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TUSCAN STUDIES 
 
 AND 
 
 SKETCHES 
 
 LEADER SCOTT ^^ -^^^ K 
 
 " A NOOK IN THE APENNINES," " MESSER AGNOLO'S HOUSEHOLD, 
 "the RENAISSANCE OF ART IN ITALY" 
 
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 y ILLUSTRATED 
 
 NEW YORK : 
 SCRIBNER AND WELFORD. 
 
 MDCCCI-XXXVII. 
 
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PREFACE. 
 
 HERE is a certain ancient library in 
 Florence, called the " Magliabecchiana," 
 which is a delightful haunt for a book- 
 worm. Here one can burrow among the 
 black-letter tomes of the old chronicler, and there is no 
 more amusing reading than the gossip of the old Flo- 
 rentine writer. Here one can find all that past times 
 have known on any Florentine subject, and hunt out 
 the history of every old family and massive palace. On 
 the floor above, the archives are preserved, and here 
 the student may read the letters and documents of 
 Florentine citizens, governors, artists, and authors for 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 centuries back, and repeople the palaces as they were 
 in ages gone by. 
 
 It is among the worm-eaten old tomes of the 
 Magliabecchiana library, and the MS. folios of the 
 archives, that I have burrowed out, from the writing 
 of many a dead hand, the story of some of our 
 Florentine treasures. 
 
 The sketches are from nature, and are scenes we 
 have come across in rambling here and there in this 
 delightful land — whose past is a glorious record, whose 
 present is a beauty and a hope. 
 
 Much of the matter is new to print; but I must beg 
 to thank very heartily Messrs. Cassell and Co., for 
 their kind permission to make use of Chapters I. and 
 V. in Part I., which have appeared in " The Magazine 
 of Art ; " also the Editor of " The Ladies' Trea- 
 sury," who allows the reprint of Chapters III., V., 
 and VIII. in the Second Part, and the Editor of 
 "The Art Journal" for Chapter VII., Part I. 
 
 LEADER SCOTT. 
 
 Florence, 1887. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PART L— STUDIES. 
 
 CHAPi PAGE 
 
 I. THE GIANTS AT THE GATES : I. DAVID ; 2. HERCULES ; 
 
 3. NEPTUNE 
 II. A LIBRARY OF CODICES 
 III. OLD ORGANS AND THEIR BUILDERS 
 
 II 
 61 
 81 
 
 IV. FLORENTINE MOSAICS 
 
 IIO 
 
 V. THE BRIDES ROOM 
 
 VI. A RECOVERED FRESCO 
 
 VII. A MUSEUM OF PICTORIAL TAPESTRY 
 
 127 
 
 148 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 FART IL—SKETCHES. 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. A VINTAGE PARTY . . . . . l6l 
 
 II, THE FESTIVAL OF THE DEAD . . . l8l 
 
 III, AT THE BATHS ..... 193 
 
 IV. THE GIOSTRA ..... ,217 
 V. THE MUSHROOM MERCHANT IN THE APENNINES . 235 
 
 VI. A MOUNTAIN FUNERAL .... 245 
 
 VII. A FLORENTINE MARKET .... 253 
 
 VIII. THE CASTLE OF BELCARO .... 269 
 
 IX. VOLTERRA AND THE BORAX SPRINGS . . -275 
 
 X. A SHRINE OF MEDIEVAL ART . . . 306 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 iS. 
 
 SAN MiNiATO ..... Frontispiecc 
 
 PAGE 
 
 MICHAEL ANGELO'S DAVID . . . . 1 4 
 
 HERCULES AND CACUS, BY BACCIO BANDINELLI . . 34 
 
 PROPHET, BY BACCIO BANDINELLI, ON THE CHOIR IN THE 
 
 DUOMO ...... 48 
 
 LOGGIA DE' LANZI . . . . . -55 
 
 SAN MARCO, FLORENCE ..... 60 
 
 WITH THE NOVICES OF SAN MARCO . . . .66 
 
 FROM DONATELLO'S ORGAN GALLERY, FORMERLY IN THE 
 
 DUOMO OF FLORENCE .... 78 
 
 LUCA DELLA ROBBIA'S GALLERY . . . -95 
 
 SANVONAROLA PREACHING. .... 99 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 "cinque cento" chair . . . . . 128 
 
 "a cinque cento" house decoration . . . 131 
 
 SONG of SOLOMON, FLEMISH TAPESTRY . . . 150 
 
 ITALIAN VINES . . . . . . 162 
 
 FRENCH SYSTEM OF VINE GROWING . . . 1 69 
 
 A FLORENTINE FLTNERAL . . . . 184 
 
 THE WHITE MISERICORDIA PREPARING FOR A FUNERAL . 189 
 ITALIAN BATHS . . . . . -194- 
 
 THE COAST NEAR VIAREGGIO . . . . 197 
 
 AN APENNINE VILLAGE . . . . . 2l6 
 
 ROMAN COMEDIANS ..... 232 
 
 WHERE THE MUSHROOMS GROW .... 236 
 
 THE priest's visit ..... 244 
 
 A MIGLIACCIO SELLER . . . . . . 265 
 
 VILLAGE IN THE APENNINES ..... 274 
 
 ST. GEMIGNANO . . . . . . ^ 308 
 
PART I. 
 
 TUSCAN STUDIES. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 ^be Giants at tbe (Bates. 
 
 I.— DAVID. 
 
 HRINED in the very heart of Florence is 
 the ancient Palace of the Signory, with its 
 Moorish cortile, its machicolated battle- 
 ments, and airy bell-tower rising flower- 
 like on its slender column. For many centuries these 
 walls have sheltered the rulers of the city. During 
 the Republic, Ghibelline and Guelph alternately held 
 sway here. Mediaeval Gonfalonieri, with their train 
 of Priors and Signory, gave way to the more despotic 
 Ducal rule. In more modern days the Italian Parlia- 
 ment was held there, and now it is merely a provincial 
 municipality. And steadfast to their post, whatever 
 
14 
 
 TUSCAN STUDIES. 
 
 may be the ruling power, the three colossi that guard 
 
 the gates have stood 
 firm and unchanging 
 as rocks in a surging 
 sea. Thus immutable 
 through several stir- 
 ring centuries, these 
 giants, the David, ^ 
 the Hercules, and the 
 Neptune, have grown 
 into the inmost heart 
 of Florence, and be- 
 come part of her story, 
 and the piazza is like 
 a house where death 
 has left a vacant place^ 
 since the removal of 
 the David from its 
 post. 
 
 Taken as mere sta- 
 tues, these colossi are 
 
 ' The David, at least, has 
 seen many changes ; the 
 other two were placed during 
 the Ducal government. 
 
 MICHAEL ANGELO's DAVID. 
 
THE GIANTS AT THE GATES. 15 
 
 only works which occupied a few years in the sculptors' 
 lives, and a few pages in their memoirs, amongst man}^ 
 other works perhaps more important ; but taken in a 
 group, as signs of the times which produced them, 
 they are a very significant trio. Scarcely fifty years 
 elapsed between the commencement of the first and 
 the completion of the last; but what a half-century of 
 changes and revolutions it was ! When the David 
 came into being, Florence was a town of flourishing 
 burghers, whose complaisance had recently been 
 shaken into religious fervour or obstinate disbelief by 
 the fermentation of Savonarola's enthusiasm and his 
 opponents' rage. What was more appropriate than 
 that Michael Angelo, being called on for a great 
 national work, should emblematize his city as a youth 
 triumphing over a giant foe by the aid of Divine 
 power ? 
 
 Thirty years later, when the Hercules was placed as 
 a pendant to the David, the Medici were again in 
 supreme power. A Medici Pope (Leo X.) gave the 
 order to Bandinelli, and he could think of no more 
 appropriate emblem of his city than Hercules, the 
 man-hero triumphing in his own power — a tribute to 
 the irresistible sway of the proud dukes. Later still, 
 
1 6 TUSCAN STUDIES. 
 
 when the Medici power and magnificence had reached 
 their height, Florence came out from the hands of 
 Ammanati emblematized, not only by human strength, 
 but by that of a god commanding even the elements. 
 
 Apart from these historical significations, it is also 
 interesting to read in the two first statues the mind 
 and character of the sculptors. Michael Angelo, 
 greatest of artists, but still humble before the mighty 
 grandeur of art itself — often abandoning his works un- 
 finished because he could not give them the divinity 
 his soul had conceived — chose as a subject a youth 
 inspired with the divine spirit, and trusting not at all 
 in his own power. Bandinelli, on the contrary, 
 arrogant and self-asserting, chose the man-god 
 Hercules, whose power was in himself, and did not 
 come from an inspiration of divine art. The Neptune 
 not being the independent choice of the sculptor, but 
 taken merely as appropriate to a fountain, is not, like 
 the others, emblematic of its maker. 
 
 I propose, therefore, to follow these three giants 
 into life, step by step, from the very marble quarries. 
 The story of David is, I am aware, an oft-told tale : 
 but in that, as in the two less known works, the 
 account given in the life of the artist is but a small 
 
THE GIANTS AT THE GATES. 17 
 
 part 0)f the story of the statue, which enters into the 
 biography of others besides its maker. 
 
 In the Middle Ages, from the time when the 
 building of the cathedral began, an institution existed 
 in Florence, called the " Opera del Duomo," or, as it 
 may be anglicized, " Company of Works of the Cathe- 
 dral." This company consisted of all the famous 
 architects, artists, and men of skill of the time ; and in 
 a large building on the Piazza del Duomo they had 
 studios for the sculptors, carvers, and decorators 
 engaged in the building of the church. They super- 
 intended the building, and were, besides, the great 
 patrons of art in those days, most of the public 
 works of art being the fruit of commissions given by 
 them. 
 
 On April 16, 1463, we find the Opera giving a 
 commission to a certain " Agostino di Antonio di 
 Ducci," sculptor, to make a giant similar to one 
 standing above the door of the Church of the Servi — 
 "or better," as the original document says — and for 
 this they proposed to give him 321 lire (the lira of 
 that time was worth 84 centimes, or 8d.).^ 
 
 The books of the " House of Works of the Duomo " 
 
 ^ Stanziamenti dell' Opera, 1463. Gaye, ii. 466. 
 2 
 
TUSCAN STUDIES. 
 
 contain also an entry on the 23rd of November, the 
 same year, that " the giant made by Agostino di Ducci 
 being finished in perfection, they paid him 265 lire, 
 13 denari, being the remainder of the sum due to 
 him." 
 
 So pleased were they with this work, that in 1464, 
 when a huge block of marble, of nine braccia long, had 
 been excavated at Carrara, the Opera commissioned 
 the same Agostino Ghucci, or Ducci, to make a figure 
 ^' in the form of a giant, in the name and place of a 
 prophet " — I give a literal translation of the old docu- 
 ment — " to place on a sprone, or buttress, of the 
 Duomo, as the Company of Works should choose, 
 the which figure he had promised to make in four 
 pieces — that is to say, one piece the head and throat, 
 two pieces the arms, and all the rest one piece." ^ 
 This quaint commission is dated August 18, 1464. 
 There is a question whether the " Arte della Lana " or 
 the " Opera " gave the order ; but however it was, the 
 figure was never finished. The very Fates forbade 
 the birth of a giant whose head and arms were to be 
 patched on ; and instead of poor Agostino earning 300 
 florins by making a better statue than the former, his 
 ^ Gaye, ii. 467. 
 
THE GIANTS AT THE GATES. 19 
 
 bare expenses of a hundred florins were paid to him, 
 and he was excluded from being one of the workmen 
 for the Duomo. The block he had nearly spoiled lay 
 useless among the marbles in the great courtyard of 
 the works, and nobody either made or marred it for 
 nearly forty years. Vasari says Simone di Fiesole 
 w^orked at it — indeed, he gives him the credit of 
 spoiling it ; but the documents we have mentioned 
 prove without a doubt that Agostino was the culprit. 
 It had once been offered to Donatello, but he, de- 
 spising Agostino's inartistic chippings, refused the 
 questionable honour. 
 
 In 1500 Andrea Contucci del Monte Sansovino, 
 a sculptor who had studied with Michael Angelo 
 in his boyish days in the Medici gardens, returned 
 to Florence from Portugal, and seeing the great 
 stone, begged to have it. He would have pieced 
 it out, but this the Opera objected to. Then 
 Pier Soderini, the Gonfaloniere, offered to buy it 
 to give to Leonardo da Vinci ; and while all 
 this was going on, Michael Angelo came upon the 
 scene. The manner of his coming is a doubtful ques- 
 tion. Vasari says that his friends wrote to him in 
 Rome to tell him that the marble was going begging, 
 
TUSCAN STUDIES. 
 
 and he who had long wished to obtain it came and 
 made every effort to get the commission.' 
 
 Grimm tells the story another way. He writes that^ 
 on the request of Sansovino for the marble, the consuls 
 of the Arte-Lana, not liking his scheme of piecing it 
 out, wished to obtain Michael Angelo's opinion as to 
 the possibility of his producing anything out of it him- 
 self.2 He came, saw, and decided to conquer this 
 stumbling-block. In the deformed giant he beheld 
 the germs of the David which was afterwards tO' 
 astonish the world. He had on hand a commission 
 from Cardinal Piccolomini to execute fifteen small 
 statues for a tomb in Siena Cathedral, but he gave up 
 this profitable work on gaining the coveted order for 
 the Florentine colossus. Here is the document, dated 
 — " 1501. 16 August." ''The honourable (spectabiles) 
 Company of the Wool Staplers (Artis Lanse) being 
 assembled, together with the Company of Works, ia 
 the audience chamber of said Opera, to deliberate on 
 giving a work of sculpture which should reflect honour 
 on the company, to a worthy master, herewith commis- 
 sion Michael Angelo Ludovico Buonarroti, Florentine 
 
 ^ Vasari's " Lives of the Painters," vol. v. p. 240. 
 '^ Grimm's " Life of Michael Angelo," vol. i. p. 202. 
 
THE GIANTS A T THE GA TES. 
 
 citizen, to make and perfect a man called a giant, 
 blocked out of a piece of marble nine braccia high 
 [i7:f feet] existing in the said Opera, before com- 
 menced by Master Agostino [here the surname is 
 illegible from the damp], and badly commenced ; in 
 the space of two years, from the proximate kalends of 
 September, with the salary of six gold florins monthly ; 
 the House of Works to furnish workmen, a suitable and 
 commodious place, woodwork, and all other necessaries. 
 The said statue finished, they will meet to consult if it 
 merits a further price, and this is to be left to their 
 consciences." ^ 
 
 I do not know how far an artist of the present day 
 would like to trust to the consciences of his patrons as 
 to the price to be paid for his work, but the fifteenth 
 and sixteenth centuries were the age of true art 
 patronage, and sculptors worked for glory and not 
 for a means of livelihood, Michael Angelo made a 
 small model in wax, of David with a sling in his hand, 
 as an emblem of the government then reigning, that as 
 David had conquered in the power of the Lord, and 
 ruled His people justly, so the Signoria, having 
 vanquished their tyrants, should continue to govern 
 ^ Gaye's " Carteggia Inedita," vol. ii. p. 434. 
 
TUSCAN STUDIES. 
 
 wisely. A studio was enclosed around the marble, 
 with planks and masonry, and here, on Monday 
 morning, September 13, 1 501, he commenced to work 
 in right earnest, although he had some days before 
 given a few blows to the stone. ^ 
 
 Here, then, for five months the great master spent 
 his days, hewing and hammering the mis-shapen 
 block. With him sculpture meant really carving from 
 the living rock, as its name implies, not the mere 
 modelling in clay, which is misnamed sculpture in the 
 present day. Michael Angelo had no set of mechanics 
 to copy his model by rule, line, and a multitude of 
 pegs, and then send it forth to the world as sculptured 
 {scolpito) by his own hand. No ! he worked in soli- 
 tude, if that can be called solitude which is peopled by 
 the spirits and thoughts of art and genius. He made 
 no mechanical measurements and contrivances, but 
 with his little wax model by his side and the giant 
 form in his soul, he day by day transferred that form 
 to the marble. That he worked with his whole heart 
 and soul we know. He attacked the marble with such 
 fury and impetus that it seemed he would break it to 
 pieces ; one blow knocked off bits three or four fingers 
 ^ " Archives and Deliberations of Opera, 1496 to 1507." 
 
THE GIANTS A T THE GA TES. 23 
 
 wide, but always true to the line ; in a quarter of an 
 hour he hewed off more pieces than the stoutest stone- 
 cutter could do in an hour. While engaged on any 
 great work, Michael Angelo lived a most moderate 
 life, " taking only a frugal refreshment at the close of 
 his day's work. He slept very little, frequently rising 
 in the night and resuming his labours with the chisel 
 because he could not rest. For these occasions he 
 had made himself a cap of pasteboard, in the centre of 
 which he placed his candle, which thus gave him light 
 without encumbering his hands. The candles were 
 made of goat's tallow." ^ 
 
 In this way the time passed till February 28, 1502, 
 when, the work being half completed, Michael Angelo 
 called together his patrons to judge of its merits, and 
 they decreed to give him 400 florins in gold, the 
 monthly salary, however, to be deducted. 
 
 After this the work went on more slowly ; it was a 
 time of great internal disturbance for Florence, the 
 Medici again attempting to establish themselves, and 
 Caesar Borgia also scheming to become possessed of 
 the city. However, by the beginning of the year 
 1504, the statue was almost completed, and an entry 
 ' Vasari, vol. v. p. 339. 
 
24 TUSCAN STUDIES. 
 
 appears in the Archives of the Works of the Duomo, 
 dated, " 1504, January 25. To call a meeting of all 
 the well-known artists, and architects, and men of 
 note, to take their opinions on the subject of a good 
 site for it." 
 
 And certainly the king among sculptors could have 
 had no more worthy judges than the illustrious group 
 of notabilities — many of their names as immortal as his 
 own — who met in the audience chamber of the Works 
 of the Duomo to do honour to Michael Angelo's 
 " David." 
 
 They sat in the atelier with the youthful giant, 
 hitherto shrouded from mortal gaze, exposed to view 
 in their midst ; and though many of them may have 
 felt a natural envy in their hearts, none could find a 
 word to say except in praise. There were Sansovino 
 and Leonardo da Vinci, both of whom had tried to 
 obtain the marble for themselves, and in the report 
 of the meeting it is noticeable that the two spoke 
 only very few words and were not warm in their 
 admiration. 
 
 All the famous artists of the day grouped around. 
 There was old Cosimo Roselli and his son Piero, 
 Andrea della Robbia, Francesco Granacci, — Michael 
 
THE GIANTS A T THE GA TES. 25 
 
 Angelo's boyish friend and rival in the Medici 
 Gardens, — Pietro Perugino, and Lorenzo di Credi, 
 the great architects Giuliano and Antonio San Gallo, 
 and many other men of standing in the city. 
 
 Michael Angelo had his own choice after all, and 
 the David was placed at the gate, a giant guardian 
 who has stood at his post steadfastly for three 
 centuries and a half, to be deposed at last, when in 
 1873 the statue was removed to the Belle Arti, 
 
 A month or two now sufficed to finish the work, 
 and on the ist of April, 1504, Simone del Pollaiuolo 
 was commissioned, in the presence of Michael Angelo, 
 to conduct the marble statue to the palace before the 
 25 th of the same month. 
 
 This arrangement does not seem to have been 
 carried out, for on the 30th of April, 1504, is a very 
 severe order from the Signoria to the " Worshipful 
 Company of the Works of the Duomo, that Simone 
 del Pollaiuolo, Antonio di San Gallo, Bartolomeo, 
 carpenter, and Bernardo, architect, are deputed by the 
 before mentioned ' magnificent ' Signoria to conduct 
 the giant which is in the House of Works to the 
 Loggia of the Signoria by the end of May." ^ A few 
 ^ Gaye's " Carteggia," vol. ii. p. 463. 
 
26 TUSCAN STUDIES. 
 
 days later the narrow streets of old Florence were 
 filled with a busy crowd escorting the colossus to his 
 abiding-place. 
 
 On the 14th of May, the wall of the atelier having 
 been broken down around the door to allow of its 
 exit, the statue, which weighed 18,000 lbs., was drawn 
 into the open air. Grimm — quoting Parenti's MS. 
 " Storia Fiorentina " probably — says the scaffolding 
 was devised by Cronaca. Vasari, who in this case 
 happens to agree with the document we have quoted 
 above, gives the brothers San Gallo the credit of it. 
 The statue hung free by means of ropes in a huge 
 framework of wood ; the frame was drawn slowly 
 forward on oiled beams by means of pulleys, the 
 united strength of forty men being required to move 
 it. The first day's journey only accomplished a small 
 part of the way, and it was left at nightfall alone in the 
 unlighted streets. The successful artist must have 
 had some envious rivals, for during the hours of 
 darkness stones were thrown at it. The second 
 night a watch was set, but the rival's partisans were 
 not to be balked of their demonstrations, and attacked 
 the watch while trying to injure the statue. Eight of 
 them were, however, apprehended and imprisoned. 
 
THE GIANTS A T THE GA TES. 27 
 
 On the 1 8th of May, 1504, at mid-day it reached the 
 Piazza. The Judith of Donatello, which was thought 
 to have a sinister effect on the fortunes of the city, 
 was removed from its position on the Ringhiera of the 
 palace, and the David took its vacant place. This, 
 however, was not accomplished till the 8th of June 
 
 How well we can imasfine the scene on the Piazza 
 as the noble form rose erect in the sunlight and took 
 its stand as one of the household gods of the Floren- 
 tines ! From the day of its completion, the city 
 reckoned her deliverance from three great enemies — ■ 
 the two Borgias, and Piero di Medici, who was 
 drowned in disputing the passage of the river at the 
 battle of Garigliano. The Florentines also attributed 
 to its beneficent influence the conquest of Pisa, which 
 took place shortly after. As a work of art, the David 
 is well worthy its position as a good genius. Vasari 
 affirms that " it surpasses all others, ancient or 
 modern," and that " he who has seen this, therefore, 
 need not care to see any production besides, whether 
 of our own time or those preceding it." When one 
 reflects how the artist's ideal must have been cramped 
 by working it down to a spoiled material, the freedom 
 and power of the David are surprising. So closely 
 
TUSCAN STUDIES. 
 
 has he used the marble, that the marks of the chisel of 
 Agostino still in a measure mar the head and the 
 back of the shepherd-warrior. He stands in his 
 full grace of large-limbed youth, his powerful limbs 
 forming a curious contrast to the fresh boyish expres- 
 sion of his face. Yet this contrast is a great triumph 
 of art in adhering to nature. 
 
 Grimm, after comparing Michael Angelo's style, 
 formed by a study of nature rather than of ancient art, 
 says (vol. ii. p. 129) that "in some unexpected manner 
 he is even more true to nature than the more perfect 
 Greek masters. The Greeks had formed an ideal 
 scale for physical representation, according to which, 
 certain periods of life were taken as the centre of fixed 
 epochs, and were adhered to by the artists. There is in 
 boys at three or four years old a time of shooting up 
 when they grow thin and slender. I never have found 
 this produced by Greek sculptors. Such periods of 
 development and growth occur again after the vigorous 
 boyish age ; this also they have passed over. And it 
 is precisely this gaunt, long-limbed period of youth 
 that Michael Angelo has shown in the David, . . . 
 But QToinpf throuo^h the works of ancient art we find 
 none that, as in the David, combines such a strong. 
 
THE GIANTS AT THE GATES. 29 
 
 almost thick head, with such a sHm and even slender 
 figure, and lastly with such large hands and feet. 
 Nature permits such a combination of contradictions. 
 This very union of awkwardness and agility dis- 
 tinguishes a certain age, and nothing could be more 
 characteristic than Michael Angelo's David if he was, 
 as the Bible describes him, at once a youth and a 
 hero, a shepherd's boy, more dexterous than strong, 
 like a horse which has not yet entirely lost the colt-like 
 feeling in his limbs." 
 
 Michael Angelo's fidelity to nature in contrast to 
 the more eclectic style of Greek masters may be ex- 
 plained by the fact that the Greeks aimed at the 
 perfection of beauty, and therefore would not portray 
 the human figure at the stage of imperfection or 
 of incompleted beauty. They delighted in perfect 
 infancy, perfect childhood, and perfect manhood, but 
 ignored that transition stage at which childhood's grace 
 has vanished and manly strength is yet incomplete. 
 Michael Angelo had such faith in Nature's grandeur 
 that he has ventured to represent her faithfully even 
 at an immature point. 
 
 It was while the David statue was standing still 
 enclosed in its scaffolding that the oft-told incident of 
 
TUSCAN STUDIES. 
 
 the Gonfaloniere Soderini's pseudo-criticism took place. 
 Poor Piero Soderini ! it is probable he is better known 
 to posterity for this little bit of ignorant conceit than 
 for all the good he did for his city during his long and 
 difficult rule. 
 
 On the nth of June another order was sent on 
 behalf of the Government to the Opera, or House of 
 Works, to make a base of marble for the statue, which 
 was already placed at the door of the palace. While 
 standing there in the first days of its public existence, 
 it was covered with laudatory sonnets from the pens of 
 all the artist's admirers and friends. Cellini says there 
 were several hundreds of them. It was the fashion 
 among the wits and poets of the age to pay their 
 homage to genius in this manner. 
 
 The Gonfaloniere was so pleased at the glory re- 
 flected on the Signoria by such a masterpiece of art, 
 that he ordered Michael Angelo to make a second 
 David in bronze, to send to France as a present to 
 the Marshal de Gies. The great artist soon after 
 went to Rome, at the invitation of Pope Julius II,, who 
 became his greatest patron in after years. 
 
 The David led a peaceful life for eight years ; 
 then came the fall of the Gonfaloniere Soderini and 
 
THE GIANTS AT THE GATES. 31 
 
 the recall of the Medici, who were brought back by- 
 force of the Spanish troops under Cordova. Poor 
 deposed Soderini rode away with his friends in the 
 dark night of August 30, 151 2, and on the i6th of 
 September a surging crowd filled the piazza around 
 the David. Giuliano de Medici marched into the 
 great hall and demanded his rights and restoration. 
 The great bell was sounded, friends and enemies filled 
 the square, the Signoria stood in angry state on the 
 Ringhiera by David's side ; but their city's standard 
 was in the hand of Giuliano de Medici, and the revo- 
 lution ended by his assuming the government, the 
 troops of foreign mercenaries which supported his 
 cause proving too formidable for even the sturdy 
 Florentine burghers. 
 
 But though the David stood unscathed during the 
 dangers of the first revolution it witnessed, it was not 
 so fortunate in the second, which took place in 1527. 
 The Medici were once more expelled ; a terrible fight 
 raged before the Palazzo Vecchio, the party in posses- 
 sion defending it against the intruders. One of the be- 
 sieged cast a heavy missile (a bench or form) down from 
 the battlements on the heads of the party who were try- 
 ing to force an entrance, but the unwieldy mass fell in- 
 
32 TUSCAN STUDIES. 
 
 stead on the uplifted arm of David and broke it in three 
 pieces. The fragments lay unheeded on the ground 
 for two turbulent days, no one heeding the fracture of 
 a piece of still life, however beautiful, while so much 
 human blood was being shed around. But two boys 
 came to the rescue, Francesco Salviati from his 
 windows, seeing the precious fragments trampled under 
 the feet of the insurgents, ran to call his friend Georgio 
 Vasari, then a boy of his own age (about fifteen or six- 
 teen), and the two daring youths made their way into 
 the piazza, rescued the broken bits from beneath the 
 very feet of the soldiers, and carried them off to the 
 house of Michel Agnolo de Rossi, a weaver of velvets, 
 and father of the painter Salviati. For years the 
 good genius of the city stood mutilated before the 
 palace gate, but when at length Duke Cosimo came 
 into power, he regained the fragments and had them 
 attached by means of copper nails. Since that time 
 the David has stood uninjured in the midst of wars and 
 revolutions, till a few years ago (1873) it was removed 
 to the Gallery of the Belle Arti, the fears which 
 Antonio S. Gallo had expressed 360 years ago as to 
 the danger of exposing so tender a marble to the air 
 having again arisen in the minds of the modern 
 
THE GIANTS A T THE GA TES. 33. 
 
 Florentines. The ceremony of removal took some 
 days. A huge wooden car and a temporary tramway 
 were constructed, the wall of the Belle Arti being 
 opened to receive it, just as in the old days that of the 
 studio had been broken to admit of its exit. 
 
 It has a handsome tribune built for its reception, 
 and well sheltered from outer storm may yet last many 
 centuries ; but in the hearts of the Florentines the 
 vacant place at the gates awakes a sigh, and the very 
 piazza seems to have lost a little of its life. The 
 Hercules stands alone as giant guardian of the ancient 
 gate, and the symmetry of the entrance now seems 
 lost. 
 
 II.— HERCULES. 
 
 The David had stood for four years a solitary 
 giant guardian at the doors of the palace of the 
 Signoria, and the good burghers of Florence had 
 begun to reckon their family events by its advent, and 
 to say such a thing happened "before the giant came," 
 or " it was just a year after the giant was put up ; " 
 when Pier Soderini, the Gonfaloniere, having heard 
 that a huofe block of marble had been excavated at 
 Carrara, conceived the brilliant idea of setting a 
 
 3 
 
34 
 
 TUSCAN STUDIES. 
 
 second gigantic figure on the other side of the en- 
 trance. On the loth 
 of May, 1508, there- 
 fore, he wrote the fol- 
 lowing letter to the 
 Marquis of Massa, 
 Alberigo Malaspina, 
 the owner of the 
 quarries : — " To the 
 Marquis Alberigo. If 
 you can do so without 
 inconvenience to your 
 lordship, we should be 
 grateful if you would 
 keep that marble for 
 us, as we wish to 
 ::^ make a statue to adorn 
 the piazza in this city, 
 and by this your lord- 
 ship will be able to 
 gratify all the Floren- 
 tine people." ^ 
 
 HERCULES AND CACUS, BY BACCIO BANDINELLI. Q)X\ the Ztth of SeO- 
 
 ^ Lettere alia Signoria. Gaye, " Carteggio Inedito," vol. ii. p. 97. 
 
THE GIANTS AT THE GATES. 35 
 
 tember, in the same year, Soderini again writes 
 to the Marquis of Massa, saying that he has under- 
 stood from Raphael of Reggio that the marquis is 
 anxious to have the block removed, and that as soon 
 as Michael Angelo comes to Florence he will send him 
 to Carrara to diminish the marble, that it may be more 
 easily carried. ^ 
 
 But it seems that Michael Angelo was not at this 
 time at the disposal of the Gonfaloniere ; for another 
 letter from him, dated Florence, i6th December, 1508, 
 makes excuses for the artist's not having yet gone to 
 Massa to block out the statue, saying that the Pope had 
 only allowed him twenty-five days in Florence (when 
 he came to finish the bronze David for the Marshal de 
 Gies), and adding, "There is no man in Italy capable 
 of preparing the marble but the artist himself, for 
 another man not knowing his design might spoil it. 
 Therefore," says Soderini, " till he comes, which we 
 hope may be soon, we can satisfy neither your lord- 
 ship nor ourselves." ^ 
 
 Michael Angelo's idea was to make a colossal 
 
 ' Lettere alia Signoria. Gaye, " Carteggio Inedito," vol. ii. p. 97. 
 ^ Gaye, "Carteggio Inedito," vol. ii. p. 107. Manni, " Sui 
 Sigilli Antichi," vol. i. p. 38. 
 
36 TUSCAN STUDIES. 
 
 Hercules slaying Cacus, the width of the block at its 
 base lending itself well to the introduction of a pros- 
 trate figure, and he had, in preparation, made a design 
 and small model of his conception. The subject was 
 well chosen ; the figure of Hercules, being the sign of 
 the seal of the Republic, could also be taken as an 
 emblem of the power of Florence in triumphing over 
 her enemies. The Judith, by Donatello, and the 
 David, were also, as we have already said, emblem- 
 atical of the same power, and each was eloquent of 
 the times in which it was created. 
 
 Michael Angelo's design for this statue is still extant 
 in the South Kensington Museum ; it is, although 
 only a small sketch, very powerful, the two figures 
 being coiled together, the one in victorious power, the 
 other in writhing defeat. 
 
 Stirring events, however, befell Florence. During 
 these tempestuous times Michael Angelo was at work 
 at Bologna and at Rome, seldom visiting Florence, 
 Then came the return of the Medici, with the Spanish 
 army to assist at their restoration ; and Pier Soderini 
 was compelled to resign. The Medici, with one of 
 their family in the Papal Chair as Leo X., held sway 
 with all their former power and more than their former 
 
THE GIANTS AT THE GATES. yj 
 
 arrogance. And during all these exciting times Her- 
 cules was still lying a useless block of marble at 
 Carrara, but not forgotten. The sculptor Baccio Ban- 
 dinelli had cast longing eyes on it, and, being endowed 
 with more ambition and vanity than genius — though 
 he possessed talent of a certain kind — felt within him- 
 self that if he only had the marble and the opportunity 
 he could produce a work which would throw Michael 
 Angelo's David into the shade, and prove more than 
 worthy of being placed as a pendant thereto. More- 
 over, he would eclipse the great sculptor on his own 
 ground by choosing the selfsame design. Hercules and 
 Cacus was a subject quite familiar to him, for in his 
 early youth, when his father, proud of his talent, gave 
 him a studio, and had some marbles brought for him, 
 one of his earliest efforts was a group, five feet high, 
 of Hercules standing over the dead body of his foe. 
 
 In 1515, when Leo X. made his triumphal entry 
 into his native city, Bandinelli seized the opportunity 
 of showing the Medici that a second Michael Angelo 
 was at their service, by placing a colossal model of 
 Hercules, in clay, under one of the arches of the Loggia 
 on the Grand Piazza, as one of the adornments of the 
 Papal triumph. Time went on, and still the block was 
 
38 TUSCAN STUDIES. 
 
 lying at Carrara. Leo X. died; Clement VII. was 
 elected, and by him Michael Angelo was employed on 
 the tombs of the Medici in San Lorenzo. In 1525 
 the Commune of Florence again bethought itself of the 
 large block of marble which Pier Soderini had bought 
 seventeen years before, and would have employed 
 Michael Angelo, as had been first intended. But the 
 Fates were against him in this matter. He had in 
 some way made an enemy of Bandinelli's friend 
 Domenico Boninsegni, the superintendent of the works 
 for the facade of San Lorenzo, and he, as a matter of 
 revenge, used all his influence with the Pope to give 
 the marble to Bandinelli, representing to His Holiness 
 that if such a large work were given to Michael 
 Angelo the works for the facade and chapel of the 
 Medici would have to be neglected. He, besides, 
 cunningly suggested that by employing two rivals in 
 art, the spirit of emulation would make them produce 
 better works. ^ 
 
 This is Vasari's account ; and a document, cited by 
 
 Gaye from the "Ricordi di Firenze Riccardiana," though 
 
 making no personal mention of Boninsegni, agrees in 
 
 fact with it. It says that "on the 20th of July, 1525, 
 
 ^ Vasari, vol. iv. pp. 247, 248 (Milanesi's edition). 
 
THE GIANTS AT THE GATES. 39 
 
 the Commune of Florence had a piece of marble brought 
 from Carrara, nine braccia high and four and a half 
 broad at the base, to make a figure to put on the piazza, 
 and having in Florence one M. Angelo, the best master 
 of sculpture in the world, the people desired that he 
 should work it, he having been so successful in the 
 David, and that from a marble mutilated by other 
 hands. But he being employed in the tombs of the 
 Medici for Pope Clement, the said Pope intended that 
 another Florentine sculptor should undertake it, that 
 the sepulchres should not be left incomplete." Ban- 
 dinelli, therefore, was sent to Carrara to diminish the 
 marble according to his design, and it was brought to 
 Florence in the month of July. 
 
 It maybe imagined how mortifying this decision was 
 to Michael Angelo, for a rivalry which amounted to 
 antagonism had for years existed between the two 
 artists. Indeed, some had said that spiteful injury to 
 the cartoon of Michael Angelo while it hung in the 
 Papal Hall was due to the enmity of Bandinelli. He 
 was not of a character to let such a triumph go by 
 unvaunted, and it is most likely that the great spirit 
 of the higher genius was much vexed at this time by 
 the self-laudation of the lower artist. 
 
40 TUSCAN STUDIES. 
 
 The entrance of the Hercules into the world com- 
 menced with a baptism, for as it was being drawn on 
 shore at Signa, having been brought so far up the 
 Arno, the block in some manner slipped from the hold- 
 ings and fell heavily into the river, where its own 
 weight soon buried it in the alluvial mud. Many means 
 were tried to recover it, but in vain ; it refused to be 
 rescued. We may well imagine Baccio Bandinelli's 
 state of mind at this stone — which was to have made 
 a great step to fame for him — thus sliding from him, 
 especially as the wits of the day seized the incident as 
 a good subject for their satires. Verses in Italian and 
 Latin were poured forth. One sonnet by Giovanni 
 Negretti was especially admired, in which the poet said 
 that the marble, in its despair at the idea of being 
 chipped by a bungler, had flung itself into the Arno. 
 
 But the Pope had given his command that the stone 
 was to be drawn forth, and such a command must be 
 obeyed. The superintendents cast their eyes about 
 them, and at last begged the aid of Pietro Rosselli, an 
 ingenious builder, who forthwith started for Signa, 
 where he turned the course of the stream, and laid the 
 very banks low. At last, by levers and windlasses, the 
 marble was brought on dry land, and thence, by means 
 
THE GIANTS AT THE GATES. 41 
 
 of beams placed lengthwise, it was rolled slowly on its 
 toilsome way to Florence. 
 
 Whilst it was still on the road, Baccio made the dis- 
 covery that the design he had showed to the Pope would 
 not fit the dimensions of the marble. This was the 
 more annoying, as the wax model had especially pleased 
 His Holiness, being full of muscular power and life. 
 But the sculptor's genius had expanded beyond the 
 dimensions of his material, and, much mortified, he set 
 to work to make other designs. Alas ! a Pegasus with 
 his wings clipped cannot soar. None of the models 
 were equal to the first ; they came out one after the 
 other stiff and lifeless. The Pope chose the best among 
 them, and as soon as the block of marble had arrived 
 at the House of Works for the Duomo, and been there 
 raised on end in the courtyard, Bandinelli set to work. 
 He first made a model in clay of equal size, which, 
 however, every one concurred in condemning as 
 greatly inferior in merit to the first small model, and 
 as wanting in animation. 
 
 The clay model finished, Baccio began to block out 
 the lower limbs, when lo ! before they were even 
 fashioned, the face of the times changed again. Rome 
 was sacked, and Florence revolted ; the Medici were 
 
42 TUSCAN STUDIES. 
 
 again driven out. Baccio, having private quarrels 
 of his own, and fearing for his life in the absence of 
 his patrons, buried his treasures in the garden of his 
 villa, and fled to Lucca, leaving his Hercules barely 
 blocked out in the House of the Works of the DuomOi 
 
 The republican government, with whom Michael 
 Angelo went heart and soul, and on whose behalf he 
 became warrior and built fortifications during the siege^ 
 could think of no better recognition of his services than 
 to award to him once more the gigantic block which 
 had eluded his grasp twice already. The decree of the 
 Signoria giving it to him is dated August 22, 1528, 
 and concedes the aforesaid block to Michael Angelo 
 Buonarotti, " who should carve out and make therein 
 one or more figures, as shall please the said Michael 
 Angelo, to be placed in the position which this Signoria 
 shall decide."^ 
 
 He intended to give up the subject of Hercules, 
 and make a Samson with one or two Philistines under 
 his feet. 
 
 Public affairs, however, allowed the great master no 
 time for sculpture. The armies of the Prince of Orange 
 and the " Palleschi " allies were crowding the hills 
 
 ^ Gaye, vol. ii. p. 98. 
 
THE GIANTS A T THE GA TES. 43 
 
 around Florence. Michael Angelo threw away the 
 scalpel for more potent weapons, and flung himself 
 into the defence of his beloved San Miniato. No 
 sooner, however, was peace concluded than the Pope^ 
 Clement VII., resuming his former authority, bade 
 Michael Angelo finish his works in the chapel of the 
 Medici at San Lorenzi, and, ignoring the pompous 
 decree of the Signoria, set Baccio Bandinelli to work 
 again on the giant. 
 
 While he was engaged in this, Baccio had apart- 
 ments in the Medici Palace, but used the hospitality so 
 badly as to become a spy, writing to Pope Clement of 
 all the doings and sayings of the inmates of the palace. 
 By this behaviour he made an enemy of Duke Ales- 
 sandro, who threw every impediment in the way of his 
 employment. Baccio, however, having a pope to back 
 him, was not to be defeated by a duke. He betook 
 himself to His Holiness, who came to meet Charles V. 
 at Bologna, and carrying some presents (a relief in 
 bronze and a medal with the Pope's likeness), made 
 such good use of his opportunity, that, before he left, 
 His Holiness promised to exert his authority with 
 the duke to allow Bandinelli to finish his Hercules. 
 
 The triumphant Baccio returned to Florence with 
 
44 TUSCAN STUDIES. 
 
 lOO gold florins of the Pope's money in his pocket, and 
 a letter intimating to the duke that he must be allowed 
 to complete the giant. The permission could not be 
 refused. He how set to work in earnest, and, allowing 
 no hand but his own to touch the figure, he was so 
 industrious that by the year 1534 it was finished.^ 
 Even this time his design would not fit, for the foot of 
 Cacus had to be pieced out. The Duke Alessandro, 
 who seemed determined to do as little as he possibly 
 could, let the statue remain unheeded, till Baccio, again 
 appealing to his patron in Rome, Pope Clement, ob- 
 tained from him a second letter to the duke, asking 
 him to supply the means for erecting the statue in the 
 piazza, as he was desirous that the sculptor should 
 proceed to Rome as soon as it was done, to com- 
 mence two tombs, for himself and the late Pope Leo X. 
 
 Accordingly the space intended for it was closed in 
 with planks, and the pedestal erected. The pedestal 
 is not very artistic ; it only contains an inscription to 
 Pope Clement, and the busts in relief of that Pope and 
 Duke Alessandro. 
 
 Cavaliere Settimani, in his " Memorie Florentine 
 Inedite," gives the following account of the erection of 
 
 ' Vasari, " Life of Bandinelli." 
 
THE GIANTS AT THE GATES. 45 
 
 the giant : — " On May ist, 1534, Baccio of Mlchelag- 
 nolo, goldsmith, Florentine, having in the Opera di 
 S. Maria del Fiore made a statue of Hercules slaying 
 Cacus, the said statue, standing thus upright and 
 finished in the said House of Works, was drawn in 
 three days, by means of beams and pulleys, into the 
 piazza, and in the said day was seen placed on the 
 corner of the steps of the palace towards the Loggie 
 dei Signori. The block of marble of which the statue 
 was made was one of the finest that ever came into 
 Florence, but on the other hand one of the worst 
 worked, in the judgment of men wise in sculpture." 
 
 The two famous architects, Baccio d'Agnolo and 
 Antonio da San Gallo, undertook the care of its re- 
 moval and placing. 
 
 Like the David, too, Hercules was covered with 
 papers of verses ; but, alas ! instead of eulogiums they 
 were all satires. One said that if Hercules' head 
 were shaved there would not be a cranium large 
 enough to hold his brains, and that his face was as 
 much like a lion or a bull as that of a man. Others 
 compared the torso to a sack of water-melons put on 
 end. Some said the legs were so badly set that one 
 could not tell on which of them Hercules was stand- 
 
46 TUSCAN STUDIES. 
 
 ing, and if he were standing on both he ought to be 
 falling down. Others declared that the foot seemed 
 to have a fire under it. Benvenuto CelHni, in the 
 course of a quarrel with Bandinelli at the Medici 
 Palace, coolly quotes all these expressions of public 
 opinion, and when the angry Baccio asks him what 
 fault he can find with his design, Cellini answers that 
 he has not seen it, but that as one who designs well 
 must needs execute well, he imagines that the design 
 is equal to the statue.^ 
 
 Against these criticisms we may place that of 
 Michael Angelo, who, when a cast of the head of 
 Cacus was sent him, admitted that it was a good 
 artistic work, but said he would like to see the whole 
 statue. And we have also the testimony of Vasari, 
 who, with subtle justice, writes : "Had that artist 
 received from nature an amount of grace and facility 
 equal to the labour and pains which he was ever ready 
 to impose on himself, he would certainly have been 
 entirely perfect in the art of sculpture." ^ 
 
 Even adverse criticism could not discourage Bandi- 
 
 " Vita di Benvenuto Cellini," Lib. ii. No. 70. 
 Vasari, vol. iv. p. 258. 
 
THE GIANTS AT THE GATES. 47 
 
 nellf from an attempt to reach perfection, for on seeing 
 the giant placed in the full light of day, he recognized 
 defects in it himself, and having it re-enclosed with 
 planks, gave the finishing touches, by bringing out 
 the muscles more forcibly. The Duke Alessandro in 
 person took means to silence the scoffs of the popu- 
 lace, by imprisoning the authors of the worst satires, 
 under the plea that the insult was to himself as the 
 possessor of the statue. On the day in which it was 
 uncovered, Baccio, not daring himself to face public 
 criticism, sent a friend to hear what was said, and, as 
 might be expected, abused him when he brought back 
 such scanty praise. 
 
 His patron, Pope Clement, showed himself more 
 appreciative than the sturdy Florentines, for he gave 
 Baccio an estate near his own villa of Pinzerimonte as 
 a present, besides the payment he had agreed. He 
 was besides made a Cavaliere or Knight of the Order 
 of S. Jacopo. So he departed to Bologna to continue 
 a colossal statue of Prince Doria, for which he had 
 already received half payment, and Hercules was left 
 to stand for centuries, unmoved by public opinion. 
 
4S 
 
 TUSCAN STUDIES. 
 
 III.— THE NEPTUNE. 
 
 It was in the time of Cosmo I., when artistic Florence 
 
 was set in a ferment by the 
 rumour of a third block of 
 the finest marble, about twenty 
 feet by ten, having been ex- 
 cavated at Carrara. What 
 were not the potentialities of 
 such a block ! Each of the 
 many sculptors who thronged 
 the court of Duke Cosmo felt 
 the powers of a second 
 Michael Angelo awake with- 
 in him : it might be his high 
 destiny to create a colossus 
 whose fame should surpass 
 that of the " David," and 
 certainly throw Bandinelli's 
 "Hercules" into the shade. 
 ii)iiiiiiiiii|iimn,mii,n,iiiimiifiM.Miiiiiiiini| ximes were no longer as 
 
 PROPHET,BVBACCIOBANDINELLI, ^J^ J^^ ^^ J^en thOSe 
 
 ON THE CHOIR IN THE DUOMO. »-^-'^; ^*" 
 
 two artists were rivals for public commissions. Then, 
 it was well known, that if the commune had the power,, 
 
THE GIANTS AT THE GATES. 49 
 
 Michael Angelo got the order ; and if it depended on the 
 Pope, he gave it to BandinelH. But since that time 
 all was changed ; the court of Cosmo was filled with 
 a crowd of artists. There were Gianbologna, Mos- 
 chino of Pisa, Baccio BandinelH, Vincenzio Rossi, 
 Vincenzio Danti, Benvenuto Cellini, and Bartolommeo 
 Ammannati, all eager to win this potential piece of 
 marble. 
 
 BandinelH was first on the scene. He went to 
 Carrara in 1554 to see the block, and forthwith tried 
 to secure it for himself by giving the owner of the 
 quarry a certain sum as " caparra " (or earnest-money) 
 to keep the marble for him. After which he returned 
 to Florence to induce his patrons, the duke and duchess, 
 to buy it. Now the duke desired to place a splendid 
 fountain on his piazza, and thought this marble would 
 come in well for a central statue, perhaps of Neptune. 
 Baccio from time to time showed different models to 
 the duke, but no settled commission was given even in 
 1559, for in that year the owner of the quarries wrote 
 to say that unless the purchase were completed he must 
 cut up the piece into smaller blocks, for which he had 
 great demand. Accordingly Vasari, the duke's artistic 
 factotum, was despatched to pay for the marble, and 
 
50 TUSCAN STUDIES. 
 
 send it to Florence. Bandlnelli, to facilitate its trans- 
 port, chiselled off the superfluities according to his own 
 design, and thus rendered it difficult for any other 
 artist to make use of it. 
 
 This huge mass was slowly being conveved up the 
 Arno on a raft, when Benvenuto Cellini happened to 
 see it as he went to Poggio a Cajano, and so grieved 
 was he to think of the " povero malfortunato marmo " 
 falling into the hands of his rival and enemy, that 
 he determined to come to its rescue by getting it for 
 himself He took its measure, and hurrying back to 
 Florence, made several small models, which he took to 
 the ducal villa at Poggio a Cajano, to commence his 
 siege on the reigning powers, and oust Bandinelli 
 from his " post of 'vantage." He found the illustrious 
 family at table, and being admitted, in accordance 
 with the duke's easy familiarity with artists, forthwith 
 plunged into the subject, telling them of the height of 
 excellence to which the Medici had raised the Floren- 
 tine school of art, and the great responsibility that 
 rested on Duke Cosmo's shoulders to keep it up to the 
 mark, and how very unfair it would be to other artists 
 of genius if such a piece of marble were given to the 
 man who had spoiled Michael Angelo's great design by 
 
THE GIANTS AT THE GATES. 51 
 
 making a patched-up " Hercules " out of his splendid 
 marble, and this without giving others a chance to 
 display their talent, &c., &c. He ended at length 
 with a proposal that the duke should allow all the 
 sculptors to compete for the commission, each making 
 a large model, the duke himself to be judge of their 
 respective merits. He added slily, " Even if your 
 excellency has made up your mind to give it to Bandi- 
 nelli, a little competition will do no harm ; it will only 
 make him put his best work into his model." The 
 duke was rather pleased with the idea, and the " gara 
 dei scultori " was decreed. But the duchess shook her 
 head angrily as Cellini left her presence, and made up 
 her mind decidedly that Bandinelli should not be 
 ousted. Now began the great contest : the duchess 
 and Bandinelli against five other sculptors, the duke 
 alone and neutral. 
 
 Benvenuto, knowing that he had a strong opponent 
 in the duchess, set himself to propitiate her. He had 
 made a very beautiful crucifix in white and black 
 marble ; and one day he presented himself to her 
 excellency, telling her of his work, its great beauty, 
 and the expense it had been to him, adding that though 
 he prized it too much to sell it at any price, he would 
 
52 TUSCAN STUDIES. 
 
 make her a magnanimous present of it if she would 
 promise neither to favour nor to oppose him in the 
 competition. 
 
 WomanHke, the duchess took umbrage at this 
 strange request, and said, " Then you esteem neither 
 my assistance nor opposition ? " 
 
 "You see that I value them," replied Cellini, "for 
 have I not offered you a gift that I esteem worth 2,000 
 ducats ? All I want is that you give my talent and 
 skill a fair chance of gaining the prize." 
 
 The duchess rose and quitted the room in great 
 disdain. 
 
 Meanwhile Bandinelli sent to Rome for his friend 
 Vincenzio de Rossi to come and help him, for he felt 
 himself secure of the commission. But even to him 
 came that proverbial " slip between the cup and the 
 lip." While all these hopeful preparations were going 
 on he was in reality working at his own tomb, and 
 what is strange, his rivalry to Michael Angelo was the 
 remote cause of his death. That great artist had in 
 hand a beautiful " Pieta," which he designed to have 
 placed on his tomb when he should die. (It is now 
 behind the high altar in the Duomo.) Bandinelli, not 
 to be outdone, decided to sculpture a " Pieta " for 
 
THE GIANTS AT THE GATES. 53 
 
 himself, but could not for a long time find a site to 
 please him in any of the churches. At length a place 
 was accorded him in the church of the Servites 
 (Santissima Annunziata), in the chapel of the Pazzi 
 famil}^ but with the proviso that none of their arms 
 and devices were to be moved. The same care was 
 not taken, however, to preserve the ashes of the 
 unknown dead, for Gaye gives a letter from Lelio 
 Torelli to Cosmo I., telling how Baccio wanted to 
 remove the tomb of a soldier to make room for his 
 " Pieta," and adding that there was no one living to 
 object to this removal. 
 
 The site given, Bandinelli with feverish haste had 
 the sepulchre made, the " Pieta " placed on it, and then 
 brought hither the bones of his father ; and now, his 
 tomb being ready, he went home as though he knew 
 his hour was come, and after an eight days' illness he 
 died ! Cellini declares it was of despair at knowing 
 the great marble was lost to him. Vasari says he 
 over-exerted himself in working at the tomb, and that 
 his great emotion in moving the remains of his father 
 and placing them with his own hands tried his system 
 too severely. Modern science, allowing the same 
 cause, would probably call the malady " blood poison- 
 
54 TUSCAN STUDIES. 
 
 ing " or " typhoid." Whatever was the reason, poor 
 Baccio was removed from the strife for the great 
 marble ; and, their most formidable rival gone, the 
 other sculptors rushed forward to the contest more 
 eagerly than ever. Benvenuto besieged the duke 
 boldly with his models. Ammannati, with less direct 
 tactics, set in order a train of mediators, beginning 
 with Georgio Vasari, and reaching the duke at last. 
 Vasari should take Ammannati's model to Rome, 
 where he was going with Cardinal Medici, son of 
 Cosmo I. There he should obtain Michael Angelo's 
 approval and recommendation, through which Irresis- 
 tible power the duke was to be moved to give him the 
 marble. The stratagem succeeded so well that Cosmo 
 I. ordered a large studio to be made under the Loggia 
 de' Lanzi for Bartolommeo Ammannati. To this he 
 was doubtless urged also by the duchess, who had been 
 heard to declare " that she had helped Bandinelli 
 living, and she would help him dead, insomuch that 
 with her consent the marble should never fall into the 
 hands of Cellini." 
 
 Now was the furious soul of Benvenuto wrath within 
 him, and hearing of the concession granted to Amman- 
 nati, he forthwith rushed to the duke at Pisa, and 
 

56 TrSC.4.y STCD/ES. 
 
 wrung from him the permission to enclose a similar 
 studio for himself in the Loggia de" Lanzi. That 
 building was accordingly boarded up and divided into 
 two ; the duke provided clay, wood, and workmen. 
 The twin studios were placed back to back, and were 
 jealously guarded, that the occupant of the one should 
 not see what went on in the other, and whilst they 
 worked with ardour, new combatants came to the fray. 
 Gianbologna or Jean Boulogne, the Fleming, after- 
 wards more famous than any of the others, was at that 
 time a young artist employed by Cosmo's son, Don 
 Francesco, who is better known in story as the husband 
 of Bianca Capello. Don Francesco gave his proh'g^ 
 permission to make a model in competition, and a 
 studio was prepared for him in the cloisters of Santa 
 Croce. Another scion of the ducal house, Messer 
 Ottaviano de' Medici, brought forward a protdg^, 
 named Vincenzio Danti, a Perugian, and gave him a 
 room in his own house wherein to prepare a model. 
 Whether Rossi would have been faithful to the 
 interests of his employer Bandinelli had he lived is 
 not known, but that he tried to obtain the commission 
 after his death is certain. Gaye gives a letter to 
 Cosmo dated 1560, in which \"incenzio Rossi says " that 
 
THE GIANTS AT THE GATES. 57 
 
 if his excellency would only look at his colossal 
 ' Theseus ' he would not be deceived into giving the 
 work to any one else." 
 
 One day when the two principal models were well 
 blocked out and only required finishing, Georgio Vasari 
 took the duke to see that of Ammannati, which he 
 (Vasari) had been helping to forward for some time. 
 The duke orave full attention to the model but withheld 
 his opinion, and telling one of his suite, a certain Messer 
 Gianstefano, to go and see if Cellini's model was 
 sufficiently advanced for him to see, he passed into the 
 other studio, expressing himself much pleased also 
 with the design of Benvenuto, who from that moment 
 felt himself sure of winning. But just at this time he 
 fell among traitors at Vicchio, where he had bought 
 some land, and in the house of a certain Sbietta had 
 poison given him in a sauce at supper. Returning to 
 Florence, he worked one day at his giant and then took 
 to his bed. This was the breach at which the duchess 
 entered victorious. Under the plea that Cellini was 
 ill, she induced the duke to give the order for the 
 "Neptune" to Ammannati, who, in his selfish triumph, 
 was the first to let his rival know of his success. So 
 Cellini remained in his bed, and it took two doctors six 
 
58 TUSCAN STUDIES. 
 
 months to eradicate the poison from his system ; how 
 long the poison of envy rankled in his mind there is 
 nothing to show, but he always spoke of the "poor 
 unfortunate marble " having fallen from bad hands into 
 worse. He had not forgotten it even in 1570, for in a 
 letter to the duke claiming 1,500 scudi payment for 
 the very crucifix which he had offered the duchess as 
 a present, he reminds his excellency of his broken 
 promise regarding the commission for the " Neptune." 
 Ammannati, being left master of the field, applied 
 himself earnestly to the work of the fountain with such 
 despatch, that the government began to bestir them- 
 selves to prepare a site for it. For this purpose, on 
 the I St of March, 1563, the lion or marzocco was 
 moved from the left-hand corner to the centre of the 
 Ringhlera of the Palazzo Vecchio, and that part of the 
 Ringhiera which projected on the left was levelled, the 
 foundations of the fountain and the base for the 
 " Neptune" in the centre being placed on that spot. 
 The marble basin and statues were not, however, 
 erected till 1571. The gigantic figure of Neptune, 
 familiarly called by the Florentines " // Biancone,'' 
 rises to the height of ten braccia ; he stands on his 
 car drawn by four sea-horses of different coloured 
 
THE GIANTS AT THE GATES. 59 
 
 marbles, three Tritons are at his feet. The basin is 
 octangular, and is adorned with bronze figures of 
 marine deities and satyrs, very finely modelled. The 
 water was brougi^ht from the fount of Genevra, a mile 
 out of Florence. The statue of Neptune has been 
 severely criticised, and it is true there is some incon- 
 gruity between the size of the colossus and the utter 
 want of strength and power in his face and figure. 
 Some blame may be given to Bandinelli, who cut down 
 the marble in the first instance so as to make it more 
 easy of transport, but so carelessly as to cramp any 
 subsequent design. Whatever its faults, the Neptune 
 has become as much of a household god to the 
 modern Florentine, as the David was to his cinque 
 cento ancestor. If he is away from Florence for any 
 length of time, he will probably sigh, " Oi ! oi ! mi 
 pare mille anni di revedere il Biancone " (" Oh dear ! 
 it seems a thousand years till I see the great white 
 statue again ! "). 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 H Xibrar^ of Cobices- 
 
 LIBRARY of 6,000 Codices! The very 
 thought is suggestive of the enthusiasm 
 of book-hunters before the age of printed 
 books. How many pilgrimages must 
 have been undertaken to far-off convents and 
 churches ! How many long hours must the eager 
 students have employed in copying them ! How 
 many lily-branded gold florins must have been spent 
 to obtain them ! And how much more precious than 
 florins were they to their possessors ! Of course 
 the 6,000 were not collected by one man, nor even in 
 one age. The Laurentian Library of Florence, as it 
 
62 TUSCAN STUDIES. 
 
 now stands, is a conglomerate growth of four cen- 
 turies, but two names stand out in history as the 
 founders of its nucleus : Cosimo di Medici, pater 
 patricE, and Nicolao Nicoli, whose bequest was the 
 beginning of the Libreria Medicea Pubblica, at San 
 Marco. In later days these two collections were 
 united, and, with the addition of others, were placed 
 in the beautiful library which Michael Angelo de- 
 signed and Vasari executed, to be a treasure to all 
 future students. 
 
 The story begins with that purest type of a 
 Florentine scholar and humanist, Nicolao Nicoli. 
 His father was, like most burghers, a rich merchant, 
 and would have made his four sons follow his business ; 
 but Nicolao — who had been a scholar in the Greek 
 school of Emanuelo Grisolora, and studied philosophy 
 and theology under Luigi Marsigli — gave his mind to 
 higher things ; and when, on his father's death, he 
 obtained his share of inheritance, Nicolao chose his 
 own course of life — that of letters. His theological 
 studies had counteracted, in a great measure, the human- 
 izing effect of the classics, and Nicolao remained all 
 his life a Christian in the highest sense of the word. 
 
 An eager bibliophile, he collected, bought, and 
 
A 'LIBRARY OF CODICES. 63 
 
 copied books wherever he could hear of them ; and a 
 proud and happy man was he one day, when Leonardo 
 Bruni sent him a present of a Cicero copied by himself 
 But, unlike most bookworms, he was as willing to lend 
 his treasures as to enjoy them himself, and at his 
 death a list of 200 volumes was found to have been 
 lent to different people. He encouraged studious 
 youths to come and read at his house, and gave them 
 valuable assistance by his learned explanations. His 
 " Amrnianus Marcellinus " was written out in his 
 own hand. The "Orator" and "Brutus" were 
 brought to him from Lombardy by the ambassadors 
 of Duke Filippo Visconti, when they came to demand 
 peace in the time of Pope Martin. Nicolao heard 
 that a complete edition of Pliny existed at Lubeck, 
 and induced Cosimo dei Medici to send and obtain 
 it ; and if any Florentine went to the East or to 
 Greece, Nicolao would give him a list of authors 
 which were not in Florence, that he should seek them. 
 Indeed, his services to literature were many and great. 
 It was he who kept alive Cosimo's interest in the 
 classics, and his influence which made Fra Ambrogio 
 and Carlo d'Arezzo what they were. 
 
 A learned quartette used to meet almost every day 
 
64 TUSCAN STUDIES. 
 
 at the convent of the Agnoli, in the room of Fra 
 Ambrogio ; they were Nicolao, Ser Filippo, Maestro 
 Pagolo (Paolo), and Cosimo dei Medici. Ser Filippo 
 was the adopted son of a notary, Ser Ugolino, and by 
 his learning he had risen to be one of the chief men in 
 Florence, and was member of the Signoria. Although 
 he never let a law pass that was not for the universal 
 good of the city, yet, he found time, in the midst of 
 public works, to hold learned converse with his friends, 
 and to explore the book-shops of Florence, and often 
 to copy out whole authors whose works he did 
 not possess. He is described as a handsome man, of 
 a cheerful aspect, and he wore a long purple robe 
 reaching to his feet. Nicolao's usual costume was a 
 red htcco ; but while Ser Filippo lived plainly, with 
 only an old woman for servant, Nicolao carried his 
 innate refinement into the minutest details of his home 
 life. His table was spread with the finest linen, and 
 furnished with lovely porcelain ; his drinking-cup a 
 " coppa " of crystal. Maestro Pagolo was as well read 
 as his companions, and though an astrologer, Ves- 
 pasiano assures us that he was a most religious man. 
 Last, but not least, was Cosimo dei Medici, whose 
 financial genius had given him command of the 
 
A LIBRARY OF CODICES. 65 
 
 Florentine " borsa," which at that time led the com- 
 merce of the world ; and yet finance was but one 
 among many talents. Vespasiano describes him as a 
 grave citizen, a friend of serious men, and hater of 
 buffoons and light characters. He recognized genius 
 wherever he saw it, and was as friendly with simple 
 Donatello, who was uncomfortable in the grand clothes 
 he gave him, as he was with Messer Leonardo Bruni, 
 or Ser Filippo the gonfaloniere, or that learned man 
 Poggio Bracciolini. 
 
 It was about 1434, after Cosimo had spent some 
 time in exile in Venice, where Nicolao Nicoli bore 
 him company, and had by one of the sudden vicissi- 
 tudes of the day returned there a second time in state 
 as ambassador, that his conscience accused him on 
 account of certain money whose acquisition had been 
 doubtful. He sought counsel of Pope Eugene, and 
 at his suggestion decided to set apart 10,000 florins 
 to rebuild the Convent of San Marco, to which the 
 Pope had lately removed the chief seat of the 
 Dominicans. This sum did not half finish the work, 
 which he wished to be thorough. He not only rebuilt 
 the convent, but furnished it. The artistic monks 
 were set to work, and while Fra Angelico was 
 
 5 
 
A LIBRARY OF CODICES. 67 
 
 painting divine scenes on the walls of the cells, his 
 brother illuminated choral books and psalters. 
 
 About this time, Cosimo's friend Nicolao Nicoli 
 was taken ill, and instead of going to Fra Ambrogio, 
 he had an altar placed in his room, and the Frate daily 
 came to him to say mass, and read St. Paul's Epistles. 
 When he died in Fra Ambrogio's arms, he left his 800 
 precious books to his city, with the proviso that they 
 were to be of public service to all students. Forty 
 citizens named in the will were to be intrusted with this 
 bequest, and Cosimo proposed that the new public library 
 should be in San Marco. So Michelozzi the architect 
 designed the noble pillared room, which now contains 
 Fra Benedetto's choral books, and here all the neatly 
 written codices were placed, all bound and inscribed 
 with Nicolao's name. Here, also, were removed at a 
 later time the books which Boccaccio had left to the 
 monks of Santo Spirito, packed in boxes, and for 
 which Nicolao had had a library made at his own 
 expense, that people might have more free access to 
 them. Vespasiano says ^ that " when the books were 
 placed, Cosimo studied the inventory to see what 
 books were wanting among those necessary to form 
 ^ Vespasiano, "Vitadi Cosimo di Medici," par. ix. 
 
TUSCAN STUDIES. 
 
 a complete library, and that he sent far and wide 
 to obtain them, and those which were not to be 
 bought he caused to be copied." This sounds a little 
 obscure, for one would imagine a library could never be 
 complete ; but we learn from Vespasiano — the book- 
 seller who formed and furnished the libraries of Sart 
 Marco, the Badia, the Duke of Urbino, of Monte 
 Oliveto Maggiore, near Siena, and of Cesena — that 
 the learned Thomas of Sarzana, afterwards Pope 
 Nicolas v., who had become an autocrat of literature,, 
 had formed a scheme or inventory of the authors he 
 considered necessary to the formation of a library, and 
 this inventory he sent to Cosimo when the San MarcO' 
 library was being formed.^ And this was the guide 
 good Vespasiano followed in all his subsequent under- 
 takings as a furnisher of bookshelves. The scheme 
 included, as befitted an ecclesiastic, a larger proportion 
 of theological than classical writers. All the Greek 
 and Latin Fathers were represented ; then the modern 
 doctors, such as Thomas d'Aquinas, Albertus Magnus, 
 Alexander of Ales, and Archbishop Antonino of 
 Florence, Then came the Greek philosophers, with 
 the commentaries on them by the doctors above 
 ^ Vespasiano, " Vita di Papa Niccolo V,," par. vii. 
 
A LIBRARY OF CODICES. 69 
 
 named ; then the Latin historians, Caesar, Livy, 
 Suetonius, Plutarch, Sallust, Valerius Maximus, &c., 
 and a more modern " History of the World " by Ser 
 Zembino ; and lastly, the Latin poets and dramatists, 
 including Terence, Virgil, Ovid, and Plautus. The 
 Greek poets seem to have been entirely absent. 
 
 Had the Laurentian library depended solely on 
 the book trade of Vespasiano di Bisticchi or the 
 limited requirements of the monks, content with a 
 library on a set scheme, it would have remained 
 without its o^reatest treasures. The other and chief 
 source from which it was supplied, was the private 
 library of the Medici family, whose desire for amassing 
 classical treasures was unrestricted by the ecclesiastical 
 bias which narrowed that of Pope Nicolas V. Cosimo 
 employed Vespasiano, to give the monks of San 
 Marco and the Badia all they thought necessary, but 
 bis own shelves were enriched by precious codices 
 gathered from all parts of the world. The collection 
 he began, was continued by his son Piero, and his 
 grandson Lorenzo il Magnifico. 
 
 It may be said that Cosimo made the library and 
 Lorenzo enjoyed it. In Cosimo's time, collecting 
 books, founding buildings, and stocking libraries 
 
70 TUSCAN STUDIES. 
 
 seemed the great object of life. In Lorenzo's, the 
 stored-up learning had passed into the minds of the 
 Florentines, and there were literary societies, debating 
 clubs, commentating societies, &c., and all those 
 brilliant assemblies where the mind of man saturated 
 with classical lore, like the wick of a lamp with oil, 
 flamed up and dazzled the whole world with its light. 
 There was scarcely a friend of Cosimo who had not 
 helped to form his collection. Poggio Bracciolini 
 penetrated the cellars of the old convent at St. Gall, 
 Switzerland, and brought Ouintilian to light, and 
 found (or some say stole) Livy from Herseld Con- 
 vent. Leonardo Bruni discovered Cicero's "Letters" 
 at Pistoja, and Landrini brought his " Treatises" from 
 Lodi. Fra Ambrogio translated the " De vita et 
 moribus philosophorum " of Laertius Diogenes into 
 Latin for Cosimo ; but it was under strong protest,^ 
 for "he had made up his mind to write nothing that was 
 not reliofious. He translated into Latin the works of 
 St. John Chrysostom, St. Basil, St. Athanasius, and 
 others. Many valuable Greek codices found their 
 way to Cosinio's shelves from the hands of the 
 learned Sicilian, Giovanni Aurispa, who made a voyage 
 ' Vespasiani, " Vita di Frate Ambrogio, or Traversari." 
 
A LIBRARY OF CODICES. 71 
 
 to Byzantium in 1423, and brought home 258 Greek 
 MSS. 
 
 In Lorenzo's time, Andrea Giovanni Lascaris, the 
 Greek, was sent to Constantinople after that city had 
 fallen into the power of the Turks, to rescue as many 
 MSS. as he could from the invader's hands. Lorenzo 
 never lived to see the treasure of 200 codices, which 
 he brought back, in 1492, but most of them were 
 placed in the Medici library. 
 
 Here we have, then, two great collections of ancient 
 MSS., beautifully written and illuminated as books 
 were before printing multiplied them, and rendered 
 the delicate work of the scribe superfluous — the public 
 Medicean Library at San Marco, in which Nicolao 
 Nicoli's bequest was incorporated, and the private 
 collection of the Medici family in their own palace in 
 Via Larga, the growth of three generations of book 
 lovers. 
 
 It was through many vicissitudes that they became 
 united at last. 
 
 The present library in San Lorenzo, the founding 
 of which was attributed to Pope Clement VII., is 
 really due to Lorenzo il Magnifico, as is proved by a 
 letter written to him by Vespasiano, praising his 
 
72 TUSCAX STUDIES. 
 
 scheme of building it, and the letter of Lascaris dedi- 
 catinor his " Antologfia Greca " to Piero, son of 
 Lorenzo ; in which he speaks of it as half finished — 
 " illam bibliothecam tuam, quae jam semi-constructa 
 conspicitur. ^ 
 
 This Piero was exiled on Nov. 9, 1494, and. from 
 this date begin the vicissitudes of the codices. As 
 soon as he was proclaimed rebel, Piero set himself to 
 render secure the treasures of his house by choosing 
 two Sindachi (trustees) to take care of them. The 
 first were Bernardo Capponi and Benedetto Tanai de 
 Nerli. They had time to save the books by packing 
 them in seventeen cases, and sending them to the 
 convent of San Marco for security ; but when the 
 French entered Florence with Charles VIII. on Nov. 
 17th, they, with the assistance of some disaffected 
 Florentines, robbed the Medici palace of artistic 
 treasures worth 100,000 scudi. 
 
 The city had too much respect for literary gems to 
 let the boxes remain placed about in the cells of the 
 monks, so in 1495 the Signoria took the affairs of 
 the rebel Medici in their hands, and decided, in a 
 
 ^ Enea Piccolomini, " Delle vicende della Libreria Medicea 
 privata." Archivio storico Italiani, vol. xix. serie 3, p. 105. 
 
A LIBRARY OF CODICES. 72, 
 
 council held August 31, 1495, that the cases should be 
 opened, and the most valuable books brought to the 
 Medici palace there to be preserved. A committee 
 of judgment was formed, including the Greek Lascaris, 
 Gio. Antonio Vespucci, Marsilio Ficino, and Vittorio 
 Soderini. At the same meeting- Soderini was bid to 
 send back Politian's copy of the Pandects. Lascaris 
 was afterwards ordered to return books he had 
 borrowed. 
 
 The Signoria had no easy office in the custody of 
 the Medici belongings, for many claims were made on 
 them for debt. Among these was one of 2,000 florins 
 to San Marco, for which the books seem to have been 
 given in pledge ; and on Jan. 24, 1496, the Signoria 
 decreed that the monks might sell books to that value 
 and pay themselves. 
 
 Then on Feb. 10, 1497, the council decreed the 
 restitution of sixty-seven volumes to the , heirs of 
 Francesco, Sassetti, . which he had lent or given in 
 pledge — commodaverunt vs, the word used in the docu- 
 ment — to Lorenzo de Medici in 149 1. 
 
 There was another debt due to Charles VIII., king 
 of France, and this the Signoria decided to pay by 
 giving up the Medici collections ; but from the fact 
 
74 TUSCAN STUDIES. 
 
 of the convent of San Marco paying to Filippo de 
 Comines, the agent of Charles VIII., the sum of 
 i,ooo ducats, besides the other 2,000 lent before, it 
 would seem they were permitted to keep the books 
 in pledge. They evidently began to exercise pro- 
 prietorship over them, for they revised the inventory, 
 and looking over the list of books which had been 
 lent, sent to different persons to claim them. A fine 
 of fifty florins was imposed on any one who had 
 borrowed books from the Medici and did not restore 
 them. The Florentine ambassador in Paris himself 
 went to Lascaris to claim several codices which he 
 had ; and Gualterotti, the ambassador at Milan, re- 
 covered three Greek codices from Giovanni da Cas- 
 tiglione. Politian rendered up a " Hippocrates," and 
 Ficino and Mirandola returned other copies of classical 
 authors. Thus between the Signoria and the Domi- 
 nicans, the cases containing Lorenzo's MSS. had a 
 double guard — the Signoria maintaining a right over 
 them as trustees of the rebel's goods, and the Domi- 
 nicans hoping that they would remain theirs in pay- 
 ment of the loans made. The great care taken of 
 them on all sides proved the reverence the precious 
 codices were held in by^ that age. 
 
A LIBRARY OF CODICES. 75 
 
 But now a greater peril menaced them. Savonarola 
 was Prior, and in place of civil war, religious sects 
 filled the city with clashing parties. The Arrabbiati 
 besieged the convent on April 8, 1498, and while 
 Baccio Valori defended the door of the church, and 
 Fra Bartolommeo — then Baccio della Porta — fought 
 for the altar, a band of spirited youths so well guarded 
 the library that its treasures remained unhurt ; at least 
 the inventory only bears a mark against one book, 
 " Perso la nocte, addi Aprile 8, 1498." 
 
 A month after the siege of San Marco, the Signoria 
 removed the books from the convent and placed them 
 in the " Sala dei Dieci di liberta e pace," one of the 
 council chambers in the Palazzo Vecchio. It is thought 
 this was decreed as much as an act of hostility to the 
 Dominicans, as from care of the books themselves. 
 
 The Dominicans proceeded on the former hypo- 
 thesis, for they then sent in a claim for their 3,000 
 florins. 
 
 After remaining seven months in the palace, the 
 Signoria placed the books, now disposed in twenty- 
 seven cases, in the convent of the Badia ; and it was 
 here that on Dec. 12, 1498, a new estimation was 
 made, and it was decreed to pay in books the Domini- 
 
76 TUSCAN STUDIES. 
 
 cans and the family Salviati, who also had a claim. 
 The estimation took a long time, and the final division 
 of the books was not made till June 19, 1500, when 
 the monks of San Marco took two-thirds, and the 
 Salviati one-third. It seems, however, that Cardinal 
 Giovanni dei Medici was in treaty with the Salviati 
 family in April, 1 506, to buy back some of the books 
 from them. 
 
 It was two years after this that the convent, after 
 all its struggles to retain the treasure, was obliged, 
 from financial distress, to sell the Medici library to 
 Cardinal de' Medici, for the price of 2,652 ducats. 
 
 The entry existed in the Archives of S. Maria 
 Novella, in the hand of Fra Francesco Maria Gondi, 
 a monk of that convent who was also Procurator of 
 San Marco, that " on April 29, 1508, he sold to the 
 cardinal of S. Pietro in Vincola, the library of thirty- 
 two cases which had belonged to the Medici." ^ 
 
 In 1 5 10 the library, then in the palace of Cardinal 
 Medici in Rome, was open to students there, and 
 
 ^ Some historians, such as Picolomini, say this purchase was made 
 by Cardinal della Rovere ; but no proofs remain. The document I 
 have quoted was seen by Bandini, who quotes it in his catalogue of 
 the library, 1752. Certain it is that in i5iothe Medicean library 
 was in the palace of Cardinal Medici in Rome. 
 
A LIBRARY OF CODICES. 77 
 
 Francisco Albertini gives a glowing account of it in 
 his work *' De Mirabilibus novse et veteris urbis 
 Romse," lib. iii. f. i68, printed in Rome in 1510. 
 
 Cardinal de Medici became Pope Leo X., and after 
 his death the library fell into the hands of Cardinal 
 Giulio de Medici (Clement VII.), who decided to 
 bring them back to Florence, and carry on Lorenzo's 
 half-finished design of the library in San Lorenzo. 
 Unfinished it was doomed to remain, for on the death 
 of Clement VII., in 1534, the work was abandoned, 
 and the books remained in the rooms of the priests' 
 house in San Lorenzo, " a prey to dust, moths, and 
 rats," as Varchi says. 
 
 As soon, however, as Cosimo I. was proclaimed 
 duke, he began to carry out his ancestor's designs. 
 The books were collected, the building completed, at 
 least in the interior, by Vasari — Michael Angelo's 
 death occurring before the work was done — and the 
 opening of the Laurentian Library was celebrated by 
 a bronze medal, with Cosmo's likeness on one side, 
 and the door of the building on the other with the 
 motto, " Publicae utilitati." Its vicissitudes were over ; 
 for four centuries the precious codices have rested, 
 chained to their shelves, in the repose of that silent 
 
■ROM DONATELLO S ORGAN GALLERY, FORMERLY IN THE 
 DUOMO OF FLORENCE. 
 
A LIBRARY OF CODICES. 79 
 
 hall, where students look on them reverently, and 
 tourists with a vague curiosity. The first librarians 
 were Baccio Valori and Giovanni Rondinelli. 
 
 Other streams of learnino- have flowed into this 
 calm lake. The Medicean Public Library from San 
 Marco was incorporated in it, and the books with 
 Nicoli's name have found a resting-place there. In 
 1755, when the Grand Duke Francisco I. bought the 
 Gaddiana Library, consisting of 1,110 manuscripts 
 and 1,451 printed books, 355 of the finest codices 
 were placed in the Laurentian Library, and 28 in the 
 Archives ; the rest, with the printed works, were put 
 into the Magliabecchian Library. The Grand Duke 
 Pietro Leopoldo removed here 600 codices from the 
 convent of Santa Croce, and the valuable collection 
 of Oriental MSS. which were in the Pitti Palace. 
 Codices found their way here from the Badia, the 
 Riccardiana, and Magliabecchian libraries and other 
 sources, till it grew to be the finest illustrative history 
 of literature before the age of printing that the world 
 possesses. Its principal gems are the Medicean 
 Virgil, the earliest known MS. which was revised by 
 Tertius Apronianus in a.d. 494, and the Pandects of 
 Justinian, found at Amalfi in 1135 by the Pisans, 
 
TUSCAN STUDIES. 
 
 who preserved them with great veneration for some 
 centuries, till the Florentines captured Pisa in 1406. 
 Once a year a deputation visited the place where the 
 book was kept, and the magnates, churchly and 
 secular, stood bare-headed, while the books were 
 opened with great ceremony beneath a silken pall,, 
 and surrounded by many waxen tapers. There are 
 also two fragments of Tacitus, for one of which, con- 
 taining the last six books of the Annals, Pope Leo 
 X. paid 500 golden florins, when it was discovered 
 by Arcimboldi in a monastery of Westphalia ; a 
 Quintus Curtius of the tenth century, a copy of 
 Cicero written by the hand of Petrarch, and Terence 
 copied by Politian. The early MSS. of Dante, 
 Boccaccio, Petrarch, &c., are extremely interesting. 
 Benvenuto Cellini's MS. of his autobiography has 
 also a place here. 
 
 The MSS. are arranged in long reading benches 
 like church pews, with a catalogue of the works on 
 each bench at the end. There is a cloister-like silence 
 and calm always reigning in the library, where the 
 sun shines through the painted windows of Giovanni 
 da Udine with a " dim religious light," in harmony 
 with one's feelings of veneration in such a shrine of 
 intellect. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 ®lb Italian ©rgans anb tbeir 
 Builbers- 
 
 N visiting Italian churches one is often 
 struck with the sight of certain ancient 
 organs, thrust out of view at the back 
 of choirs or in distant corners of sacris- 
 ties. These dilapidated instruments are in rough, 
 worm-eaten cases, and have rattling keys of yellow 
 and brown wood, often possessing half an octave of 
 pedals, acting on ropes. Altogether they give an 
 idea of church music in its most primitive form. We 
 can fancy them surrounded by a group of those quaint 
 expressive chorister boys, with square cut hair and 
 
 6 
 
S2 TUSCAN STUDIES. 
 
 long white drapery, which Ghirlandajo delighted to 
 paint. 
 
 It was with great interest I found one day a pam- 
 phlet by " Cesare Guasti." entitled *' Di un INIaestro 
 d'Oroani del sccolo X\'.." which oave a sketch of the 
 life of the very man who might have made these old 
 organs. 
 
 The subject proved so attractive as to induce further 
 researches by the aid of the Magliabecchian and more 
 modern libraries, the result of which I give in the 
 following sketch, which may form some useful notes 
 for a future historian of the oro'an. 
 
 I.— RUDLAIENTARY ORGANS. 
 
 Although writers like to assert oi the organ, as of 
 many other things, that its origin is lost in obscurity, 
 it is possible to trace almost every step in its growth 
 from the davs of Tubal Cain or the o-reat ood Pan, 
 when its music existed in the wind-blown reeds. 
 
 Without doubt the fn-st wind instrument was the 
 natural reed : next the artiticial lUite and trumpet. 
 
 The hrst step to plurality of pipes seems to be the 
 Egyptian fiia??! and the Etruscan siibiiio, or double 
 
OLD ITALIAN ORGANS AND THEIR BUILDERS. 83 
 
 pipe, said to have come from Lydia. The Assyrians 
 also had this flute ; the Greeks called it diaulos, and a 
 specimen of one found in a tomb at Athens exists in 
 the British Museum. 
 
 From duality we reach plurality, in the syrinx or pan- 
 pipes, called by Ovid arzmdo cerata, or wax cemented 
 pipes. 
 
 The next step was obviously to keep the many pipes 
 supplied with wind from a common source. Here we 
 have the piva {tibia tUricularis), or shepherd's pipes, 
 on which Marsyas was so great a proficient as to 
 excite Apollo's envy. These were a leather skin 
 with several pipes inserted, which were played by 
 pressing the fingers on the different holes. 
 
 The Greeks called them ascaulos, and in Rome they 
 were the favourite instrument of the Emperor Nero. 
 The last remnants of these still linger in the Highland 
 pipers and the Pifferari, who go down to Rome at 
 Christmas time from the Abruzzi. It is supposed that 
 the word stcmphonia, in the Book of Daniel, refers to 
 a bagpipe. The antiquaries who support the Hebrew 
 theory with regard to the Etruscans, will be interested 
 in comparing this name with that of " Zampogna," 
 given to the bagpipes by the Italian peasantry. Now, 
 
84 TUSCAN STUDIES. 
 
 while the western Aryan nations developed the piva 
 out of the subulo, the races farther east enlarged the 
 syrinx into something of the same kind ; but approach- 
 ing still more nearly to the Aryan, they mounted their 
 pan-pipes on a wind-chest and played them with the 
 fingers. There are instruments of this kind on the 
 Assyrian sculptures ; the air-box is supported by a 
 band round the waist of the player, who blows with 
 one hand while he fingers the holes of the pipes with 
 the other. Mr. Barker ^ gives a description of an 
 ancient sculpture found at Tarsus (2,000 years old), 
 which represents a kind of organ with pipes and bel- 
 lows, pressed by the hand — in fact, pan-pipes with 
 bellows. 
 
 The Chinese and Japanese have their ckeng, a box 
 with a number of tubes of different lengths inserted 
 into it. Each tube has a small metallic tongue like 
 our accordion ; the player blows into the air-box by a 
 spout at the side, and presses the holes of the tubes 
 with his fingers. In Laos and Siam similar instru- 
 ments are found, although different in form.- The 
 
 * " Cilicia and its Governors," p. 260. 
 
 = Carl Engel "Music of the Most Ancient Nations," chap. i. 
 p. 18. 
 
OLD ITALIAN ORGANS AND THEIR BUILDERS. 85 
 
 Hindoos have an instrument called /^<?;2^2 or magoudi, 
 which is a hollow gourd or cuddos nut with pipes 
 inserted ; this is the music used by the savipU7'is, or 
 snake-charmers. 
 
 Next comes the wonderful Magrepha of the 
 Hebrews — that nation of psalmody — described in the 
 Talmud (tract Erachin) as standing in the temple at 
 Jerusalem. It was a case containing ten pipes, each 
 pipe capable of emitting ten sounds by means of 
 different valves. It had, moreover, two pairs of 
 bellows and ten keys, which were played by the fingers.^ 
 Drawings of this great organ, which many writers 
 consider apocryphal, are to be found in some older 
 treatises on Hebrew music, and there is one in 
 Hawkins' "History of Music." ^ The ten pipes and 
 holes seem to prove the existence of the pentatonic 
 scale according to Carl Engel's theory. 
 
 The organ spoken of in the Book of Job, xxi. 12 — 
 " They take the timbrel and harp, and rejoice in the 
 sound of the organ " — is supposed by Engel to be the 
 zigah, a kind of pandean pipe, the word in Hebrew 
 being oogav. The Septuagint, however, has trans- 
 
 ^ Engel's " Music of Most Ancient Nations," chap. vi. p. 297. 
 ^ Vol. i. p. 256. 
 
86 TUSCAN STUDIES. 
 
 lated the word " psalmos" (a psalm). The same word 
 occurs also in Job xxx. 31 in conjunction with harp, 
 as if it were a musical instrument. The Diodati 
 version of the Bible gives the word orgaiio in both 
 places, with a marginal note " Sampogna " (bag-pipes). 
 
 II.— EARLIEST ORGANS. 
 
 It would be difficult to say who was the inventor 
 of the organ proper, though it is as easy to trace the 
 transition from the compressible wind-bag to the fixed 
 wind-chest and artificial bellows, as it is to see how the 
 graduated reeds of Pan grew into the piva through 
 the more archaic tibia and stihilo of the ancients. 
 Some attribute the invention to Archimedes 220 b.c. ; 
 others to Ctesibus, an Alexandrian barber, about 
 180 B.C. Gibbon speaks of the Romans in the time 
 of the Emperors amusing themselves with hydraulic 
 organs. 
 
 It is a mooted question what these instruments 
 were ; it has been thought that they were the same 
 as the Greek hydrazilos, a kind of water-flute ; but 
 that there were really organs, although small and 
 primitive, is proved by the representation of one on 
 
OLD ITALIAN ORGANS AND THEIR BUILDERS. 87 
 
 a coin of the Emperor Nero. It consists of a box 
 as large as a small table, and ten pipes inserted in it. 
 There is no indication as to the way in which it was 
 played ; but this information is supplied by Cassio- 
 dorus, who describes an organ in Theodoric's time as 
 a tower made of divers pipes which have a full and 
 copious voice: "et ut earn modulatio decora componat, 
 linguis quibusdam ligneis ab interiore parte constructur 
 quas disciplinabiliter magistrorum digiti reprimentes 
 grandisonam efficiunt et suavissimam cantilenam."^ 
 
 From this it would seem that the Roman organs 
 were similar to the still more ancient ones, and that 
 the fingers played on the pipes themselves v/ith this 
 difference, that instead of pressing the holes they 
 pressed tongues of wood inserted into the pipe. Here 
 is the link wanting between the modern key-board and 
 the simple pipe. As to the hydraulic part of the instru- 
 ment, descriptions are not wanting in the old writers 
 — Hero of Alexandria, Vitruvius, Claudian, and Ter- 
 tullian, for instance — descriptions not very clear, but 
 still intelligible. The water was only the regulator 
 of the wind, not the tone producer ; the chest had two 
 closely shut reservoirs, of which one was filled with 
 ^ " Gloss maed et inf Lat. voce Orcanare." 
 
TUSCAN STUDIES. 
 
 water and connected with the other, so by means of 
 counter pressure it gave the wind equality and power. 
 
 An illustration from the Theodosian Obelisk at 
 Constantinople shows that about the fifth century the 
 larger organs were blown by weight, two men being 
 represented standing on the bellows. Bal^entrete7^, 
 or " bellovvs-treaders," were common for many cen- 
 turies, and may even now be seen in some remote 
 continental churches. 
 
 After the fifth century the organ begins to have a 
 recognized history. It was brought to Europe from 
 the Greek empire, and used in religious devotions 
 about A.D. 657. Pope Vitalianus introduced it into 
 the Western churches in 658. 
 
 The Greek Emperor Constantinus Copronimus sent 
 one of these instruments to King Pepin of France in 
 750, which was placed in the Church of St. Corneille 
 at Compiegne. 
 
 They are again mentioned as having been imported 
 from Greece under Charlemagne, a.d. 800. A monk 
 of St. Gall named Notker Balbulus gives a very 
 exaggerated account of one in his time.-^ 
 
 Charlemagne's son, Ludovic the Pius, a.d. 826, 
 ^ " De rebus bellici Caroli M.," lib. 11, n. 10. 
 
OLD ITALIAN ORGANS AND THEIR BUILDERS. 89 
 
 had an organ constructed by an Italian priest, which 
 proves that Italy was not much, if at all, behind 
 Germany in their construction. The story is in the 
 •annals of Eginard,^ who says that a Venetian priest 
 named Giorgio went from Venice to Ludovic, boasting 
 that he knew how to make organs. The Emperor, 
 no doubt willing to emulate his father, sent the priest 
 to Aquisgrana (Aix la Chapelle), giving an order that 
 he was to be provided with everything needful for the 
 •construction of the instrument. 
 
 Ermoldo Nigello, an historian of the ninth century, 
 mentions, in an elegiac poem on Ludovic the Pius, 
 just such an organ, which he says was hydraulic. 
 
 That the Germans were proficient in organ building 
 at or before this time is certain. A letter is extant 
 from Pope Giovanni VIII. to Bishop Anno of Frey- 
 sing, in Bavaria, in 880, praying him to send him 
 " a good organ, and an artist who knows how to play 
 and construct." ^ 
 
 Aldhelm, an Anglo-Saxon writer (a.d. 709), says 
 organs were in use in England in his time, and that 
 the external pipes were gilded. 
 
 ^ " De gestis Ludovici Pii." 
 
 ^ " Miscellanies of Baluzio," lib. i, p. 490. 
 
90 TUSCAN STUDIES. 
 
 The Benedictine Wulston relates that Bishop 
 Elphege had one made for Winchester Cathedral In 
 941, which had four hundred pipes and twenty-six 
 bellows, and required seventy men to blow ! It would 
 be perplexing to imagine how one man could play all 
 this, but it seems there were only ten keys, and forty 
 pipes sounded when each was pressed. 
 
 We can believe when Charlemagne's historian says 
 the organs have the sound of thunder, but are not 
 credulous when he goes on to say, " they can also 
 imitate the soft lyre." As only two notes could be 
 played at a time, one with each fist, the organ was 
 only used for the melody and an accompaniment In. 
 octaves or fifths. Guido, who lived in the eleventh 
 century, says no other harmonies were known. 
 
 There is a curious illustration in the Saxon psalter 
 of Eadwine in Trinity College Library, Cambridge, 
 of an organ with two players and four blowers at 
 different bellows, all working very energetically. 
 
 Pratorlus, who wrote the "Syntagma Muslcum," 161 9, 
 speaks of an organ built by Nicolaus Faber at Hal- 
 berstadt In 1391, which had twenty bellows, and one 
 in Magdeburg with twenty-four. Faber's organ had 
 fourteen diatonic and eight chromatic keys, three 
 
OLD ITALIAN ORGANS AND THEIR BUILDERS. 91 
 
 manuals and some pedals, but it is supposed the latter 
 were added by its restorer a century later. 
 
 Some old artists have given representations of a 
 small portable organ called the " regal " ; it is generally 
 placed in the hands of St. Cecilia or an angel. Good 
 illustrations of it are a picture in the National Gallery 
 by Melozzo da Forli, and Raphael's exquisite "St. 
 Cecilia." There is a very good painting of a regal, 
 played on the lap and blown from the back, in TaddeO' 
 Gaddi's allegorical fresco of the sciences in the Spanish 
 chapel of Santa Maria Novella. 
 
 The English chronicler, William of Malmesbury,. 
 says that hydraulic organs were made from a.d. 999 tO' 
 1003 by a monk called Benedetto Gerberto, who was 
 afterwards elevated to the Papal rank as Sylvester II.. 
 
 From these notes we gather that in feudal times 
 this art, as well as most of the liberal arts, remained 
 in the hands of the monks. Later, when under the 
 commonwealths and dukedoms arts and professions, 
 were protected, we find notices of laymen who made 
 organ building their profession. The first of whom 
 any authentic documents remain seems to have been 
 the " Maestro d'Organi," who is the subject of Signor 
 Guasti's able paper. 
 
•92 TUSCAN STUDIES. 
 
 III.— ITALIAN ORGAN BUILDERS. 
 
 In the year 1393 there was a certain worthy baker 
 at Prato, called Paolo di Piero, who had a wife, Paola, 
 and five children, the youngest of whom, Matteo, was 
 then two years old. Their names are all in the tax- 
 papers of that year, preserved in the Archives of the 
 State. The papers of 1408 show the household to 
 have increased in worldly wealth, and to have become 
 possessed of a house. In 1427 the family was broken 
 up. The father dead, the widow working on a podere 
 at Figline, the eldest son married and possessing 
 houses, and Matteo — married to a wife Betta, and 
 possessor of the third of a house — is nominated as 
 •** Matteo di Paolo di Prato, che fa gli organi." ^ 
 
 There was quite a group of organ builders at Prato 
 in the fifteenth century, but none are spoken of prior 
 to Matteo. The Lorenzo di Giacomo who made the 
 ■organ for the Duomo of Siena (1459), San Petronio of 
 Bologna (1471), and San Francesco of Cortona (before 
 1474), is supposed to have been his fellow-worker or 
 scholar ; and Benricevuto di Ser Lionardo di Prato is 
 
 ^ Cesare Guasti, "Di un Maestro d'Organi," p. 2. 
 
OLD ITALIAN ORGANS AND THEIR BUILDERS. 93, 
 
 known to have been his disciple. But from whom Matteo^ 
 learned the art, there remains nothing to tell us. 
 
 That he was a proficient in it, his wide -spread 
 fame shows, for he was called to all parts of Italy to 
 furnish the churches with organs. The first of which 
 we have any record are those — for they are always 
 spoken of as " un paiod'organi " — of the Baptistery of 
 Florence in 1425, for which Richa says he was paid 
 400 florins, and had the old organs given him.^ It 
 is said that Squarcialupi made an organ for the Bap- 
 tistery in 1476, but it is more probable that he only 
 repaired this one. 
 
 So great was his occupation in Florence at the epoch 
 of the revival of art, that he took up his residence 
 there ; and while Brunelleschi reared his dome, grand 
 and rosy tinted, into the air — while Ghiberti and Dona- 
 tello laboured at their beautiful doors and statues, and 
 Filippo Lippi and Benozzo Gozzoli covered the church 
 walls with glorious frescoes — Matteo of Prato made 
 the organs for those boys to sing hymns to, whom 
 Ghirlandajo has made immortal in the lunettes of the 
 arches of Santa Fina's chapel at San Gemignano. 
 The other artists gave the outer beauty ; he furnished 
 ^ Richa, " Notizie intorno delle Chiese Fiorentine," v. 39. 
 
■94 TUSCAN STUDIES. 
 
 the music which is the soul of worship. Those were 
 grand times, when art sprang into being on every wall 
 and roof, and made Florence a joy and a beauty for 
 ever. 
 
 It is probable that Donatello was the means of 
 bringing Matteo to Florence, he having formed a 
 friendship with him while carving the exquisite pulpit 
 of the Cintola outside Prato Cathedral. The commis- 
 sion for it is still extant with Matteo's name as witness, 
 and there is a letter in the Archives written by Matteo 
 on behalf of Donatello, praying immediate payment for 
 one part of this pulpit, as the sculptor wanted money 
 for xh^feste which were coming on. 
 
 The next organ that Matteo had a commission for 
 was that of the Duomo of Florence ; Donatello and 
 Luca della Robbia being at the same time desired to 
 sculpture a pergamo to adorn it.^ And on August 4, 
 1422, Matteo received the first instalment of his pay- 
 ment, fifteen florins, another twenty florins being paid 
 in June the following year. Donatello's and Luca's 
 exquisite sculptures of singing boys and maidens are 
 still to be seen in the Bargello in Florence ; but Matteo's 
 
 ^ " Archivio dell' Opera di S. Maria del Fiore," lib. deliberazione 
 i. a.c. 192^ 
 
LUCA DELLA ROBBIA S GALLERY. 
 
TUSCAN STUDIES. 
 
 instrument was less durable, for in 1426 it had to be 
 repaired. About this time he was employed by the Luc- 
 chese to make an organ for the church of San Francesco ; 
 but the war between Florence and Lucca, and the plan 
 of Filippo Brunelleschi to drown Lucca in the waters of 
 the Serchio, evidently alarmed our good organ builder, 
 who did not fulfil his engagement till after peace was 
 made, when the Lucchese sent a letter to the " Domini 
 Florentini, ' ^ begging them to compel Matteo to keep 
 his promise. He must have done so to their satisfaction, 
 for in 1442 he had a commission to furnish the Cathe- 
 dral of Lucca with an organ. Meanwhile he still 
 worked at that for the Duomo of Florence, which was 
 so far finished in 1434 that we find an order was given 
 to Angelo di Lazzaro to make the case, and Matteo 
 was paid on account 100 gold florins. Antonio Squar- 
 cialupi, Lorenzo's friend, the musical geniusof his time, 
 had already been appointed organist, and the restored 
 organ was to have been opened when Pope Eugennis. 
 IV. came to consecrate the Duomo in March, 1436* 
 but owing to Matteo's numerous engagements it was 
 not ready, which annoyed the Arte della Lana extremely. 
 In the next year they called on Matteo to forfeit the 
 ^ "Archiviodi Stati in Lucca." Lettere degli Anziani, No. 551. 
 
OLD ITALIAN ORGANS AND THEIR BUILDERS. 97 
 
 money advanced ; but we find them still waiting in 
 1438, which proves that though he was dilatory, yet no 
 better organ builder was to be found. Extension of 
 time being allowed him, he still procrastinated, and in 
 December of that year the work was taken out of his 
 hands and given to Arrigo di Migliore Guidotti, Matteo 
 being bound to refund his pay advanced in rates of forty 
 florins a year, and to restore within six days 2,000 
 lbs. of lead and 300 lbs. of tin which had been provided 
 for his work. 
 
 The metals he returned promptly, but the florins 
 were not forthcoming, and in 1442 he wrote a piteous 
 letter to the Opera del Duomo, begging to be released 
 from payment for the love of God, and saying " if he had 
 to pay it he must beg bread to feed his little daughter." 
 
 Apparently Arrigo Guidotti proved a bad substitute 
 for Matteo, for the members of the Opera were not 
 satisfied with his work, and the Prato organ builder 
 was recalled to finish it, which he did satisfactorily in 
 1448. During these years he made an organ for the 
 Badia in Florence, for which he had ninety gold florins, 
 together with the old organs, valued at thirty florins. I n 
 1450 this was also repaired by him, or, more properly 
 speaking, completed, the case and a large pipe being 
 
 7 
 
98 TUSCAN STUDIES. 
 
 added. He also made the organs in the church of 
 Or San IMIchele In 1428, those of the Annunziata in 
 Florence^ in 1453, in which he was assisted by his 
 pupil, Benricevuto di Ser Lionardo. 
 
 In 145 1, he was paid in three rates for an instrument 
 in the church of St. Egidio, near the Florentine Hos- 
 pital, and in 1452 another for St. Ambrogio ; also for 
 San Lorenzo, in 1461, and that of San Frediano. 
 
 So great was his fame, that the Arte di Calimala gave 
 him a house in Via degli Spadai in Florence, and there 
 he died, September 24, 1465, and was buried in the 
 church of San Lorenzo, leaving his pupil and partner, 
 Benricevuto, his heir. 
 
 It is impossible to say how much this humble organ 
 builder had to do wuth the great religious revival which 
 followed the renaissance of the arts and literature at 
 this period. It is certain that before Savonarola 
 poured his thunders of eloquence over Florence, there 
 was a strong revival of religion which took a musical 
 form. 
 
 Men, women, and even children, assembled in the 
 churches to sing " Laudesi " or spiritual songs. These 
 were composed by Lorenzo il IMagnifico himself or by 
 ^ "Carte del Convento dell Annunziata di Firenze," ac. 75. 
 
SANVONAROLA PREACHING. 
 
TUSCAN STUDIES. 
 
 his mother, Lucrezia Tornabuoni, or Luigi Pulci, 
 Giambullari, and others. 
 
 Every Saturday, after nones, the congregation sang 
 them, the priests taking alternate parts. 
 
 '''Ad ogni Laude si mutavano i Cantori, e finito il 
 detto canto a siwno d'organo, di campane, e di voce si 
 ricopriva la devota Immagine di tcna Madonna in atto 
 di chiederne la benedizioneT ^ 
 
 There were evening processions of Laudesi, and great 
 expense was gone to for wax hghts. Every company 
 had a captain. Gio, Lotteringhi Stanaiolo was leader of 
 the Laudesi of Sta Maria Novella, 
 
 What pictures one can imagine of the scenes and 
 music of these old organs of Matteo's ! What crowds of 
 earnest singers sang to them as they sounded under 
 the fingers of Maestro Andrea, or of Antonio Squar- 
 cialupi, who played so well that Lorenzo de' Medici 
 kept him constantly in his house, and when he died 
 wrote his epitaph, in which he says, " The city of 
 Florence preserves the grateful memory of one whose 
 hands knew how to charm with sweet music." He 
 was a maker as well as a player. 
 
 That Lorenzo was very fond of organ music may be 
 ^ Dell Rosso, "Osservatore Fiorentino," vol. i. p. 127. 
 
OLD ITALIAN ORGANS AND THEIR BUILDERS. loi 
 
 seen by the inventory of his house, ^ which mentions no 
 less than five different organs. The descriptions of 
 some of them are rather curious ; for instance, an organ 
 of pasteboard {carta-iinpastatd) beautifully worked 
 in open work on a base of carved walnut-wood, and 
 with four chandeliers on four children's figures, with 
 three bellows and leads {piombi). Another is an organ 
 of tin and wood, with gravecordo (which might mean 
 clavecord) worked with foliage and open carving, 
 gilded, with two bellows. 
 
 " A reed organ, one reed to a key-simple," seems 
 more explicit ; but " A cardboard organ, made like a 
 snail-shell, with open work, In a wooden case with two 
 bellows " — this is certainly a little obscure, and must 
 have been, to say the least, curious. 
 
 Some of the Florentine artists took to making reed- 
 organs, and Benvenuto Cellini writes, " My father in 
 those days made wonderful organs with canne (or 
 pipes) of wood ; he made also gravicemboli (harpsi- 
 chords), the best and most beautiful that one could see." 
 
 The elder Cellini was Pifferaro to the Signoria, but 
 Lorenzo and Plero de Medici removed him from the 
 band that he might not neglect his art of carving in 
 ^ " Inventario di Casa Medici." MS. in the Archives of Florence. 
 
TUSCAN STUDIES. 
 
 ivory, in which he excelled to a great degree. Many 
 of the exquisite ivory carvings now in the Bargello 
 might have been by his hand. 
 
 The next century (sixteenth) produced some still 
 more famous Italian builders, of whom the chief were 
 the family Antegnati of Brescia, who made a hundred 
 and forty organs in different provinces. Graziadio, son 
 of Bartolommeo Antegnati, was the most exact and 
 successful, and his son Costanzo was his worthy suc- 
 cessor, being not only organ maker, but player and 
 composer. He was the author of a rare old book called 
 " L'Arte Organica," printed at Brescia in 1608. Bar- 
 tolommeo, his grandfather, supplied the cathedral 
 churches of Milan, Como, Bergamo, Brescia, Cremona, 
 and Mantua with organs. 
 
 The Milanese Cristoforo Valvassori was also famous 
 as an excellent maker.- 
 
 IV.— GERMAN IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 Whether or not the Germans can claim the inven- 
 tion of the instrument, it is undeniable that most of the 
 
 ^ Vita di B Cellini, pp. 9 and 10. 
 ^ " Ency. Ital.," voce Organo. 
 
OLD ITALIAN ORGANS AND THEIR BUILDERS. 103 
 
 modern improvements were of German origin ; and a 
 slight mention of a few of these would not be out of 
 place. 
 
 The invention of the pedal is attributed to an organist 
 of Ntirnberg, named Bernhard, in 1470, whom the 
 Italians claim as organist at Venice, but it is probable 
 that he was only an improver, because two old pedal 
 pipes, with the date 141 8 engraved on the kern or 
 partition, were found by Marx in an ancient orgau 
 at Beeskow, near Frankfort on the Oder. There 
 are also the set of pedals in Nicolaus Faber's before- 
 mentioned organ of 136 1, at Halberstadt,to be accounted 
 for — if indeed they were not added at its restoration in 
 1494 by Gregorius. 
 
 The next improvement was that called by Italian 
 writers " bilancia pneumatica" or " prova pneumatica," 
 an invention for equalizing the pressure of wind ; thus 
 not only giving to each register the even supply of 
 wind necessary for its just intonation, but also making 
 it possible to supply wind at different pressure to the 
 different stops, according to their several characters. 
 This important step was due to Cristiano Forner, 
 organist of Wettin, in the seventeenth century. 
 
 The free reed was introduced by a German named 
 
104 TUSCAN STUDIES. 
 
 Kratzenstein In the eighteenth century, but its real origin 
 is quite prehistoric. It may be well to explain that 
 flute pipes have the air forced in through a lip or sharp 
 edge of wood or metal, while reed pipes have a vibrating 
 tongue of metal or wood. The principle of the reed 
 pipe was known to the ancient Egyptians, for flutes 
 have been discovered in the tombs with a kind of thick 
 straw inserted into them for the purpose of vibration.^ 
 Moreover Kratzenstein's free reed came in reality from 
 that most conservative nation China, where it might 
 have existed for thousands of years. It happened that 
 Kratzenstein was at St. Petersburg during the reign of 
 Catherine II., and seeing there a cheng, of which the 
 pipes are constructed with a free reed, the idea came 
 into his mind of applying the principle to organ, 
 pipes. 
 
 Reed pipes are of two kinds — those in which the 
 vibrating tongues strike against the plate in which It is 
 set, and the free reed, which vibrates in a space cut for 
 it as In our accordion and harmonium. ^ The striking 
 reed, which had the most power and penetrating tone, 
 was almost exclusively used In English organs until 
 
 ^ Engel's "Musical Instruments," p. 12. 
 ^ Engel's " Musical Instruments," p. 4- 
 
OLD ITALIAN ORGANS AND THEIR BUILDERS. 105 
 
 lately, when the more delicate free reed was introduced 
 from France. 
 
 Other improvements, such as the present form of 
 the clavier or key-board, had already been brought in 
 as natural results of the renaissance of the fifteenth 
 century. The old form of the keys went out when the 
 new system of notation came in and fuller harmonies 
 were required. After the tenth or twelfth centuries, 
 the organ beater {pulsator organorzmi) became the 
 organ player, no longer using his fist, but his fingers. 
 
 The notation in use among the ancients was most 
 likely the Greek one of Tespandro of Lesbos, 650 
 B.C. He named the notes by letters, probably the five 
 vowels, as the old scale was pentatonic. The Romans 
 and the Hebrews also used the vowel sounds. Boetius 
 introduced fifteen letters, which Gregory the Great, 
 considering the equal tones in each octave, reduced to 
 seven. 
 
 Modern notation, which began with the invention of 
 the stave, first of four lines and after with five, is attri- 
 buted to Ubaldo, a Benedictine monk, born 848 ; he 
 was either French or Belgian. It has been said that 
 the notation at present in use was brought to Italy 
 by the Longobards ; but it is more likely that Guido of 
 
io6 TUSCAN STUDIES. 
 
 Arezzo, for whom it is also claimed, improved Ubaldo's 
 method/ However this be, the semitones or black 
 notes were added to the clavier in the fourteenth cen- 
 tury. Huebald and Guido, writers of the tenth and 
 eleventh centuries, say that the progressions of fifths, 
 fourths, and octaves were the only harmonies known 
 in their days. If they could only have imagined the 
 glorious harmonies of a modern great organ ! 
 
 There is an interesting old work on organ building 
 in the Magliabecchian Library in Florence. It is a repro- 
 duction in five or six folio volumes, dated 1766, of the 
 work of Bedos de Celles, who lived some centuries 
 earlier. In it we find that "to give wind to an organ 
 of 4 metres So centi-metres it is needful to have four 
 bellows ; and if there is a little organ besides, six are 
 necessary. These are constructed as other bellows are, 
 and are generally i*8o metres long and 1*82 wide." 
 This seems to explain the accounts in the early part of 
 this paper, of organs which required a plurality of 
 blowers. 
 
 ^ "Ency. Ital.," voce Organo. 
 
OLD ITALIAN ORGANS AND THEIR BUILDERS. 107 
 
 v.— LATER ITALIAN ORGAN BUILDERS. 
 
 This can be little more than a list of the names of 
 those through whose hands the organ continued to im- 
 prove till it reached its present perfection in the nine- 
 teenth century. In the eighteenth century lived a 
 priest, Manduno Salmatino, who with his pupil, Callido, 
 were celebrated makers in Venice. Callido himself 
 made three hundred and eighteen organs. In Siena 
 the cavalier Azzolino della Ciaja flourished, and in 
 Pistoja was quite acompany of organ builders — Filippo 
 and Antonio Tronci, together with Luigi and Benedetto, 
 Filippo's sons, and Ramai his pupil formed one group, 
 while Pietro Agati and his son Giosue were their 
 rivals. 
 
 A curious old organ which has the name of Giosue 
 on a board across the foot of the pipes exists in the 
 village church of Piteglio, in the Pistojese mountains. 
 But it is evident he was only the restorer of a very 
 much older instrument, for the inscribed board is 
 decidedly newer than any other part. There are two 
 bellows, which are worked by a rope so cunningly 
 adjusted round two heavy windlasses, that by pull- 
 ing one way, the left one turns in one direction and 
 
loS TUSCAN STUDIES, 
 
 the right the other : so b\- reversing the motion the 
 right bellows are raised and the left lowered. There 
 are eight pedals, which seem to be tuned in fourths ; 
 they move by means of strings or cords. The clavier 
 has about two and a half octaves of wooden keys. 
 But the most curious part is the appendage o'i two 
 rough boxes, one on each side of the organ. One of 
 them contains a huge drum ; the other a monster pair of 
 cymbals, of which the upper valve is hung, and the 
 lower one strikes upon it on moving an iron arm. by 
 means of a large pedal. The drum is beaten in the 
 same way. 
 
 The country people evidently look on this arrange- 
 ment, which they call " La Banda;' as the finest part of 
 their church music. 
 
 The two famous oroans in the oreat monasteries of 
 Montecasino and Subiaco were built by the family 
 Catarinozzi ; and that of the Benedictine monastery of 
 Catania, said at the time to be the finest in the world, 
 was by Donato di Calabria. Serassi of Bergamo not 
 only made more than three hundred organs, but wrote 
 a great work on the subject ; and the brothers Lingiardi, 
 of Pavia, ranked high. In these days, however, when 
 the instrument is brought to such perfection, these an- 
 
OLD ITALIAN ORGANS AND TJIEIR liUILDERS. 109 
 
 tlque masterpieces seem to us only a foreshadowing of 
 the perfect organ. Anr] I have after all only been 
 telling the story of the organ's remote ancestors and 
 prototypes. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 jflorentine Mosaics* 
 
 ^^ 
 
 LTHOUGH the remote forefather of the 
 Florentine mosaic may be found in such 
 works as the incrustation of the Duomo 
 with inlaid marbles, and the pictured floor 
 of Siena Cathedral, yet its immediate parent in its 
 modern development was the renaissance of gem cut- 
 ting and cameo making ; and the place of its birth was 
 a certain casino or laboratory in which Lorenzo il 
 Magnifico set his gem cutters to work. Like all the 
 arts of the fifteenth century, that of intaglio was but a 
 revival of the ancient work which exists in its Tuscan 
 form in the Etruscan scarab, its Greek form in the 
 
FLORENTINE MOSAICS. m 
 
 exquisite intagli of Dioscorides, Scylax, Polycrates> 
 &c., and the Roman cameos. It was not abandoned 
 even by the early Christians, for we have a cameo head 
 of Christ of the seventh century, and the Gnostic gems 
 of a still earlier period. The gem room of the Floren- 
 tine gallery shows specimens of cameos dating from 
 the fourteenth century. But there was no great revival 
 till the time of Lorenzo de' Medici, who became an 
 enthusiastic collector of the precious ancient gems, 
 which were being found so frequently in Rome at that 
 time. 
 
 His grandfather Cosimo Pater Patrice was the first 
 of the family to possess a treasure of the kind, a large 
 intaglio of Apollo and Marsyas, and he valued it so 
 greatly that he employed Ghiberti to make a beautiful 
 golden setting for it. 
 
 Lorenzo, having his cabinets full of gems, was 
 anxious to revive the ancient art, and invited artist- 
 engravers from other cities as teachers. He caused 
 many of the young artists who were being trained in 
 the " Medici Garden " to become mtagliatori, and gave 
 them a studio in his own house. Here he supplied 
 them with materials and lent them his precious antiques 
 as copies, giving them also ideas for new subjects from 
 
TUSCAN STUDIES. 
 
 his stores of classic lore. The gems made in this 
 studio are inscribed generally LAVR. MED. Several 
 of them are in the gem room of the Uffizi, and one, 
 a lion passant on red sardonyx, is in the British 
 Museum. 
 
 From this school came the famous Giovanni delle 
 Corniole (John of the Cornelians), who in 1498 exe- 
 cuted the beautiful intaglio likeness of Savonarola, 
 and a portrait of Lucrezia Tornabuoni on red jasper, 
 both of which are in the Uffizi. 
 
 Another famous scholar was Domenico Compagni, 
 called Domenico dei Cammei, who was as famous for 
 his reliefs as Giovanni for his incavi (intagli or cut 
 in). He made a cameo portrait of Lorenzo in a toga, 
 on onyx, and an armed bust of Ludovico Sforza (il 
 Moro) on a large ruby balais, or pink topaz. 
 
 Pier Maria di Pescia, who went to Rome when 
 Raphael was excavating there, profited so much from 
 his study of the antique that he became the finest gem 
 cutter of his age. There is an exquisite " Venus and 
 the Loves " by him in the Florentine gallery. 
 
 The revival was now fully established. The Duke 
 of Ferrara and other princes followed Lorenzo's 
 fashion, and had their court intaaliatori. Berna.rdi 
 
FLORENTINE MOSAICS. 113 
 
 worked for Duke, Pope (Clement VII,), and Emperor 
 (Charles V.), and Michael Angelohimself drew designs 
 for him. 
 
 Matteo dal Nassaro went to Paris to cut cameos for 
 Francis I. ; Caraglio to Poland to engrave gems and 
 medallions for Sigismund, king of Poland, in 1539 ; 
 but Valerio de' Belli, or Valerio Vicentino (born 1479), 
 remained in Italy, where his masterpieces are. By him 
 is the wonderful casket of rock crystal which is now in 
 the gem room of the Uffizi, after having been made a 
 present to King Francis I. by Pope Clement. It 
 has seventeen exquisite squares of intagli of subjects 
 from the life of Christ. Several of the finest vases in 
 the gem room were made by Valerio, for the Medici, 
 of agate, lapis lazuli, jasper, cornelian, &c. 
 
 At the end of the sixteenth century intaglio as a fine 
 art began to languish, the taste became debased, and 
 instead of the exquisite finezza of work, curiosities 
 of stone, either in colour or size, made the value of the 
 gem. Of this time we have the huge cameo with the 
 portraits of Cosimo and Leonora and their children, on 
 an onyx seven inches and a half in diameter. A winged 
 genius holding a torch flies above the group, and in the 
 centre is a picture of Florence inserted in a circle. 
 
 8 
 
114 TUSCAN STUDIES. 
 
 Another remarkable work is the large cameo on sar- 
 donyx of several layers, representing a wild beast fight 
 held on the Piazza della Signoria. It is a crowded 
 subject, and a certain effect of perspective is obtained 
 by the gradation of shades in the successive layers of 
 stone, the animals being on a dark part, the background 
 of spectators on a lighter layer. 
 
 There are in the same museum immense cameos 
 of peacocks and grotesque subjects on variegated 
 jaspers, and a really beautiful Venus cut in high re- 
 lief on the pink layer of a rare stone, some Cupids 
 holding a white veil behind her. 
 
 But perhaps the greatest cause of the decline of 
 gem cutting in Florence was the different purpose 
 to which precious stones were dedicated in the 
 Medici studio. The same love of rarity, which we 
 have spoken of, led Lorenzo and his successors to 
 a lavish display of wealth of material. Tiny gems 
 with the most delicate work of art on them no longer 
 contented the Medici magnificence ; they must have 
 larger objects. The same hand which could cut a 
 cameo, could shape a vase out of a single magnificent 
 rare stone. The laboratory of cammeists which 
 Lorenzo had established in his house grew to be a 
 
FLORENTINE MOSAICS. 
 
 factory of priceless vases, and was known as the 
 *' Casino di S. Marco." Those beautiful chalices and 
 salt-cellars of intagli on rock crystal, of sculptured 
 lapis lazuli and agate, adorned with chased gold 
 and smalto and precious stones, which are preserved 
 in the cabinet of gems in the Uffizi, were made here. 
 Eighteen of the collection have the words LAVR. 
 MED. engraved on them, five of which are oriental 
 sardonyx, four red jasper, two amethyst, one yellow 
 Sicilian jasper, one cornelian, one coloured jasper, one 
 jasper di Grigion, and one petrified wood. These 
 vases, with the crystal ones by Vicentino spoken of 
 above, were given by Clement VII. (Lorenzo's 
 nephew) to the Church of S. Lorenzo in 1533, to 
 furnish the chapel which Michael Angelo designed. 
 One of the most beautiful objects in the cabinet of 
 gems is a vase of jasper de Grigion in form of a 
 hydra, with a golden statuette of Hercules on it. 
 There is also an elegant chalice of lapis lazuli, with 
 handles in the form of sphinxes ; the sides are adorned 
 with a cameo of Bacchus, and one of a satyr between 
 two dolphins. The most elaborate and least beautiful 
 is a triumphal column in rock crystal about twenty- 
 three inches high, the base supported on six agate 
 
1,1 6 TUSCAN STUDIES. 
 
 lions. The pillar is covered with a spiral of the most 
 microscopic intagli, celebrating the wars and victories 
 of Cosimo I. ; the base has six medallion intagli of 
 portraits of the captains of the army, and scenes from 
 the life of Cosimo, all very crowded, tiny, and alle- 
 gorical. The art is of the decline of the sixteenth 
 century, so we may conclude it to be one of the last 
 works produced in the Casino di San Marco. Not 
 many artistic intagli were made there after that date, 
 for Francesco I. turned the collection of precious 
 marbles and agates to a different purpose, and thus 
 gave birth to the Florentine lavori di commesso, or 
 mosaic as it is called in English. 
 
 From cutting cameos which, by managing the 
 different tints in the stones, should have the appear- 
 ance of raised pictures, to really making flat paintings 
 in marble, was but a step. Probably the idea came 
 from Milan, for there a family of marble workers 
 named Sacchi had for some generations (since 151 1) 
 been engaged in decorating altar fronts and chapels 
 in the gorgeous Certosa of Pavia with inlaid marbles 
 in the form of scrolls, flowers, and geometrical designs. 
 On June nth, 1576, Gasparo Visconti wrote to 
 Francesco de' Medici tellino;' him of a table made of 
 
FLORENTINE MOSAICS. x\^ 
 
 oriental stones, inlaid, with a thread of gold between 
 each juncture, and praising its beauty extremely. 
 
 This was probably a work of the Sacchi family, 
 and was on sale in Milan. If Francesco bought it, 
 no doubt the idea of using some of the precious stones 
 in the Casino in similar works was taken from this 
 table, as the idea of encrusting the Medici chapel was 
 taken from the Certosa of Pavia. In 1580, Duke Fran- 
 cesco sent to Milan for some masters of intarsia in 
 marble ; and Giovanni Bianchi, with five others under 
 him, arrived to take the superintendence of the Casino. 
 This arrangement did not suit the Florentines, who 
 have a proverbial distrust of forestieri, as they 
 call the people of another state. A letter was 
 addressed to the Grand Duke by Cav. Gio. Seria- 
 copi with the following complaint : " Che Maestro 
 Giorgio Milanese e altri simile, non fanno altro 
 che giuocare, et si serrono dentro, et mettono 
 il ferro al saliscendo in modo che non si puo 
 entrare senza loro volunta. Et del lavorare 
 lavorano molto poco. . . . Appresso dico a V. A. S. 
 che se la non remedia alle insolenzie di Maestro 
 Giorgio et suo figliuolo, i quali anno cominciato a 
 urtare insieme con Maestro Jacopo (Ligozzi) pittore 
 
1 1 8 TUSCAN STUDIES. 
 
 di V. A. S. quale sta nel Casino si romperanno la 
 testa." ^ Whether the Milanese usurpers were kept 
 in their places, or whether the Florentines continued 
 the work alone, we do not know; but in 1588 the 
 laboratory was by Duke Ferdinando removed from 
 the Casino to the Uffizi, and a Roman named Emilio 
 dei Cavalieri was made superintendent of all the 
 artists, intagliatori, metal workers, &c,, &c., employed 
 there. This decree is dated Sept. 3, 1588. 
 
 The Florentines were not, however, content with 
 what the Milanese had taught them. It was not 
 enough to encrust the walls of the Medici chapel 
 with panels, scrolls, and coats of arms ; they must 
 do something artistic besides, and make pictures in 
 precious stones. The first inlaid picture was a like- 
 ness of the late Duke Cosimo, done in 1587, when 
 Ferdinand was reigning. This so pleased the Grand 
 
 ^ From the " Archivio Mediceo "; also Zobi, " Notizie Storiche sui 
 lavori di commesso in Pietre dure," pp. 183, 184. Translation: "That 
 the Milanese Master Giorgio, and others of his kind, do nothing but 
 play ; they shut themselves up and bolt the door so that no one 
 can enter without their permission. As to work, they do little of it. . . 
 I will say to your Highness, that if some remedy is not found for 
 the insolence of Master Giorgio and his son, who have begun to 
 quarrel with Master Jacopo Ligozzi, your Highness's painter, who 
 lives in the Casino, we shall have some broken heads." 
 
FLORENTINE MOSAICS. 119 
 
 Duke that he ordered a portrait of Pope Clement 
 VIII. to be done, which he sent to Count Bardi 
 in Rome as a present, with a letter in which he 
 writes : "We, having invented a new mode of repre- 
 senting in inlaid marbles — not like ordinary mosaic, 
 but with a more skilful artifice — the portraits of 
 persons in natural colours, and true in every part of 
 the face, we have had one of his Holiness done, 
 which we send to your Excellency, &c., &c. From 
 Poggio a Cajano, Oct. 10, 1601."^ Probably the 
 time of the artists of the Casino was employed in 
 these works because the contemplated chapel was 
 so much delayed. The marbles must have been 
 prepared before the chapel was built, for the Milanese 
 masters were sent for on the first idea in 1580, but 
 the real work of encrusting the chapel did not begin 
 till October 20th, 161 3, according to Nigretti and 
 Baldinucci. 
 
 Not only pictures in marble were made in this 
 studio, but those wonderful inlaid tables, cabinets, &c., 
 which are now in the Florentine galleries and the 
 Pitti Palace. Bernardo Buontalento made an ebony 
 escritoire about 1558 for Don Francesco Medici. 
 ^ Zobi, " Notizie Storiche," &c. 
 
TUSCAN STUDIES. 
 
 The front was adorned with pillars of jasper, lapis 
 lazuli, and clitropia (a green stone with red spots); the 
 drawers were inlaid with precious stones and had 
 silver intagli, representing in miniature stories of 
 Minerva. The upper part had silver and gold 
 termini in place of pillars, and silver miniatures of 
 the beauties of the day. 
 
 The grand ciborium intended for the INIedici chapel 
 was also Buontalento's work ; it was in the form of 
 a temple of the composite order, all gold and precious 
 stones. Both these are now in the Pitti Palace. 
 
 Among the artists who worked in the Casino, w^here 
 we have already mentioned Ligozzi, were Giovanni 
 di Bologna, Jacopo Bilivert, and Anton' Maria 
 Archibusiere. These three were the only ones 
 exempted from obedience to the rule of the super- 
 intendent, Emilio de' Cavalieri. It was necessary to 
 have some discipline, for by the time of Ferdinand 
 the laboratory w^as an immense factory of art, in which 
 were jewellers, miniaturists, turners, gardeners, con- 
 fectioners, artists in porcelain, sculptors, painters, 
 glass blowers, die sinkers, and arquebus makers, be- 
 sides what the decree denominates as " cosniograffiy 
 
 There is no doubt that this laboratory in the Uffizi 
 
FLORENTINE MOSAICS. 
 
 121 
 
 was the foundation of the existing Government 
 establishment of Florentine mosaics which now has 
 its seat in the Via degli Alfani." ^ 
 
 The following is a compressed list of the stones used 
 in the Florentine mosaics : 
 
 Set I.— SILICIOUS STONES. 
 
 STONE. 
 
 Amethyst. 
 German agate. 
 Agate. 
 Red agate. 
 Sardonyx. 
 
 Chalcedony of the 
 Chalcedony of 
 
 CLASS I. 
 
 FOUND IN 
 India and Brazil. 
 Oberstein. 
 Roman States. 
 India. 
 Siberia and Madagascar. 
 
 Grisons. 
 Volterra. 
 
 COLOUR. 
 Purple. 
 
 Undulating strata. 
 White with grey marks. 
 Red with darker marks. 
 Red and yellow, or yel- 
 low and blue. 
 Variegated. 
 White, green, blue, &c. 
 
 Focaie. 
 
 CLASS II. 
 England and the Casentino. A petrified conglomerate. 
 
 \ 
 
 
 CLASS III. 
 
 
 Bloody 
 
 jasper. 
 
 Armenia. 
 
 Dark red, or green with 
 spots. 
 
 Jasper. 
 
 
 Siberia. 
 
 Violet, or red with green 
 lines. 
 
 Jasper. 
 
 
 Italy, Egypt, and Spain. 
 
 Marked with lines, curves, 
 or variegated spots. 
 
 Jaspers. 
 
 
 Sabina, Egypt, &c. 
 
 Variegated greys. 
 
 Ciottoli 
 
 d' Arno. 
 
 The Arno. 
 
 Pebbles of shaded colours. 
 
 Pavonazetto 
 
 Flanders. 
 
 Variously marked. 
 
 ^ Zobi, " Notizie Storiche," gives a list of all the stones used in 
 these mosaics, and of the artists and masters employed from the 
 time of Francesco I., 1574,10 Leopoldo II., 1824. 
 
122 
 
 TUSCAN STUDIES. 
 
 STONE. 
 
 Petrified wood. 
 
 CLASS IV. 
 
 FOUND IN 
 
 Hungary and Black Sea. 
 Set 2.— rocks. 
 
 Granite. 
 
 Corsica. 
 
 Oriental granite. 
 
 Elephant Isle. 
 
 Egyptian granite. 
 
 Egypt. 
 
 Flowered granite. 
 
 Corsica. 
 
 Verde di Corsica. 
 
 Corsica. 
 
 Amazon stone. 
 
 Amazon River. 
 
 Porphyry. 
 
 Antique. 
 
 Porphyry from 
 
 Sweden. 
 
 Green porphyry. 
 
 Antique. 
 
 Serpentine. 
 
 Antique. 
 
 Basalt. 
 
 Egypt. 
 
 Breccia. 
 
 Egypt and England 
 
 Lapis lazuli. 
 
 Persia and China. 
 
 Jade. 
 
 India, Persia, and Bohemia. 
 
 COLOUR. 
 
 Brown, with the marks of 
 vegetable structure. 
 
 Quartz and mica. 
 
 Black and dark mica. 
 
 Red and black quartz. 
 
 Diorite with globular 
 marks. 
 
 Green. 
 
 Blue and green felspar. 
 
 Red with white spots. 
 
 Light red and white. 
 
 Green interspersed with 
 crystals. 
 
 Green with felspar crys- 
 tals. 
 
 Dark green. 
 
 Variegated conglomerate. 
 
 Blue, sometimes spotted 
 white or brown. 
 
 Clouded green. 
 
 Paragone. 
 
 Malachite. 
 
 Set 3.— calcareous STONES. 
 
 Flanders. Uniform black. 
 
 Set. 4. 
 
 Siberia. 
 
 Bright green, marked 
 white, or dark. 
 
 There is a very interesting episode in the history of 
 inlaid work in precious stones which is, I believe, not 
 generally known. It refers to the supposed Floren- 
 tine origin of the Indian decoration of temples and 
 
FLORENTINE MOSAICS. 123, 
 
 palaces at Agra and Delhi in this style. Sig, Zobi^ 
 author of " Notizie Storiche sui lavori di commesso in 
 Pietre dure," is the discoverer of this link. 
 
 Hearing a description of the Delhi mosaics and the 
 Taj Mehal at Agra, from Mr. Charles Trevelyan, who 
 was in Florence in 1839 on his return from India, Sig. 
 Zobi, as well as Mr. Trevelyan, was much struck with 
 the similitude in design and workmanship between these 
 Indian mosaics or tarsia and the Florentine ones. It 
 is well known that the Taj Mehal, the interior of which 
 is incrusted with inlaid marbles in designs of flowers,, 
 scrolls, and Etruscan vases, was the first specimen of 
 this kind of work in India. In the hall of royal 
 audience at Delhi is a still more remarkable subject, 
 Orpheus playing a violin and surrounded by various 
 beasts and birds ; it is in front of the throne. Now as 
 it is not usual for Indian art to lend itself to the repre- 
 sentation of nature as in these flowers ; as Etruscan 
 vases are not familiar in that country, and as Maho- 
 metans are not allowed to represent animated human 
 figures, Sig. Zobi set himself to discover if any proof of 
 Florentine artists having gone to India existed in the 
 archives. 
 
 His research was rewarded by two or three signifi- 
 
124 TUSCAN STUDIES. 
 
 cant facts. The Medicean archives possess a document, 
 dated 1608, which proves that Ferdinando I. demanded 
 a passport for India from the king of Spain for four of 
 his artists in pietre dure, to the end that they might 
 go to seek and buy Oriental agates and gems, to con- 
 tinue the work of inlaying the interior of the Medici 
 chapel. 
 
 Nothing is more natural than that the Mogul to 
 
 whom they were sent desired to see a specimen of this 
 
 work which was worth such labour in seeking materials ; 
 
 and nothing more probable than that the art was readily 
 
 appreciated in a country so rich in materials for it. 
 
 Whether the four Florentines remained and founded a 
 
 school there, leaving their designs behind them — which 
 
 in the earlier works are free and natural, and in later 
 
 ones more set and Oriental in design — is not easy to 
 
 prove. Neither is it known whether the lavish monarch 
 
 Shah Jehan, when he built the Taj Mehal in 1643, 
 
 availed himself of the assistance of one or more of these 
 
 Florentines, or of their native scholars, to incrust the 
 
 interior. The fact remains that the freedom and nature 
 
 of the designs are utterly unlike any other native art, 
 
 which is entirelyconventional and religiously traditional. 
 
 Mr. Trevelyan spoke of some ancient inscriptions 
 
FLORENTINE MOSAICS. 125 
 
 existing in the Christian cemetery at Agra, but he could 
 give no clear account of them. 
 
 With regard to the tarsia picture which Mr. Tre- 
 velyan calls Orpheus, and which is placed in front of 
 the throne at Delhi, Sig. Zobi got the following infor- 
 mation from Mr. Matealfe (Metcalfe ?), agent of the 
 English Governor-General at Delhi, in 1841. 
 
 The Hindoos have woven a web of mystery about 
 the picture ; the figure is said to be that of Ullan Koora, 
 the mother of the Tartar race, and daughter of the Star 
 of Day (evidently a myth of the generating power of 
 heat) ; but in that case, what significance would the 
 music and listening animals have ? Besides, the figure 
 is not a female, but a man draped classically in a single 
 mantle of blue (lapis lazuli) lined with red (cornelian). 
 
 Is it not more possible that the Italian workman 
 made the picture of Orpheus, a god familiar to him, as 
 a specimen, and that the Hindoo possessor, the Mogul, 
 adapted it to his own use by giving it a native meaning? 
 Doctor Bernier, author of " Memoires sur I'Empire 
 du Gran Mogol" (Paris, 1 671), says that he saw the im- 
 perial palace at Delhi at that time, and was struck by 
 the resemblance to the Medici chapel in the cupola 
 incrusted with coloured gems and marbles. 
 
126 TUSCAN STUDIES. 
 
 Two other documents in the archives attest a connec- 
 tion between Florence and the East. The Sopha 
 (Shah) of Persia required an Italian architect, and the 
 Grand Duke Cosimo II. sent Costantino de' Servi, who 
 was at that time superintendent of the pietre dure 
 works. 
 
 This may not have had much connection with the 
 Delhi works, especially as Costantino was again in 
 Florence in the end of 1610 (the letters patent from 
 ■Cosimo are dated Nov. i, 1609). ^^t another deed, 
 filza 54, dated in 1697, shows that Cosimo III. sent 
 some artists to Goa, with a present of intarsia in pietre 
 din^e from the Florentine factory, as a contribution to 
 the tomb of the Jesuit saint, S. Francesco Xaverio, in 
 that city. So that there was without doubt a connec- 
 tion of Florentine mosaic makers with India in that 
 century. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 Zbc Bribe's IRoom. 
 -^ 
 
 MONG the cinque-cento Florentine citizens 
 who gave themselves up heart and soul 
 to the worship of art, none were more 
 enthusiastic and appreciative than Salvi 
 and Pier Francesco Borgherini, worthy scions of an 
 old family, who probably had their name from being 
 dwellers in the Borgo, or suburb of S. Apostoli, in 
 those ancient times when the first belt of walls made 
 Florence so narrow that that street was outside the 
 gates. 
 
 The palace-building mania inaugurated by the Pitti, 
 Medici, and Strozzi families, had spread through all 
 
•CINQUE cento" chair. 
 
THE BRIDES ROOM. 129 
 
 the city, and many a burgher rebuilt his ancient 
 fortress, and turned it into a " Palazzo " — that form 
 of house so characteristic of the Florentine streets in 
 Renaissance times. 
 
 Of course Salvi Borgherini followed the fashion, 
 and about a.d. 1500 he bethought himself of building 
 a family mansion. He did not "go in" for size, like 
 Luca Pitti, nor for pre-eminence in the weight of his 
 building stones, like Cosimo de Medici ; but he deter- 
 mined that his Palazzo should be a work of art. So he 
 took counsel of an architect who was also an artist, 
 by name Bartolommeo Baglione (better known in the 
 annals of art as Baccio d'Agnolo). He lived in the 
 Via Santa Caterina, and was not only capo maestro 
 in the restoration of the Palazzo Vecchio, but the 
 architect of several of the finest houses in Florence, 
 the gem of his designs being the Palazzo Bartolini in 
 the Piazza S. Trinita (now Hotel du Nord).^ 
 
 Baccio gave Borgherini the designs for his house, 
 and being sculptor as well as architect, he carved with 
 his own hands the lintels and architraves of the doors, 
 
 ^ In 15 1 2 Baccio d'Agnolo was named capo maestro of the works 
 at the Duomo, and his salary increased to twenty-five florins on 
 March 31, 15 12. Gaye ii. p. 483. 
 
I30 TUSCAN STUDIES. 
 
 and in the front he put a bas-rehef of the Madonna 
 and Child, which is to be seen to this day, as are the 
 windows he designed with the small round panes of 
 glass, and their massive shutters decorated with brass 
 nails. 
 
 The carving of the chimney-piece in the hall was 
 confided to a young man of great promise named 
 Benedetto da Rovezzano, who had lately come to 
 Florence, and of whom artists said " the marble 
 became flexible as lace- work in his hands." 
 
 In Cicognara (vol. ii. tav. 30.) an illustration of 
 this chimney-piece is given, and it may be seen in its 
 original state at the Palazzo del Turco in Borgo S. 
 Apostoli, the ancient Borgherini palace. 
 
 It is a fine piece of sculpture. The sides are 
 composed of Raphaelesque scrolls and trophies of arms 
 in relief ; the frieze across the front apparently repre- 
 sents the story of the Maccabees. On the right is a 
 king on his throne talking to a warrior ; on the left 
 two horsemen and the statue of a man with a bow ; in 
 the centre a stake and seven men burning. Above 
 are two sphinxes, two geiiii, and the arms of the family 
 surmounted by a vase of fire. 
 
 So stone by stone rose the palace of the honest 
 
" A CINQUE CENTO " HOUSE DECORATION. 
 
132 TUSCAN STUDIES. 
 
 burgher, and the impress of art was on every part. 
 The house wanted a mistress, and this Pier Francesco 
 supplied in his betrothal to the young Margherita 
 Acciajoli, whose house was just at the back of Borghe- 
 rini's, and faced the Arno. 
 
 It was a great match for Pier Francesco, for the 
 Acciajoli were one of the most important families in 
 the city. Their remote ancestors (as the name implies) 
 were steel-workers, who had fled from Brescia to 
 escape the tyranny of Frederic Barbarossa. Some of 
 them had founded the monastery of the Certosa near 
 Florence, and their sculptured effigies had lain there 
 for centuries beneath the low arches of the crypt. 
 Margherita's father, Ruperto, was one of the eminent 
 men of the time. He had in 1510 been sent as 
 Ambassador to the Court of Louis XII. of France, 
 and he and his family gained the privilege of carrying 
 a go\d&n Jle2C7^-de-lys and the royal crown of France 
 on the blue lion of their shield. In 15 13 he was 
 Ambassador to Rome at the Court of Leo X., and 
 in the very year of his daughter's marriage (15 15) he 
 was called to Pisa to reform the University, which 
 had rebelled against Florentine rule. 
 
 Having won so eligible a bride for his son, old 
 
THE BRIDE'S ROOM. 133 
 
 Salvi BorgherinI set himself to prepare a bridal 
 chamber which should be worthy of her ; and the 
 very best art which Florence could afford was called 
 forth to decorate this shrine for the love of his son. 
 
 Baccio d'Agnolo again took chisel in hand, and 
 blocks of dark walnut wood were transformed by 
 magic into the most exquisite furniture. Angels and 
 loves disported themselves amidst the rich foliage on 
 the great bedstead, and on the cabinets and " cassoni " 
 (chests) which were to contain the wedding finery. 
 The backs of the chairs and the long settees, called 
 in those days " spalliere," were richly carved and inlaid 
 with painted panels. The bedstead and cassoni, and 
 even the walls, had similar panels ; but what precious 
 panels they were ! Andrea del Sarto painted those 
 for the walls. Granacci did the ones for the head and 
 foot of the bedstead. Pontormo decorated the sides 
 of a large cassa. Bachiacca (Francesco d'Ubertino) 
 painted a long settee. And on all these things the 
 same story was told in many scenes — that pathetic and 
 wondrous story of Joseph. Andrea's finely painted 
 pictures tell the tale of the Patriarch's childhood and his 
 being sold into Egypt ; Granacci's bedstead gives his 
 serving of Potiphar and prison life ; while Pontormo 
 
134 Ti'SCA.Y STUDIES. 
 
 carries on the story of his greatness as Lord of Egypt, 
 and Bachiacca's ''spalliere " shows his brethren bowing- 
 down to him in Egypt. 
 
 The design oi the whole was harmonious and 
 exquisitely carried out, every part being a gem of art. 
 
 The bridal bower beino: ready, the marriacre took 
 place on July 15, 1515, and though we have no 
 special account of it, yet from the descriptions of 
 other Florentine weddings we can imagine the scene. 
 A curious old painting in the Ufhzi shows how the 
 wedding guests w^ere received under awnings in the 
 street at the marriage of Boccaccio Adimari with Luisa 
 Ricasoli in June, 1420. Sacchetti also speaks of this 
 custom of o-uests assemblinq- in the street ; so Marcrhe- 
 rita's wedding guests probably met on the banks of 
 the Arno till the feast was ready. Here would be seen 
 burghers in red luccos, knights in spurs and em- 
 broidered doublets, military officials in buff, ladies in 
 stiff brocades and pearls, with priests and doctors in 
 black to tone down the mass of colour. Inside the 
 house the feast is prepared in the great central hall, and 
 here the guests are supplied with course after course of 
 viands, and drink the bride's health in the wine from 
 the Borgherini/<?^/<:V7. 
 
TUJi /l/if/J/C'S ROOM. 135 
 
 Poets abound in Florence at this time, and sonnets 
 and odes are freely interspersed between the courses. 
 
 In the kitchen there has been of course great stress 
 of business for many a day. The larders are not 
 large enough to hold the wedding gifts which take the 
 form of eatables. Strange cooks have been at work 
 making confections and marvellous pasties which take 
 all kinds of artistic forms, for in those days design 
 was not confined to the painters and sculptors ; the 
 very pastrycooks modelled statues in sugar, and 
 temples in pie-crust, while sausages and cheese were 
 materials for comic scenes. Barrels of wine have 
 arrived from the country villas of the spouses ; and 
 in the kitchen are huge fires, with revolving wheels, on 
 which scores of fat ortolans, dozens of pigeons and 
 fowls, roast all together, spitted in rows. 
 
 At the almost contemporaneous wedding of Gualtieri 
 Panciatichi and Nicola Guicciardini in May, 1507, we 
 may gather some knowledge of marriage customs and 
 presents, &c. 
 
 We find that besides r i calves, 2 sheep, 3 1 couples 
 of fowls and turkeys, and 63 cheeses — all given as 
 presents — there were purchased for the marriage feast 
 180 pairs of ortolans, 113 pairs of pigeons, 181 couples 
 
136 TUSCAX STUDIES. 
 
 of poultry, 94 brace of quails, and 7 peacocks, besides 
 ^'$> barrels of ordinary wine and 140 flasks of Treb- 
 biano.^ No wonder the larders and kitchens and the 
 halls of the old palaces were large when the owners 
 had to prepare such feasts as these ! 
 
 Margherita had a full appreciation of the artistic 
 beauties of her bridal home, and preserved them with 
 all her housewifely care till the troublous time of the 
 siege, when she had to defend them almost with her 
 life. By that time she had been married fourteen 
 years, and sons and daughters were growing up around 
 her. During the siege in 1529 Pier Francesco was 
 away on some civic business at Lucca, so Margherita 
 had to fight for her household gods alone ; and bravely 
 she did so. 
 
 The King of France (Francis I.) carried his patron- 
 age of Italian art so far that he became to cinque-cento 
 Italy what Napoleon was early in the nineteenth cen- 
 tury — the despoiler. 
 
 His agent in Florence was a certain Giovan-Battista 
 
 della Palla, who thought to curry favour with a great 
 
 power by laying his hands on many a precious work 
 
 of art to send to Paris, He had long cast his eyes on 
 
 ^ From "La Famiglia Panciatichi," by Conte L. Passerini. 
 
THE BRIDES ROOM. 137 
 
 Margherita's chamber, and coveted its unique furniture 
 to adorn a room at Versailles — which he promised 
 King Francis should surpass every room in the world ,•; 
 and he so worked on the Signoria as to obtain their 
 consent to purchase the Borgherini treasures, and 
 present them to Francis I. as a gift from the Signoria 
 of Florence. Armed with this permission, Giovan- 
 Battista della Palla went forthwith to the house in 
 Borgo S. Apostoli with his proposals. But Margherita 
 was equal to the occasion ; her loyalty did not feel 
 called upon to adorn her enemies' palaces, even at the 
 command of the Signoria. 
 
 "You are a bold man, Messer Giovan-Battista," she 
 said, **vile broker that you are, to despoil the rooms of 
 gentlemen, and to rob the city of its richest and most 
 revered treasures to beautify the land of strangers and 
 our enemies. I do not wonder at you, low man and 
 traitor as you are, but at the magistrates of this city 
 who allow you to act so vilely. This furniture that 
 you covet to make money out of was my marriage gift 
 from Salvi, my father-in-law, and I revere it for his 
 memory, and my love for his son, and with my life and 
 blood, if need be, I will defend it. 
 
 " Leave this house with- your villainies, Giovan- 
 
138 TUSCAX SrUD/ES. 
 
 Hattista. and go to those who soiu you and say that 
 I will not have a sino-le thino" moved, and if thev want 
 to make presents lo King* Francis lei them despoil 
 their own houses — and — never dare you to enter this 
 door again." 
 
 Delia Palla was so intimidated by this burst ot 
 native eloquence that he retired ; and the Borgherini 
 treasures remained in the hands of their rightful 
 possessors. Margherita's descendants were not equally 
 reverent towards their /tv/<?A\c. for the beautiful things 
 are now scattered far and wide. Two of Andrea del 
 Sarto's panels and two of Pontormo's are in the 
 Florentine Galleries, for Niccolo Borgherini — INIar- 
 gherita's grandson — sold them to the Grand Duke 
 Francesco in 15S4. For those of Andrea he was paid 
 360 ducats, and for Pontormo's 00 ducats. Nothing 
 remains of the bride's home but the carvings ol Baccio 
 d'Agnolo o\er the doors, and the chimney-piece of 
 Rovezzano, which is still in its place in the old 
 house, now Palazzo del Turco in Borgo S. Apostoli. 
 
 It is believed that a beautiful Madonna which 
 Andrea del Sarto painted for a member of the same 
 family — Giovanni Borgherini — is now in the possession 
 of Major Oliver Dav Stokes, of Cheltenham. 
 
THE JiRWE'S ROOM. 
 
 139 
 
 Vasari describes it as "a Madonna, with a St. John 
 giving a hall, emblematizing the world, to the infant 
 Christ, and a fjne head of St. Joseph." Sig. Milanesi, 
 the annotator of Vasari, says he saw the painting in a 
 private house in Florence, where it was offered for sale 
 in 1852. 
 
 'i'wo panels of the story of Joseph are in the collec- 
 tion of luirl Cowper at Panshanger ; but these are 
 more probably the ones painted by Andrea and Pon- 
 tormo for the monks of S. Gallo, and not connected 
 with the Porgherini series. 
 

 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 .%'Y^v^lK''UT a mile west of Florence is an olive- 
 .^^"^avT-n: covered hill, crowned with cvpresses. be- 
 'o ^- v\\^ neath whose shadow stands all that remains 
 of the ancient convent of Mom Olivoto. 
 Invalided soldiers now occupy the cells : the cypress 
 avenue is closed and gxass grown : the refectory, divided 
 into several rooms, now forms the house of the one 
 frate who does duty in the church. To the artistic 
 taste of this monk. Don Alfonso Focacci. Florence 
 owes the re-discovery of a treasure, mutilated it is true, 
 but a treasure even in its decay — the remains of a 
 frescoed '"Cenacolo" once adorning the refectory. 
 Some two years ago. the priest by chance knocked a 
 
A RECOVERED FRESCO. 141 
 
 bit of yellow stencilled plaster off his wall, and finding 
 traces of colour beneath, he carefully uncovered the 
 whole length, and half the cenacolo came to light, the 
 one end being irretrievably lost, as the wall itself 
 has been cut away. The figures on this side were 
 much ruined, but the central portion remains entire. 
 Even here the destroyer's hand has done irreparable 
 damage : the heads of our Saviour and St. John are 
 almost featureless, but those of St. Peter and Judas 
 are in better preservation, and are characteristic 
 enough to prove the authorship as that of Gian 
 Antonio de Bazzi, known as Sodoma. 
 
 Signore Milanesi and the Commission of Art have 
 arrived at this conclusion chiefly from internal evidence, 
 but this to those who know Bazzi's works is over- 
 whelming. The dark, sinister face of Judas, so passion- 
 ate and rich in colouring, is almost a reproduction of 
 some figures of Goths in the St. Benedict frescoes at 
 Monte Oliveto Maggiore, near Siena, and reveals the 
 same technical treatment of hair and flesh tints as the 
 Christ of the Belle Arti at Siena. 
 
 The colouring too, has all Bazzi's own daring. St. 
 Peter's drapery is a miasterly combination of the three 
 primaries, only possible to an artist under the influence 
 
143 TO'SCAA Sn/I?I£S. 
 
 of the Venetian school : the Christ is in purple and 
 blue. The artist's realistic tendency comes out in his 
 conception of Judas : the face is sinister, keen, and 
 covetous, but is turned away from the gaze of his 
 INIaster ; his worldly character is emphasized by the 
 secular style of dress, quite unlike the religious draper}' 
 of the other apostles ; the purse hanging on his hand. 
 and even the less decorous attitude, distinguish him 
 from the saintly figures around. Another little bit o{ 
 realism is the salt-cellar overturned, evidently by the 
 hand of Judas. 
 
 So much for internal evidence. Direct documentar}- 
 proofs are unfortimately wanting, for Signore Milanesi 
 has searched the archives of the order, but finds that 
 the books of the " cellaria " or general expenses are 
 missing, and the building or decorative payments are 
 not entered in the household books of the convent. 
 The points which would go far to prove the proba- 
 bility of Bazzi being the artist are the following. The 
 head of the Olivetan Order at that time was a Fra 
 Domenico da Lecco — who had known Bazzi in Lom- 
 bardy, and employed him not only at the great convent 
 ^lonte Oliveto Maggiore, but also at a smaller one 
 called St. Anna, in Creta. near Pienza, where he 
 
A RECOVERED FRESCO. 143 
 
 painted the refectory. It is therefore very probable 
 that the same artist who had given satisfaction in two 
 convents of the order, should have been employed at 
 the third — Monte Oliveto at Florence. That he was 
 in the city is certain, as a document proves him to 
 have been ill in the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova in 
 Florence in 1527, when he occupied bed No. 42. "^ 
 No artist has suffered more at the hands of an envious 
 biographer than Bazzi in those of Vasari, who has not 
 even deigned to give him his right name, calling him 
 Razzi, of which cognomen not the smallest proof 
 remains. It is time that some justice should be done 
 to a man whose works are so deserving of fame. The 
 question of his birth, as I have said elsewhere,- may 
 be considered settled. Padre Luigi Bruzzi finds, in 
 the archives of Vercelli, that in 1477 a son, Giovan 
 Antonio, was born to Jacopo d' Antonio de' Bazzi and 
 Angelina da Bergamo his wife ; and that on Nov. 28, 
 1490, this boy was placed as a scholar in the bottega 
 of Martino Spanzotti, a painter of Casale, near Ver- 
 celli. In 1497, his father being dead, he went for 
 some years to Lombardy, and finally in 1501 arrived 
 
 * Milanesi " Commentario sul Vasari," vol. vi. p. 4. 
 ^ "Renaissance of Art in Italy," p. 291. 
 
144 TUSCAN STUDIES. 
 
 in Siena, with which city his name is indissolubly 
 connected. As proof of his stay in Lombardy, we 
 have the patronage of Fra Domenico da Lecco, who 
 had known him there and employed him in Siena; and 
 the fact that he was induced to go to Siena by the 
 Spannocchi family, who had a bank in Lombardy. 
 Thus the varied influences apparent in his painting 
 are accounted for. Formed in the school and land of 
 Titian, his colouring has all the Venetian daring and 
 richness ; his flesh tints are warm, and have an Eastern 
 glow such as Giorgione gives to his canvasses. Taken 
 successively from thence to Lombardy and Tuscany, 
 he grafts on this colouring a delicacy of design equal 
 to Leonardo da Vinci and Luini, with a grace of 
 drapery clearly Raphaelesque. 
 
 As evidence that his surname was Bazzi and not 
 Razzi, his receipt for the dote of his wife, Beatrice del 
 Gain, is signed Johannes Antonius Jacobi de Bazis, Oct. 
 28, 1 5 10; and another document securing to him the 
 possession of a house he had bought In Terza Camollia, 
 in the parish of S. Donati, Siena, gives his name and 
 titles as follows — Magnlfico et generoso equiti domino 
 Joanni Antonio Jacobi de BazIs, pictori de Verze 
 alias el Sogdoma. 
 
A RECOVERED FRESCO. 145 
 
 Vasari says he was despised by all, and a penniless 
 spendthrift, and that his wife had to leave him and 
 support herself. If this be true, what means the 
 " equiti domino " above, how comes it that several 
 letters pass, in 1537 (see Gaye's " Carteggio," vol. ii. 
 pp. 265-268), between the Signoria of Siena and 
 the Prince of Piombino, the first of whom wants 
 him back in Siena, and the second detains him at his 
 palace '^. In these he is spoken of with respect as 
 Cavalier Sodoma, and there is, further, a letter addressed 
 to himself by the Signoria, which begins " Generoso 
 Cavaliere," and urges him to return and finish the 
 frescoes in the chapel of the Piazza. As to his wife not 
 being able to live with him, she was certainly with him 
 in 1531 and 1541 ; and so far from being a spendthrift, 
 he bought a second house in 1534, and gave a good 
 dote to his daughter, who married one of his scholars, 
 Bartolommeo Riccio. 
 
 Bizzarre he mie^ht have been, with his talking raven 
 and collection of undomestic animals ; but so also 
 were Paolo Uccelli and Pier di Cosimo before him. 
 His running races in the Palio might have seemed 
 to his biographer unworthy the dignity of a serious 
 artist ; but his contemporary Albertinelli has kept his 
 
 10 
 
146 TUSCAN STUDIES. 
 
 fame undimmed, though given to the same kind of 
 exercises. 
 
 Let Bazzi be judged as an artist by the evidence of 
 his works, and not a h'ne or an expression will be 
 found unworthy of the highest art. 
 
 He understood woman's feelings in all their purity, 
 as witness the exaltation of soul in the "Ecstasy of 
 St. Catherine," and the tenderness of feeling in the 
 " Salutation " in the Oratory of San Bernardino, where 
 he gives a new interpretation to the greeting. The 
 mother of St. John falls on her knees before the Virgin, 
 as if recognizing the greater honour of her coming 
 maternity. In the " Nativity," once at Lecceto, now 
 in the Belle Arti, Siena, the expression of religious joy 
 and adoration is even more exalted than in Correggio's 
 well-known and similar rendering of the subject. 
 
 One of Bazzi's greatest distinctions is his love of 
 truth. His Holy Families are not as those of many 
 artists, idealized portraits of contemporaries ; they are 
 by him represented as they were in reality — an Eastern 
 household ; — the rich complexioned Orientals in the 
 "Nativity" in the church of St. Agostino, and the 
 figures beneath the exquisite "Coronation" in St. 
 Bernardino, are specimens of this. The modelling of 
 
A RECOVERED FRESCO. 147 
 
 the Adam and St. Joseph in the latter is splendid ; 
 the flesh tints are Sodoma's very own — warm, living, 
 and Eastern. In contrast to these, the spirituality of 
 the upper portion of this painting comes out with 
 double refinement. The Virgin, a lovely modest 
 figure in graceful white robes, kneels among the 
 clouds, while Christ crowns her, and angels and 
 cherubim hover adoring around. 
 
 But Bazzi's greatest masterpieces are his conceptions 
 of Christ. In his " Saviour on the Mount of Olives " 
 — now in the Belle Arti, Siena — the figure of the 
 kneeling Christ is replete with the majesty of the 
 King of Sorrows ; so noble is the form that even 
 the angel loses dignity beside it. In the " Christ in 
 Hades " the attribute is triumphant power ; but the 
 grandest inspiration of all is the fragment from the 
 " Flagellation," consisting of the one figure of the 
 Saviour. If Sodoma had never painted anything but 
 this broken fragment, he would still have been famous 
 for ever. What the whole fresco must have been we 
 have no means of judging. No doubt the figures 
 whose upraised arms are visible with their scourges 
 were coarse men suitable to their office, and one feels 
 thankful they have disappeared, leaving the Man of 
 
TUSCAN STUDIES. 
 
 Sorrows alone in his overwhelming- grief. There is 
 that in the face, which no Christian can look on un- 
 moved. The " St. Catherine " series in S. Domenico, 
 and the St. Sebastian now in the Uffizi, Florence, both 
 prove how well he understood the refining power of 
 faith ; while his largest works, the " St. Benedict " series 
 at Monte Oliveto Maggiore, show his concentration, 
 power of grouping, and graphic manner of telling a 
 story. Any one who has not seen these, has yet to 
 become acquainted with a great painter. All his 
 technical excellences are to be studied here — his 
 robust daring colouring, harmony of composition, vivid 
 life and expression, and his faithfulness to truth in 
 nature. His Goths are fierce barbarians, his saints 
 spiritual beings ; and if only the fresco of which we 
 give an illustration were as well preserved, the same 
 signs would be found, as the head of St. Peter and 
 figure of Judas testify. We have in Bazzi not the 
 slave of an ideal conventionality as was Perugino, not 
 the exquisite adaptor of contemporaneous life to Scrip- 
 ture stories as Andrea del Sarto ; but one who is able 
 to grasp and show forth the varied truths of both 
 nature and spirit — giving the spirituality of the saint 
 and the materiality of the sinner with equal fidelity. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 H nbuseum of pictorial XCapestr^. 
 
 LORENCE has added another page to the 
 history of Art which she contains within 
 her walls, by the Museum of Tapestry 
 and Needlework recently opened in the 
 upper floor of the Palazzo della Crocetta, the site of 
 the Etruscan and Egyptian Museums. 
 
 Tapestry weaving was one of the distinctive arts 
 of Florence at that time when the busy fingers and 
 refined taste of her citizens evolved artistic forms out 
 of every material they touched, be it marble or canvas, 
 stone or silk, wood or precious stones. Like most of 
 the arts of the Renaissance, this also was brought 
 
I50 
 
 TCrSCAA" ST(/ni£S, 
 
 from the East at the time of the Crusades, took root 
 in France and Germany, and reached its culmination 
 in Italy. The story may be brietly traced in its 
 successive names, Sarazinois. Arras, and Tapestry. 
 The eariier English and French tapestries, such as 
 the :c7«? (it'/>icfa of Dagobert in the church of St. Denis 
 in the sixth century, the Auxerre embroidered hang- 
 ings in 840. and the Ba)-eux tapestry o\ Matilda, do 
 
 OK SOLOMON. 11.KM1SU TAVKSPKY. 
 
 not enter into this history, as they were not woven 
 but worked with a needle, as were also the Byzantine 
 ones. The Flemish factories began in the twelfth 
 century, and those of Arras in Picard)' flourished in 
 the fourteenth and fifteenth. 
 
 The hfteenth century was a great period of emigra- 
 tion for Flemish artists and artizans. Probably they 
 were driven abroad by religious or political persecu- 
 
A MUSEUM OF PICIORIAL TAPJiSTRV. 151 
 
 tions, but it is a fact, that about the same time that 
 the workmen of Johann Faust were estabHshing print- 
 ing presses all over Italy, Flemish tapestry weavers 
 were also setting up looms in her principal cities. 
 The Gonzaghi employed them at Mantua in 14 19, the 
 Venetians in 142 1 ; other Flemings settled in Siena 
 and Bologna. Not till 1455 did Pope Nicholas en- 
 courage them in Rome, and a certain Livino de' Gilii 
 came to Plorence about the same time, to be succeeded 
 towards the end of the century by Johann, son of 
 Johann. The curious old frieze of tapestry, illustrating 
 the Song of vSolomon, of which we give a specimen, 
 might have been the work of one of these early 
 weavers, and the Baptism of Christ (No. 66, Museo 
 degli Arazzi) a slightly later one. Of the same style 
 were probably the " Spalliera da cassa," spoken of in 
 the Inventory of Lorenzo de' Medici, of which one 
 represented a chase and another a tournament. 
 
 But the chief treasures of the new museum were 
 made after the time of Cosimo I., who, in 1545, 
 engaged several Flemish weavers, and established a 
 school in Florence. The documents still exist ^ which 
 set forth the agreement between Pier Francesco 
 ' Archivio di State. Fascio G. 299. 
 
1 52 TUSCA N S7 UDIES. 
 
 Riccio, as major-domo of Duke Cosimo, and the two 
 principal manufacturers, Johann Roost and Nicolo 
 Karcher, both of whom had previously worked in 
 Ferrara. The contract with Johann Roost, dated 
 September 3, 1548, obliges him to keep twenty-four 
 looms, and as many more as needful, at work ; to 
 teach the art of weaving arras, of dyeing wool and 
 silk, and spinning wool, silk, and gold, &c., to any 
 Florentine youths who should be placed under his 
 instruction — the instruction to be gratis, but the pupils 
 to keep themselves. The Duke engages to furnish 
 looms and necessaries, and to pay Roost the annual 
 salary of five hundred scudi in gold. 
 
 The contract with Karcher, November 17, 1550, 
 is precisely similar in tenor, but he is only obliged to 
 keep eighteen looms, and receives a salary of two 
 hundred scudi. Both these documents are renewals 
 of old contracts made three or four years previously, 
 and rendered necessary by the increased press of 
 business, and greater number of pupils. 
 
 It was not likely that the Italians would for long 
 accept Flemish Art in their tapestries. No ! They 
 only took from the foreigners the mere handicraft, and 
 impressed it with their own artistic taste. Before 
 
A MUSEUM OF PICTORIAL TAPESTRY. 155 
 
 long, all the chief artists of the Academy of St. Luke 
 became designers for the weavers of Arazzi. Vasari's 
 friend, Salviati, gave the cartoons for the " Deposition 
 from the Cross " (Museum, No. 1 1 1), which was woven 
 by Roost in 1552, and for " Ecce Homo," and a 
 " Resurrection " by Karcher, in 1553. 
 
 The work seems to have been distributed pretty 
 equally between the two factories. Of twenty pieces 
 of tapestry representing the history of Joseph, and 
 woven between 1547 and 1550, nine were executed in 
 the looms of Roost, and eleven by those of Karcher ; 
 while of Bachiacca's four cartoons of the Months, three 
 of them were woven by Roost and one by Karcher, 
 who at the same time made another hanging, of 
 grotesque subjects, from a cartoon by the same master. 
 The very pictorial and allegorical style thrown into 
 the tapestry by the Italian artists may be seen in 
 their painting of the Months (December, January, and 
 February), with the border, which is a mixture of 
 mythology, grotesqueness, and classicality. Roost's 
 signature was very curious ; the Italians having named 
 him Rosto (roast), he took as his anagram a piece of 
 meat on the spit. Karcher's sign was a monogram. 
 About the year 1553 Roost was at work on the fine 
 
T54 TUSCAN STUDIES. 
 
 pieces, "Justice liberating Innocence," and "Flora" 
 {Museum, Nos. 122, 123). The two episodes in the 
 life of Caesar (Nos. 88 and 89) were of about the same 
 date, but came from the factory at Bologna, whence 
 Cosimo purchased them. They show a more German 
 style in design. 
 
 Besides improving the artistic value of Flemish 
 arras, the Italians rendered it also richer and more 
 gorgeous in material. The Flemish work was entirely 
 in wool and thread, the Venetian and Florentine hang- 
 ings are rich in glowing tints of silk and gleams of 
 gold thread. The style used by all the masters of the 
 sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was the haute lisse, 
 or "high warp," in which the frame, with its horizontal 
 threads, was placed upright, and the pattern so far 
 behind it that the weaver could walk round and 
 examine his work from the back. In basse lisse the 
 frame lies close on the pattern, and is woven entirely 
 on the face of the work. The method in either case is 
 similar, the alternate horizontal threads are lifted with 
 the treadle, and so much of it is woven with one 
 colour, as the pattern indicates. A kind of comb is 
 used to press the perpendicular threads together, 
 and all the holes which occur at the junction of 
 
A MUSEUM OF PICTORIAL TAPESTRY. 155 
 
 two colours horizontally arf; sewn together after- 
 wards. 
 
 Karcher ceased to work in J 553, and Roost was 
 buried in San Lorenzo in 1563, after which we hear 
 of no more Flemings. The youths they had been 
 obliged to train became masters in their stead, Bene- 
 detto Squilli taking the factory in Via dei Servi, and 
 Giovanni Sconditi that in Via del Cocomero. A little 
 later Guaspari Papini united the two, and in his turn 
 engaged artists to draw his cartoons, 
 
 Alessandro Allori gave the designs for Nos. 26, 28, 
 and -^-x^ in the new museum, representing scenes from 
 the life of Christ, and also for the six magnificent 
 pieces of the "Story of Phaeton," woven by Papini 
 between the years 1587 and 162 1. Cigoli supplied 
 those for the " Christ before Herod" and others, while 
 Bernardino Poccetti was constantly employed by the 
 firm. 
 
 The Florentine manufactory declined a little during 
 the reigns of Ferdinand I. and Cosimo II., while that 
 of France, which had revived by its influence, made 
 immense progress. Just as the Italians imported the 
 technical art from Flanders, the French imported their 
 artistic beauty from Italy. Primaticcio was employed 
 
156 TUSCAN STUDIES. 
 
 to draw cartoons for the weavers of Francis I. ; 
 nor did Raphael himself disdain to draw for them, as 
 the cartoons at Hampton Court testify ; GiuHo Romano 
 was also employed: and Henri IV., in 1597, invited 
 to France not only artists, but weavers in silk and 
 gold. To this Italian influence we may date the rise 
 of the Gobelins, which so far outvied the mother fabric 
 that Ferdinand II., Grand Duke of Tuscany, sought 
 to revive the Florentine manufactory by employing a 
 Parisian named Pierre Fevere, to whom a o^reat number 
 of the tapestries in the new museum are owing, the 
 most original of which are the allegorical pieces of 
 Day, Night, Winter, and Summer. 
 
 I do not know whether it was from motives of 
 economy, or from the difficulty of finding good 
 artists in the beginning of the seventeenth century^ 
 when Art was low in Florence, but Fevere seems to 
 have worked more from copies of the older masters 
 than from original cartoons. Thus we find tapestries 
 of his from Michael Angelo, Del Sarto, Cigoli, and 
 other artists. He did not even disdain to copy an 
 old tapestry of Karcher's, the " Month of May." To 
 Fevere and Papini, clever as they were, may probably 
 be dated the decline of tapestry as arras proper. 
 
A MUSEUM OF PICTORIAL TAPESTRY. 157 
 
 They so imitated oil-paintings, that their tapestries 
 were framed and used as paintings would have been — 
 the old office of clothing the walls was superseded ; in 
 ceasing to be a branch of decorative art, and aiming 
 at pictorial effect, tapestry fell. 
 
 After Fevere, Giovan Battista Termini became the 
 director of the Florentine factory : but he lived in 
 stormy times ; the workmen split into factions, one 
 side advocating the haute lisse, the other the basse 
 lisse. He, however, would not hear of the latter 
 innovation, and was so persecuted that he had to 
 fly from Florence. His successor, Antonio Bronconi, 
 had some good workmen under him, but their tapes- 
 tries are all ruined by the affectations and bad drawing 
 of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as witness 
 the "Four Quarters of the Globe" and the "Four 
 Elements," in the museum. 
 
 In 1737 the manufacture in Florence was finally 
 closed, after a career of nearly three hundred years. 
 Besides the visible history of her own progress in the 
 art, Florence enshrines in her museum some of the 
 finest works from the Gobelins, such as the series of 
 "■ Scenes from the life of Esther," those delightful 
 pieces of " Children Gardening," and a very fine series, 
 
158 
 
 Tl/SCA^^ STUDIES. 
 
 " Adam and Eve." from a Flemish manufactory. These 
 latter have become historically interesting to modern 
 work-a-day Florence, as having been for centuries 
 connected with the bygone days of fcstc. They were 
 always hung in the Loggia dei Lanzi on St. Johns 
 Day and the /IVc' of Corpus Domini, while other series 
 of Samson and St. John Baptist adorned the facade 
 of the Palazzo Vecchio. 
 
 There are several rooms in the museum set apart 
 for antique needlework and old brocades and costumes. 
 
PART II. 
 
 TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 Zhc Dintage. 
 
 STRANGE fancy has taken the Countess 
 Benveduti this year. She has as many 
 villas scattered through the rich valley of 
 the Arno as she can count on the fingers 
 of her white hands — villas large and comfortable, 
 villas artistic and beautiful ; but this year nothing will 
 please her but to hold her great vintage party in the 
 very oldest and most dilapidated of them all. 
 
 The Villa Vecchia Benveduti — as it is called to dis- 
 tinguish it from the more modern heritages of the 
 family — stands up like a great fortress, with its solid 
 walls of Tuscan architecture and swallow-tail battle- 
 
 II 
 
THE VINTAGE. 163 
 
 ments, on a hill overlooking the southern part of the 
 Val d'Arno, where Florence shines, a heap of palaces 
 and towers on a silver stream. Although no Benve- 
 duti has lived in the Villa Vecchia for a hundred years 
 or more, a long line of their ancestors had made it 
 a home for centuries before that ; and time has been 
 kind to it, for the ancient furniture of carved wood 
 is still solid, and the rich brocaded silk hangings still 
 cover the walls, with their colours softened by the 
 sunny years as they have passed. 
 
 The aroma of the eighteenth century lingers yet 
 about the rooms, where curious old backgammon 
 boards, and ancient cards in painted boxes are on the 
 gilded tables of the Sala, and the portraits on the 
 walls show wigs and embroidered coats ; and where 
 " peruke stands " stretch out empty arms beside the 
 blurred mirrors in carved frames on the dressing- 
 tables, and the heavy canopied bedstead holds its 
 sway in majestic gloom in the chambers. The wigs 
 are worn in a different guise now, and are not so 
 easily hung on a stand at night. 
 
 But to return to the Countess's " Vendemmia." 
 There are wide vineyards sloping down the hills and 
 covering the terraces round the Villa Vecchia with 
 
i64 TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 gracious festoons of vivid leafage, between the dim 
 and dusky olives. Beneath the olives and fruit-bowed 
 peach trees, wave the wide green blades of the maize 
 with its rows of purplish feathers. The podere is 
 a rich one, and has always been famed for its " vin- 
 santoT Of course it would give the Countess a great 
 deal less trouble to have her party at one of her more 
 modern villas, where everything is in readiness to re- 
 ceive visitors ; but she is a lady who delights in a new 
 sensation of any sort, and when she has taken a fancy 
 into her head, does not mind giving any amount of 
 trouble to gratify it. A vintage party pre-supposes 
 a dinner and a supper. The kitchens at the Villa 
 Vecchia are large and cavernous enough to cook for 
 a hundred guests, and the banqueting-hall has room to 
 seat them ; but in the one place, the frying-pans and 
 gridirons have the rust of ages encrusted on them, 
 and the oaken cabinets of the other only contain a few 
 grand old majolica plates and dishes, very fine but 
 not convenient. So for nearly a week past, red- 
 wheeled barrocci — the framework which in Tuscany 
 does duty for a cart — and more cumbrous ox-waggons 
 have been toiling up the hill laden with culinary 
 utensils and table furniture. 
 
THE VINTAGE. 165 
 
 To-day the winding road from the valley shows 
 different travellers : a succession of family equipages 
 with solemn horses and grave coachmen, of open 
 cabs full of English or French faces, of more modest 
 baghere — little chaises drawn by the fleet Tuscan 
 ponies which, though famous for speed, are totally 
 devoid of paces. These latter vehicles bring up 
 stout "fattori" (bailiffs) from the other villas, with 
 their portly wives, whose white bodices are relieved 
 by a wealth of jewellery about them. Long coral 
 necklaces hang on their bosoms, tight-fitting rows 
 of pearls shine round their brown necks, long gaudy 
 earrings quiver in their ears, and rings reach to the 
 middle joints of their fingers. Their daughters are 
 smaller editions of the mothers, with cheeks as rosy 
 as their corals, and eyes as bright as diamonds. 
 They wear their glossy hair piled in coils round their 
 neat heads, and veiled beneath a most becoming 
 mantilla. 
 
 The varied company arrive ; are set down on the 
 great grassy terrace, bordered with a low wall with 
 dilapidated statues on it, which does duty for a lawn ; 
 and here the Countess receives them, giving her hand 
 and cheek equally to the aristocratic visitors and the 
 
i66 TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 buxom fattoresse. The former touch each cheek in 
 a salute ; the latter either do the same, or, with m.ore 
 humility, bend and kiss her hand. 
 
 The Contessine Amalia and Irene, daughters of 
 the hostess, in broad-brimmed Tuscan hats looped up 
 with roses, and white dresses very much flounced, look 
 like the nymphs on a " Ginori " vase, with the pleasing 
 addition of lively manners and bright eyes. 
 
 "Now, you know, you have all come to work,'* 
 laughs the Contessina Amalia to a group of English 
 girls who are sitting on the low wall gazing their fill 
 at the Val d'Arno spread out below them, covered 
 only with the filmy veil of noonday heat. 
 
 " Oh yes ! we are quite ready — only tell us where 
 to go and what to do," exclaims one fair girl. 
 
 " I begin to feel quite classical already at the very 
 sight of those contadini with their antique pails of 
 grapes on their shoulders, it is like one of the idylls 
 of Horace ! " exclaims a young lady in spectacles and 
 short hair, whom it is whispered is a Girton B.A. 
 
 " They look as if they had stepped bodily out of 
 Benozzo Gozzoli's fresco of Noah and his family," 
 says a third who is an art student. 
 
 " First of all, you must call those modern pails 
 
THE VINTAGE. 167 
 
 bigonce,''' smiles Contessina Amalia ; "and next you 
 must be supplied with basket and scissors, for I see 
 you have not come provided." 
 
 " The result of English ignorance, you see," says 
 the Girton girl. 
 
 " Next," went on Amalia, " a cavalier will be neces- 
 sary." 
 
 On this the English eyes open wide — " A cavalier ?" 
 
 " Yes — who is to hold your basket, and run and 
 empty it when full, and pick the grapes above your 
 head and talk to you, and " 
 
 " In fact, do all the work, or help you to play," 
 interrupts the sensible fair girl. " I and the cavalier 
 would find each other bores in a quarter of an hour." 
 
 At this moment Contessina Irene appears from the 
 huge door of the house with a number of pairs of 
 scissors, each hung on red braid, and half a dozen 
 dainty little baskets. The daughter of the fattoressa 
 follows with a pile of baskets of more solid and use- 
 ful form. The sensible English girl immediately 
 seizes the largest of these, and possessing herself of 
 a pair of scissors, which she hangs round her waist, 
 marches off energetically to work without waiting the 
 third of the necessary adjuncts. 
 
i6S TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 "Signer JNIazzadura," exclaims the Contessina 
 Amalia, " will you initiate the Signorina Ellison into 
 the mysteries of grape-gathering. You can at the 
 same time study the mysteries of the English lan- 
 guage and character," she added sotto^ voce, with a 
 mischievous twinkle in her eye. 
 
 Introductions follow briskly, much as in a ball-room, 
 only instead of the stereotyped "May I have the 
 pleasure," &c., the cavalier begs the honour of carry- 
 ing the ladies' baskets. Some girls go off in groups 
 by themselves, the matrons following in pairs ; the 
 paterfamilias generally declines to work in the sun, 
 and lights a cigar in a cool arbour or under a shady 
 pergola, where he talks politics or finance with his 
 compeers. 
 
 " Don't introduce me to any of your forestieri^' 
 whispers a handsome young man to Amalia. " I 
 have reserved for myself the hope of carrying your 
 basket for you." 
 
 "If you promise not to make me idle, you may do 
 so," she smiles ; and they too disappear leisurely after 
 the rest, leaving me alone on the terrace, studying the 
 Italian vineyard in its midday aspect from beneath 
 the shade of a huge, thick-lined parasol. 
 
170 TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 The vineyard beneath me stretches out in ail its 
 luxuriant width and breadth ; there the vine garlands 
 wreath and festoon from apple tree to maple, and wed 
 the olive to the mulberry, for this is one of the old- 
 fashioned poderi, where the straight, low espaliers of 
 the French viniculture have not yet intruded to do 
 away with the careless beauty of the classic vineyard. 
 Every garland is rich with white or purple clusters ; 
 they nestle up in the highest branches, and trail down 
 the tree trunks to the cracked and parched ground. 
 
 Here and there are fields of maize, the wide green 
 blades of which have been stripped off to feed the 
 cattle in the grassless summer months, and the ruddy 
 bunches of corn have ripened in their yellow leafy 
 husks. But not many of these swelling bundles are 
 left in the ground now, for there are rich-coloured 
 piles of Indian corn heaped up on the aja just below 
 me, and the peasant children are rolling about in them 
 as a little diversion from their appointed task of 
 stripping them of their husks. 
 
 The aja or threshing-floor has arched sheds round 
 it, which are filled with red-shafted carts, oil-jars like 
 those in which Ali Baba's thieves were hidden, piles 
 of unwashed wine-barrels tapering at both ends like 
 
THE VINTAGE. 171 
 
 the old Roman ones which held Horace's falernian 
 wine, and a primitive plough or two lying useless and 
 waiting for rain to soften the ground. 
 
 What would English labourers say to the Italian 
 plough ! It is just a piece of the trunk or root of 
 a tree, with a sharp spur or branch on one side which 
 answers the purpose of a plough-share. 
 
 On the low wall of the aja a row of wicker-work 
 hurdles are lying, with a quantity of figs cut open and 
 spread to dry in the sun. Then a succession of brown 
 earthern pans, where a dark red mixture is drying — 
 this is the tomato preserve to flavour the soups and 
 macaroni in the winter. 
 
 The aja, always the centre of farm work, is espe- 
 cially full and busy to-day. An ox-cart has just come 
 up with a large tub, or tino, on it, and in the tino 3. 
 man red to his knees with the blood of the wounded 
 grapes, which he is treading underfoot, and crushes, as 
 the white oxen drag the cart slowly up the hill, their 
 meek heads swaying beneath the yoke, and looking at 
 all who meet them with large pathetic eyes. There is in 
 the eyes of these animals an expression of depth and 
 mystery which recalls to one's mind all the ancient 
 myths, how they lent their form to the gods, and one 
 
172 TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 thinks instructively of lo flying to her Egyptian home. 
 The divinity of Isis and Astarte still lingers in the 
 eyes and horns of these speechless creatures whose 
 heads are bowed to labour. 
 
 The oxen push the cart, with its frothing load of 
 bruised grapes, back into an archway beneath the 
 terrace on which I stand, and soon I see nothing but 
 two white heads, with crimson tassels across the fore- 
 heads, framed in the blackness of a foreshortened 
 arch. 
 
 Down in the podei^e, merry groups of workers are 
 gleaming in the brilliant sunshine. Men in wide hats, 
 bare feet and coloured shirt-sleeves, carry the tall 
 wooden pails called bigouce, filled with grapes, to the 
 large tubs or tini on the ox- waggons in the grassy road. 
 Groups of girls, in gay-tinted skirts and particoloured 
 bodices, cut off the clusters from the festooning vines 
 to fill their baskets, which they empty into the nearest 
 bigoncia. The children fill tiny baskets, and toddle 
 across the rough ground to empty them ; but their 
 bunches are very much mutilated, for it is a part of 
 the ceremony to eat all the time. A sturdy young 
 monkey of a boy, with bare legs, has given himself up 
 entirely to this enjoyment, for he is lying full length 
 
THE VINTAGE. 17: 
 
 under a huge bunch of purple grapes, letting them 
 drop one by one into his mouth. 
 
 And the background to all this classic rusticity \ 
 The picturesque profile of a hill rounding off 
 to the left, with a convent on its summit, a row 
 of cypresses marking its undulating form as it sinks 
 into the valley. Those cypresses stand up darkly 
 against the far-off hills of Monte Morello and Monte 
 Murlo behind — hills of rounded but rugged forms, 
 softened into beauty by tender blue mists in gradating 
 shades. On the right, the white villas which stud the 
 whole landscape seem to gather into a focus round a 
 great dome, just as crystals combine round a nucleus, 
 and the crowded crystals shoot up into spires and 
 beautiful towers in the midst. This is Florence, and 
 all around her are miles of dusky olives, relieved 
 with dark pines and green trees, and softened off 
 into undulating hills. 
 
 Shouts of laughter and snatches of song reach me 
 from below, for vintage is a merry time, and the 
 peasants carol their stornelli gaily as they gather in 
 the ruby harvest. More refined voices sound nearer 
 me, but none of the amateur grape gatherers are to 
 be seen. Where are they all ? We must find them. 
 
174 TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 Immediately below the house is a long pergola, or 
 trellis walk, covered with vines ; smaller shady arbours, 
 equally rich in fruit, branch off from it. It is here that 
 the oruests are assembled, for the real labour in the sun 
 is left to the peasants, and the guests only do a little 
 work in the coolest spots, and the work is as orna- 
 mental as their baskets. 
 
 The Contessa Clementina de' Barbeneri has filled 
 her elegant receptacle, and whiles away the time till 
 some one comes to relieve her of it, by lounging on a 
 garden seat and eating the contents — a convenient way 
 of lio^htenino" her burden. The Enoflish o-irls awake 
 the amazement of their southern companions by 
 really working. The energy with which they snip off 
 the bunches, springing or climbing to reach them, is to 
 the lovers of ease most astonishing. They decline 
 troubling the gentlemen to carry their baskets, but run 
 to and fro and empty them into the tall bigonce, placed 
 at each end of t\\Q pergola. 
 
 The Contessina Amalia has found a more diverting 
 occupation. Her handsome friend has climbed up the 
 trellis, and drops the purple bunches into her out- 
 spread hands beneath. Her uplifted face seems 
 especially interesting to him, and if the grapes drop 
 
THE VINTAGE. 175 
 
 through her fingers now and then it is not to be 
 wondered at. However, not a great deal of flirting 
 can be done, for there are mothers, and aunts, and 
 duennas at all points, as an Italian girl is never 
 beyond strict surveillance. 
 
 A little while later a footman announces that 
 luncheon is on the table, and the grape gatherers are 
 only too happy to move, with a flutter of fans, across 
 the sunny lawn to the shady loggia on the west, for 
 lunch is to be al-fresco. 
 
 The great salone, with its peeling frescoes and cold 
 marble statues, is too sepulchral ; so my lady has 
 chosen to set her tables under an arched cloister, 
 where a frescoed roof keeps off the midday heat, and 
 the carved pillars, wreathed with greenery, admit a soft 
 breeze from the cool shrubbery. The meal is not like 
 an English luncheon ; there is no display of fruit and 
 flowers, creams and jellies, to feast the eyes during the 
 earlier courses, but in their stead are old Majolica 
 •dishes and ancient salt-cellars. The viands are handed 
 round cut up, one dish at a time, till ten or twelve 
 courses have been served. They begin with ante- 
 J)asta, which in this case consists of salame (Bologna 
 sausage) and fresh figs, a favourite mixture amongst 
 
176 TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 Italians. Then comes the soup, next the bouilli. 
 After that a fry, made of various animal and vegetable 
 substances, including melon flowers. Next appears 
 the roast, which, in honour of the English, is called 
 " rosbiffe," and consists of beef stewed in wine to make 
 it more luscious. Then the ztmido, or stew, a tongue 
 dressed agro dolce (acid sweet), i.e., in a sauce consisting 
 of chocolate, currants, pine nuts, lemon, or vinegar, 
 &c., &c., and, believe it who will, a very tasty dish. 
 Then follow the vegetable course, the sweets, the fruit, 
 and lastly the black coffee. At a vintage dinner, how- 
 ever, there is a ceremony which is not to be omitted — 
 the guests must taste every kind of wine made on the 
 podere. 
 
 There is vino rosso, made from the ordinary red 
 grapes ; vino stretto, the first fermentation drawn off 
 before the "must" is put in; and vino bianco, from 
 grapes without fermenting the skins — these have 
 different names according to the podere on which they 
 are grown. Then there are vin santo, a white muscatel 
 wine made from white grapes partly sun-dried ; and 
 Aleatico, a rich red wine, like new and heavy port, made 
 from black grapes of a peculiar flavour. 
 
 This year the peculiar feature is a new beverage 
 
THE VINTAGE. 177 
 
 called Isabella wine, an inspiration of Count Benvenuti 
 to turn to account the Uva Isabella, or strawberry 
 grapes, an American variety lately introduced. 
 
 As each wine has to be tasted and commented upon 
 with compliments to the makers, it may be imagined 
 that the meal takes some time, — so long, that the sun 
 has sunk low enough to admit of walking in the more 
 open parts of the ground, when the guests rise from 
 table. Some of us lounge about on the terrace, 
 others set off in parties down the slope to where the 
 contadini are at work. The scene here is an idyll 
 from Theocritus, or a lyric from Horace. A black-eyed 
 maiden, with white sleeves and red kerchief, stands hold- 
 ing forth her blue apron to catch the bunches which a 
 youth mounted on a ladder throws down to her. Bare- 
 footed girls poise their luscious loads on their heads, and 
 tread majestically across the rugged soil to the tino or 
 wooden receptacle, round which a group of brown- 
 legged children are gathered, laughing merrily as a 
 daring little comrade tinges his chubby hands in the 
 red juice, and while the united strength of two fat 
 babies wields the wooden crusher. 
 
 Three merry girls, clearing a low espalier of its 
 grapes, sing stornelli, and a young man with a classic 
 
 12 
 
178 TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 profile responds, from the heights of a mulberry-tree, 
 with a rispetto. 
 
 Curious to learn what becomes of the grapes after- 
 wards, some of us follow the ox-cart on its next 
 journey to the aja, where we see the contents of 
 the tino bailed out into a large vat placed over a 
 stand, and two men get in to crush the fruit. This 
 process is repeated for fifteen days ; then the vat 
 is left for two days without motion, after which the 
 first wine is drawn off. This is done by taking out 
 the tap near the bottom of the vat, and putting in 
 its place a bunch of heather or broom as a strainer. 
 
 This is the ordinary primitive process as still prac- 
 tised in the country here by all the old-fashioned 
 contadini. I have no doubt Noah was as far advanced 
 in wine making as this. When all the wine is drawn 
 off, the " must," i.e., stems and skins, &c., is put into a 
 strettoio, or press, and the juice thus obtained is called 
 vino stretto, and forms the second quality. 
 
 After the wine is poured into barrels, it has to be 
 '' governatoT Some grapes are saved, of the kinds 
 called colombano, canaj'olo, or even muscatel ; they are 
 boiled and thrown into the barrels. After a certain 
 time the wine is again strained off, put into fresh 
 
THE VINTAGE. 179 
 
 barrels, and kept for use. Some landowners have of 
 late years improved on this primitive method, and 
 make their wine in the more scientific French manner, 
 but the improvement is by no means general. To 
 make the vin santo^ or muscatel wine, the white mos- 
 cato grapes are half dried in the sun and afterwards 
 fermented. 
 
 Towards sundown, shouts from below announce the 
 arrival of the last ox- waggon ; a crowd of workers 
 follow it, some swinging empty baskets, some shoulder- 
 ing empty bigonce, others bearing loads of choice bunches 
 for the Contessa to make presents to her friends. Then 
 the peasant women spread tables on tressles on the 
 aja, and all the workers sit down to a lively meal, the 
 Countess and her guests watching them from above. 
 The quick circulation of straw-covered flasks of wine 
 is so constant, that it gives a sense of motion to the 
 scene. 
 
 No sooner is the pleasant supper over, than the 
 strains of an accordion are heard, and the girls in great 
 haste clear away the impromptu tables, roll the empty 
 barrels under the arches, and sweep the yellow maize- 
 pods into a heap in the corner, and the aja is forthwith 
 transformed into a dancing-floor. Down troop the 
 
i8o TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 guests from above, and the young Contessine give 
 their hands into the clasp of red-handed contadini, the 
 Florentine exquisites choose the prettiest country 
 lasses they can find, and the dance begins. The 
 guests soon leave off, however, and stroll in couples 
 about the grounds till the moon rises and reminds 
 them that the day is over. 
 
 The Countess and her daughters stand on the 
 terrace echoing the last " Such a delightful day ! Good 
 bye," and watch the last carriage roll down the winding 
 road to follow the others, whose lamps look like a pro- 
 cession of glowworms in the far-off plain. The Con- 
 tessina Amalia smiles and sighs to herself as she 
 watches a shadowy horse and his rider melt into space, 
 till it become a mere rhythmic echo. She has gathered' 
 a different vintage. Love and hope have been garnered: 
 in her heart this day. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 Zbc Jfestipal of the 2)eab^ 
 
 Florence, All Souls' Day, Nov. 2nd. 
 
 ROM five o'clock in the morning the 
 bells of the many churches of Florence 
 have been ringing, as numberless masses 
 for the dead are said to-day, it being the 
 Festa di Tutti Morti. 
 
 The religious duties within the city being performed, 
 the city turns out eii masse, to make its yearly pil- 
 grimage to the cemetery at San Miniato. Struck with 
 the peculiarly jovial aspect of the crowd, and the 
 contrast of their festal dresses to the melancholy 
 errand on which they were supposed to be bent — to 
 
iS2 rrSCAN SA'ETCHES. 
 
 mourn and pray over the tombs of departed relatives — 
 we too prepare to do as Florence does, and start forth- 
 with to see how the dead are remembered by the 
 living, in the " city of flowers." 
 
 The bridges over the Arno are crowded by a 
 continuous stream of people all turned towards the 
 cypress-crowned hill on the Oltr'-Arno side, where the 
 grand old basilica of San INIiniato rises white and 
 majestic on the summit. A motley crowd streams 
 over the bridges and through the quaint streets. 
 There are dark-faced Italian employes, evidently 
 enjoying an unwonted holiday ; groups of bright- 
 eyed Florentine maidens, in ultra-fashionable dress, 
 and the inevitable ''duenna" behind them; little 
 knots of black-robed priests with shovel hats, who 
 walk with folded hands and severe eyes ; blue-coated 
 soldiers, or bersaglieri, with flying cocks' feathers. 
 Then comes a family party from the country, a brown- 
 faced peasant with his little boy on his shoulder, and 
 wife at his side, gay in red or yellow kerchief, and 
 carrying in her arms a stiff little bundle, the moving 
 head and arms of which, protruding from the top, 
 proclaim it a baby. Behind them a cluster of contadini 
 girls in the brightest of dresses, and with all their 
 
THE FESTIVAL OF THE DEAD. 
 
 festal jewellery displayed — some wearing seven or 
 eight rows of pearls round their necks, and earrings of 
 enormous size. These jewels form their dote or 
 marriage portion, and descend from mother to daughter 
 through many generations. 
 
 Mingling with this motley company are a few black 
 figures, widows and mothers of the dead, carrying 
 wreaths or crosses of immortelles, or long candles to 
 burn on their tombs. These few dark spots on the 
 mass of motion and colour give the key-note to the day. 
 To them the day of the dead is a sacred feast, hallowed 
 by love and grief, a day passed in memories of the 
 happy time when those whom they go to mourn were 
 walking in life and health by their side. But we 
 cannot grieve for ever, and the new mourners are but 
 few among the many on this bright November day. 
 Some children are dancing merrily along with rings of 
 everlastings in their hands inscribed " To my Brother," 
 or " Sister mine," and they evidently think themselves 
 favoured beyond their little friends who have no 
 wreaths. One child just in front of us says to another, 
 "Who is your garland for." 
 
 " For mv aunt." 
 
 "Ah!" replies the first, "mine is more than that, it 
 
THE FESTIVAL OF THE DEAD. 185 
 
 is for my own mamma." And she displays in evident 
 pride a hard yellow garland, with " Madre mia " 
 written on it in black immortelles. 
 
 Here and there rolls by the carriage of a Contessa 
 or Marchesa carrying her to the Requiem Mass ; and 
 walking slowly are some bare-footed Franciscan friars, 
 and one or two members of different sisterhoods in 
 white wimples, with rosaries in their clasped hands. 
 
 On winds the gathering stream through the narrow 
 streets, out under the dark arches of the Porta San 
 Miniato and up the steep hill, called the Via Crucis, 
 which leads to the great cemetery. It is bordered at 
 intervals with shrines of the seven stations, at each 
 ■of which devout Catholics say a prayer. 
 
 This morning every shrine is crowded by beggars, 
 who collect from all parts for this day. There are 
 blind beggars, lame, dumb, deaf, and dwarf beggars ; 
 beggars without legs who have a peculiarly swift and 
 original mode of locomotion ; beggars begging for 
 themselves, and some begging for other beggars. 
 
 On the summit of the Via Crucis are two churches. 
 The smaller, the church of the Franciscan Friars, with 
 their convent adjoining, on whose door-step may 
 generally be seen a group of poor people bringing 
 
1 86 TUSCAX SKETCHES. 
 
 their empty platters to get them filled for a meal by 
 the monks. Higher up stands the great basilica of 
 San IMiniato. with its inlaid marble front and glittering- 
 mosaic with gold ground, which is improved from an 
 ancient Lombard building erected b\- the Emperor 
 Henry II. and his wife, Cunegonda. in 1013. To reach 
 this we enter a dark gateway, roofed over and adorned 
 with several large iron extinguishers. This is the 
 ancient Ivch-Q^ate where the bearers rested the bier, 
 and the extinguishers were, and are even now, used to 
 put out the torches of the funeral processions. 
 
 We pass out into the precincts of the cemetery and 
 enter the orreat church bv the Porta Santa, so called be- 
 cause the body of the martyr S. Miniato was discovered 
 herein, and the dedication of Cunegonda's church was 
 changed and took his name instead of St. Peter's. 
 One's first impression was of a surging crowd swaying 
 about in dangerous proximity to lighted candles, for 
 the floor is strewn with tombstones, and on all these 
 are wreaths and burning tapers. The crowd takes 
 care of itself, and as nobody dreams of pushing, one's 
 fears of conflagration wear oft' in time and we dare to 
 cast our eyes around. The church is magnificent in 
 form and design. Two rows of marble columns 
 
THE FESTIVAL OF THE DEAD. 187 
 
 support the nave and aisles ; at the east end two flights 
 of marble steps lead to the upper tribune, and a wide 
 stairway descends to the crypt beneath, which has 
 remains of the ancient Lombard architecture. On the 
 tribune is a wonderful "ambone " in carved marble, with 
 the exquisite colours of " purple antique," the most rare 
 of ancient marbles. The dome of the tribune is covered 
 with a fine gold-grounded mosaic of Christ with St. 
 John, St. Matthew, and San Miniato, dating from the 
 eleventh century ; and beneath this five windows of thin 
 slabs of Oriental alabaster, through which the light of the 
 morning sun passes with a soft opaque radiance. The 
 choir in the tribune is filled with priests and choristers 
 in their carved oak stalls, and they respond in deep 
 harmonies to the priests in gorgeous robes performing 
 the mass for the dead at the high altar. There is 
 a very busy little acolyte who seems to think himself, 
 the chief performer, and on the step of the very altar 
 kneels a poor woman, who continually crosses herself^ 
 and when the priest moves near her she takes the hem 
 of his garment and softly kisses it. We are touched 
 at the sight with the memory of another woman in the 
 days when Christ was on the earth, and wonder has 
 this poor creature come here for healing by faith too. 
 
1 88 TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 In the crypt or under church are many relics ; the 
 tombs of S. Miniato and other martyrs are there, and 
 a niche in the wall contains the blood of some martyrs. 
 In the left aisle there is a certain chapel which con- 
 tains a changing crowd the whole day. Here is the 
 tomb of Cardinal Jacopo di Portugallo, and his epis- 
 copal chair. The tomb is the work of Rossellino, and 
 very exquisite sculpture it is ; the chapel is decorated 
 with lovely blue and white medallions by Luca della 
 Robbia. But the q-eneral crowd does not o;ive its 
 attention to these masterpieces — it is entirely directed 
 to the chair of inlaid marble, which every one who 
 comes in kneels and kisses ; some seat themselves 
 solemnly in it for a moment, with hands in the attitude 
 of prayer. We ask a man why this should be. He 
 rubbed his head and shrugged his shoulders, but did 
 not exactly know, only 'twas a holy relic. A woman 
 was better informed, and she told us that a prayer 
 or a kiss offered there gave the penitent so many 
 days' indulgence, i.e., so many days off the time 
 allotted to purgatory after death. The mass is over, 
 the organ has ceased rolling its waves of sound through 
 the arches, the crowd in the nave gently parts asunder, 
 and the whole mass of priests, acolytes, choristers, &c., 
 
igo TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 bearing lighted candles, passes in procession down the 
 steps, through the nave, and out at the Porta Santa 
 to walk through the cemetery. Their chanting voices 
 ring out on the clear air from the cypress-crowned hill, 
 and mingle with the worldly sounds and the tolling of 
 bells which come up from the city, whose towers and 
 domes are gleaming down below across the glittering 
 Arno. It is so old-world and artistic, that one might 
 make a poem of it were it not so marred by the little- 
 ness of humanity mingling with all. The bare-headed 
 priests chant and pray for peace to the souls of the 
 dead, who lie so silent beneath the sod on all sides of 
 them ; and the atoms of living humanity called boys go 
 side by side with the solemn procession, fighting each 
 other over the wax which drops from the candles as 
 they pass by. One little bully frightens away a girl 
 whose hand is held beneath a guttering taper, and 
 then takes the very piece of falling wax for himself. 
 Chief amongst them is the energetic little acolyte, 
 who with a solemn face possesses himself of wax right 
 and left, hides it all in the breast of his full white 
 ephod, and folds his hands devoutly over. 
 
 The whole wide cemetery is full of people. On the 
 inscribed slabs which form a pavement on each side 
 
THE FESTIVAL OF THE DEAD. 191 
 
 of the path are mourners kneeling and praying amid 
 the lighted candles flickering in the wind, and the 
 efforts to keep these alight, alternate spasmodically 
 with the fervency of their prayers. Every grave is 
 decorated according to the taste of the mourners, some 
 with real flowers, exquisite but fleeting ; the greater 
 number choose a more lasting, if inartistic, form of ex- 
 pression, and hang up frightful bead frames or hard 
 rings of yellow and black everlastings ; some put a 
 ghastly framed photograph ; and a favourite adorn- 
 ment is a iron imitation flower, painted, in an iron pot. 
 Tinted wreaths of flowers in tin are also frequent. 
 Great variety exists also in the monuments, among 
 which there is a good deal of sculptural art. 
 
 There is a terrace raised up over the colombaria, or 
 graves in wall cells, and from here a marvellous view 
 of the whole cemetery, with its surging crowd of 
 priests and processions ; vendors of cakes, sweets, and 
 cigars ; girls with mass books and rosaries in one hand, 
 fruit in the other ; weeping mourners, and jesting 
 young men ; bereaved mothers and wives bewailing 
 for those who are hidden from them by the cruel 
 marble slab ; and light-hearted girls with all their 
 thoughts warm for the hopes of the future love. Life 
 
19- 
 
 TL'SCAy SA'ErCIIES. 
 
 and death, and death and life, contrasted side by side in 
 a hundred different guises. 
 
 And down below the hill of the dead, beautiful 
 Florence, with the bridge-spanned Arno flowing 
 amidst its towers and palaces. And that, too, speaks of 
 death and life — a nation has died, and a new nation is 
 growing to strength and power. And farther off are the 
 mountains, veiled in golden mist, which seem to speak 
 of the everlasting. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 Ht the Batbs. 
 
 HE Italians like to take their pleasures as 
 they do their penances, in a concentrated 
 form. They bring a mass of social gaieties 
 to a strong focus, surfeit themselves 
 with balls, concerts, "Fieri," and " Corsi " for a few 
 weeks, and call it " carnival." They crowd all the 
 penances and fastings and sermons into the Lenten 
 season, and then take no more thought till next year. 
 
 On the same principle, ladies receive all their calls 
 on one day of the week, and live in homely solitude in 
 Xh^iY peignoirs for the next six days. 
 
 Sea-bathing subjected to a like process becomes 
 compressed into the short space of two months, when 
 
 13 
 
fo .■• . .V, K '^1 
 
 ir' 
 
 
 11 
 
 h-y .■:'''^:H, -'-i'lll!:, ,„, ,,1)111 
 
 Ib 
 
 jj^ 
 
 It-f! 
 
AT THE BATHS. 195 
 
 as many ephemeral dissipations as possible are crowded 
 toorether on the seashore. Not an Italian who can 
 afford his yearly sojourn at the baths, even if it be only 
 a fortnight, will miss it ; but not one would dream of 
 taking it in June or September, when he might obtain 
 greater benefit at half the expense. No ! To the 
 Tuscan mind Neptune's temple is only open for a 
 limited time, and everybody must crowd to worship 
 him simultaneously — i.e., in July and August. 
 
 To our English ideas this seems inconceivable. 
 During those two months the scorching rays of " Sol 
 Leone " render the sands a burning desert, the sea is as 
 warm as the hot air above it, and the close lodgings 
 too stifling to endure. Of what use is a month at the 
 seaside to us if our children cannot dig in the sands, 
 and our boys and girls take long walks, seaweed and 
 sea anemone hunting ? 
 
 Italian dolce-far-niente requires none of these things ; 
 given an awning over his head, a boarded platform 
 under his feet, one, two, or three chairs to sit or lie 
 upon, a caff^ and billiard-room close at hand, and time 
 to enjoy it all, a Tuscan is supremely happy. 
 
 One advantage of the tideless sea is, that one is 
 enabled to have fixed edifices for bathing. At Leg- 
 
196 TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 horn, where the shore is rocky, the baths are formed 
 of terraces running out into the sea, in the way which 
 PHny describes them to have been at Baia. These 
 terraces are covered with large awnings, and people 
 sit and work, or read the whole day with the water 
 lapping round their little artificial island. Some of the 
 terraces are lined on both sides with tiny dressing 
 chambers, each with its own awning stretching out like 
 a hood into the sea, so that if preferred the bath can 
 be taken in entire privacy. This advantage be it said, 
 is only appreciated by the elderly, or those /^i'5'/ devo- 
 tees of fashion whose beauty depends on the arts of 
 the toilette. The young and active prefer to disport 
 themseves in the little artificial bays, or even to swim 
 out into the open sea. 
 
 At Viareggio, another favourite Tuscan bathing 
 place, where the shore is wide and sandy, the baths 
 are all built on piles. In the winter the shores look 
 like a submerged forest of dead pines ; in the summer 
 there are ball-rooms, caffes, terraces, shops, and dress- 
 ing rooms, all raised airily above the waves of the 
 blue Mediterranean. Being so high above the water, 
 there are no enclosures to each bath as at Leghorn, 
 but every room is supplied with a trap-door and 
 
TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 wooden steps, and privacy is only to be obtained by ■ 
 remaining in the dark waters amidst the piles. Between 
 the baths and the Marina (a long row of new houses, 
 small and exorbitantly dear during the season) is a 
 Sahara, a sandy waste that has the power of absorbing 
 the heat to a wonderful extent. 
 
 Viareggio is a kind of debatable ground between 
 Neptune and Tellus. The sea recedes yearly, and as 
 it draws back, the houses and gardens advance. The 
 ex-Marina becomes Via Ugo Foscolo, and a new 
 Marina thrusts its lines of little balconied, persiani 
 decked houses halfway between it and the sea. One 
 year the sands are wide, the next season they are 
 transformed into gardens of aloes, tamarisks, oleanders, 
 and other silicious vegetation. Rising behind the 
 town are the giant forms of the Carrara mountains, 
 which, though steadfast and immutable as to form, 
 clothe themselves in ever changing mists and shadows, 
 giving an endless variety to the monotonous plains of 
 marshy land and pine forests spread at their feet. 
 
 Now, having glanced at our surroundings, let us 
 take our work-baskets and sit at the Baths, while 
 we study our neighbours. Here is a little vacant 
 space ; we seek empty chairs to fill it, but as all the 
 
A T THE BA THS. 
 
 earliest comers take two — one as a chair and the other 
 as a table and footstool — we have a long search 
 amongst the crowd before we are seated. This is the 
 assembly balcony, and reaches quite out into the sea. 
 Linen awnings, bound with scarlet, wave in the breeze 
 around us, and the whole space is filled with family 
 and friendly groups, little knots of chairs drawn 
 together in circles. The ladies are employed in dainty 
 fancy work, or occupied in active use of that excuse for 
 idleness — the fan. Elderly gentlemen read their news- 
 papers or talk politics, while the young ones lean over 
 the balustrade to watch the bathers, or manoeuvre to 
 get an introduction to the belle of the season. 
 
 The " Bagni da Mare " must be a good time for 
 the modistes, for dress and fashion appear to be 
 the objects of existence here. Quiet ladies who at 
 home are unobtrusively dressed, come out at the 
 seaside in three or even four complete costumes a 
 day. Monsieur Worth would be alternately filled with 
 envy and paralyzed with horror to be suddenly set 
 down amidst the wondrous toilettes that congregate 
 here. Look at that stout dark woman with an oilskin 
 sailor hat which would suit her youngest boy. She 
 has a talent for originality, for over her dress of blue 
 
TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 linen she has made a tunic of a long fishing-net, with 
 a twine fringe wound in such mysterious coils, and 
 passes around her portly person, that she seems a fish- 
 woman entangled in her own net. Her daughters are 
 also supplied with sailor hats, sailor collars, pea jackets, 
 with large brass buttons ; and her boys are miniature 
 " man-of-war's " men. Next to this naval group of 
 women are three or four sisters, neither young nor 
 pretty. They have done their best with limited 
 means to appear at the Baths in due splendour, by 
 donning their old ball dresses of the past carnival. 
 
 Near them is an elegant Russian princess, lounging 
 in her Lucca chair, surrounded by a group of satellites. 
 Her toilette is the most exquisite compound of lawn 
 lace and embroidery, fresh, yet soft and filmy ; a 
 gipsy hat, with a lace handkerchief tied round it, 
 is the only ornament of her head. Dos a dos to 
 this piece of elegant simplicity is a mass of blue 
 flounces, bouillons, pouffs, bows, knots, rosettes, but- 
 tons, lace, fringe, — in fact, enough raw material to make 
 three costumes all crowded into one. Of course the 
 hair which belongs to this marvel of complex needle- 
 work is powdered, (gold dust does not suit Italian com- 
 plexions) and frizzed, and curled, and plaited. This 
 
A T THE BA THS. 
 
 remarkable person does not affect fancy work ; but she 
 plays with her parasol and fan, and smells a bit of gera- 
 nium, till a young man, of a dandy appearance, with 
 an exaggerated style of dress, begs it of her with many 
 compliments ; and another, with tight boots and blue 
 necktie, brings her a rose in its place. 
 
 Here is a proud mother with three pretty daughters, 
 all so fresh with their white pique dresses and black 
 velvet bows, and two or three lively young fellows pre- 
 tending great interest in the mysteries of tatting and 
 lace working. One even tries to learn frivolitd, and 
 gets his awkward hands curiously entangled with those 
 of his pretty teacher, as he makes Gordian knots 
 instead of sliding ones. 
 
 The season at the Baths is the young girl's delight. 
 She is kept so closely under surveillance in ordinary 
 life, that until her parents find her a " sposo " she lives 
 the life of a recluse. But for these happy weeks she 
 •enjoys all the sweets of flirtation and admiration, and 
 very often saves papa the trouble of finding an " occa- 
 ■siojie " for her, by falling in love before marriage like 
 an English girl. 
 
 What with the mornings at the Bath, the evenings 
 on the Molo, or on the public promenade, and the 
 
202 TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 balls in the assembly rooms every night, this charmed 
 fortnight or month glides by only too fast, and when 
 all the pretty toilettes are worn she goes home very 
 reluctantly. 
 
 Here comes a soi-disant artist. He has devised a 
 costume which will announce the fact to the world at 
 large, and appears in a pleated grey blouse with a loose 
 waistband, a Tyrolese hat worn jauntily and adorned 
 by an eagle's feather, emblematic of his high aspira- 
 tions, a sketch-book lives habitually under his left arm, 
 and his huge walking-stick has a knack of developing 
 unexpectedly into a camp-stool when he finds a subject 
 worthy of his sarcastic pencil. This " fop of the 
 brush " is a caricaturist, and people say he is making 
 his fortune at the Baths this year. Here is his method. 
 A clever sketch or caricature of some well-known 
 habitiid is hung up in a conspicuous place and ticketed 
 "25 francs." If the subject be flattered, he or she, or 
 her admirers, gladly purchase ; if, on the contrary, the 
 unfortunate object be rendered ridiculous, she, or her 
 nearest relatives, hasten to buy, as the only means to 
 escape unenviable notoriety. 
 
 He is a wise man and sure to make money who 
 trades on the weakness of others. 
 
A T THE BA THS. 205 
 
 Another favourite amusement at the Baths are lot- 
 teries, or what we call raffles. Here is a man with a 
 large basket of fruit, peaches, figs, pears, and grapes. 
 Going in and out among the crowd with a printed 
 lottery paper of ninety numbers, he soon gets them 
 filled up at 2>^ centesimi each (3d.). Near us is a 
 group of ladies and some gentlemen, one of whom has 
 just been introduced as Signor Conti. 
 
 He declines to take a number, saying he never 
 wins anything, but one of the young ladies proposes 
 that he should put his name and she will choose the 
 number. Of course he complies, politeness forbids, 
 him to do otherwise. 
 
 An hour passes, when the man reappears with the 
 fruit, saying, " Signor Conti has won ; can you tell me 
 where he is ? " 
 
 "He is gone away, but there is his wife," replies 
 one of the bystanders. 
 
 The lady indicated sits in the centre of a large 
 group of friends, with her children around her. 
 
 " The Signor, husband of your excellency, has won 
 this," announces the man, setting down the basket on 
 a vacant chair in the midst. 
 
 Signora Conti reading her husband's name on the 
 
204 TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 card unsuspectingly accepts the gift, gives the man a 
 small "buona mano" (fee), and, with effusion, presses 
 all her friends to partake. 
 
 The children are all liberally helped, and content 
 shines on their little faces, when up rushes the father, 
 -snatches the very grapes from their hands, exclaiming 
 hastily — 
 
 " Giulia cara ! there is a mistake, this is not ours ! " 
 
 Here is a catastrophe ! 
 
 Madame Giulia stays her liberal hand with a look 
 of horror, glances at her friends, of whom one is 
 transfixed with the last mouthful of a pear in her 
 mouth. Another instinctively holds out her hand to 
 restore, but, alas ! only a bare peach stone is there. 
 Two more look disconsolately at the naked ramifica- 
 tions which were erst bunches of grapes. 
 
 Husband wrings his hands, looks appealingly round. 
 
 " But, Enrico ! " demands his wife, "if it is not yours, 
 why is your name on it ? " 
 
 " Because I won it, to be sure." 
 
 " Oh, then, it is all right ! Why did you alarmi us 
 so ? Pray continue. Take some more," she adds, 
 offering the unlucky fruit to her friends. 
 
 " No, it is not all right. I won it for a lady ! " 
 
A T THE BA THS. 205- 
 
 Now ensues a storm in a teacup. Wife does not 
 even know the lady, and becomes an avenging goddess 
 on her side. Husband escapes the storm by carrying 
 off the fruit on his part. Wife sits down rigid and 
 white among her friends. Signor Conti returns with 
 the basket, — 
 
 " Take it ! " he exclaims ; " Miss S. refuses it." 
 
 " Carry it back," ejaculates Madame in majestic 
 scorn. " I refuse to take what your Miss S., whoever 
 she is, leaves." 
 
 Unfortunate husband makes two or three frantic 
 journeys, till a sensible mutual friend introduces Miss 
 S. to Madame ; explanations ensue, and the whole- 
 reinforced party eat the grapes in peace. 
 
 So much for the amusements of the elders ; the 
 children do not find it a time of unmitigated pleasure, 
 or rather wotdd not, were they English children. The 
 sands are there to dig in, but the sun is on them like a 
 fire all day; and, besides, Italian "lusso" (stylishness) 
 does not admit of the toilette being disarranged by 
 play. 
 
 The little belles — in all the glory of spotless muslin,, 
 lace and embroidery, earrings and necklace, and costly 
 ribbons, low frocks and patent-leather shoes, or white 
 
2o6 TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 kid boots, fan in hand, and a ludicrous expression of 
 self-content — are set on a chair with the ribbons and 
 lace well spread out, and here they sit listening to all 
 the nonsense talked by their elders, or, if they are 
 near other children, compare and criticise each other's 
 finery. In the evening they are re-dressed in finer 
 lace and embroidery, often with silk stockings and 
 white gloves, and taken to the Baths, where a children's 
 ball precedes the dance with which their elder brothers 
 and sisters invariably end the evening. 
 
 Poor little children ! at eight and nine years be- 
 ginning the frivolities of society, instead of the healthy 
 ^ames of childhood. No wonder they look like little 
 men and women — sallow and melancholy. 
 
 The boys are slightly better off than the girls, for 
 they do a little mild fishing over the balustrades of 
 the baguette, but they are under the same dread of 
 soiling their clothes as their sisters, for have not their 
 mothers and aunts spent much time in covering their 
 ^'tussore" knickerbockers with red and blue braiding, 
 or their velvet suits with braid lace till they look like 
 dressmakers' models ? 
 
 Now and then a family party pack up their work 
 and move off to the side corridors, on each side of 
 
A T THE BA THS. 207 
 
 which are the dressing-rooms. This is always a busy- 
 scene. Here are eager girls urgently demanding a 
 room, and waylaying the bath-women as they go by 
 buried under a pile of sheets and bathing costumes. 
 Here are portly ladies standing at the doors of 
 dressing-rooms, vainly calling for the man to come and 
 mop the floor ; here are the children restless with 
 anxiety to get a good splash in the shallow water, 
 where they will feel a few degrees cooler and have no 
 frocks to spoil. At last they are suited with rooms ; 
 the green doors shut, and, instead of the stylish figures 
 that have disappeared above, certain shivering, bare- 
 footed nymphs descend the damp steps from the 
 flooring of one room, and two or three brown-skinned 
 young savages plunge off the steps of the next, 
 and the family are re-united. The Signora and Sig- 
 nore are content to cling to each other, or to the ropes, 
 and dip placidly in the warm water ; but the youths 
 and maidens dive and swim, and " fanno la morta " 
 (make a corpse), as they call floating, to their hearts' 
 ^ content. And what swimmers they are, these little 
 dark-eyed girls ! With their hair fully dressed, and a 
 rough straw hat on (sometimes the more careful hide 
 their tresses under an oilskin cap with a scarlet ruche 
 
aoS TC'SCAA' STCDIES, 
 
 round it), with their gold bracelets gleamini^- on their 
 arms, wnth a becoming sailor blouse and drawers, 
 bright with white braid and buttons, they are much 
 more natural in the \\"ater than on land. Look at 
 that handsome girl ; she swims like a sea nymph. 
 Not at all in the English fashion, which reduces all 
 swimmers to a unifomi likeness to a frog, but she just 
 reclines on her side in the water, and, waving her 
 arms like \'ivien weaving magic spells, keeps pace 
 with her vigorous brother. This side swimming is a 
 new method, and combines great speed with decided 
 elegance. 
 
 There is one Q-allerv" devoted lo smaller dressing- 
 rooms, without pink cambric and muslin toilettes, and 
 having only one open staircase from the balcony^ 
 which runs in front of all the rooms. This gallery is 
 devoted to single gentlemen. At the further end. in 
 a spot visible from the promenade balcony, is a long 
 projecting plank, about five feet above the sea. 
 Here young Italy indulges its acrobatic tendencies. 
 Muscular young figures, in eccentric ** tights." run along- 
 the plank, form classic silhouettes against the blue sky 
 for a moment as they get up an impetus by swaying, 
 then splash a somersault into the waves. Here goes 
 
A T THE BA THS. 209 
 
 an ancient Briton in blue jersey, with the sun and 
 moon on his back ! There leaps backwards an old 
 Egyptian, all stripes ! A yellow Indian makes a ball 
 of himself, and turns twice as he falls. Then one 
 pretends to be dead, and lets his friends roll him along 
 the plank till they kick him into the water. Now 
 come three at once, and form a pyramid one on the 
 other's shoulders, and all commit mock suicide to- 
 gether. 
 
 After this energetic diversion the youths will 
 emerge, wrap themselves in their sheets, and, lighting 
 their cigars, will enjoy themselves in an Arab guise, 
 leaning over their own balustrade. 
 
 The favourite masculine amusement is the "skate 
 canoe." Two parallel bars of wood are united by 
 one or two raised seats ; on this doubtful bark a 
 party of young men will paddle out half a mile, now 
 tumbling off, now swimming behind, now mounted on 
 the top, till they look like uncivilized beings in the 
 days of the flood. Here comes a boat with a party 
 of bathers, returning, wrapped in their drying sheets, 
 and they look like the mysterious souls in Charon's 
 ferry-boat. 
 
 Half an hour later you might see both the ante- 
 
 14 
 
TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 diluvian savages and the ghostly souls decorously- 
 dressed in broadcloth and playing a game of billiards. 
 
 At about two o'clock the Baths become completely 
 empty, and do not fill again till evening, when the 
 crowd comes back in renewed splendour, to dance, to 
 flirt on moonlit balconies, and eat ices as they listen 
 to the band, or to show off their musical accomplish- 
 ment by performing on the piano in the assembly 
 rooms. 
 
 From eight to nine the children are allowed to 
 dance, which they do with all the aplomb of their 
 elder sisters. Now and then crops up a bit of nature 
 that is quite refreshing amid the artificiality. Here 
 is a little maiden who looks like an illustration in 
 a French fashion-book ; she has spread out her sash 
 and her embroideries with so much care that they 
 extend to the next chair. Enter a fresh little English 
 girl and takes the vacant seat on the spread fineries. 
 Little Italia, with a " Scusi, Signorina, you might 
 have a little regard for my poor sash ! " draws it away 
 and smooths it tenderly. 
 
 "If you want to take care of it, you should keep it 
 on your own chair," retorts the matter-of-fact little 
 " Inglese." 
 
A T THE BA THS. 
 
 Presently a mutual friend, In the shape of a dark- 
 eyed boy in velvet knickerbockers, takes the English 
 child to the dance. Italia frowns and pouts in solitude, 
 yellow ribbons can no more console her, convention 
 fades from her narrow little soul, nature takes posses- 
 sion of it, and she jumps up, rushes into the circle of 
 waltzers, pulls the astonished Inglese from the arms of 
 her partner with a fierce " Now it is my turn ; Gianni 
 must dance with me." 
 
 Close by, a stylish mamma is trying to induce an 
 overgrown boy to dance with her tiny sprite of a girl. 
 He looks down on her with supreme disdain, saying, 
 "" Che ! what shall I do with her, shall I put her in my 
 pocket ? " 
 
 Tiny sprite half begins to cry, but shrugging her 
 shoulders turns away with a " Che vuole ! he is only a 
 schoolboy though he is so big ; here is Luigi, I shall 
 dance with him,'' while the tall boy, with his hands in 
 his pockets, coolly walks off to find a girl of his own 
 size. 
 
 At nine o'clock the little people begin to find them- 
 selves danced down by their elders, and by degrees 
 give up the ground. The lamps are brilliantly 
 lighted ; the piano, which kind aunts and elder 
 
212 TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 sisters have been playing, gives place to a string 
 band. 
 
 Chaperons and escorts make a goodly array of wall- 
 flowers on the red divans which surround the assembly 
 rooms, and the ball begins in right earnest. Young 
 men who have friends here find partners at once, but 
 those who know nobody have to hunt up some chance 
 acquaintance to introduce them. One of the prettiest 
 girls has taken a fancy to sit among the elders this 
 evening, and has refused half a dozen partners in 
 succession. 
 
 " Why, SIgnorina Veronica, you always dance so 
 much," says a lady acquaintance ; " why do you refuse 
 this evening ? " 
 
 " Because I am affianced," replies Miss Veronica, 
 without the slightest confusion. 
 
 " Indeed ! I congratulate you. Since when } is it 
 a ' buon occasione ? ' " (good match) asks the friend 
 eagerly. 
 
 " It was settled last night. My sposo is Signor 
 Tigretti of Leghorn. He heard of me from a friend 
 of papa's and thought I should suit him, so he came to 
 see me on Tuesday. Papa liked him and the matter 
 was settled at once, as he found my dote sufficient^ 
 
AT THE BATHS. 213 
 
 We were engaged last night and he went away this 
 morning ; but he returns on Sunday, then I will intro- 
 duce him to you." ^ 
 
 All this is said in a matter-of-fact tone — the girl 
 seems quite proud of her new dignity ; but our Eng- 
 lish mind is lost in astonishment at her courage in 
 risking her whole future in the hands of a man she 
 had only seen for one day, and the cheerfulness with 
 which she immediately gives up the girlish pleasures 
 she has so thoroughly enjoyed for the sake of this 
 stranger. 
 
 The lady who made the inquiry, espying through 
 the maze of dancers her daughter accepting an in- 
 eligible partner, hurries off with " I must go and look 
 after Elvira," and with a patent excuse takes her from 
 the very arms of her partner. Elvira pouts, but must 
 obey ; mamma, however, consoles her with proposing 
 to go to the balcony and have an ice. A combination 
 of pine-apple ice, a moonlit sea, a.nd a forthcoming 
 partner in uniform, soon combine their irresistible 
 charms in smoothing Elvira's frowns. Meanwhile it 
 is highly probable that papa in the billiard-room is 
 listening amicably to matrimonial overtures for her 
 
 ^ A fact. 
 
2 1 4 TUSCAN SKE TCHES. 
 
 from a stout middle-aoed man who has made a fortune 
 in castor oil and orris root, and Elvira's dancing days 
 at the Baths are doomed. 
 
 So the evening passes, and by eleven the crowds 
 have dispersed to their various abodes, the lights are 
 out, and quiet reigns at the Baths ; where the waters 
 lap gently round the piles, and the moonlight makes 
 weird black shadows, till with daylight the airy struc- 
 ture is filled with life again, and the bathing, flirting, 
 envy, delight, scandal, flattery, dancing, and display 
 begin afresh. 
 
 But we must not leave ViareQ-crio without a o-lance 
 at the Capanne or huts. The legitimate Baths only 
 occupy half the length of the sands facing the town. 
 Some original mind wishing to escape the " fashion " 
 of the Baths once built himself a hut with straw 
 hurdles, where he could enjoy the sea. and escape the 
 sun in peace. 
 
 Now, half a mile of the shore is lined with these 
 wigwams, and they are quite as much frequented for 
 bathing purposes as the more costly and decorous 
 Bagnetti. Walk down this part of the sands, and you 
 feel as though you have left Belgravia to plunge into 
 savage life. Here maidens, sitting on little wooden 
 
AT THE BATHS. 215 
 
 Stools under a thatched tent, dry their dishevelled 
 locks. There a group of young savages in simple 
 costume of bathing drawers and jerseys, run in and 
 out of the waves, and roll themselves in the sand in 
 delightful freedom. 
 
 A shivering girl emerges like Venus from the 
 waves, and runs barefoot and dripping across the 
 sands to her dressing hut, or her attendant waits her at 
 the water's edge and envelopes her in the sheet like 
 as with a cloud. 
 
 Tall manly figures fold their damp limbs in their 
 sheets, and stalk to their huts with the dignity of Arab 
 chiefs in their duj'nozcs. Children sock and shoeless, 
 paddle in the shallow water, and dig in the sands to 
 their hearts' content, under the shadow of the wigwam. 
 This is half a mile of earthly ground in which Mrs. 
 Grundy dares not meddle ; here " what is proper " 
 gives way to " what is comfortable ; " but to the 
 fashionables at the Bagnetti, the Capanne are as if 
 they did not exist, so completely do they ignore them. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Ube 6io6tra; ox, ©pen^Hir pla^s 
 in the Hpennines* 
 
 The Nook, August i^th. 
 
 OR some days we have been asked by our 
 mountain neighbours, " Are you going to 
 the Giostra at Riobujo ? " and we are 
 much puzzled what these jousts can be. 
 The name is suggestive of the Middle Ages, but as 
 Giostre in Italy have never been known since the 
 Medici revival of them in the fifteenth century, — when 
 both Lorenzo and Giuliano de Medici won laurels at a 
 tournament, and their respective poets laureate, Politian 
 and Luca Pulci, sang their praises, — the mystery re- 
 
2i8 TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 mains obscure, and we must go to Riobujo to solve it. 
 This village with the grandiose name " dark river," is 
 a cluster of peasants' houses near the top of a pass 
 over the Tuscan Apennines ; the dark river resolves 
 itself into a mountain stream running deep in a wooded 
 gorge near. If there are any remnants of the past 
 lingering on in attenuated old age anywhere, we may be 
 sure to find them up in the remote mountain regions ; 
 therefore, full of curiosity to see what semblance the 
 Giostre at Riobujo bear to the chivalresque jousts, we 
 start in a calesse, on the day of the festa, for a long 
 drive up the pass. The calesse is a vehicle on two 
 wheels, with a rope net instead of a foot-board, and a 
 wooden seat slung across on leather straps. The 
 shafts — which are merely the cart frame continued, 
 without hinges — are fastened up high to a kind of 
 Spanish mule-saddle above the horse's back. The 
 ■capacity of a calesse for jolting may be imagined from 
 this — ^it can never be described. 
 
 As we toil slowly up the ascent, winding round 
 clefts and projections in the wooded hills, and skirting 
 fresh valleys, we overtake several walking parties, 
 whole families of peasants in festal dress : young men 
 in groups of six or seven, and young women in gay 
 
THE GIOSTRA. 219 
 
 kerchiefs and coral necklaces, fluttering their fans as 
 they stroll. 
 
 Now and then a group disappears from sight, plung- 
 ing under the flickering shadows of the chestnut trees 
 to take a short cut, and comes out far before us at a 
 higher turn in the zigzag road. We all meet together at 
 length at Riobujo, where a great crowd is assembled. 
 It begins to dawn on us that the "Giostra" is not a fight,, 
 but a drama, for in front of a row of two or three houses 
 a rough platform Is erected level with the first-floor 
 windows. This primitive stage (which is very similar 
 to one I have seen represented in an old engraving of 
 an Anglo-Saxon play) is adorned at the two corners 
 with evergreens and flags on the supporting pole, 
 and draped along the whole length of the back with 
 quilts ! They must have made a general collection 
 of the counterpanes of the village ; there are white 
 ones with fringe, brown home-woven quilts, and ancient 
 green and yellow ones hung on a line as if to dry. 
 More quilts are suspended from the stage to the 
 ground, making a screen to the prompter who stands 
 on a table below the stage, his head and shoulders 
 appearing above it covered with a cowl, made of a 
 clever conjunction of willow sticks with an old yellow 
 
220 TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 shawl. The gallery of this primitive al fresco 
 theatre is naturally formed by stone steps and a 
 sloping ground rising to the level of the road in front 
 of the houses. A clean-swept aja or threshing- 
 floor has been roofed with evergreens stretched on 
 poles, and forms the reserved boxes to which we are 
 with great ceremony shown. We make use of our 
 waiting time to gain some information respecting 
 Giostre, and learn that one or the other of the neigh- 
 bouring villages holds one nearly every year, giving 
 three representations on three following feste. The 
 actors are all natives of the place except two from 
 Cutigliano. The old peasant had no idea why they 
 were called Giostre, unless because there was generally 
 some fighting in them. 
 
 " Ah ! " said a young man, " if you could have seen 
 ours at Piteglio last year ! We had the Emperor 
 Constantine fighting for Rome with Maxentlus, when 
 he saw the cross in the air. There were the Turks 
 in it, all as natural as life." 
 
 What the Turks had to do with Constantine and 
 Maxentius is a matter of conjecture, but it seems 
 necessary for the Italians to connect the Ttirks with 
 any ancient war, their idea of history being evidently 
 
THE GIOSTRA. 221 
 
 bounded at its remotest era by the Crusades. There 
 might be also a special connection of Turks with the 
 Giostre on account of the Giostra al Saracino spoken 
 of above, and that in its turn would seem a natural 
 outgrowth from the Crusades. 
 
 We hear that Semiramide is to be represented, and 
 are morally sure that the Turks will be in Nineveh. 
 
 Attention ! the orchestra enters. Two youths em- 
 bracing antique, stringed instruments pass through 
 the audience, disappear beneath the quilts under the 
 platform, reappear between those above, and, taking 
 seats at the back of the stage, wipe their faces previous 
 to performance. One has frizzy hair which compels 
 his hat to stay curiously poised on the back of his 
 head ; he has very prominent eyes, and an expression 
 which would be melancholy if it were not vacant. 
 They begin a curious jig movement with a tum-tum 
 accompaniment, by way of overture ; the frizzy youth 
 sawing away at his " viol-da-gamba " like a butcher 
 sawing a bone. The violinist tucks a handkerchief 
 under his chin, ostensibly to save a bright red necktie 
 from friction, and, turning up his eyes, plays his instru- 
 ment with as much energy as is compatible with the 
 simultaneous consolation of a cigar. A sound 01 
 
322 TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 drums and trumpets in the distance ! a shout of 
 ^' Eccoli ! " a rustle among the crowd ; all the women 
 who were nursing their babies comfortably on the 
 steps are disturbed, and fourteen or sixteen performers 
 march through the audience gleaming in coloured 
 satin and tinsel. They disappear behind the screen, 
 and the audience settles down in breathless expec- 
 tation. 
 
 Of course there is a prologue, for is it not the ancient 
 Roman custom ? This is carried out quite in the 
 classical way, as Terence says it should be. The 
 prologue expounds the plot, and is spoken by a youth 
 who is not an actor. A kind of herald enters solo ; he 
 is dressed in rose-coloured plush, slashed with green, 
 a yellow sash and a turban of feathers, in the American 
 Indian style. In one hand he holds a bouquet, and in 
 the other a lady's embroidered pocket-handkerchief! 
 He gives out the plot of the coming play, telling the 
 audience in couplets, set to a curious pentatonic chant, 
 what they shall see, each line ending with a long 
 croon. It seems a tone come up from the remote 
 past, and quite carries out Carl Engel's theory of the 
 ancient scale being pentatonic, i.e., five notes, leaving 
 out our fourth and seventh, which gives a curious 
 
THE GIOSTRA. 223. 
 
 minor cadence. There are just these five minor notes, 
 and no variation is made on them the whole time. 
 This is the way in which the prologue is spoken. 
 The herald, standing at the left end of the stage, 
 croons out a couplet with an agonized expression of 
 countenance ; then the violins play a few strains while 
 he walks the whole length of the stage smelling his 
 flowers ; he gives another distressed couplet at the 
 extreme right, again retraces his steps, still smelling 
 his flowers, and repeats the operation so long that it 
 is a relief when the clown comes in and abuses him for 
 disturbing his slumbers. 
 
 Now the drama begins in right earnest, for Ninus 
 enters, preceded by his sword-bearer and followed by 
 his soldiers, who according to our prophecy are 
 Turks, for they wear the crescent ! We might fancy 
 the half-moons an emblem of Astarte or her Ninevite 
 predecessor, were they not the adornment of turbans, 
 and accompanied by Turkish jackets and trousers. 
 As for Ninus, he has a red velvet cloak richly 
 trimmed with silver tinsel, and a crown of towers 
 (like that of " Italia " on the national paper money) 
 mounted on the top of a pink tarlatan turban. 
 
 There is a general darkness and veiny roughness 
 
224 TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 about the hands of the performers, and a certain 
 villainous expression in their features, which gaudy 
 costumes have a knack of bringing out on honest 
 working faces. The seams worn on a countenance 
 by hard labour, take the appearance of sinister 
 wrinkles when set in an incongruous costume. As 
 there are no drop scenes the action is continuous ; 
 one set of actors disappears and the other appears 
 between the curtains the whole time. There is of 
 course a rival king at war with Ninus, and the good 
 arrangement is made that one comes forth always on 
 the right, the other on the left, so that the audience is 
 not confused as to which side they are listening. It 
 certainly is a little surprising that having discovered 
 Turks in the army of Ninus, we should also behold 
 them in that of his rival — but there they are ! That 
 glorious army is composed of two Turks and two 
 nondescripts, who have the hats of jockeys, the frilled 
 trousers of ddbardeuses at a Florentine "Veglione," 
 and some wonderful embroidered jackets suitable to 
 the Giaour or the Corsair. A great many scenes are 
 taken up by the missions of ambassadors to the rival 
 courts, each of which appears in its turn till war is 
 declared, and the young general Almiro protests he is 
 
THE GIOSTRA. 225 
 
 ready for death in the service of Ninus. In ancient 
 history Almiro figures as Onnes. 
 
 Place aux Dames! Enter Semiraniide with the 
 general. Her costume is curiously modern ; she 
 wears a red silk skirt and Roman stays of black 
 velvet, a silver chain large enough to adorn the 
 Lord Mayor, while on her head is a common black 
 straw hat with a bunch of blue and yellow flowers in 
 it, and a black lace fall projecting from its wide brim. 
 Till now the whole drama has been solemnly chanted 
 to the same five weird notes with a croon at the end 
 of each line. The feminine method of declaiming is 
 different ; she sings the same chant in a shriller key, 
 with a shake, a quaver, or a turn ad lib. on each note ! 
 
 We wonder whether the ancient Roman plays were 
 sung to a pentatonic chant. It is known that those 
 of the early Italian poets were recited in tone ; the 
 Semiramide of Metastasio was intended to be suno- in 
 this way. It might be a remnant of the old Saturnian 
 canto which Micali (" Popoli Antichi," vol. ii. ch. xxiii.) 
 describes as a species of irregular iambic, without any 
 other laws except a certain sonorous rhythm adapted 
 to singing. The Canto Fescennino, or Fescennian 
 song, was alternate, and still survives in the mountains 
 
 15 
 
226 TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 in the alternate singing of the Stornelli amongst the 
 contadini. Whatever its origin, it is possible that in 
 this rude chanting recitation we have the prototype of 
 the Italian opera. ^ 
 
 It is soon evident that we are not listening either to 
 Metastasio's mild poetical version of Semiramis, or to 
 Rossini's grand but wicked plot ; nor yet exactly to the 
 orthodox story given by mythologists, although it ap- 
 proaches nearer to this than any. The contadims 
 Semiramide is a different person altogether. She 
 might be masculine, even cruel, but they maintain her 
 conjugal virtue. She has a husband, and is faithful to 
 him to the last ! That husband is the young general 
 Almiro, whose destiny she laments, and begs to be 
 allowed to share, by going with him to the war. This 
 affecting scene is regulated by the same etiquette which 
 marked that of the herald ; two couplets are spoken on 
 the left, then the pair follow each other to the right of 
 the stage, there to chant the next verse. 
 
 Then ensue several more political intrigues. The 
 
 ' The founder of the opera was a certain Ottavio Rinnuccini, who 
 wrote two musical dramas. The first, " Daphne," was performed in 
 the Palazzo Corsi in 1594; the second, " Euridice," in 1600, at the 
 marriage of Maria de' Medici with Henri IV. of France. Jacopo 
 Peri set both these primitive operas to music. 
 
THE GIOSTRA. 227 
 
 general gives orders of war to two officers ; a spy 
 hears all that passes, and informs his king, who appears 
 to make counter-schemes on the right. The dulness 
 of these war tactics is enlivened by the clown, who 
 comes and volunteers his services with a sieve in his 
 hand, saying, " lo per cento vaglio solo." A comic 
 pantomime of sifting grain gives point to this joke, 
 the word vaglio meaning both " sift," and "to be 
 worth." 
 
 " Now we shall see the Giostra," says the audience, 
 and truly in the next scene fighting begins. Two 
 armies of five men in each draw up in front of each 
 other, the muffled drums beat, the two generals chal- 
 lenge in chanted couplets, of which we can only hear 
 on one side the words, " dolce invito " (sweet invita- 
 tion"), and on the other something about "hopes of 
 cutting you in pieces " — which sound rather contradic- 
 tory. The insulted king advances, still chanting his 
 defiance in the same weird tones ; the other replies in 
 perfect rhythm. It reminds one of Homer's heroes, 
 who always speak good poetry when they attack their 
 enemies. Thus singing they advance, cross swords 
 three times, retire, and thrust at the air ; this goes on 
 over and over again, the time crescendo, till Semiramide, 
 
22S T(/SCAiY SKETVNESs 
 
 in a cuirass and helmet, rushes in, Hko Minerva on 
 Achilles, and, pulling- away her husband from tho ranks. 
 takes his place, with such otToct that the oncnn gives 
 way, and the rival king humbly hands over his crown 
 and sword to her : on which her husband, who had 
 stood calmly in the background. con\es forward to 
 upbraid her with taking his pkice — whicl\ shows a 
 ver}* manly ingratitude on his part. 
 
 In the next scene Almiro brings his ca[>ti\ os to the 
 kino- Ninus, who makes the rival kiui: his iribuiarv. 
 and restores him his crown and sw ord. 
 
 Almiro recounts his own " coraggio ed arte." .uid his 
 wife's good fortune : on which N inus makes .i very 
 original proposal lo take Alniiro's wife tor queen, and 
 give him his daughter instead. The daughter st.uuls 
 by the throne, a tall girl in yellow and blue satin. .n\d 
 crown of red feathers, and does not seem at all horrit'ied 
 at this proposition. 
 
 Great excitement ensues. Almiro cries. " T.ike my 
 life, but not my wife ; '" the girl begins. " Padre amato." 
 but is told by Ninus to be silent. Almiro proving 
 obdurate, his arms are taken, and he is banished. 
 Several scenes are occupied b}' embassies to Semi- 
 ramide, who refuses all overtures, and goes to seek 
 
'///A h J' J ■■//■' A 229 
 
 her husband. The king flings away his royal mantle 
 and crown, and follows her. 
 
 It would take too much were we to follow all the 
 scenes of this prolix drama. Suffice it to say, Almiro 
 dies, or seems to die, and Semiramide weeps over him 
 by applying her handkerchief to the outside of the lace 
 veil. After which she abuses Ninus, telling him " he is 
 more cruel than Xero," a curiously prophetic saying 
 from a Ninevite queen. Next she marries Ninas to 
 gain from him the promise of a day's supreme power, 
 wlii^h, as soon as she has adjusted the crown on the 
 top of her hat, she uses by ordering the guards to put 
 Ninus to death. lie AJls in \\v: midst of a torrent of 
 entreaties, on boin;.^ pointed at l^y two long swords. 
 'I'll': d;i,ijghter swoons, and is drawn out of sight behind 
 the curtain, and the king awaits his burial alone. 
 
 Till now the drama, though to us comic from its 
 incongruities, has not been at all a burlesque. This 
 scene, however, is decidedly meant to be comic, whether 
 it be from the Italian inherent dislike of solemnity and 
 pain I do not know, but the effort was certainly made 
 to take away the horror of death by making it a farce. 
 
 'V\v: (Jown, in a bluf- cowl, and bearing the Italian 
 /lag instead of a black on':, comes in, followed by four 
 
230 TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 men in white cowls. These place Ninus on the bier, 
 where his arms stand out on each side stiff and stark. 
 The requiem is sung in the usual chant, the words only 
 being original : " Tibi, Tibi, tavi ! sei morto, perche 
 non hai piu fiato " (" You are dead because you have 
 no breath in you "). The processions consist in turning 
 the bier round and round till they are all giddy, and 
 the audience bursts into a chorus of laughter. It is a 
 curious fact that in ancient Rome the buffoon (mimic) 
 was always a personage in the funeral processions of 
 great persons, so perhaps this is not meant for burlesque 
 after all. 
 
 After a few more minor scenes, the daughter appears, 
 fainting in her chair, from beneath the quilts, just as 
 she made her exit. Waking up, she begins to abuse 
 Semiramide ; after which she makes a passionless and 
 business-like effort to kill herself with a dagger, but the 
 ambassador, who has been too busy with the affairs of 
 the state all the time to do more than look at her, now 
 rushes forward, pulls the dagger out of her hand, and 
 gives her the pleasant alternative of marrying him 
 instead of espousing death, which she, smiling Serenely, 
 with her arms akimbo, accepts forthwith. This scene 
 might have been too touching had not the clown saved 
 
THE GIOSTRA. 231 
 
 the sensibilities of the audience by exclaiming, " L'avevo 
 fatta mia" ("I wanted her myself"), and, tumbling down, 
 rolls out like a ready-made mummy. The queen ulti- 
 mately finds her spouse, and, in token of welcome, gives 
 vent to her feelings in countless shakes on her five 
 minor tones. He tells his adventures, and she relates 
 hers ; after which she arranges the crown on his head, 
 and places him on the vacant throne, to the detriment 
 of Ninus's royal mantle. The crown is some trouble 
 to him, till he goes behind the scenes to have it 
 adjusted with twine. 
 
 The old enemy crops up again : the tributary king 
 refuses to pay tribute, and war is again declared. 
 Almiro goes forth with his crown on the top of his 
 helmet, and Semiramide dons her armour. The chal- 
 lenge is given in pentatonic numbers, the Italian flag 
 waves in the hands of the Ninevites' standard-bearer, 
 and the rhythmic battle is carried on in the same 
 methodical manner as the last, and with the same effect. 
 The tributary king hands his crown to Semiramide, 
 who returns it ; all his men give up their swords, and 
 receive them again, on which they all shake hands, and 
 the drama is over. The clown executes a />as seiiL 
 The herald appears with bouquet and handkerchief. 
 
7 //A GJOS'J RA. 233 
 
 and speaks the epilogue, in the same manner as the 
 prologue, only with this difference, that now he tells 
 them what they have seen, and then he informed them 
 what they would see. He moralizes, shaking his 
 agonized countenance and drawling out his verses, till 
 the clown makes an end of it by proposing a dance, and 
 the whole dramatis personce are soon threading the 
 mazes of the " Trescone," a national Tuscan dance, in 
 which the clown does wonders of agility, and the king's 
 crown has to be dispensed with, the dance consisting 
 in much winding of the arms above the head. 
 
 So that is what the chivalresque name of Giostra is 
 given to In these degenerate times in sunny Italy ! Yet, 
 through all its crudities and absurdities, there is a strong 
 reminiscent interest. One seems taken back a few 
 hundred years in the world ; the wooden stage is not 
 only like the scaffolding at Blackfriars, round which an 
 open-mouthed crowd listened to the " Merchant of 
 Venice" and "Hamlet" in the days of Shakspeare, 
 but is like the wooden platform which was used in 
 Rome and Etruria before the great theatres, whose 
 ruins we know so well, were built. On such a platform 
 the plays of the Tuscan tragedian Voltumnio, men- 
 tioned by Varro, might have been acted on these very 
 
234 TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 Tuscan hills. On such a stage the more ancient 
 Atellan plays might have been performed when first 
 introduced by the Oscans. Micali speaks of the Atellan 
 plays as being burlesque farces, where the manners and 
 customs are exposed with that characteristic natural- 
 ness which pleases the people. The favourite comic 
 characters were Macco and Bucco (Maccius and 
 Buccius), the prototypes of the modern Pulcinello and 
 Arlecchino. 
 
 There is a scenic representation of these characters 
 acting in company with a serious performer on the 
 walls of Pompeii. 
 
 It would be interesting to know if these classic 
 comicalities have anything to do with the buffoon who 
 takes the tragedy out of every scene of the Giostra of 
 Semiramide. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 ^be Mushroom Merchants in 
 the Hppennines. 
 
 HE dampness of the rains coming in the 
 warm season, has produced a most prolific 
 crop of mushrooms. The people of the 
 Nook and of Piteglio are making fortunes, 
 according to the mountain idea of riches. I was told 
 that at Piteglio the joint profits of this year have been 
 several thousand francs. The mushroom season just 
 comes in between the wheat harvest and the chestnut 
 gathering, and if the season be good, it is nearly as 
 profitable as the other crops. Whilst the men are 
 threshing corn on the ajas, or digging up the ground 
 with the huge adze which does duty for a plough. 
 
MUSHROOM MERCHANTS IN THE APENNINES. 1^7 
 
 the women, girls, and boys get up at sunrise, and 
 wander about the chestnut woods in search of fimghi.. 
 If you wonder at the strangeness of their garments, 
 know that it is considered lucky to wear one's clothes 
 inside out on a mushroom excursion. 
 
 The contents of their baskets on their return would 
 also astonish you considerably, for the Italian edible 
 mushrooms are many, and brilliantly coloured ; they, 
 however, reject our English edible species as a toad- 
 stool, and we were threatened with dire disasters when 
 we persisted in cooking some fine specimens. 
 
 The favourite kind here is the Ceppattello, a 
 large brown fungus, with a greenish white spongy 
 substance beneath. 
 
 The largest specimens are cut up (stalk and all) by 
 housewives, and after being dried in the sun for some 
 days, are put into paper bags and preserved dry for 
 winter use ; the little button-shaped ones, called some- 
 times " porcini," are chosen as the best to preserve 
 under oil, after having been put into boiling vinegar 
 and then dried. They make a very good condiment. 
 to eat with the lesso (bouilli), or with cold meat. 
 
 Another very savoury mushroom is the Ovolo, 
 a large handsome fungus, orange red above, prim- 
 
238 TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 rose yellow beneath. It is called ovolo. or egg- 
 shaped, because it comes up in an oval form covered 
 with a thick white lilm, through which the yellow part 
 rises and expands, the white film being transformed 
 into a frill round the stalk. Then there are certain 
 carmine red tiat-topped finig/ii, with yellow rays be- 
 neath, called by the mountaineers fa!nig-/io/L and the 
 Claviari, which look like branches of coralline ; the 
 ^rifoh, a mass of fan-shaped fungus, of a dark or 
 grey colour ; this is so hard that it is not eatable 
 unless it is first boiled and then baked. But the 
 species w^hich most suggests poison to our English 
 minds, are large yellow masses of soft substance, 
 called also grifolc, or more correctly poliporo, some of 
 which are yellow of the most brilliant colour, and 
 •others which the peasants call Lmgua di castagno 
 (chestnut tongues), of a bright carmine. All the last 
 four species grow on chestnut or oak trees, springing 
 from the bark. 
 
 The mushroom merchants are doincr a brisk busi- 
 ness this year. They come round to all the villages 
 and hamlets every morning, and buy up all they can 
 get, piling them on a large cart in flat baskets one on 
 the other, to sell to the wholesale dealers. When 
 
MUSHROOM MERCHANTS IN THE APENNINES. 239 
 
 only one merchant arrives he makes his own price, 
 and it is a hard bargain for the villagers, who only get 
 about four or ^w^i centesimi (less than a halfpenny) 
 per lb. 
 
 This morning an impromptu market is established 
 on the aja of Pietro, and a most amusing scene it is. 
 About twenty women from neighbouring hamlets 
 stand about, each guarding her baskets of funghi, and 
 oh ! good luck ! two rival merchants. There is the 
 usual keen-eyed man from San Marcello, and a care- 
 for-nought style of youth who has come down from 
 Prunetta to do a little business. This fellow has 
 black eyes and a mass of ugly black hair, which re- 
 quires much shaking and thrusting back under his hat. 
 He wears a pink shirt and blue tie, and smokes a 
 meerschaum pipe which does not at all interfere with 
 the freedom of his speech, for he talks incessantly. 
 
 There is fierce bidding between them, the young 
 purchaser recklessly promising more than his rival, 
 till he had raised the offers from four centesimi a lb. 
 to six-and-a-half. Here the elder man prudently re- 
 tired from the contest, saying that he could not get 
 that back for them in P""lorence. 
 
 Accordingly all the women flocked eagerly to the 
 
240 TUSCAN SKETCHES. , 
 
 youth from Prunetta, who began weighing their 
 baskets very wilHngly on his steel-yard, which these 
 itinerant buyers carry about with them. He would 
 willingly cheat them in the payment, but is kept to 
 his bargain by his rival, who, having no purchases, 
 stands by to see fair play. A brisk trade continues 
 till the elder man shoulders his scale and departs, 
 when lo ! what a Babel ensues. 
 
 " Now hark ye, donne" cries the buyer, "these are 
 not real prices, you know. I only paid high to keep 
 him out of it," pointing to the departing rival, " but 
 the market price is five centesimi, and not one more 
 cent will I pay." 
 
 Great excitement ensues. All the women lift up 
 their voices shrilly, and the appellations they bestow 
 on him are not remarkable for politeness ; they sur- 
 round him in a crowd, shaking their fists in his face, 
 till he retreats to the wall, where he takes off his hat, 
 and, pushing back his curls, awaits the lulling of the 
 storm. 
 
 "It is not fair ; you cannot bargain for one price 
 and pay another ; you paid Enrichetta six-and-a-half 
 a lb. and you shall pay me the same," exclaimed a 
 stout angry woman. 
 
MUSHROOM MERCHANTS IN THE APENNINES. 241; 
 
 " I shall go to Piteglio with mine, and you shan't 
 have an ounce of them. I would rather give them to 
 an honest man than sell them to you." And up goes 
 a large basket on the frizzled head of a red-haired girl, 
 but it comes down again on her friends reminding her 
 that she will only get four-and-a-half centesimi there, 
 and have all the trouble of carrying them a mile. 
 
 "Then I'll sell them to the other man, he offered 
 five-and-a-half" She rushes off, followed by two or 
 three others calling, " O Giorgio, come back ! come 
 back!" 
 
 Giorgio, who had not really gone away, strolls back 
 in an unconcerned manner, and coolly inquires, 
 ''What is up?" 
 
 "That birbone won't give more than five centesimi 
 now, so we will let you have them at five-and-a-half" 
 
 •' Ah ! " says he, " but I am not going to give more 
 than five either." Sig. Giorgio was a student of 
 human nature, and seeing that the women were too 
 angry with his rival to deal at any price, he knew he 
 might make his own tariff now. 
 
 " Oh ! that's too bad, you offered five-and-a-half just 
 now," cried our nice little Matilde. 
 
 " Just so, but you would not deal ; now he has 
 
 16 
 
242 TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 changed his mind, and so have I." and the mushroom 
 merchant laughs sardonically. 
 
 In despair the Avomen consult together. "Shall 
 we go to Piteglio ? perhaps the man from Pistoja is 
 there," asks one. 
 
 " No, he isn't ; there is only Lulgi il Pazzo buying 
 there to-day." 
 
 " Besides," adds a third, " he only pays five centcsimi, 
 and we should have all the walk besides." 
 
 " My basket is heavy, I shall lighten it here." laughs 
 the red-haired girl, showing all her white teeth. 
 
 The others follow her example, and the remaining' 
 stock is weighed and haggled over to the very last 
 ounce of yellow ovoli, but the merchant is very much 
 at a loss for small change to pay his many clients. 
 
 So little accustomed is he to any but the very 
 
 dirtiest of paper money, that when T changed 
 
 a five-franc note into bright new silver half-francs, 
 he looked quite incredulous, and asked whether they 
 were good ! 
 
 We were told by one of the women that the people 
 of Piteglio — a village in which there is neither butcher 
 nor baker — have this year gained several thousand 
 francs by their mushrooms, the joint gathering of the 
 
MUSHROOM MEkCIfAN'/S IN Till: A/'JlNNINES. 245 
 
 village being nearly 3,000 lbs. a day. It is a blessed 
 provision of Providena- that in these regions, 
 where, by reason of the mountainous nature of the 
 land, agriculture is both difficult and unproductive^ 
 that the chief means of sustenance are drawn from 
 nature alone, and man only has to gather. The 
 chestnuts supply him with food for the whole winter, 
 the woods and hedges give into his hands mushrooms,, 
 bilberries, and raspberries enough to make up the few- 
 francs which are necessary for his clothing. 
 
THE PRIEST S VISIT, 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 H ni^ountain jpuneraL 
 
 "The Nook," August yth, 1885. 
 00 R old Beppa, handsome Domenico's 
 mother, has been for many months pass- 
 ing slowly Into the realms of death. A 
 winter cough and spring weakness have, 
 by the time that the summer heats arrived, changed 
 into utter prostration. When we arrived at The 
 Nook we found her sinking, and all the beef-tea and 
 wine we could supply only restored her for a little 
 
 time. Even the doctor whom T insisted on 
 
 sending for declared his inability to do anything at 
 this late stage. Sometimes the weak heart caused 
 a species of fainting, and this her family invariably 
 mistook for death. Then her youngest daughter, 
 
246 TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 Emilia, was despatched post haste to the neighbouring 
 village for the priest, for a good mountaineer does not 
 think a doctor at all indispensable in severe illness, 
 but the idea of dying without the priest would be 
 dreadful to him. So the priest came sometimes before 
 daybreak, sometimes at nightfall, when he generally 
 had to stay all night in the comfortless cottage ; but 
 though he duly said prayers for her and laid his stole 
 on the bed as a ^wn that she died in the arms of the 
 Church, yet time after time Beppa came back to life 
 again. For days the good priest scarcely dared to 
 leave home lest a call to The Nook might come ; 
 but after several fruitless alarms he decided not to 
 neglect any more the outlying districts of his parish, 
 and so he departed for Riobujo. Scarcely had he 
 gone than Emilia came flying across the valley to 
 fetch the priest, for " mother was really dying ! " The 
 consternation in The Nook was dreadful when she 
 rushed back with the news that the prete was away 
 for the day ! What was to be done ? She could not 
 be allowed to die without prayers and candles ! So 
 all the hamlet was roused. Giulio Bettoni — as the 
 greater scholar and nearer to the priesthood, on the 
 strength of having been an acolyte in his boyhood — 
 
A MOUNTAIN FUNERAL. 247 
 
 brought his mass-book, and, with his Sunday coat on, 
 walked solemnly down the village to Beppa's house. 
 All the women donned \}^€\xfesta dresses and hunted 
 out the ends of wax candles they had saved from 
 funeral processions, and assembled round the bed of 
 the old woman. Giulio read the prayers for a passing 
 soul with a high monotonous voice, and the women 
 stood with their lighted tapers all round the bed of 
 the darkened room. The married daughter from 
 Mammiano, who had only arrived this morning, was 
 weeping at the head of the bed, and with trembling 
 hands held a crucifix before her gasping mother. The 
 two younger ones were weeping in the next room. 
 Her husband, the bearded Pietro, had hidden himself 
 out of the house, with the usual Italian instinct of 
 •avoiding any disagreeable emotion. The good son, 
 who had been the best and most tender nurse of all, 
 still kept his place on her left, and, now wiping the 
 dews off her forehead, then waving a fan to keep the 
 flies away, gave his whole heart to easing the pains 
 of his mother. 
 
 Such was the scene that the " Signora," as the 
 villagers call the English lady, came upon one 
 morning. She knelt down solemnly with the rest; 
 
248 TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 but when, as usual, she put her hand on the dying- 
 woman's pulse, she found that death was not so near 
 after all — the faintness was passing. 
 
 "You can wait for the priest, after all," she said; 
 *' Beppa has quite a strong pulse." 
 
 " But look at her face, Signora ; she is dying," said 
 Giulio, half closing his book. 
 
 "She has one of her heart attacks, but it is passing;"" 
 and the Signora, putting a spoonful of her broth to the 
 lips of the patient, found it swallowed, and repeated It,, 
 till she said faintly, "Grazie, Signora, I am better again 
 now." 
 
 Domenico pressed the hand of the visitor, and 
 went softly away to get over the revulsion of feeling. 
 Giulio shut his book, the women blew out their 
 candles, and went one by one away, to put on their 
 working garments and go to the fields. 
 
 At last there came a day when she recovered no 
 more from the faintness ; but the priest was there, and 
 the faithful old soul was led by him to the brink of the 
 dark river. 
 
 August 8///, 1886. 
 
 Interment follows death very quickly In Italy, and 
 this evening the corpse, which has been surrounded 
 
A MOUNTAIN FUNERAL. 249. 
 
 by lighted tapers and watched by faithful friends all 
 night, is now ready for burial. It lies on the table of 
 the cottage room, dressed in its best print gown and 
 brightest kerchief, and a crucifix clasped in its hands. 
 
 Domenico and his sisters are weeping around, and 
 neighbour after neighbour comes in to look seriously 
 on the still, worn old face at rest. Outside on the aja^. 
 the poor old bent " Atropos" sits on the low wall and 
 shakes her palsied head, murmuring that " it was her 
 turn before Beppa's, and that she ought to have beerk 
 called first." Then she sighs, "Ah! why does not 
 God want me too ? " 
 
 The children of the villa have spent all their 
 morning in making a cross of flowers, which looks 
 quite important when finished, and the two elder girls 
 find some black veils and white frocks, and depart ta 
 join the procession. 
 
 We go to the old church of the Pieve, and from the 
 outside pulpit are able to watch the procession the 
 whole way across the valley. The Pieve — which lies 
 half way between The Nook and Piteglio, its mother 
 parish — is a rendezvous for others besides ourselves. 
 From our exalted situation up the pulpit steps we see 
 a little knot of people assembling beneath the spread- 
 
250 TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 ing chestnut just below us. There are a number of 
 men in their fustian working clothes, and of boys with 
 jackets or without, and every one carries a little white 
 bundle under his arm. One very old man carefully 
 puts his white bundle as a cushion on a large stone, 
 and sinks down tired out. " Oi ! Oi ! " he exclaims, 
 ^' my poor old legs won't carry me any more. It will 
 be my turn to be carried to the Campo Santo next." 
 
 " Here they come !" cries a boy, pointing to a string 
 of white figures coming down the woodland path from 
 Piteglio, on the other side of the little valley. Then 
 •ensues a general stir and flutter, all the white bundles 
 are shaken out, and lo ! they turn into ephods, with 
 which every man girds himself, and instead of a knot 
 •of shabby-looking peasants, they seem transformed 
 into mediaeval saints. A very dirty old man forthwith 
 becomes a venerable pilgrim — the ragged little children 
 are cherubs clad in celestial white. There is a large 
 assembly of women and children, and the mothers are 
 very busy putting white shirts over the tiny breeches 
 of the baby boys in lieu of the girded ephod. 
 
 Then comes the priest with the black banner grimly 
 ■decorated with skull and cross-bones, and a long file of 
 white-robed men following. All the assembly beneath 
 
A MOUNTAIN FUNERAL. 251 
 
 LIS falls into rank, and the whole company march, like 
 the white penitents of days gone by, amidst the corn, 
 and are lost in the shadow of the trees round The 
 Nook, where they are gone to fetch Beppa. 
 
 After a time, a distant sound of chanting and a 
 glimmer of lights tell us that the procession is coming 
 back. As it draws near, the women in the path and 
 on the green in front of the disused church sink on 
 their knees, with their babes in their arms and little 
 girls clinging to their aprons, and we do the same. In 
 front come 130 white-robed men and boys in couples, 
 in diminishing file, till they end in tiny toddles hand- 
 in-hand. Then the priest and his acolytes chanting ; 
 next the two girls from the villa, with a little child 
 between them carrying the floral cross uplifted ; then 
 the bier carried by men in white ephods, and accom- 
 panied by eight women in black veils carrying candles; 
 then more women with tapers. 
 
 Nothing can be more lovely or poetical than this 
 long procession of simple peasants through the winding 
 paths of the cornfield, down the valley where the 
 evening sun tints their white robes rosy red, and 
 next across the bridge into the deep shadows of the 
 dark wood on the other side, and then toiling with 
 
252 TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 laboured steps up the steep street to the church. It 
 is like an acted allegory of the soul's passage through 
 life and death. 
 
 The bells ring ^' a doppio',' a stormy pealing all 
 together ; the church is reached, and the black cloth 
 cover being removed from the bier, the assembled 
 crowd take their last look at the quiet old face, while 
 the priest reads the prayers and sprinkles her with 
 holy water. Then the tapers are extinguished, and 
 the last journey is made to the Campo Santo, where a 
 coffin awaits. She is tenderly lifted in and nailed 
 down, and deposited in the newly-dug grave. 
 
 Two friends of the family, who followed behind the 
 procession with mysterious little baskets on their arms,, 
 according to custom, now go about among the crowd 
 giving pennies to each white-robed person, and to the 
 holders of candles. All this is Domenico's g€nerosity,. 
 for he will not stint his last expense for his mother. 
 Many of the intimate friends return the money after- 
 wards, but most of them keep it. Domenico and his 
 friends keep vigil in the empty house, the daughters 
 fly to their neighbours for comfort and consolation — 
 and so poor old Beppa has passed out of our lives. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 H jflorentine Hftarket 
 
 Parisian aspect. 
 
 Florence, 1884. 
 OLD Florence is fast disap- 
 pearing. The characteristic 
 I narrow streets, where the mid- 
 day sun only shines down 
 through an irregular sky-line 
 of picturesque eaves and gar- 
 goyles nearly meeting over- 
 head, are, one by one, being 
 widened into grand, new 
 streets which take a gay 
 Grim old palaces put on new 
 
 faces, and only their general solidity and name pre- 
 
254 TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 serves the aroma of antiquity. Now a square, iron- 
 beamed market-place has arisen, which is to substitute 
 that quaint, bewildering, parti-coloured, semi-mediaeval 
 conglomeration of human life and curiosities which 
 has for century on century been the mercantile heart 
 of Florence. The old market, and its twin sister the 
 Ghetto, are both doomed to destruction — they are, in 
 fact, to be offered as a sacrifice to the modern deity,. 
 " Hygiene." It is right and just that this should be 
 so, but before they disappear from our midst some 
 slight picture of the old Florence, which will never be 
 seen again, should be preserved. The Ghetto and 
 Mercato Vecchio stand side by side, a mass of lurid 
 tenements, with black walls and small windows, piled 
 story upon story in narrow streets almost cavernous 
 in their darkness, and propped house against house by 
 flying buttresses high in air and gloomy archways 
 nearer earth. Among these dismal abodes are larger 
 and more imposing houses, with remains of ancient 
 towers, and sculptured arms and ensigns of extinct 
 guilds on their time-worn fa9ades : these are the old 
 palaces where the potentates of the Middle Ages and 
 the rich burghers of the commonwealth lived in state, 
 for this district which is now given over to squalid 
 
A FLORENTINE MARKET. 255; 
 
 poverty was once the very city of Florence. There 
 is this difference between the last fate of what we have 
 called twin sisters — the Ghetto keeps all her abject, 
 mysteries shrouded from the light of day, for no one 
 dares to penetrate her gloomy cellars and the cavernous, 
 alleys which hide in these days, not the despised Jews, 
 but all the wretched, hopeless population whose doings^ 
 morally and actually, shun the light of day ; while the 
 old market close by is still the chief artery of moderni 
 life, and is crowded from morn till eve with a never 
 ceasing stream of buyers and sellers. In the Ghetto^ 
 are squalid old men and women who have never seen 
 the sunlight, and who look on rain as a strange 
 phenomenon, for they have passed a life in the dark 
 cellars, from whence they dare not emerge. All the 
 countless families draw their water from one well in 
 the midst of a dark piazza, and this piazza seems ta 
 have represented the outer world to most of them. It 
 has long ceased to be the prison of the Jews, who 
 were confined within its gates in 15 71 by Cosimo I. — 
 for in these days the Jews are a great power in the 
 city — but misery, crime, and want lurk there instead. 
 
 The old market keeps better company — the arch- 
 bishop's palace is in its precincts, a church stands at 
 
^56 TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 •each corner, and in its narrow streets are the decaying 
 palaces of the Tornaquinci, Vecchietti, Amieri, Neri, 
 Medici, and half the names glorious in Florentine 
 story. A dim memory lingers of a marvellous palace 
 built by the Tosinghi, about a.d. iioo, the tower of 
 which was covered with rows of little Lombard galleries 
 with white marble colonnettes like the tower of Pisa — 
 this has passed away, but less ancient beauties re- 
 main. There is the Vecchietti palace, where John of 
 Bologna's black demon grins in endless hideousness, 
 at the corner where the Devil himself galloped by, on 
 a black horse when exorcised by St. Peter Martyr. It 
 was in this house that John of Bologna was sheltered 
 when he came as a foreign artist to study in Florence, 
 and its owner was his most liberal patron. But the 
 Vecchietti palace has older memories than these. 
 There lived the " Cavolaja," or cabbage seller, who in 
 mediaeval times had made a fortune by selling the 
 produce of her podere in the old market, and at 
 her death ordered the bells of the cathedral and All 
 Saints' Church to be rung for her soul from All Saints' 
 Day to the end of Carnival. Her bones are said to 
 be in the tomb of Bishop Ranieri in the Baptistery, 
 though history does not explain how they got there. 
 
A FLORENTINE MARKET. 257 
 
 The Amieri palaces form quite a district of the 
 Mercato ; their half-demoh'shed towers date from Ghi- 
 belline times, and the last Amieri, Bernardo di Nicolo, 
 is known to fame as the father of Genevra, whose 
 story is one of the quaintest legends of Florence. 
 Refused the lover of her choice, and betrothed by 
 force to Francesco Agolanti, she afterwards fell a vic- 
 tim to the plague in 1400. Believed to be dead, she 
 was placed in the family vault in the cemetery by the 
 cathedral. She awoke from her swoon on a bright 
 moonlight night, and, bursting her bandages, escaped 
 from her ghastly prison, and, clad in her shroud, went 
 to her husband's house. He exorcised her as a spirit, 
 and refused to open his door. Her father did the 
 same, and no one would afford shelter to her resusci- 
 tated person but the family of her first lover. The 
 marriage with Agolanti was decreed by the tribunals 
 to be annulled by her death and burial, and she was 
 by this curious quip released to begin a happier life 
 with Rondinelli, her first love. To this day the street 
 she trod on that moonlit night is called " Via della 
 Morte." 
 
 Another interesting house in the old market is that 
 of the Castiglioni, which has some fine old sculptured 
 
 17 
 
2S8 TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 doorways and chimney-pieces. Dante Castiglione was 
 a famous person at the time of the siege of Florence, 
 1529, not so much for his prowess in war as for a 
 duel he and Martelli fought, against Bandini and his 
 second in rivalry for the smiles of a belle named 
 Marietta de' Ricci. As the combatants belonged to 
 the two opposite parties who were striving for supre- 
 macy in Florence, the duel (or double duel — there 
 being four combatants) assumed a political importance, 
 and was taken by the superstitious Florentines as an 
 omen of the fate of the war. 
 
 Other interesting buildings are the houses which 
 were once head-quarters of the different guilds. Here 
 is the striped shield of the Linajoli or flax merchants ; 
 there, the arms of the Calimala or wool-dressers. Now 
 one sees the lamb and banner of the guild of wool {Arte 
 aella Lana), then the {vaio) ermine of the Pellicceria 
 or furriers. In one of these latter, Benvenuto Cellini 
 lived. As for works of art, has not the old market 
 one of Luca della Robbia's loveliest conceptions, in 
 the relief of the Madonna and Child of the lunette of 
 the Church of S. Piero Buonconcilio ? — the purest 
 faced Madonna and most delicious baby which that 
 master of infantile modelling ever conceived, And 
 
A FLORENTINE MARKET. 259 
 
 boasted it not once of Donatello's statue of Abun- 
 dance on its central column ? And has not our good 
 old Vasari built a Greek peristyle without a temple to 
 shelter the vendors of unsavoury fish ? But now to 
 glance at the aspect of the place as a market. 
 
 Could anything be more picturesque than the antique 
 old gabled roofs, and the stalls beneath them with 
 yellow awnings, which seem to absorb the sunlight, 
 and yet shadow the piles of vegetables and baskets of 
 fruit of every hue under the sun. Why, the very 
 cabbages ring the changes on all the reds, yellows, and 
 greens almost to blue-black! then the crimson and 
 orange strings of capsicums festooned across the 
 heaps of scarlet tomatoes, the rich purple of the pear- 
 shaped /^^r^;^^^^;,^; and the mingled hues of the pome- 
 granate, make the greengrocer's stall under the yellow 
 shadow a feast of colour as well as a study of life. 
 
 Though we see all our old English friends of the 
 vegetable kingdom, yet there are so many unknown 
 herbs that we wonder what they are, and whether 
 they are good for food. Here comes a poor tottering 
 old woman, and putting down a bit of copper as big 
 as a farthing asks for - two centesimi of raciicc/no "— 
 the leaves of the garden chicory. She spends a like 
 
26o TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 coin in a crust of bread at a baker's, and there is her 
 breakfast complete — bread and salad for less than a 
 penny. 
 
 There Is a pert serving-maid, looking very pretty 
 under her black lace veil ; she spends several minutes 
 bargaining for some lentils, and at length goes off 
 with a parcel of those little brown seeds, of which she 
 will make a puree to garnish the grand joint at her 
 master's dinner table. This esteemed dish is a " zatu- 
 p07ic" a pig's leg. bound and stuffed with meat, like 
 a Bologna sausage, and smothered under a brown 
 mash of lentils. 
 
 But what is that keen-eyed man-cook buying ? Cer- 
 tain pear-shaped shining vegetables of a rich purple 
 colour. Such thinsfs were never eaten in old Enoland. 
 They are called petronciani, and are the fruit of the 
 " Solaiimn insaniim^' or " mad apples." They are first 
 boiled till tender, then cut into slices, dipped in egg, 
 and fried. 
 
 A sharp- faced old servant comes up, throws a quick 
 glance round the stall, and muttering, "What, no 
 gobbi, to-day ? I shall have to go back to Menica 
 after all," and away she hurries. What are gobbi, do 
 you suppose ? They are a favourite vegetable in 
 
A FLORENTINE MARKET. 261 
 
 Italy, and are nothing but the stalks of the artichoke, 
 tied up in bundles like celery. They may be eaten 
 boiled, and served with melted butter, or cut into 
 pieces, and fried in eggs and bread crumbs ; and are 
 excellent either way, the taste being something be- 
 tween celery and seakale. 
 
 Another favourite Italian vegetable consists of the 
 knots of young leaves on the stalks of the fennel ; but 
 the flavour is too strong to suit an English taste. 
 There are also some very small kinds of vegetable- 
 marrow, about as large as apples, which are very 
 good. 
 
 Here comes another purchaser, who asks for ceci^ 
 and goes away with a pocket of round, yellow seeds, 
 like over-grown peas, which were taken wet from a 
 barrel of salt water. The plant which produces them 
 is the Cicer Arietinum (English — ram's head, or chick 
 pea). A very good " soup maigre " is made from 
 them ; but if your olfactory organs are delicate, it 
 will be advisable not to assist at the cooking of them, 
 for they emit a strong odour, like salt cod. The 
 Italians live largely on leguminous plants ; the num- 
 bers of different beans they use is quite remarkable ; 
 they vary in colour from the white haricot to dark red, 
 
-62 TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 and even dark brown species. If a working man can 
 get a few beans, either hot or cold, with oil and 
 vinegar, he is quite content to dine without meat ; and 
 if a few of the greenish yellow fungJii are added, he 
 thinks it a meal fit for a king. 
 
 But what is this man calling as he comes slowly up 
 the crowded market-street, shouting '' Salati, salati'' 
 (salted). A little boy hearing the cry begins to 
 
 sing— 
 
 " Son salati i miei lupini, 
 Son salati dalla dama." 
 
 " My lupins are salted by my true love ; " and he 
 pulls a minute brown coin out of his pocket, and 
 quickly exchanges it for the large flat, yellow lupin 
 seeds, which the man has in a flat, wooden tub. There 
 is scarcely a street corner in Florence at which you 
 will not see the inevitable vendor of lupins, who is 
 largely patronized by the working classes. The 
 lupins are eaten after being kept in brine, but they 
 are not cooked. 
 
 In the matter of salad, Italian tastes are as wide as 
 in leguminous vegetables. They eat chicory and sorrel 
 leaves, basil leaves, lettuce, endives, beetroot, dandelion, 
 and cold cabbage. And a favourite salad is a grassy- 
 
A FLORENTINE MARKET. 263 
 
 looking plant, which they call barba di cappuccini (or 
 Capuchin s beard), known in England as " buck's 
 horn," "goat's beard," or "star of the earth." The 
 Italians have classical authority for eating this, for 
 Dioscorides said in his time th& planiago coronopus was 
 eaten cooked ; the only difference is, that the moderns 
 do not trouble to cook it. 
 
 The fruit stall, which is often distinct from the 
 vegetable seller's, contains quite as many specimens 
 which are strange to English eyes. 
 
 Side by side with yellow apricots lies the cactus 
 fruit, or prickly pear. Be sure that you don't attempt 
 to eat It, or even to touch it, without a knife, for the 
 harmless little brown spots which dot its ruddy sur- 
 face are each composed of a thousand invisible thorns 
 which have a knack of entering the skin on the 
 smallest provocation. The correct manner of eating 
 a prickly pear is to cut off the two ends, then cut 
 down the outer rind, and laying it open, take out the 
 inner pulp. Here are two baskets full of russet brown 
 fruits ; one familiar enough is the common medlar, but 
 the other is shaped like a pear. It is the fruit of the 
 pyrus sorbtis (service tree). When fresh, they look 
 like bright coloured pears ; we were shown large 
 
2^4 TL'SCAA' SA'ETVNES, 
 
 bunches of them hung up in tho shop, but tht y art' 
 only good to cat when niollo\\ od b)- keeping till bi*o\Yn 
 as a ripe medlar, and have a nuich richer tlavoin- than 
 that fruit. A basket of red, velvety-looking berries, 
 similar to strawberries, only rounder, next attracts us : 
 they are arbutus berries, and when quite v\\k" avc really 
 very good to eat. 
 
 The children arc tond K.'^i another wild tniit. called 
 j^itti^j^fo/e (jujube trccV They arc glossv brown berries, 
 with a soft, green pulp within. The o\ al rt\l berries of 
 the '• cornel chcrrv " are also greatly .ippr(.\'iatc\l by 
 children. The Romans also knew this chcrrN , but they 
 grew it chielly for the wood, from whicli their lances 
 and arrows were made. 
 
 But the most cooling and delicious truit oi .ill is the 
 Japanese m's/o/o, a yellow medlar, with a delicious acid 
 taste ; they conu^ In as soon .is the warm weather 
 begins, and are the favourite rcMreslu^ners until the 
 water-melon takes their ['>Lice. 
 
 There are also different nuts eaten here. Besides 
 walnuts, hazelnuts, chestnuts (which make a dozen 
 different kinds oi foods), we h.ive the pinoli and the 
 nocc di Brasil. Pinoli are the little kernels k^K the 
 cone c^i the stone pine. They are remarkably good in 
 
A I'fJ)l;J:N'JJM': MARKJ'ir. 
 
 26s 
 
 h ii 
 
 flavour, having a slight aromatic taste. They are ob- 
 tained Ly placing the pine cone in an oven, when the 
 heat causes the scales to open, and the nuts are easily 
 shaken out and cracked with a hammer. The Erasil 
 nut is a curious little pair of twin yellow berries in a 
 brownish husk ; the flavour is rich and aromatic. 
 
 A walk through the Italian >^^ 
 
 market will certainly produce 
 the thought that the English 
 might vary and economize 
 their food much more than 
 they do. 
 
 At those old cook-shops, 
 in which the Florentines of 
 three or four centuries ago 
 were wont to dine, and where '■■^fC,.r-' 
 the ancient plates and dishes 
 they used are preserved on 
 shelves on the walls, one sees the most curious 
 processes of cooking. Over the fire a large wheel 
 revolves, on which are trussed rows of fowls, thrushes, 
 and larks, the latter alternated with bits of bread, 
 pork, and sage leaves. In the frying-pans are 
 savoury messes of yellow polenta, made from the ma\ze 
 
 A MIOI.IACCIO SELLER. 
 
266 TC/SCA.Y SA'£7X:H£S. 
 
 flour, frying in oil. and oi' brown mio/i'acn'o, a cake of 
 chestnut flour, and piles of nicely cooked friffo^ the 
 materials for which are endless, ranging- the vegetable 
 and animal kinofdom. 
 
 As for economy, we might learn a great deal from a 
 Florentine cook. For instance, when we truss a fowl, 
 we make no use of the liver, except by displaying it 
 under the \ving. As for the cock's comb, and other 
 appendages to the head and neck of chanticleer, we 
 consider them refuse. Not so the Italian ; he calls 
 them regalia, cuts them up and stews them with the 
 liver in luscious gravy, and makes one oi the most 
 stylish entrc'cs for a dinner party, either by filling a 
 vol-au-vcjif with them, or in a shape of stewed rice, 
 called risotto con regalia. 
 
 A fowl will, in the poulterer's hands, serve several 
 customers, for marketino- is done on the infinitesimal 
 system. The two bits oft' the breast are bought sepa- 
 rately as a dish for an invalid or a./rieassd" for an eiitri'c. 
 Then the carcase is sold for roasting or making soup,, 
 the legs and neck are purchased for a few centesimi by 
 the poor, and the combs and livers go to the tables of 
 the rich as reowlia. 
 
 The fish market presents equally curious specimens 
 
A I'LOREN'IINli MANKE'i: 267 
 
 of food. The sepm, or cuttle fish, is much liked, and 
 you see its long arms, with their curious rows of 
 circular disks, lyinj^ about in all directions. 
 
 You will never find a mackerel ; and if a salmon be 
 visible, it has been imported for the benefit of some 
 English Midas, at ten francs the Tuscan pound of 
 twelve ounces. But there are large-headed, three-sided 
 fish called naselli, which are as good as whiting, and a 
 large kind of cod called palombo. Lobsters, as we know 
 them, do not appear, but there are huge crawfish, larger 
 than any lobster, and looking like magnified shrimps. 
 It is a fashion to fry the very small shrimps in their 
 shells, and eat them crisp and entire. 
 
 Frogs' legs also make a very delicate dish ol frit to. 
 Indeed, what will not an Italian make delicious in a fry. 
 
 A dish of dainty morsels, fried in butter, of a pale 
 brown, is placed before you, and its contents will prove 
 a perfect riddle. Probably there will be melon flowers, 
 bits of every vegetable imaginable, celery, morsels of 
 calves' brain and marrow, tiny lamb chops, sweetbreads, 
 liver, artichoke, bits of fennel, &c., &c. Nothing comes 
 amiss to the frying-pan when ^friito misto is required. 
 But our marketing is over; we have got back to the 
 kitchen, so we will leave the cook to her mysteries. 
 
-6S TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 Florence, 1887. 
 
 Since this was written, the rehictant Florentines have 
 been driven by force oi municipal law to use the iron- 
 bound modern market-place in San Lorenzo ; and the 
 six hundred families crowded into that human hive o'i 
 misery called the Ghetto have been turned out into 
 more healthy abodes, in disused convents or model 
 houses for the poor, where it is hoped that new in- 
 fluences and fresh air will brino- new moral and 
 physical health to them. The empty Ghetto has 
 been the exploring ground oi artists and physiologists ; 
 it has been the scene of carnival gaiety, when the 
 artists with their magic brushes transformed it into the 
 **City of Bagdad," and illuminated its darkest mysteries 
 and gloomiest caverns with electric light. This year 
 it is to undergo another transformation under these 
 artists' hands, and to represent " Cinque-Cento Flo- 
 rence," with Donatello at work in his studio ; after 
 which both Ghetto and ^Mercato are to tail under the 
 reforming touch of improvement. Florence will lose 
 
 its most characteristic remnants of mediaevalism, and 
 gain in a sanitary and moral aspect. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Zbc Castle of Belcaro. 
 
 E have been revelling in remnants of the 
 Middle Ages during three days, prowling 
 about that most delightful of mediaeval 
 cities, Siena ; and to-day we are going- 
 outside the walls and down the ridges of the extinct 
 volcano which forms the city, into the undulating land 
 spread wide below. It is a country like a petrified 
 sea, with all its waves carved in tufo, and covered 
 here and there in verdure and foliage. 
 
 We are told by the guide-books that Belcaro is only 
 three miles' drive, or one and a half to walk, from the 
 gate of the city ; but as we sweep round curve after 
 curve of the changing road, now through flowery corn- 
 
270 TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 fields, then by the broom-blossomed ravines of ruddy 
 tufo cliffs — here plunging down a steep descent into a 
 valley, there toiling round a cypress-clad hill, Belcaro 
 seems to recede from our gaze, in fact it has not even 
 yet come within view. At last we espy a great fortress 
 on a distant point, and we slowly make our way round 
 the wooded ravine that lies between. We seem to be 
 in every country at once — on our right are English 
 meadows ; on the left are French vineyards, with their 
 rows of low-trained vines. A bit of Lombard land- 
 scape comes next — rows of tufty poplars in a green 
 plain, then a forest of stone pines that seems trans- 
 planted from Ravenna. At length we plunge into a 
 veritable Devonshire lane, narrow, brambly, full of dog 
 roses, ferns, and blackberry bushes ; and then emerge 
 on an aerial table-land, and see the three tiers of walls 
 rise in circles round the mediaeval castle of Belcaro. 
 They remind one of the walls of Ecbatana in 
 Herodotus, for they are like belts of different colours : 
 the first is clothed in all its height with green ilexes, 
 so cut and trimmed that they seem a very living wall ; 
 the next is of yellowish stone, the third of ruddy 
 bricks. Mysterious postern-doors and dark arched 
 entrances come to view among the ilexes as we wind 
 
THE CASTLE OF BELCARO. 271 
 
 round the hill to reach the great gates. An inquiring 
 porter or cicerone meets us in the castellated court- 
 yard, and, unlocking a door, leads us up some narrow 
 steps, and lo! we are on the ramparts of the inner walls. 
 A little pathway leads entirely round them. Imbedded 
 in the walls at one corner are some ancient cannon- 
 balls which were fired there in 1554, when Cosimo I. 
 sent the Marquis of Marignano to besiege Siena, and 
 he made this his head-quarters ; the balls were fired 
 by the poor Siennese from their ambush in the pine- 
 wood opposite, but they fell harmless, and Siena, de- 
 feated at length, succumbed to famine. In the century 
 before this, St. Catherine and her nuns retreated here 
 here from the joys and the sorrows of the world. 
 
 In the century after the siege, a rich banker named 
 Crescenzio Turamini arose in Siena, and determined 
 to make the fortress-convent his villa " bello e caro." 
 So he sent for Baldassare Peruzzi, the famous painter 
 and architect, and bade him renovate the villa, build 
 a chapel, and write his name for immortality on the 
 walls, in glowing frescoes. Baldassare set to work, 
 and his labours still show bello e caro to our eyes. 
 The entrance-hall has the "Judgment of Paris," a fine 
 fresco, with a Raphaelesque scroll-work around it. . 
 
272 TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 The Loggia is a very Mount Olympus, for all the 
 gods and goddesses congregate among the Pompeian 
 ornamentation of ceiling and arches. These frescoes 
 have been whitewashed over, and again restored, which 
 gives them a newness and spic-and-span appearance 
 in their white and gold stucco setting, which does not 
 add to the classical style. 
 
 The same whitewash-and-stucco effect mars the 
 frescoes of the chapel, which the guide assured us 
 were the originals of Peruzzi. They are very light 
 and delicate, full of pale colouring, especially a light 
 green. The subjects are all sacred, but the drawing 
 and handling are essentially light and not religious. 
 The gods and goddesses are still here, clad in saints' 
 garments. There is a charming wreath of cherubim 
 in the centre of the roof, but if it were elsewhere 
 it would be a perfect group of the Loves. There 
 is a St. Joseph, and either an angel or a winged child 
 Jesus at his knees, but if it were not in a chapel a 
 more charming Eros could not be. To see these 
 frescoes after Sodoma's grand religious inspirations, is 
 to read Byron after Milton. A quaint Italian garden 
 filled with oranges and lemons, roses and masses of 
 tall white lilies, is in front of the chapel. The rooms 
 
THE CASTLE OF BELCARO. 273 
 
 in the villa are restored, like everything else, and well 
 restored as far as they go ; the furniture, of splendid 
 carved oak on antique models — even the brass keys 
 are of mediaeval pattern. The last restorations are 
 by a Siennese gentleman, a solitary Croesus who lives 
 here alone. 
 
 An amusing little episode occurs on our way home. 
 As we pass an old farmhouse, a little '* baghera " with 
 a smart donkey is just starting ; in it is a pretty 
 laughing girl dressed in blue, with a gipsy hat over 
 her smiling face, and a young brother to drive her. 
 Waving adieu to her mother, they drive off behind 
 us, the boy evidently urging on his donkey by the 
 stimulus of emulation with our horses. Merrily they 
 jog along behind us with ringing bells ; but, objecting 
 to the noise, we beg them to pass. The boy shakes 
 his head doubtfully, opining that his animal will not 
 go fast enough to lead. They pass, but without emu- 
 lation the donkey's spirits flag ; he ceases to trot ; at 
 last he wheels round and determinedly takes his way 
 home again. We wave our hands to the piquant face, 
 no longer smiling, and leave them to fight with the 
 donkey for power of will. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 ®ut H)vipe to IDoIterra anb tbe 
 Botay Springs. 
 
 March. 
 E were a merry party of six — Mr. and Mrs. 
 
 L , as well as two young friends of 
 
 ours on their way to the South having 
 joined us, being anxious to see the Etrus- 
 can remains of Volterra. We had taken the evening 
 train from Florence, intending to sleep at Poggi- 
 bonsi, the nearest post-town to Volterra. For two 
 hours we were in exceedingly good spirits, the third 
 our laughter became less frequent, another half-hour 
 and dead silence fell on us all — even Mr. L 's 
 
276 TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 jokes lost all their spontaneous lightness and fell dead. 
 He broke a long silence by inquiring whether " the 
 unknown place with the unpronounceable name were 
 at the end of the world."- 
 
 ** If so," said I, " prepare yourself quickly, for we 
 have nearly reached it." 
 
 " P?^dgi-b?^nsi ! P?/dgi-b/^nsi ! " repeated Emily ; 
 " what a queer name ! " 
 
 *' Poggi-bonsi," corrected T . "In the Middle 
 
 Ages it was Podmm Bonitii. The mountain behind 
 us is still called the * Pogglo-Bonzi.' " 
 
 At that moment the wheels grated on the lines, and 
 with an exhausted puff our engine stopped at the 
 station of Pogfafi-bonsi. 
 
 Our travellers were well accustomed to the ordinary 
 routine of Continental travel, i.e., to a constant change 
 from hotel to hotel, one a little more luxurious than 
 the other, but this trip into the by-ways was a new 
 
 sensation, and Mr. L got more confirmed than 
 
 ever in his idea that Pudgy-bunsi, as he persisted in 
 calling it, was at the end of the world. No omni- 
 buses, no cabs, nor even porters at the station ! One 
 of the ragged idlers who swarm everywhere in Italy 
 was found willing to carry our bags and show us 
 
VOLTERRA AND THE BORAX SPRINGS. 277 
 
 the way to the inn of the "Aquila Nera" (Black 
 Eagle). ^ 
 
 "This is a very black eagle indeed!" sighed Mrs. 
 
 L , gathering her skirts about her as we passed 
 
 into a dark stone passage. 
 
 The " Black Eagle " was evidently not civilized, for 
 the arrival of six " Inglesi " altogether seemed an 
 event of overpowering importance. Landlord, ostler, 
 and all the women of the establishment turned out to 
 look at us. But the portly host soon sent his woman- 
 kind flying for candles, hot water, and sheets, and had 
 the field of inspection all to himself. Soon three women 
 reappeared, each carrying a tall lucerna — the Tuscan 
 substitute for candles — which consists of a tall brass 
 lamp with three small burners, and certain arrange- 
 ments of snuffers, extinguisher, &c., hung round on 
 chains. We followed these dark-eyed lamp-bearers 
 (who nearly fell upstairs in their anxiety to look 
 behind them at the '' forestieri") into a large room 
 with a huge open fireplace that seemed a mediaeval 
 remnant of Podium Bonitii. Here the women put 
 their lucerne on a table large enough to dine the 
 whole Archaeological Society, and then resigned them- 
 selves without reserve to the sight before them. 
 
2/8 TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 They deliberately walked round us, examining us 
 minutely, remarking that " quella biondci' (the fair 
 
 Mrs. L ) was "■ ta^ito bellinar The soft sealskin 
 
 cloaks attracted great admiration, and they came one 
 after another to feel them. By this time the portly 
 landlord had arrived upstairs, and again set the 
 womankind to work. They first lit a fire of blazing 
 faggots in the chimney-corner, which was almost a 
 room of itself, and were quite surprised that we pre- 
 ferred a fire to the use of scaldini, the Tuscan substi- 
 tute for it. As the light fell on the walls we saw they 
 were ornamented with very archaic frescoes of Egyp- 
 tian landscape : there were small pyramids and 
 gigantic sphinxes, with camels as big as the jDalm-trees 
 beside them. 
 
 After supper we had an interview with the " Master 
 of the Horse," an ex-diligence driver, who, after the 
 usual amount of bargaining, promised us a carriage 
 and pair, as well as a pony-chaise, to take us to Vol- 
 terra and the Lagoni, and to return in three days. 
 
 TuESDAv Morning. 
 
 Oh, miserable awakening ! Rain pelting against 
 the window-panes, thick, heavy clouds sitting so close 
 
VOLTERRA AND THE BORAX SPRINGS. 279 
 
 on the mountain-tops that it seemed the chimneys of 
 the houses scattered on the hill-sides could almost 
 pierce through them. We met in the " Egyptian 
 Hall," as we called the archaic dining-room, with long 
 faces, but made up our minds that a journey in the 
 rain could not be worse than an idle day at Poggi- 
 bonsi, and so decided to start in spite of weather. 
 Our courage in this respect must, I am sure, have 
 greatly confirmed the Italian idea of English eccen- 
 tricity. 
 
 Hark ! a trampling of horses' feet and cracking of 
 whips. We rush to the window to survey our car- 
 riage and pair and pony-chaise, Alas ! the world is 
 full of disappointments, and civilization has not 
 reached Poggi-bonsi. There stands a carriage which 
 must certainly be the first of its species. It is a very 
 high, narrow affair, with a hood of a mountainous 
 aspect. The " carriage " is of wood, painted bright 
 red, very much toned down by the accumulated mud 
 of ages. It has hard blue cloth cushions, suggestive 
 of " moth and rust." The " pair " are stout horses 
 with flowing manes, also flowing fetlocks. They have 
 long necks, long heads, and short tails. The want of 
 tails of their own is made up by the addition of long 
 
28o TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 foxes' tails, tied with yellow, dangling from their ears. 
 The reins are of red cord, with curious tassels and 
 bunches of fringe here and there. But the pony- 
 chaise ! It is a calessa of the commonest description — 
 a pair of shafts with a wooden seat slung across them. 
 A twine net serves to rest the feet, and support any 
 bags or parcels placed under the seat. And the pony! 
 A poor little mite whose head hangs down and his rat- 
 tail stands up, and his bones form a subject for an 
 anatomist. 
 
 '' That pony cannot go eighty miles in three days," 
 cried Mr. L . 
 
 "If the Signor Inglese will have the goodness to 
 try him he will find him perfectly untirable. He 
 would do eighty miles in one day if it is needed." 
 
 " Like some of his betters, then, he is not such a 
 
 fool as he looks," laughed Mr. L . " I hope none 
 
 of the Humane Society are within sight, that is all." 
 So saying, the two gentlemen having packed the four 
 ladies as comfortably as possible into the " carriage," 
 proceeded to make martyrs of themselves by braving 
 the weather unprotected in the calessa. The general 
 inhabitants of Poggi-bonsi looked from their windows 
 and wondered ! 
 
VOLTE RRA AND THE BORAX SPRINGS. 281 
 
 After a drive of half an hour, Mr. L called out 
 
 cheerily, " Fortune favours the brave. I see a bit of 
 blue sky." Down went our dripping umbrellas, and 
 we feasted our eyes and built our hopes on a tiny 
 speck of blue which, alas, soon became clouded again. 
 Our courage had not yet won the favour of the fickle 
 goddess. The rain left off, but only to change to snow 
 as we ascended. 
 
 We rumbled through the endless up-hill street of 
 Colle, quite unheeding either the beauties or antiqui- 
 ties of this mediaeval city. About a mile beyond it 
 the driver declared it impossible to go on, as it was 
 three hours' ascent to Volterra, and his horses could 
 not possibly do it. On a refusal on our part to go 
 back he proposed, to stop an hour at a little roadside 
 trattoi'ia ; but the host refused to take us or our 
 horses in. "He had no room for either," he said, 
 surlily, putting a brigandish-looking head out of the 
 window. " Let us try the fattoria or farmhouse," said 
 the driver. The farmer and his family were not only 
 humane, but Christian kind. Within ten minutes the 
 shivering, steaming horses were housed in a good 
 shed, and we were all merrily drying our cloaks at the 
 cheerful fire of sticks kindled by they^/'/(?r^'i"good wife. 
 
282 TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 - The kitchen was the strangest room ; the fireplace, 
 which was a chimney corner Hke an English cottage- 
 hearth, was raised four steps above the rest of the 
 room. It was not used for cooking, for the ordinary 
 Italian range, with its little charcoal holes, was in the 
 kitchen below. The copper cooking utensils shone on 
 the walls, the earthernware ones were ranged on the 
 shelves, while the ceiling was decorated by rows of 
 hams, tongues, pigs' feet, calves' feet, bacon, dried 
 
 tomatoes, &c., as Mr. L graphically said, " like an 
 
 edible stalactite cavern." 
 
 Guests and hosts were a source of mutual amuse- 
 ment. The stout fattoressa and her pretty daughters 
 confided to us that they had never seen any English 
 before, and were struck with surprise that we dressed 
 so much like themselves. 
 
 ** Why," they said, " your hat, signora, is exactly 
 like the new one Assuntina has just had sent her from 
 Florence ! " All the time they talked, their respective 
 needles and knitting-pins were flying busily. 
 
 " You seem a very industrious family," we said. 
 
 "Yes," smiled the portly mother; "my girls are 
 like me, never idle. We are making my second 
 daughter's corredo (wedding outfit) now. Assuntina's 
 
VOLTERRA AND THE BORAX SPRINGS. 283 
 
 is done. Go and fetch some of the things, figlie miCy 
 and show your work to the signora." We were 
 amazed at the numbers of beautiful things. Three 
 dozen sets of fine hnen underclothing, forty pairs of 
 the finest knitted stockings, knit with clocks, as those 
 of our grandmothers were. Fine knitted quilts, ex- 
 quisitely embroidered pillow - cases, and even an 
 embroidered sheet. 
 
 "And when is the wedding to be?" I asked. 
 
 " Oh, we don't talk of that yet," replied the mother, 
 *' Assuntina is only eighteen, and you know we must 
 first find the sposo." Imagine the chorus of English 
 surprise at seeing a trousseau without a prospect of a 
 husband. 
 
 " But don't you find the husband first ? " inquired 
 Helen. 
 
 " That would never do ; he would not wait while 
 the cor7^edo was being made ; besides we have not 
 money enough to put out all at once, and it is more 
 convenient to spin a little this year and a little next 
 and make up the linen as we weave it." 
 
 ** Besides," said the fattore, " a man likes to know 
 what he is going to marry." The " what " instead of 
 " who " was very significant. 
 
284 TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 " But suppose you do not find a s^oso after all ? " 
 
 " C/ie ! che ! no fear of that. A girl with such a 
 corredo and dote, with seven rows of pearls in her 
 necklace, is quite safe. My husband has a young 
 man in his eye ; he is son of the fattore of the Conte 
 
 D , and has already put away five thousand 
 
 francs in the bank. Our priest will propose her to 
 him soon, and then she can be married when she is 
 nineteen years old. We are getting on now with Car- 
 lotta's cor7^edo. In another year or two, when that is 
 done, if we live so long, we shall begin Laurina's," 
 concluded the mother, smiling at the little Laurina, 
 a child of nine years old. 
 
 " But don't they fall in love first ? " asked Helen, 
 who was of a poetical disposition. 
 
 The good wife's face was a sight to see. 
 
 " No, no ! they are brought up too well for that. 
 I never trust them alone — never, never ! " she replied, 
 smoothing her apron in self-approbation. 
 
 Having thus enlightened our minds as to the Italian 
 manners and customs, the good woman required much 
 information from us, and on hearing that our English 
 youths sought their own wives and fell in love before- 
 hand, and that the coi'redo was not commenced till 
 
VOLTERRA AND THE BORAX SPRINGS. 285 
 
 the parents' consent was given to the betrothal, 
 they all exclaimed in amazement ; but added, " We 
 have always heard the English were a curious people, 
 and then — the way you go round about the world 
 \_^irare il mondo] in all weathers ! " 
 
 About twelve o'clock it left off snowingf and we 
 again started, with many good wishes from our kind 
 entertainers. We soon found that the wind was worse 
 than the snow, as we ascended the precipitous road 
 up, up, up, higher into the icy blasts. The wind 
 would come shrieking round the hill, now on this side, 
 now on that, blowing clouds of snowdrift in our faces. 
 It shook our old chaise till we were in terror of rolling 
 over the precipice. No amount of shawls and rugs 
 could keep it out from our limbs. Behind us the rat- 
 tailed pony put his head nearer than ever to the 
 ground, but jogged on in a dogged persistent manner 
 that raised our hopes of his capabilities. The two 
 gentlemen could scarcely guide him, so benumbed 
 were their hands, for on the whole of one side the 
 snowdrift had frozen upon them. Added to this were 
 the pangs of unappeasable hunger, it being now 
 several hours since breakfast. However, after a long 
 drive we commenced the ascent of the conical hill on 
 
TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 which Volterra sits enthroned in her battlemented 
 walls, like a giant king reposing with his crown upon 
 him. Another hour of winding around the great hill 
 and we were safely within those great strong walls, 
 and enjoying the fire and our luncheon as we had 
 seldom done before. 
 
 After lunch we started to see the antiquities, but 
 only got as far as the " Porta dell' Arco," the finest 
 Etruscan gateway extant. The inner arch is of huge 
 blocks of stone put together without cement ; the 
 outer arch — overlooking the immense plain surround- 
 ing the hill — is of even larger blocks, uncemented, but 
 its charm and mystery is centred in the keystone and 
 two pilasters. These blocks project some two feet be- 
 yond the others, and the projecting ends are carved in 
 the form of gigantic heads, which stretch forth dark and 
 mysterious, to look on the scene which has changed under 
 their motionless gaze for three thousand years. They 
 are blackened by time, the very features undistinguish- 
 able, but there is a kind of grandeur in their attitude, a 
 noble patience in the outstretched gaze that seems to 
 say, " We have conquered Time, and have not bowed 
 our heads ; we now await our conqueror, Eternity." 
 How wistfully we looked up at those speechless yet 
 
VOLTERRA AND THE BORAX SPRINGS. 287 
 
 eloquent heads ! If they could only tell us of the 
 scenes they have beheld ! Of the Etruscans who 
 placed them there as guardian deities of their walls ; 
 of the fall of that great nation, which as it fell left all 
 its story and all its riches buried in its silent tombs. 
 They could have told of the legions sent out armed 
 against Tarquinius Priscus. They looked on the 
 struggle of the Etruscans with Scipio when the two 
 powers strove till the darkness ; and also on the entry 
 of the Roman troops to occupy its fortress under the 
 Triumvirate. They gazed unmoved on the two years' 
 siege of Sylla, who at length forced the closed gate- 
 way and passed under as conqueror. The great 
 Cicero had often passed beneath this Sphinx-guarded 
 gateway ; he probably regarded these heads with as 
 great a reverence for their antiquity as ourselves. 
 
 We were all struck with silence before these dim, 
 dark gazers on the past and the future, impressed as 
 we seldom had been in our lives. 
 
 It was too intensely cold to walk round the hill to 
 the walls, so we left them till the morrow and went to 
 see the alabaster works instead. 
 
 This precious marble abounds at Volterra ; the very 
 roads in the poderi are mended with it. Great heaps 
 
288 TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 of cuttings from the works are thrown out here and 
 there, but the manufactories are not so artistic as we 
 imagined. We saw numbers of workmen engaged in 
 sculpture by rule and compass, and then were shown 
 the finished pieces ; but it is evident that art gives 
 way to commerce. We saw rooms full of vases, all of 
 one form, tables full of dogs with baskets in their 
 mouths, of vine-leaved candlesticks, of children emerg- 
 ing from embroidered slippers, but nothing more than 
 mere mechanical repetitions. 
 
 ** Ora, ora ! " said the man to whom we expressed 
 disappointment. " Now I will show you cose d' arte.''' 
 
 So we went to another room or suite of rooms. It 
 was truly full of beauties, but too full. Even the 
 Venus de' Medici seems to lose her beauty side by 
 side with a whole row of identical Venuses. The 
 dancing Graces are multiplied so often as to outnum- 
 ber the Muses. Canova's Hebe shows her well- 
 dressed head in all sizes and marked at all prices. 
 Such a multiplication of gems that ought to be unique 
 worried us, and with a purchase or two we took our 
 leave. We shall perhaps like our statuettes better 
 when they shine alone in our English drawing- 
 rooms. 
 
VOLTE ERA AND THE BORAX SPRINGS. 289 
 
 Wednesday, March 15. 
 
 Our courageous battle against the elements yester- 
 day has won the favour of Fortune, who has given us 
 a cloudless day for our long drive to the Borax 
 
 Springs. We started at nine o'clock, T and myself 
 
 going, like Darby and Joan, in the "market cart." 
 But, alas ! we soon found that driving in a Tuscan 
 calesse was not the most pleasant mode of locomotion : 
 it had no springs, and cross-country roads are rough. 
 The descent from Volterra is a winding or rather zig- 
 zag road, from which you get all kinds of varied views 
 of the noble town with its great battlemented walls 
 and castellated towers settled firmly on its moun- 
 tainous height. The surrounding country is bare and 
 brown, as withered and wrinkled as a rhinoceros-hide. 
 No vegetation, no life of any kind ; only hillocks and 
 ridges of brown clay running into and over one 
 another, and leaving weird-looking, stagnant pools in 
 the crevices. One would almost fancy those mys- 
 terious heads gazing out from the Porta dell' Arco to 
 be basilisks, whose fixed gaze had withered up the 
 land they overlooked. 
 
 At " Le Moje," six miles distant from Volterra, we 
 stopped to see the Saline or Salt Works of San 
 
 19 
 
290 TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 Leopoldo, where the Government have found it so 
 profitable to " earn their salt," that they have made a 
 monopoly of it, and thereby put an annual ;^ 130,000 
 into their revenues. Nature delights in variety ; 
 every country seems to find its salt in a different 
 manner. The English draw it from the sea, the Poles 
 dig it solid from the ground, and the Tuscans have it 
 flowing in liquid springs. 
 
 At Le Moje are eight springs, issuing from wells 
 bored to the depth of one hundred feet. Wooden 
 aqueducts bring the water from these wells to the 
 works — a distance of two or three miles : here it 
 flows into several large iron evaporating pans, heated 
 from beneath by huge furnaces, in which we saw large 
 trunks of trees blazing. By long boiling a thick 
 deposit of salt is formed, which is every six hours 
 scraped up to drying-ledges on the sides of the boiler, 
 and from thence carried away to the stores. 
 
 The stores were quite picturesque — a miniature 
 Alps formed of irregular piles of snowy, glistening salt. 
 These works produce twenty-two millions of Tuscan 
 pounds of salt annually. It is of a clear, large crystal, 
 very white and pure, though not fine like the table 
 salt used in England. 
 
VOLTERRA AND THE BORAX SPRINGS. 291 
 
 On leaving here we drove through Pomerance, a 
 large town which looked very imposing from a dis- 
 tance, but in all the length of its streets we could not 
 see any inn decent enough to ask for the luncheon we 
 needed, so we stayed our hunger with a dry brown 
 loaf of the peculiarly sour, leavened bread of the 
 country, and a flask of wine not to be classed with the 
 " luscious Tuscan wines " of which poets have many 
 praises. 
 
 We could see the distant clouds of steam ascending 
 from the Borax Springs of " Larderello," and fondly 
 deemed that, as we could behold the limit of our 
 journey, the end was near. Alas, for vain hopes ! we 
 drove on and on, round endless mountain ridges, and 
 as we passed one, another came between us and the 
 ever distant clouds of steam. 
 
 At length, after skirting fertile valleys and going 
 round projecting mountains for six miles, we crossed 
 the dashing torrent of Possera by a splendidly built 
 bridge of one arch, seventy-two feet wide and ninety 
 above the river, and felt like Dante when he descended 
 into Inferno. Of all places I have seen this is by far 
 the most wonderful. 
 
 The whole valley is occupied by Nature's boiling 
 
292 TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 caldrons. Steam and sulphur fill the air. During 
 half an hour we lived on a minimum amount of air, 
 and that inhaled through cambric pocket-handkerchiefs. 
 
 In the absence of the proprietor, Count Larderel, to 
 whom our letter was addressed, the priest kindly went 
 round with us, and after thoroughly frightening, suc- 
 ceeded in just as thoroughly interesting us. 
 
 We started on our tour of inspection like so many 
 mutes at a funeral, with our faces tied in our handker- 
 chiefs, each one of us declaring that we could not live 
 ten minutes in such an atmosphere of sulphurous 
 steam ; but at the end of that time we found it much 
 more bearable, and when half an hour was over we 
 forgot the vapours altogether. One of our party 
 having strayed a few steps, the priest calling her back, 
 warned us solemnly to keep close to him, for he said 
 the ground was so treacherous that a false step would 
 plunge us into a boiling watery grave. After that we 
 followed him like a flock of sheep, as may be imagined. 
 
 The boracic acid lagoni lie in a valley near Monte 
 Cerboli, and extend over a square mile of the rugged 
 ground. The lagoons are several in number — some 
 are mere ponds, others large reservoirs, but each of 
 them is like a liquid Vesuvius, having an eruption of 
 
VOLTERRA AND THE BORAX SPRINGS. 293 
 
 boiling water in its midst, which is so fierce as to throw 
 up the jet of water with mud and even stones, and a 
 volume of blinding steam, ten or twelve feet above the 
 level of the lagoon. The springs are sixty feet below 
 the ground : such a force seems quite inconceivable. 
 This sulphurous vapour contains the boracic acid, and 
 is made to pass through the water of the lagoons long 
 enough to impregnate it thoroughly, when it is con- 
 veyed in conduits to purifying reservoirs, where it 
 evaporates by natural heat, and then is put into large 
 butts to crystallize. This crystallization is the boracic 
 acid as it is sent to England ; ^240 worth of it is 
 produced daily. To us the awe of the place was nearly 
 as great as its interest. We walked on plank bridges 
 across the steaming lagoons, enveloped in such dense 
 vapour that we could only see a step before us on the 
 plank. 
 
 " Suppose we fell in, what would become of us ? " 
 asked Mr. L . 
 
 " You would be skinned like an eel before being 
 cooked," said the priest, in grim jest. 
 
 "If any one wants to write a second ' Inferno,' in 
 emulation of Dante," said Mr. L , " here is inspira- 
 tion for him. It might be founded on fact." 
 
294 TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 The good priest, having shown us all the works, 
 next took us into the village, which is in the midst of 
 the vapour. There are several rows of neat cottages, 
 like English labourers' model houses. The streets 
 and terraces are named after the sons of Count Lar- 
 derel. Then there is the Larderel mansion, very 
 large, and built squarely of red bricks : the priest's and 
 manager's houses, and then a row of buildings in which 
 we soon found the priest's heart was bound up. 
 
 When we saw them we envied him his happy pride 
 in his labours. Here were the schools — the infants', 
 the boys', the girls', and the adults' night-school — all 
 in such exquisite order and keeping that they would 
 win a premium from an English school board. Then 
 came a spinning and weaving school for the young 
 unmarried women. The philanthropic Count Larderel 
 supplies the wool and cotton, and the stuffs are sold 
 for the profit of the makers. We watched several 
 pretty-looking girls at their looms making linen, cloth, 
 and bordato, a strong plaid linen used by the Tuscan 
 contadini, or peasants. 
 
 Next was a good large music-hall, in which the 
 ^^illage concerts and music classes are held. The 
 Count has given all the music and the instruments, 
 
VOLTE RRA AND THE BORAX SPRINGS. 295 
 
 and provides a good master, who comes out from 
 Florence once a week. The band is well organized, 
 and plays very pleasingly. We heard a solo on the 
 cornet by a boy of fifteen, whose proficiency quite 
 astonished us. 
 
 The church has a very pretty interior, with several 
 good works of art in it. Near the church is the 
 library, museum of geological specimens, and the 
 pharmacy, from which all the work-people and their 
 families have medicine gratis. 
 
 "This is a very liberal institution," remarked T . 
 
 *' I should imagine it is much needed, however, in this 
 unhealthy atmosphere." 
 
 "On the contrary," laughed the priest, "if the 
 chemist depended on his business he would certainly 
 fail. The atmosphere is unusually healthy ; we have 
 very little sickness indeed. Why, look at me — I have 
 lived twenty years here ! " And he tapped his broad 
 chest till it echoed again. Certainly he was in excel- 
 lent health and condition. 
 
 " Count Larderel has provided well for his people 
 in mind, body, and soul," we said, as we took leave of 
 our courteous guide, and returned to the inn, where 
 we managed to eat a hearty lunch in spite of the 
 
296 TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 sulphur vapours. At five we started on our return, 
 and reached Volterra at nine, after a most exquisite 
 drive. 
 
 The reflections of a rosy sunset sky and a clear 
 rising moon strove for supremacy in the waters of the 
 Etruscan stream, the Cecina, as we drove over the fine 
 suspension bridge. How clearly the crowned head of 
 the giant hill of Volterra stood out in the full moon- 
 beams ; how majestic were the huge battlemented 
 walls and arched gateways in the silver light ; how we 
 sang Mendelssohn's open-air music till our voices 
 tired ; how we enjoyed our very late dinner, and how 
 
 sleepy we all were ! — Mr. L too tired even to 
 
 make a joke. 
 
 Thursday, March 16. 
 
 We gave next morning to Volterra, and a long and 
 well-employed morning we had, in learning the useful 
 lesson not to judge too hastily from first impressions. 
 On entering the cathedral our impressions were, "What 
 a splendid interior, what a wealth of antique marble 
 columns ! " Alas ! the columns were not even scagliola, 
 but barefaced plaster and stucco, peeling off here and 
 there. The only really good work of art, beyond some 
 pictures in the sacristy, was some beautiful marble sculp- 
 
VOLTERRA AND THE BORAX SPRINGS. 297 
 
 ture of Mino da Fiesole, which having been turned 
 upside down for a century or so to make paving-stones, 
 was now being restored to the hght of day as an altar- 
 piece. Next at the Museum the general exclamation 
 on entering was a shuddering " Oh ! oh ! what a dismal 
 collection of tombs ! Is there nothing to see but old 
 tombs ? " and the universal feeling on leaving at the 
 end of an hour or two, was that of intense interest, as 
 if we had been reading a sweet old story. There were 
 several rooms all filled with Etruscan ash chests, each 
 with the effigy of its former tenant reclining on the 
 lid ; some of these figures so lifelike that one could 
 almost imagine them the dead of centuries returned 
 to tell their tale. I suppose no nation ever made the 
 silent tomb so eloquent as the Etruscans ; their idea of 
 death must have been much more that of a second life, 
 than the utter annihilation, which seems to have been 
 the general idea of the ancients. When life died 
 out they embalmed its story, and laid it up in the 
 sealed tomb, and we can read it after three thousand 
 years. In Volterra the fashion of burning the dead 
 must have prevailed, for the tombs, with one or two 
 exceptions, are mere alabaster or travertine boxes to 
 contain the ashes. The sides of these urns are adorned 
 
298 TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 with bas-reliefs of classical or mythological subjects, 
 and the lids, with the sculptured effigies on them, form 
 perfect portraits of the deceased. The adjuncts of 
 
 these were full of meaning, and T interested 
 
 us very much by interpreting all the poetical 
 emblems, till we could make up our own stories of the 
 long-past lives. The pretty young girl with braided 
 hair, and a half-opened flower in her hand, had died 
 young and unmarried. The handsome woman, who 
 held a pomegranate (emblem of fruitfulness) in her 
 marble hand, had with that hand in life caressed and 
 nursed her children, had with those fixed eyes laughed 
 at their joys, and wept at their little sorrows. The 
 lady with the fan and mirror had been perhaps a 
 leader of society, and who knows what lost learning 
 filled the brain of the woman with the Greek profile 
 who held her writing tablets in her hand ? The 
 husbands and fathers of these fair ones showed that 
 the banquet was to them the enjoyment of life, for 
 here is the ** ruling passion strong in death." Nearly 
 all have a Bacchic chaplet on their flowing locks, 
 and hold either a patera or drinking vase in their 
 hands. 
 
 The bas-reliefs are as eloquent as the effigies, and 
 
VOLTERRA AND THE BORAX SPRINGS. 299 
 
 invest death with a depth of poetical meaning that 
 divests it of half its terrors. On one Aurora is rising 
 from the waves, as the soul springs from the dark flood 
 of death, and rises to heaven in the full light of day. 
 On another Pluto is carrying off Proserpine to Hades, 
 a huge Fury lashing the steeds to swiftness — a 
 touching story of a sudden and unprepared for death. 
 The subject of Jason and Cadmus sowing the dragon's 
 teeth, and reaping the fruits in an army of armed men, 
 is often repeated, and to me it seemed only an illustra- 
 tion of many lessons in the Bible ; it was indeed 
 " sowing the wind and reaping the whirlwind." 
 Another oft-repeated one is Ulysses and the Syrens. 
 The steadfast soul, armed against all temptations, 
 guides his bark steadily towards the haven of safety. 
 But not all are from the Greek mythology; some have 
 purely Etruscan designs, such as the marine deities, 
 who, with human bodies, have double fishes' tails, and 
 two serpents writhing round their heads. These ter- 
 rible creatures are the grim spouses Glaucus and 
 Scylla. Then come Echidna and Typhon, the two 
 snaky Furies, who are the progenitors of all that is 
 evil. Then the Hippocampus or sea-horse, the Etrus- 
 can rendering of Neptune's steeds ; also Griffons and 
 
300 TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 " Chimeras " of impossible forms. The horrible pre- 
 dominates as strongly in Etruscan mythology as the 
 poetical in Greek. 
 
 Another more interesting group of tombs are 
 those whose reliefs illustrate Etruscan life, or fune- 
 real manners and customs. Here are boar hunts, 
 circus games, either bull fights, gladiator combats, 
 or horse racing, which the Romans are supposed 
 to have adopted from Etruria when Tarquin became 
 king of Rome. Some urns are adorned with sculp- 
 tures of processions, and other pageantry, there are 
 warriors' triumphs and funeral corteges, also grand 
 pageants of judges going to their judgment-seats, with 
 all the concomitants of lictors and fasces, of slaves 
 bearing cw^tde chairs, tablets, document cases, &c. 
 One had a touching group of a veiled woman and two 
 children stopping the judges in the way to implore 
 mercy for the criminal husband. In the funereal 
 scenes the mortal and spiritual world are always blended. 
 The soul who is departing for the other world, whether 
 he takes the journey on foot, on horseback, or in a 
 closed litter, is attended by good and evil genii, who 
 often seem struggling for possession of him even as he 
 crosses the dark river. Some prefer to give the last 
 
VOLTERRA AND THE BORAX SPRINGS. 301 
 
 moments of life rather than the first ones of eternity, 
 and these are peculiarly touching. 
 
 " One touch of nature makes the whole world kin." 
 
 And as we look we feel a strong sympathy for the 
 weeping wife clinging in a last embrace to her dying 
 husband, and a longing to console those tiny children 
 crying terror-stricken round his couch. Their sorrows 
 are over three thousand years ago, but they live still 
 in the lives of us, their younger sisters. 
 
 On some tombs sacrifices are being offered, either 
 animal or the more horrid human ones. Here is even 
 an altar with a cross on it — a strange foreshadowing 
 of Christianity. 
 
 The Etruscans were highly civilized and very 
 luxurious — the banqueting scenes show this : the 
 tables are furnished so elegantly ; the banqueters, 
 male and female, so richly adorned ; slaves regale 
 them with music and food at the same time. Some 
 banquets are merely domestic meals, with children 
 playing around and tame birds beneath the table. 
 One tomb shows a school, with a number of little 
 girls reading from scrolls. 
 
 Thus do the tombs of Etruria speak more of life 
 
TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 than of death, and thus do the silent dead tell the lost 
 story of a great people. In many of the names we 
 see the forefathers of the great Roman families — the 
 Flavii, the Gracchi, and the Csecina, whose name is 
 still brought down to us in the river Cecina, which 
 flows by Volterra. There are but few vases in the 
 Museum, and these mostly of the time of the fall of 
 art, for they are coarse and ugly. The real black 
 polished Volterra ware is very beautiful. The bronzes 
 are only a very small and poor collection compared to 
 the beautiful one in Florence ; the jewellery also is 
 neither very fine nor abundant, but the glass vases, 
 lachrymatories, paterse, &c., are exquisite and rare. 
 
 Having thus seen all the produce of the tombs, the 
 next thing was obviously to go into one ; but, alas ! 
 for disappointments ! A tiresome walk down a steep, 
 rugged hill ; a long search for a custode, who was 
 slow of coming ; and then we went underground. 
 Clambering down a roughly-dug hole we entered a 
 circular cave, with a column in the centre, the hole so 
 small that we had to creep into it backward, and so 
 strewn with broken tombs that we could scarcely move 
 a step. Thence another long walk up and round the 
 hills skirting the town on the north brought us to the 
 
VOLTERRA AND THE BORAX SPRINGS. 303 
 
 Baize, a ravine with wonderfully grand and picturesque 
 precipices several hundred feet deep. There is an 
 element of awe in the place, for the rocks are still 
 crumbling : we heard pieces rolling down and rebound- 
 ing like cannon-shot. We were told that one church 
 (San Giusto) had been already engulfed in the chasm, 
 and that the church and monastery of San Salvadore 
 stand in danger of falling soon. 
 
 We had not time to go into the monastery, as we 
 were anxious to see the accessible portions of the 
 Etruscan walls, of which we had traced several re- 
 mains in the distant pode7% or olive fields, as we 
 skirted the northern hill to the Baize. The portions 
 of wall between the Baize and Porta San Francesco 
 are very fine ; they are of large rectangular masses, 
 like the better known ones of Fiesole, and the Cyclo- 
 pean blocks, overgrown with verdure, are often very 
 picturesque. 
 
 Having made the tour of the Etruscan walls, we 
 entered the grand old Etruscan gateway, Porta dell' 
 Arco, with a feeling that the mysterious heads out- 
 stretched from its arch frowned at us for finding in- 
 terest in the fallen grandeur of the city they had seen 
 in its living power and splendour. 
 
304 , TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 After dinner a hasty visit to the alabaster works to 
 buy some vases and statuettes ; then back to the 
 hotel, where our primitive equipages awaited us. 
 
 " Pudgy-bunsy " had his head lower than usual at 
 the prospect of another long pull. Mr. and Mrs. 
 
 L , who had taken a fancy to the little calesse (or 
 
 market cart), drove away. We all mounted the red 
 
 carriage, awaiting T , who had dropped behind at 
 
 the alabaster works. The assembled population of 
 Volterra crowded the Piazza to see the forestie^d 
 depart, and we found their gaze so embarrassing 
 that we alighted again and went into the hotel. 
 Half an hour passed before the truant joined us 
 with his prize, a pair of beautifully-wrought gold 
 Etruscan earrings, which he had bought of a Volterran 
 antiquary. Besides their value as a work of art, they 
 were peculiarly interesting as a proof that the Etrus- 
 cans in this city burned their dead, for both earrings 
 were partially melted and destroyed by heat. 
 
 Some mile or two from Volterra we descried 
 
 " Pudgy-bunsy " — as Mr. L had sarcastically 
 
 named the pony ! His bones were very visible, his 
 pace that of a snail, and his head seemed trying to 
 whisper to his tired feet. 
 
VOLTERRA AND THE BORAX SPRINGS. 305 
 
 " How are we to do twenty miles with this wretched. 
 
 beast ? " cried Mr. L . " He won't move a step 
 
 without the whip, and I can't use that on such a 
 creature." 
 
 Our portly driver laughed. " He wants com- 
 panions, signor, that is all ; if you let me lead the 
 way he'll follow." So we passed in front, our horses' 
 bells ringing merrily as we trotted down the long 
 descent. Wonder of wonders ! Up went Pudgy- 
 bunsy's head, his ears pricking in the most lively way ; 
 his crawl became a trot, the trot merged into a canter, 
 and the calesse rattled behind us all the way in the 
 cold evening air. The mediaeval town of Colle looked 
 lovely with the pure moonlight pencilling out its gates, 
 its turretted walls, and old castles. 
 
 We reached Pogglbonsi at half-past eight, and 
 found that "mine host" had prepared a supper which 
 he thought worthy even of English appetites — he had 
 even over-estimated them. 
 
 20 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 H Sbiine of mebiseval Hrt. 
 
 UR friends decide that they have had 
 sufficient experience of country driving in 
 Italy, and so they will take the train to 
 Florence, instead of accompanying us on 
 our pilgrimage to San Gimignano. 
 
 " I bid adieu to * Pudgy-bunsy ' with regret," 
 
 laughed Mr. L ; " but I look forward to a return 
 
 to civilization as necessary to comfort." 
 
 "If there were a decent tramway to San Gimignano 
 now ! " adds his wife. 
 
 " There is not even a vetturino," said T ; " to 
 
A SHRINE OF MEDIEVAL ART. 307 
 
 reach it one must plunge entirely into the byways, 
 and not only go out of the known world but out of the 
 nineteenth century, for there you will find yourself in 
 the Middle Ages." 
 
 " And have the uncomfortable feeling of being an 
 anachronism. Thank you, I will go back to Florence 
 
 and her hotels," decides Mr. L ; and as soon as 
 
 we have seen them depart by rail, we turn our atten- 
 tion to the choice of a vehicle to take us to San 
 Gimignano. 
 
 There are plenty of vehicles to choose from, but all 
 seem in an equal state of dinginess, dustiness, and a 
 general shaky condition as regards wheels and 
 springs. Confiding ourselves to one of these calesse, 
 we start on a long drive across the pretty country of 
 the Val d' Elsa, where are olives, corn, and vines in 
 abundance, with here and there a little wood struggling 
 up the rugged sides of a chasm in the reddish sand- 
 stone. From afar off we see San Gimignano, and so 
 tall and numerous are its towers that it looks as if the 
 child of a giant had been playing with its bricks and 
 stuck all the longest ones on end in a cluster. Of 
 course when we seem within half a mile of the town 
 we have the usual detour of three miles, which is 
 
A SHRINE OF MEDIEVAL ART. 309 
 
 necessary to scale the heights to any old Italian city. 
 We lose sight of it twice, and just at the moment 
 when we think it must be a myth altogether we come 
 suddenly on it — a cluster of gigantic square towers 
 rising up golden bright against a black mass of clouds. 
 Round piles of machicolated masonry, forming the 
 entrance to the town, stand beneath these towers. 
 The whole scene is like a mysterious aerial fortress 
 uplifted against the wild sky, for surrounding us, and 
 seeming miles below, the green valley is spread out, 
 melting by delicate gradations into blue as it reaches 
 the distant mountains, while the setting sun in streams 
 of gold, lights up the frowning old towers and gates, 
 bringing them out in full relief on the black sky 
 behind. 
 
 Within the gate, we drive noisily over the multiform 
 paving-stones, through tortuous streets filled with Gothic 
 houses, propped up against each other by arches and 
 flying buttresses high in air. Arriving at the foot of 
 a street steeper than the others, the calesse draws up, 
 and the driver begs us to alight as the vehicle can go 
 no further. The doors of all the Gothic houses are 
 filled with interested spectators of our arrival, many 
 hands are extended to take possession of our bags, 
 
3IO TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 and with a strong escort we climb the hilly street 
 which brings us to a curious double piazza, on the 
 first part of which are an ancient fountain and the 
 palace of the Podesta, and on the second our inn and 
 the Duomo. So quaint and redolent of mediaeval 
 times does everything seem, that it is with a start we 
 find that echoes from the world have reached here, 
 and the two piazze are called " Victor Emanuele " 
 and " Cavour." 
 
 Seeing our belongings disappear within an arch- 
 way darker than the others we follow them, and find 
 ourselves in the "Albergo delle due Piazze;" the 
 salle a manger of which is furnished with two wooden 
 tables, dark with age, and some solid chairs. A chest 
 of drawers does duty as sideboard, and a long, rough 
 shelf on the wall as a wine depot. Civility and a 
 hearty welcome, however, atone for lack of luxuries, 
 and hunger and fatigue sweeten the plainest fare. 
 
 The bright sun shows us the quaint piazza next 
 morning, and we feel, not like Rip Van Winkle, that 
 we have awaked a century too late, but that we have 
 retrograded two or three hundred years. There are 
 four square towers rising up into the blue air above 
 the old-fashioned houses ; two others on our side of 
 
A SHRINE OF MEDIEVAL ART. 311 
 
 the piazza fling their shadows across its space. On 
 the right is the ancient Palazzo dell' Oriolo, whose 
 clock face has mediaeval figures and only one hand, 
 whose lamps, balustrades, and torch-rings are in 
 fine old wrought iron. The entrance to this is a 
 cavernous archway, furnished all round with stone 
 seats, which seems to be a useful resort for itinerant 
 vendors. A primitive fishmonger occupies the front 
 of it to-day ; in lieu of marble bench he has a wide 
 tub half filled with water, in which we see a mass of 
 shining fishes in constant motion. I do not know 
 whether the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to 
 Animals extends its protection to fish, but surely 
 they need it sorely when treated as these are. 
 A woman comes to buy, and a bunch of fishes are 
 taken out all ready strung on a reed, but still alive ; 
 they wriggle even as she carries them away, to the 
 great delight of an urchin of five years old, who 
 follows his mother, giving the creatures a poke every 
 now and then. A brisk sale ensues ; the hostess of 
 our inn goes out to buy some, by which we get a 
 foreknowledge of our dinner. 
 
 The opposite side of the piazza is occupied by the 
 Collegiate Church, a large building with a wide flight 
 
312 TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 of Steps reaching all across the square. The facade 
 only reaches to the top of the doorways, all the 
 upper part being unfinished. On going out after 
 breakfast we first turned our steps to this church. 
 What a mass of colour greeted us ! This was how 
 the churches looked in ancient times ! Not an inch 
 uncolour'ed. A Bible in fresco spread in pictures 
 on the walls ; roof diapered in colour all over, the 
 beams and spans of the arches arabesqued, cornices, 
 lunettes, rood loft — every part glowing with varied 
 tints like a Moorish mosque. Most of the older 
 frescoes have been badly restored, but the general 
 effect at first sight is very impressive. The left wall 
 has a series of subjects from the Old Testament, by 
 Bartolo di Fredi (1356), the father of Taddeo Bartolo 
 of Siena. The drawing is stiff, but the motives full 
 of imagination ; the figures are relieved on a black 
 background, but no true judgment can be made of 
 the colouring, they having been badly restored about 
 a hundred and fifty years ago. 
 
 On the right wall, Berna of Siena (1380) has done 
 a series of scenes from the New Testament. There 
 is all the serious intensity of his school, with the 
 struggling after the expression of truth which so often 
 
A SHRINE OF MEDIEVAL ART. 313 
 
 goes with the imperfect execution of his time. The 
 subjects are in two rows of compartments except in 
 the last, the "Crucifixion," which takes the whole 
 height of the wall. It is a great weird picture, fly- 
 ing angels and demons, fill the black background,, 
 spectral horses of a gigantic size loom here and there 
 like colossal ghosts ; the foreground is occupied by 
 groups of figures full of intense life and expression. 
 These paintings cost the artist his life, for stepping 
 back too far on his scaffolding to see the effect of 
 his work, he fell, and was so much injured that he died 
 two days afterwards. The people of San GimignanO' 
 gave him a pompous interment in the church, and 
 paid such respect to his genius that his tomb was 
 constantly covered with Latin elegies, or sonnets and 
 verses in his honour. His pupil, Giovanni d'Ascanio, 
 finished the frescoes. 
 
 It was nearly ninety years after this when BenozzO' 
 Gozzoli added his martyrdom of St. Sebastian, which is 
 between the entrance doors. The composition is fine,, 
 but the chief figure is wanting in life. Art had not 
 yet reached the power of delineating from the nude. 
 These early works of Gozzoli's may, however, be 
 looked on as almost the birth of landscape painting. 
 
314 TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 There is a great feeling for nature in the forms of 
 the hills and undulations of the landscape, in the 
 little plants springing from the crevices of the rocks, 
 and the flowers beneath the feet of the saint, although 
 the greens are crude and the aerial perspective not 
 good. But the gem of the church is the chapel 
 of Santa Fina, near the right transept, which is 
 decorated by some of Domenico Ghirlandajo's finest 
 frescoes. S. Gimignano is more rich in local saints 
 than most towns ; for besides the bishop from whom it 
 took its name, and who is said to have liberated the 
 city from the power of Attila, it boasts two mediaeval 
 saints, Sta. Fina and S. Bartolo, both being instances 
 of the peculiar bias of the times to look on suffering 
 as sanctity. Sta. Fina was born in 1238 of noble 
 lineage, but her parents had fallen into extreme 
 poverty. She showed signs of especial purity from 
 her earliest years, and being left an orphan, endowed 
 with great beauty, in a crowded city and lawless times, 
 she was so alarmed by an offer of marriage from a 
 youth, that she prayed God to send her some chas- 
 tisement which would save her from all such tempta- 
 tions to draw her heart away from Christ in the future. 
 This prayer, of which we should doubt the piety in our 
 
A SHRINE OF MEDIEVAL ART. 315 
 
 days, was answered. Fina was struck with a painful 
 spinal disease, which she accepted as a sign of God's 
 favour, and, renouncing the luxury of a bed, spent the 
 the remainder of her life stretched on a hard board. 
 
 In her chapel, which Ghirlandajo was called from 
 Florence to paint (in company with his pupil 
 Sebastiano Mainardi, who was a native of S. 
 Gimignano), the artist has given two scenes of the 
 saint, in her life and in her death. 
 
 The first gives the interior of her cottage with its 
 mediaeval furniture of massive oak, the plates of old 
 majolica on the shelf, and a bit of distant landscape 
 seen through the small deep window. Fina lies 
 patiently on her board, while her nurse Beldia sits 
 sorrowful beside her. She has on her head the 
 quaint wimple worn at that time, and of which the 
 tradition is still preserved in the close white veils 
 of the nuns. There are few soft lines in the com- 
 position except in the fall of this wimple and the 
 slight undulations of the girlish form of the saint. It 
 bears the impress of the hand of Ghirlandajo, which 
 was more accustomed to the hardness of metal than the 
 soft gradations of colour. There is clear, stern, hard 
 relief, but a good full harmony of colour. 
 
3i6 TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 In the " Death of Sta. Fina," on the opposite wall, the 
 master is at his very best. The composition is very 
 similar to the " Death of St. Francis," painted a few 
 years later for the Sassetti chapel in Santa Trinita, 
 Florence — the bier of the saint in the midst surrounded 
 by a semicircle of spectators, the background the 
 rounded apse of a church. In the death of St. Francis 
 the bystanders are monks, mourning their lost com- 
 panion. In that of Sta. Fina her nurse kneels beside 
 her, imploring a sign of recognition even from the 
 grave, and the dead girl miraculously lifts her hand. 
 Around the bier stands a group of priests, citizens, 
 and little chorister boys, one of whom kneels in 
 adoration to kiss the feet of the sainted maiden. 
 
 Ghirlandajo's style of drawing and sculpturesque 
 folds of drapery fit well with the subject, giving it 
 that decorous gravity which entirely suits it. His por- 
 traiture is also most valuable : the faces of the men 
 of the time are stamped indelibly on the walls, the 
 grave, quaint setting of the mediaeval features, the 
 naive devotional expression of the innocent boys, the 
 lines of thought and care on the wrinkled features of 
 the elder men wrapped each in the stately folds of his 
 lucco, are all wonderfully lifelike; the colouring is 
 
A SHRINE OF MEDIEVAL ART. 317 
 
 full and rich, and the relief marvellous. The roof 
 of the chapel (the Evangelists, Saints, and Prophets) 
 is the work of Sebastiano Mainardi, Ghirlandajo's 
 favourite scholar, who, being a San Gimignanese, had 
 no doubt obtained this commission for his master. 
 He made lasting friendships in the city, for his second 
 wife was a widow named Antonia, of San Gimignano, 
 and Mainardi cemented his ties to his master by 
 marrying Ghirlandajo's young sister. 
 
 The marble altar is a beautiful work by Benedetto 
 da Majano. The youthful saint is very miraculous, 
 and her chapel is covered with votive offerings, many 
 of them extremely curious. There are certain long 
 rows of little kneeling figures of a most archaic form 
 repousse in tin, and some dreadful paintings of illnesses 
 and accidents, some of them dating from 1524, 1526, 
 &c. There is a great wealth of silver still about 
 the chapel, but the sacristan told us that it had been 
 robbed about a year or two ago, and several thousand 
 pounds' worth of silver and jewels taken. 
 
 In the choir are a few good old paintings, the most 
 interesting being Benozzo Gozzoli's ** Virgin and 
 Child," with saints kneeling in front ; a group of 
 •angels hold a crown and wreaths of flowers about her 
 
3i8 TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 head. In this we seem to see the prototype of many 
 more familiar paintings by the later hands of Fra 
 Bartolommeo, Perugino, and Raphael. Pollajuolo's 
 " Coronation of the Virgin " is an important picture, 
 showing the intense power of expression which 
 struggled against conventional handling in the school 
 of the goldsmith painters. Of Mainardi, few inde- 
 pendent works exist beyond the walls of his native 
 city. His masterpiece is between the windows in the 
 choir. It is a Madonna, with S. Gimignano, Fina, 
 and other saints. Ghirlandajo's style is to be traced, 
 but with all its faults, and less than its excellencies. 
 In the sacristy, a very venerable relic was shown 
 us, the finger of S. Gimignano himself. His body re- 
 poses at Modena. We also saw the dress of Santa 
 Fina, which, in spite of her poverty, was of good 
 brocade. 
 
 The Palazzo Pubblico stands on the side of the 
 piazza at right-angles with the church. It is a 
 mediaeval castellated building of the style of the 
 Palazzo Vecchio at Florence, but less rich in archi- 
 tecture ; its most peculiar feature is that the tallest 
 tower in the city rises over an arch across the street 
 beside it. When the Republic was established, it 
 
A SHRINE OF MEDIEVAL ART. 319 
 
 was found inconvenient that the civil rulers could 
 not make use of the bells of the Colleofiate Church 
 without express permission of the clergy ; so the Com- 
 mune determined to build a bell-tower for its own 
 use, and having no ground available, flung its founda- 
 tions across the street on an archway. A tax of three 
 hundred lire was made on the entering office of 
 each podesta who wished the privilege of affixing 
 his arms on the facade of the palace, and in 130Q 
 the tower was commenced. Its bell which can be 
 heard six miles away, weighs 12,000 Tuscan pounds. 
 
 The Palazzo Pubblico is, like the church, covered 
 with frescoes. Go where you will, frescoes meet your 
 eye. Beneath the arches of the loggia, on the pillars, 
 up the stairs, in the rooms — some appearing dimly 
 beneath coats of whitewash, some peering forth in 
 fragments where stucco has been knocked off"; a few 
 badly restored, and fewer still entire. Of the latter 
 the gem is Lippo Memmi's large fresco in the Sala di 
 Consiglio, where it fills almost one entire wall. 
 
 The composition is evidently taken from the great 
 fresco of his cousin, Simone, on the wall of the Public 
 Palace at Siena, done two years before — 1375, and in 
 which Lippo assisted him. The Virgin and Child are 
 
320 TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 enthroned in the midst under a canopy ; crowds of 
 saints stretch out on each side of her, all more or less 
 conventional. In the midst kneels a little figure of 
 Nello Tolomei, the podesta of the time, dressed in a 
 gorgeous lucco of red and black stripes. 
 
 There is a great striving after expression, and much 
 of the style of Simone Memmi, but the Byzantine 
 traditions are still strong; the conventional attitudes, 
 immobile limbs, gold glories, and straight folds, are 
 the bonds which imprison Memmi's art. Benozzo 
 Gozzoli restored the fresco in 1467, but his restorations 
 seem now little less old than the original. 
 
 Historically, this Council Hall is extremely interest- 
 ing. In it the Commune of San Gimignano received 
 Dante, when he was sent as ambassador to propose to 
 the city that it should join the Florentine League — a 
 proposition the Republic was only too glad to accept, 
 being tired of the internal dissensions between the 
 rival parties of the Ardinghelli and Salucci, whose 
 hostile towers rise near each other around the piazza. 
 Dante also rendered here the acknowledgments of the 
 Florentines for the assistance of San Gimignano in 
 vanquishing the Ghibellines at Campaldino. 
 
 Opening from the Council Hall is a balcony, from 
 
A SHRINE OF MEDIEVAL ART. 321 
 
 which it was said Dante showed himself and addressed 
 the excited crowd below. We stood some time on this 
 balcony gazing on the quaint piazza, so unchanged in 
 many centuries. Just as we see it now it must have 
 looked when Pope Eugene III. was carried up those 
 wide steps into the church when he came to consecrate 
 it, and give it the rank of Cathedral, in 1148. What 
 a picturesque crowd must have filled the square ! the 
 long procession in which the Benedictine monks led 
 the way, and the Augustlnes followed ; then a train of 
 nuns brought forth from their seclusion for this one 
 exciting day ; next the new-elected prebends, canons, 
 and priests ; then the Pope, under his uplifted canopy, 
 a file of cardinals on each side, gleaming in the sun like 
 scarlet popples in a cornfield. 
 
 The armed procession of knights and burghers who 
 attended Dante when he came in his diplomatic state 
 nearly two hundred years later was of a very 
 different kind from this. A surging crowd filled 
 the piazza while he was received in audience in 
 the Council Hall, — the rival parties of Ardinghelli 
 and Salucci awaiting the decision of the Commune 
 in armed truce, their smouldering enmities ready to 
 break into flame on the smallest provocation. 
 
 21 
 
322 TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 Again two hundred years had passed when, in 1484, 
 the piazza was the scene of intense excitement, of a 
 nature quite different. On the steps of the church 
 stood a man in the dress of a monk ; his earnest eyes 
 blazed like fires beneath the heavy overhanging lids, 
 his nostrils dilated with emotion, his large mobile 
 mouth poured forth inspired words that kindled the souls 
 of all the vast multitude. None had ever seen such 
 emotion, or heard such words before, although they 
 were to stir the soul of Italy to its depths ; for it was at 
 San Gimignano that the spirit of prophecy first fell on 
 Savonarola. The people who stood on this balcony, 
 who peered from the windows of the quaint houses, 
 and who filled the piazza with awe-struck faces, were 
 the very first to hear these words : " The Church will 
 be scourged, and then regenerated, and the scourging 
 shall come quickly." 
 
 When we had completed our explorations of the ancient 
 Communal Palace, with its fading frescoes, its multitu- 
 dinous rooms with groined roofs and deep embrasured 
 windows, we wandered about the curious old town, 
 where we discovered several Gothic houses amongst 
 the prison-like mediaeval ones. An old square machi- 
 colated building, with Lombard windows, had an 
 
A SHRINE OF MEDLEVAL ART. 323 
 
 inscription over the door that it was erected by 
 Desiderius, the last king- of the Longobards : but it 
 appears that the connection of Desiderius with San 
 Gimignano is very doubtful, if not as mythic as the 
 story that Attila was turned away by the prayers of 
 the bishop San Gimignano, who went in procession 
 down the hill to meet the destroyer and beseech him 
 to pass by the city in peace. 
 
 Quite at the extreme end of the town is the church 
 of St. Agostino, a dilapidated building, which is 
 nevertheless a precious shrine of art. In no place can 
 the works of Benozzo Gozzoli be studied so well as 
 they can here. His masterpieces cover the walls of 
 the choir, where, in 1465, he depicted the life of St. 
 Augustine in seventeen compartments. Although 
 wanting in some of the qualities which make a genius, 
 Benozzo Gozzoli is an interesting painter and important 
 in his time. He forms the link between the art of Fra 
 Angelico and that of the Ghirlandaji and Pollajuoli. 
 
 With the style and handling of Fra Angelico, 
 without his spirituality, he possesses the power of 
 portraiture and realism which is the distinctive mark 
 of Ghirlandajo, without his more harmonious blending 
 of colour and high relief. Of the Middle Ages he ig 
 
324 TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 emphatically mediaeval, and his pictures make the city 
 of San Gimignano complete. 
 
 He supplies the figures to people the deserted 
 streets. On these walls the very burghers, with their 
 long-sleeved garments and their serious, business-like 
 faces, who owned the towered houses, still live. There 
 are the women, modestly shrouded in their wimples, 
 who went to mass and to market centuries ago ; and 
 there are the children — the boys in stiff little blouses, 
 the girls in square-cut bodices — who went to school or 
 played in the paved streets ; and there is the naughty 
 boy, whom the irate schoolmaster is flogging with the 
 greatest indignity — the poor child being hoisted on a 
 big boy's back for the purpose. 
 
 In linear perspective Benozzo is clever, although his 
 aerial perspective is decidedly defective ; but his land- 
 scapes are valuable as being almost the first attempts 
 to depict still nature. He evidently loves every little 
 plant that grows. As St. Augustine rides on to 
 Milan his white palfrey treads daintily among the 
 daisies and primroses ; a little poodle dog gambols in 
 the ferny grass. 
 
 In the scene where St. Augustine teaches the 
 doctors of law, the intensity of expression and natural 
 
A SHRINE OF MEDIAEVAL ART. 325 
 
 portraiture are delightful. There is the sneering 
 lawyer, who evidently thinks the new lecturer very 
 young and is sure he could fill the chair better himself ; 
 there is the antagonistic one, who seems taking notes 
 for argument ; and there are the earnest ones, who 
 believe and listen dutifully. The sea-piece, where 
 the ship bears the saint to Italy, is a charming bit of 
 nature. The boat is of antique build, with double 
 poop, richly carved. These frescoes were commissioned 
 by one of the bygone celebrities of San Gimignano, 
 a certain Fra Domenico Strambi, who won the name 
 of Dottore Parigino, from having attained celebrity in 
 Paris. Sebastiano Mainardi painted his portrait on 
 the wall of the chancel arch, which has only been 
 re-discovered under a coat of whitewash within the last 
 thirty years. He is dressed in the robes of his order 
 and lies on a monumental slab, with his hands raised 
 in prayer. On the wall of the nave, opposite the 
 principal entrance, is a very immense fresco by 
 Benozzo Gozzoli — a St. Sebastian, which forms a 
 curious pendant to the one in the Duomo. There, he 
 is covered with arrows ; here, his martyrdom accom- 
 plished, he has the power to ward off the sufferings of 
 others. His cloak is held up by angels, and all the 
 
326 TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 arrows sent from a group of angels in the celestial 
 regions above are broken in its folds, and so remain 
 harmless to the populace gathered beneath its shelter. 
 It was painted as a votive offering after one of the 
 many deliverances from the plague, which so often 
 devastated San Gimignano — the plague being repre- 
 sented as the arrows of vengeance from heaven. As 
 usual, the most artistic part of the picture is the earthly 
 group A crowd of expressive faces is gathered be- 
 neath the wide mantle. Middle-aged men, with stern 
 set features ; young girls, with gentle, modest faces ; and 
 dear little chubby children, round-eyed and innocent. 
 
 The church possesses one or two works by Tamagni, 
 a native artist, who was a scholar of Raphael. He 
 must have been the Burne Jones of his time, and had 
 leanings towards a revival of older styles, for, with an 
 advanced style of drawing, he has in his " Birth of the 
 Virgin" mingled an affectation of colouring in the style 
 of the earliest Florentines, and adorned his saints with 
 the gold nimbus and gilded embroidery on their robes, 
 as Bartolo di Fredi delighted to do. His "Christ and 
 Saints " is much more free from these affectations, and 
 has a depth of shadow and rich relief almost equal to 
 Sodoma, but with less religious feeling. 
 
A SHRINE OF MEDIAEVAL ART. 327 
 
 One of the gems of the church is the altar of St. 
 Bartolo, the crippled youth who divides with Santa 
 Fina the veneration of the people of San Gimignano. 
 The altar is beautifully sculptured in marble by 
 Benedetto da Maiano — some say it is by Settignano, 
 however. The shrine is covered with rich decorative 
 designs, and over the altar is a fine alto-relievo. 
 
 The Church of S. Jacopo is even older than this. 
 It was founded by the Knights Templars in the 
 eleventh century, and has some very ancient frescoes. 
 Monasticism, almost extinct in the more frequented 
 parts of Italy, still flourishes amongst the other 
 traditional institutions at San Gimignano. A great 
 many friars and priests are to be seen in the streets : 
 there are one hundred and twenty monks, in a 
 population of less than two thousand. ^ The convent 
 of St. Jerome, founded iioo, is still existing, and is a 
 rich possession, the monks having some years ago 
 discovered a copper mine beneath it. Other convents 
 have suffered vicissitudes : that of Santa Chiara is a 
 girls' school now, and that of the Dominicans has 
 become a female penitentiary. The list of S. Gimig- 
 
 ^ Probably there are now fewer monks, as several convents have 
 been suppressed since this was written. 
 
328 TUSCAN SKETCHES. 
 
 nano worthies is a long one. There was Niccolo 
 Pesciolini, sixteenth century, who rose to great 
 diplomatic celebrity at the time of the Medici as 
 ambassador in France ; and Curzio da Picchena, 
 ambassador to Spain in the time of Ferdinand and 
 Francis I. of Medici. He was a friend of Galileo, 
 and wrote a translation and commentary on Tacitus. 
 Tamagni, Mainardi, and Poccetti are the artists on 
 whom the city prides herself. 
 
 We will suggest to lovers of art who intend to 
 explore San Gimignano that it would be well to supply 
 themselves with tins of edibles in a portable form, for 
 the living is, like everything else, extremely primitive. 
 Returning to the dinner our hostess had promised us, 
 we found it rather a disappointing meal. No butcher's 
 meat was to be had, consequently no soup was forth- 
 coming. The fish we had seen in the tub in the 
 morning figured as the first course, cooked in oil ! The 
 women called them "tinche," which we take to mean 
 " tench," but they were of such a peculiarly muddy 
 flavour as to be quite uneatable. They are fish caught 
 in the marshes. Next our hostess talked greatly of a 
 fine piece of mutton which she had obtained for us, 
 but when it came it proved to be a few bones of kid 
 
A SHRINE OF MEDIEVAL ART. 329 
 
 or goat's flesh, of impossible hardness and inexpressible 
 flavour. The bread was black and hard, and the cheese 
 harder. In the wine we did not recognize the excel- 
 lence of which the poet Redi sings when speaking of 
 the Val d' Elsa. But the good nature and hospitality 
 of our hosts went far to atone for poor cheer, and the 
 feast of mediaeval art at San Gimignano is so great as 
 to banish more mundane realities from our minds. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 22 
 
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