress of Florence,–here is a brief map of it:
On the right, in lowest angle, St. Dominic preaches to the group of Infidels; in the next group towards the left, he (or some one very like him) preaches to the Heretics: the Heretics proving obstinate, he sets his dogs at them, as at the fatallest of wolves, who being driven away, the rescued lambs are gathered at the feet of the Pope. I have copied the head of the very pious, but slightly weak-minded, little lamb in the centre, to compare with my rough Cumberland ones, who have had no such grave experiences. The whole group, with the Pope above, (the niche of the Duomo joining with and enriching the decorative power of his mitre,) is a quite delicious piece of design.
The Church being thus pacified, is seen in worldly honour under the powers of the Spiritual and Temporal Rulers. The Pope, with Cardinal and Bishop descending in order on his right; the Emperor, with King and Baron descending in order on his left; the ecclesiastical body of the whole Church on the right side, and the laity,–chiefly its poets and artists, on the left.
Then, the redeemed Church nevertheless giving itself up to the vanities and temptations of the world, its forgetful saints are seen feasting, with their children dancing before them, (the Seven Mortal Sins, say some commentators). But the wise-hearted of them confess their sins to another ghost of St. Dominic; and confessed, becoming as little children, enter hand in hand the gate of the Eternal Paradise, crowned with flowers by the waiting angels, and admitted by St. Peter among the serenely joyful crowd of all the saints, above whom the white Madonna stands reverently before the throne. There is, so far as I know, throughout all the schools of Christian art, no other so perfect statement of the noble policy and religion of men.
I had intended to give the best account of it in my power; but, when at Florence, lost all time for writing that I might copy the group of the Pope and Emperor for the schools of Oxford; and the work since done by Mr. Caird has informed me of so much, and given me, in some of its suggestions, so much to think of, that I believe it will be best and most just to print at once his account of the fresco as a supplement to these essays of mine, merely indicating any points on which I have objections to raise, and so leave matters till Fors lets me see Florence once more.
Perhaps she may, in kindness forbid my ever seeing it more, the wreck of it being now too ghastly and heartbreaking to any human soul that remembers the days of old. Forty years ago, there was assuredly no spot of ground, out of Palestine, in all the round world, on which, if you knew, even but a little, the true course of that world’s history, you saw with so much joyful reverence the dawn of morning, as at the foot of the Tower of Giotto. For there the traditions of faith and hope, of both the Gentile and Jewish races, met for their beautiful labour: the Baptistery of Florence is the last building raised on the earth by the descendants of the workmen taught by Dadalus: and the Tower of Giotto is the loveliest of those raised on earth under the inspiration of the men who lifted up the tabernacle in the wilderness. Of living Greek work there is none after the Florentine Baptistery; of living Christian work, none so perfect as the Tower of Giotto; and, under the gleam and shadow of their marbles, the morning light was haunted by the ghosts of the Father of Natural Science, Galileo; of Sacred Art, Angelico, and the Master of Sacred Song. Which spot of ground the modern Florentine has made his principal hackney-coach stand and omnibus station. The hackney coaches, with their more or less farmyard-like litter of occasional hay, and smell of variously mixed horse-manure, are yet in more permissible harmony with the place than the ordinary populace of a fashionable promenade would be, with its cigars, spitting, and harlot- planned fineries: but the omnibus place of call being in front of the door of the tower, renders it impossible to stand for a moment near it, to look at the sculptures either of the eastern or southern side; while the north side is enclosed with an iron railing, and usually encumbered with lumber as well: not a soul in Florence ever caring now for sight of any piece of its old artists’ work; and the mass of strangers being on the whole intent on nothing but getting the omnibus to go by steam; and so seeing the cathedral in one swift circuit, by glimpses between the puffs of it.
The front of Notre Dame of Paris was similarly turned into a coach-office when I last saw it–1872. [Footnote: See Fors Clavigera in that year.] Within fifty yards of me as I write, the Oratory of the Holy Ghost is used for a tobacco-store, and in fine, over all Europe, mere Caliban bestiality and Satyric ravage staggering, drunk and desperate, into every once enchanted cell where the prosperity of kingdoms ruled and the miraculous- ness of beauty was shrined in peace.
Deluge of profanity, drowning dome and tower in Stygian pool of vilest thought,–nothing now left sacred, in the places where once–nothing was profane.
For _that_ is indeed the teaching, if you could receive it, of the Tower of Giotto; as of all Christian art in its day. Next to declaration of the facts of the Gospel, its purpose, (often in actual work the eagerest,) was to show the _power_ of the Gospel. History of Christ in due place; yes, history of all He did, and how He died: but then, and often, as I say, with more animated imagination, the showing of His risen presence in granting the harvests and guiding the labour of the year. All sun and rain, and length or decline of days received from His hand; all joy, and grief, and strength, or cessation of labour, indulged or endured, as in His sight and to His glory. And the familiar employments of the seasons, the homely toils of the peasant, the lowliest skills of the craftsman, are signed always on the stones of the Church, as the first and truest condition of sacrifice and offering.
Of these representations of human art under heavenly guidance, the series of bas-reliefs which stud the base of this tower of Giotto’s must be held certainly the chief in Europe. [Footnote: For account of the series on the main archivolt of St. Mark’s, see my sketch of the schools of Venetian sculpture in third forthcoming number of ‘St. Mark’s Rest.’] At first you may be surprised at the smallness of their scale in proportion to their masonry; but this smallness of scale enabled the master workmen of the tower to execute them with their own hands; and for the rest, in the very finest architecture, the decoration of most precious kind is usually thought of as a jewel, and set with space round it,–as the jewels of a crown, or the clasp of a girdle. It is in general not possible for a great workman to carve, himself, a greatly conspicuous series of ornament; nay, even his energy fails him in design, when the bas-relief extends itself into incrustation, or involves the treatment of great masses of stone. If his own does not, the spectator’s will. It would be the work of a long summer’s day to examine the over-loaded sculptures of the Certosa of Pavia; and yet in the tired last hour, you would be empty-hearted. Read but these inlaid jewels of Giotto’s once with patient following; and your hour’s study will give you strength for all your life. So far as you can, examine them of course on the spot; but to know them thoroughly you must have their photographs: the subdued colour of the old marble fortunately keeps the lights subdued, so that the photograph may be made more tender in the shadows than is usual in its renderings of sculpture, and there are few pieces of art which may now be so well known as these, in quiet homes far away.
We begin on the western side. There are seven sculptures on the western, southern, and northern sides: six on the eastern; counting the Lamb over the entrance door of the tower, which divides the complete series into two groups of eighteen and eight. Itself, between them, being the introduction to the following eight, you must count it as the first of the terminal group; you then have the whole twenty-seven sculptures divided into eighteen and nine.
Thus lettering the groups on each side for West, South, East, and North, we have:
W. S. E. N.
7 + 7 + 6 + 7 = 27; or,
W. S. E.
7 + 7 + 4 = 18; and,
E. N.
2 + 7 = 9
There is a very special reason for this division by nines but, for convenience’ sake, I shall number the whole from 1 to 27, straightforwardly. And if you will have patience with me, I should like to go round the tower once and again; first observing the general meaning and connection of the subjects and then going back to examine the technical points in each, and such minor specialties as it may be well, at the first time, to pass over.
1. The series begins, then, on the west side, with the Creation of Man. It is not the beginning of the story of Genesis; but the simple assertion that God made us, and breathed, and still breathes, into our nostrils the breath of life.
This, Giotto tells you to believe as the beginning of all knowledge and all power. [Footnote: So also the Master-builder of the Ducal Palace of Venice. See Fors Clavigera for June of this year.] This he tells you to believe, as a thing which he himself knows.
He will tell you nothing but what he _does_ know.
2. Therefore, though Giovanna Pisano and his fellow sculptors had given, literally, the taking of the rib out of Adam’s side, Giotto merely gives the mythic expression of the truth he knows,–“they two shall be one flesh.”
3. And though all the theologians and poets of his time would have expected, if not demanded, that his next assertion, after that of the Creation of Man, should be of the Fall of Man, he asserts nothing of the kind. He knows nothing of what man was. What he is, he knows best of living men at that hour, and proceeds to say. The next sculpture is of Eve spinning and Adam hewing the ground into clods. Not _digging_: you cannot, usually, dig but in ground already dug. The native earth you must hew.
They are not clothed in skins. What would have been the use of Eve spinning if she could not weave? They wear, each, one simple piece of drapery, Adam’s knotted behind him, Eve’s fastened around her neck with a rude brooch.
Above them are an oak and an apple-tree. Into the apple-tree a little bear is trying to climb.
The meaning of which entire myth is, as I read it, that men and women must both eat their bread with toil. That the first duty of man is to feed his family, and the first duty of the woman to clothe it. That the trees of the field are given us for strength and for delight, and that the wild beasts of the field must have their share with us. [Footnote: The oak and apple boughs are placed, with the same meaning, by Sandro Botticelli, in the lap of Zipporah. The figure of the bear is again represented by Jacopo della Quercia, on the north door of the Cathedral of Florence. I am not sure of its complete meaning.]
4. The fourth sculpture, forming the centre-piece of the series on the west side, is nomad pastoral life.
Jabal, the father of such as dwell in tents, and of such as have cattle, lifts the curtain of his tent to look out upon his flock. His dog watches it.
5. Jubal, the father of all such as handle the harp and organ.
That is to say, stringed and wind instruments;–the lyre and reed. The first arts (with the Jew and Greek) of the shepherd David, and shepherd Apollo.
Giotto has given him the long level trumpet, afterwards adopted so grandly in the sculptures of La Robbia and Donatello. It is, I think, intended to be of wood, as now the long Swiss horn, and a long and shorter tube are bound together.
6. Tubal Cain, the instructor of every artificer in brass and iron.
Giotto represents him as sitting, _fully robed_, turning a wedge of bronze on the anvil with extreme watchfulness.
These last three sculptures, observe, represent the life of the race of Cain; of those who are wanderers, and have no home. _Nomad_ pastoral life; Nomad artistic life, Wandering Willie; yonder organ man, whom you want to send the policeman after, and the gipsy who is mending the old schoolmistress’s kettle on the grass, which the squire has wanted so long to take into his park from the roadside.
7. Then the last sculpture of the seven begins the story of the race of Seth, and of home life. The father of it lying drunk under his trellised vine; such the general image of civilized society, in the abstract, thinks Giotto.
With several other meanings, universally known to the Catholic world of that day,–too many to be spoken of here.
The second side of the tower represents, after this introduction, the sciences and arts of civilized or home life.
8. Astronomy. In nomad life you may serve yourself of the guidance of the stars; but to know the laws of _their_ nomadic life, your own must be fixed.
The astronomer, with his sextant revolving on a fixed pivot, looks up to the vault of the heavens and beholds their zodiac; prescient of what else with optic glass the Tuscan artist viewed, at evening, from the top of Fesole.
Above the dome of heaven, as yet unseen, are the Lord of the worlds and His angels. To-day, the Dawn and the Daystar: to-morrow, the Daystar arising in the heart.
9. Defensive architecture. The building of the watchtower. The beginning of security in possession.
10. Pottery. The making of pot, cup, and platter. The first civilized furniture; the means of heating liquid, and serving drink and meat with decency and economy.
11. Riding. The subduing of animals to domestic service.
12. Weaving. The making of clothes with swiftness, and in precision of structure, by help of the loom.
13. Law, revealed as directly from heaven.
14. Dadalus (not Icarus, but the father trying the wings). The conquest of the element of air.
As the seventh subject of the first group introduced the arts of home after those of the savage wanderer, this seventh of the second group introduces the arts of the missionary, or civilized and gift-bringing wanderer.
15. The Conquest of the Sea. The helmsman, and two rowers, rowing as Venetians, face to bow.
16. The Conquest of the Earth. Hercules victor over Antaus. Beneficent strength of civilization crushing the savageness of inhumanity.
17. Agriculture. The oxen and plough.
18. Trade. The cart and horses.
19. And now the sculpture over the door of the tower. The Lamb of God, expresses the Law of Sacrifice, and door of ascent to heaven. And then follow the fraternal arts of the Christian world.
20. Geometry. Again the angle sculpture, introductory to the following series. We shall see presently why this science must be the foundation of the rest.
21. Sculpture.
22. Painting.
23. Grammar.
24. Arithmetic. The laws of number, weight, and measures of capacity.
25 Music. The laws of number, weight (or force), and measure, applied to sound.
26. Logic. The laws of number and measure applied to thought.
27. The Invention of Harmony.
You see now–by taking first the great division of pre-Christian and Christian arts, marked by the door of the Tower; and then the divisions into four successive historical periods, marked by its angles–that you have a perfect plan of human civilization. The first side is of the nomad life, learning how to assert its supremacy over other wandering creatures, herbs, and beasts. Then the second side is the fixed home life, developing race and country; then the third side, the human intercourse between stranger races; then the fourth side, the harmonious arts of all who are gathered into the fold of Christ.
Now let us return to the first angle, and examine piece by piece with care.
1. _Creation of Man._
Scarcely disengaged from the clods of the earth, he opens his eyes to the face of Christ. Like all the rest of the sculptures, it is less the representation of a past fact than of a constant one. It is the continual state of man, ‘of the earth,’ yet seeing God.
Christ holds the book of His Law–the ‘Law of life’–in His left hand.
The trees of the garden above are,–central above Christ, palm (immortal life); above Adam, oak (human life). Pear, and fig, and a large-leaved ground fruit (what?) complete the myth of the Food of Life.
As decorative sculpture, these trees are especially to be noticed, with those in the two next subjects, and the Noah’s vine as differing in treatment from Giotto’s foliage, of which perfect examples are seen in 16 and 17. Giotto’s branches are set in close sheaf-like clusters; and every mass disposed with extreme formality of radiation. The leaves of these first, on the contrary, are arranged with careful concealment of their ornamental system, so as to look inartificial. This is done so studiously as to become, by excess, a little unnatural!–Nature herself is more decorative and formal in grouping. But the occult design is very noble, and every leaf modulated with loving, dignified, exactly right and sufficient finish; not done to show skill, nor with mean forgetfulness of main subject, but in tender completion and harmony with it.
Look at the subdivisions of the palm leaves with your magnifying glass. The others are less finished in this than in the next subject. Man himself incomplete, the leaves that are created with him, for his life, must not be so.
(Are not his fingers yet short; growing?)
2. _Creation of Woman._
Far, in its essential qualities, the transcendent sculpture of this subject, Ghiberti’s is only a dainty elaboration and beautification of it, losing its solemnity and simplicity in a flutter of feminine grace. The older sculptor thinks of the Uses of Womanhood, and of its dangers