Works of Grant Allen

by Grant Allen

On the end wall is a tapestry with the arms of the Medici.

  The cells to the right are those which were occupied by Cosimo Pater Patriæ, when he retired to the convent, in retreat, for prayer and meditation. The first therefore contains a Crucifixion, with St. Cosimo, St. John, and St. Peter Martyr (the last two as patrons of Giovanni and Piero de’ Medici). Cosimo could thus pay his devotions to the Saviour before his own patron and those of his sons. The upper cell, where Cosimo slept, contains a Pietà, above which is the Adoration of the Magi, doubtless as representing worldly authority submitting to the Church, and therefore most appropriate for the retreat of the powerful founder. Notice the characteristic figure of Joseph. The attitudes of the Three Kings also occur exactly alike in many other pictures. The train of attendants with horses and camels to the right (most fearsome monsters) are also characteristic. The riders are supposed to be observing the Star in the East. Notice the attempt to introduce types of Orientals, some of whom have truly Asiatic features. This cell also contains a good terra-cotta bust of St. Antoninus, and a portrait of Cosimo (in the dress of his patron saint) by Pontormo, of the sixteenth century (not of course contemporary, but reconstructed from earlier materials). St. Antoninus used here to converse with Cosimo, who also received Fra Angelico.

  After visiting the Monastery of San Marco, I advise you to pay a brief visit to the Church of San Marco by its side, — originally, of course, the chapel of the monastery. The façade is of the eighteenth century, and ugly, but contains interesting symbolism of St. Mark, St. Dominic, St. Antonine, etc., which you will now be in a position to understand for yourself. In the porch, on the holy water stoup, and elsewhere, the balls of the Medici.

  The interior, though ancient, was so painfully altered in the sixteenth century as to preserve little or nothing of its original architecture. It contains, however, a few old works, the most interesting of which are a Christ on a gold ground over the central door, said to be by Giotto. (Compare with several old crucifixes in the Uffizi.) The Madonna over the second altar is by Fra Bartolommeo, a monk of the monastery. Over the third altar (St. Dominic’s) is an early Christian mosaic of the Madonna, from Rome, so greatly modernised, with new saints added, as to be of little or no value. But the most interesting object in the church is the Chapel of St. Antonine, prior of the monastery, and Archbishop of Florence, whose cells you have already seen in the adjoining dormitory. It still contains the actual body of the archbishop. The architecture is by Giovanni da Bologna, who also executed the statue of the saint. The other statues (poor) are by Francavilla. The frescoes by the entrance represent the Burial and Translation of St. Antonine. This chapel, ugly enough in itself, helps one to understand the late frescoes in the monastery. The church also contains the tombs of the two distinguished humanists and friends of the Medici, Pico della Mirandola and Poliziano. You will not fail to observe, throughout, the Dominican character of the church, nor its close relation to the adjoining monastery and its inmates.

  Visit some other day the Riccardi, formerly the Medici Palace, close by, the original home of the great family, before it migrated to the Pitti. The chapel is very dark; therefore, read all that follows before starting. This palace was built in 1430 for Cosimo Pater Patriæ, by Michelozzo, the Medici architect, who also built the Monastery of San Marco and the Medici Chapel at Santa Croce, as well as Piero de’ Medici’s pretty little baldacchino or shrine at San Miniato. Compare all these, in order to understand Michelozzo’s place in the evolution of Renaissance architecture. Note, too, how the politic Medici favoured both the important monastic bodies. This was the palace of Lorenzo de’ Medici, and it continued to be the family home till the Medici migrated about 1549 to the Pitti. It was sold ten years later to the Riccardi family, whose name it still bears; and it is now the Prefecture.

  The exterior of the palace is very handsome: the rustica work here for the first time is made to taper upward. Notice the admirable cornice. The Court is imposing: it contains a curious jumble of tombs, busts, sarcophagi, antique inscriptions, and mediæval fragments. The medallions above the arcades are by Donatello, after antique gems. The total effect is too mixed to be pleasing.

  But the great reason for visiting the Medici Palace is the Chapel. This dark little building is entirely covered with one gorgeous * *fresco by Benozzo Gozzoli, painted by means of artificial light, about 1460, — his greatest work, — and one of the loveliest things to be seen in Florence. It represents the journey of the Three Kings to Bethlehem, represented as a stately mediæval processional pageant through a delicious and varied landscape background. Benozzo was a pupil of Fra Angelico, and he took much from his master, as well as some hints from Gentile da Fabriano’s Adoration of the Magi, now in the Belle Arti (but then at Santa Trinità), which you will see hereafter; the two should be carefully compared together. Therefore, on this account also, you should bear in mind the double connection between San Marco and the Medici Palace. Note, however, that Benozzo has a sense of landscape and pretty fantastic adjuncts denied to Fra Angelico’s ascetic art, and only shared in part by Gentile da Fabriano. At San Marco all is monastic sternness; at the Medici Chapel, all is regal and joyous, all glitters with gold and glows with colour.

  On the left wall, the Eldest King, mounted on a white mule (cruelly mutilated to make a door), rides toward Bethlehem. The venerable face and figure are those of the Patriarch Joseph of Constantinople, who was then in Florence attending the abortive council already mentioned for the reunion of the Eastern and Western Churches. A troop of camels bearing his present zigzags along the mountain route in front of him. Notice also the hunting leopard, already introduced into a similar scene by Gentile da Fabriano, whose influence on Benozzo is everywhere apparent.

  On the end wall comes the Second or Middle-aged King, in a rich green robe, daintily flowered with gold. To mark his Eastern origin, he wears a turban, surmounted by a crown. The face and figure are those of John Palæologus, Emperor of Constantinople, then in Florence for the same purpose as the Patriarch Joseph. His suite accompany him. Observe to the far left three charming youths, wearing caps with the Medici feathers.

  BENOZZO GOZZOLI. — PORTRAIT OF LORENZO THE MAGNIFICENT (DETAIL OF THE JOURNEY OF THE THREE KINGS TO BETHLEHEM).

  On the right wall, the Young King, on a white horse like the others, and wearing a crown which recalls Gentile, moves on with stately march in the same direction. This king is a portrait of Lorenzo the Magnificent. In front of him, two pages bear his sword and his gift. Behind him, various members of the Medici family follow as part of the procession: among them you may notice Cosimo Pater Patriæ, with a page leading his horse. Farther back, some other less important personages of the escort, among them Benozzo himself, with his name very frankly inscribed on his head-gear.

  On the choir wall, groups of most exquisite and most sympathetic angels stand or kneel in adoration. These charming figures originally uttered their sonorous glories to the Madonna and Child in the central altar-piece, which has been removed to make way for the existing window. This altar-piece was by Benozzo himself, and represented the Adoration of the Child; it is now in the Old Pinakothek at Munich. I do not know at what time the original Adoration was removed, but in 1837 Filippo Lippi’s Nativity, now in the Belle Arti, filled the vacancy.

  I have very briefly described the main idea of these ineffably beautiful frescoes. You must note for yourself the rich caparisons of the horses, the shepherds and their flocks, the pomp of the escort, the charming episodes in the background, the delicious and fairy-like mediæval landscape, the castles and rocks, the trees and bright birds, the hawks and rabbits, the endless detail of the fanciful accessories. Pomegranate and vine, stone-fir and cypress, farmyard and trellis, all is dainty and orderly. In these works for the first time the joy in the beauty of external nature, just foreshadowed in Gentile da Fabriano, makes itself distinctly and consciously felt. If the naïve charm of Benozzo’s rich and varied work attracts you, you can follow up their artist’s later handic
raft in the Campo Santo at Pisa, and in the lost little mountain town of San Gimignano, near Siena.

  CHAPTER X.

  THE BELLE ARTI.

  By far the most important gallery in Florence, for the study of Florentine art at least, is the Accademia delle Belle Arti in the Via Ricasoli. This gallery contains a splendid collection of the works of the Tuscan and Umbrian Schools, from the earliest period to the High Renaissance, mostly brought from suppressed churches and convents. It is destitute, indeed, of any works by Raphael, Michael Angelo, Leonardo, Titian, and the other chief painters of the early sixteenth century. But it possesses a magnificent series of the great artists of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when art was feeling its way, whose works are therefore so much more interesting to the student of the history and evolution of painting. It begins with a collection of Giottesque altar-pieces, and then leads gradually on, through the slowly improving art of the early fifteenth century, to the great group of glorious Florentines, Filippo Lippi, Filippino Lippi, Botticelli, Verrocchio, who immediately preceded the early sixteenth century movement in art which culminated in the Decadence. It is also the first gallery which you should visit, because its historical range is on the whole less varied, its continuity greater, its stages of development more marked, than in other instances. Being confined to the early painters of Florence and of the upland country behind it, it enables you more readily to grasp the evolution of art in a single province, up to the date of Raphael, than you can do elsewhere. I advise you, therefore, to spend many days in this gallery before proceeding to the Uffizi and the Pitti. Or, if this sounds too hard a saying, then look through the two last-named casually first, but begin your definite study in detail with the Belle Arti.

  Go to the cathedral square, and then take the Via Ricasoli to your left. A little before you arrive at the Piazza of San Marco, you will see on your right a door which gives access to the gallery — officially known as the Reale Galleria Antica e Moderna.

  The first room which we enter — the outer corridor — contains Early Tuscan panels, chiefly altar-pieces from suppressed churches, and of comparatively small artistic value. Nevertheless, as leading up to later works, and as exhibiting the characteristic assemblages of Florentine or Tuscan saints, they deserve the closest attention. I will not particularise as to many of them, but will call attention as we pass to a few interesting details. Unless you study these early and to some people unattractive works you can not properly comprehend the later ones. I will lay stress only on the saints or motives which oftenest recur, so as to lead you gradually on to a knowledge of the subject.

  On the left wall is 51, an Ascension, with St. Lawrence, as a Medici patron; St. John, as patron of Florence; St. Benedict; and St. Mark. Above, in two separate lozenges, is the Annunciation, from a monastery in Florence.

  In 49, a Crucifixion, note the St. John and Magdalen, and the angel catching the sacred blood — a frequent feature. Look out for it elsewhere. The blood was preserved in the Holy Grail. Some of it is at Bruges and in reliquaries in other churches.

  Number 47 is by Neri di Bicci, that late manufacturer of Giottesque pictures to order; the subject St. Francis with the Stigmata, embracing the Cross; to the extreme right, the ascetic portrait of St. Bernardino of Siena. The other saints are Jerome, the Baptist, Anthony of Padua, and the Magdalen. A Franciscan picture.

  Number 46 is a Madonna, attributed most doubtfully to Cimabue. It looks much more like a work of the school of Giotto. Notice the goldfinch.

  Among the group of Saints close by, notice again, 43, St. Lawrence, in his usual rich deacon’s robes. This is from the monastery of San Marco.

  In 35 we get once more a Holy Trinity (observe its composition) with St. Cosimo and St. Damian, St. Francis kneeling, and other saints. Do not overlook the medical instruments of the holy doctors, nor the little Annunciation in the predella. The remaining saints are named beneath. Observe always such named saints: they will help you to identify others by the emblems.

  CIMABUE. — MADONNA.

  Number 32, a Neri di Bicci, should be observed for its St. Apollonia with the pincers (often carrying a tooth elsewhere) and St. Catherine with the wheel. Note its spikes, which you will find tolerably constant. This picture came from the convent of St. Apollonia; hence the position of the saint and her sister martyr. St. Louis of Toulouse should also be noted.

  Number 28, by the same artist, is a most characteristic Annunciation, with loggia, the orthodox division between the angel and Madonna, the Eternal Father discharging the dove, the bedchamber in the background, and all the typical Giottesque peculiarities. I specially recommend a study of Annunciations. This gives the commonest type; notice it carefully.

  In 27 you get the old patron saint of Florence, Santa Reparata, whom you saw so abundantly at the Opera del Duomo.

  In 26, note St. Barbara with her tower, as well as the characteristic Florentine figure of St. John the Baptist. The bald head of St. Paul (with his sword, on the left) has the typical features always given to the Prince of the Apostles. The other saints are Benedict and John the Evangelist.

  Number 22 is excellent for comparison of the central subject with the last; while the St. Michael to the left, weighing naked souls, and trampling on a highly Giottesque dragon, strikes a common key-note. To the right, St. Stephen, with the stones on his head, is equally typical. Note the circle of angels above, and the trio playing musical instruments below, who develop later into the exquisite child-cherubs of Raphael or Bellini. Every detail here is worth study, not as art, but as type or symbol. Go from one picture of a subject to others like it.

  In 21, St. Vincent Ferrer, the Dominican, may be studied for future recognition.

  Number 20 has a Trinity, noticeable for its very youthful Eternal Father. Compare its St. Michael with that in the last. The St. Anthony the Abbot is also characteristic. To the extreme right, beyond St. Francis, stands St. Julian, patron saint of Rimini. Do not overlook the six-winged red seraphs, and the Annunciation in the lozenges. The inscription gives the name of the donor and the date, 1416.

  Number 18 is another St. Bernardino of Siena, bearing the IHS, with which we are already familiar at Santa Croce. Observe the well-known portrait character of the pictures of this saint. The picture is from the Franciscan convent of Monte Oliveto.

  Number 14, a Madonna with cardellino or goldfinch, by Bicci di Lorenzo, may be compared with the so-called Cimabue close by. Note that this is a Franciscan picture (from San Francesco in Fiesole); therefore it has St. Francis with the stigmata, St. Louis of Toulouse habited as a bishop in a red robe, spangled with fleurs-de-lis, and with the crown which he rejected lying at his feet, as well as St. Anthony of Padua, holding the flames, and St. Nicholas of Bari with his three golden balls. Do not omit to note throughout such details as the flamelike ornaments on the heads of the angels, and the subjects represented on the bishops’ robes. All these will often cast light upon the nature of the subjects.

  Cross over the room to the opposite side and return toward the door.

  Number 13 is another Franciscan picture, with the same three Franciscan saints as 14, reinforced by St. Bernardino of Siena, once more bearing his IHS; St. Jerome, with his cardinal’s hat and open book (as translator of the Vulgate), and St. Sebastian holding his arrow and palm of martyrdom. The last figure shows the work to be probably a votive offering for the plague, painted for a Franciscan church. It comes from the Florentine convent of St. Jerome, whence that saint is introduced with the others.

  Number 12, the Life of the Virgin is interesting to compare with Fra Angelico’s scenes in the adjoining room, and with the little series of histories by Giotto to be noticed later. Contrast particularly the Flight into Egypt and the Adoration of the Magi with other treatments. The way in which Joseph examines the Elder King’s gift is highly characteristic. The development of these subjects from those (in fresco) by Giotto in the Arena at Padua is very instructive. Do not omit the Madonna ascending above in a mandorla, w
ith the kneeling donor, nor the little Annunciation in the lozenges of the gables.

  Number 11 has its saints named. Compare them with 20 just opposite. You will thus be enabled to form a type of St. Julian. The St. Peter and St. Paul in the lozenges above are also typical. Note their features. You will by this time be familiar with the characteristic faces assigned to St. Anthony with his crutch, and to St. John the Baptist. Observe in later art that the somewhat infantile innocence of St. Lawrence is preserved but modified.

  In 10, a Crucifixion, note the scorpion banner frequent with the soldiers who kill the Redeemer, and identify all the personages.

  Number 9 is interesting for its inscription, and its group of saints, who are excellent types of their personages, — Nicholas of Bari, Bartholomew, San Firenze (a local bishop), and St. Luke. It comes from the church of San Firenze in Florence, which is why that saint is so prominent.

  Number 8, by Ugolino da Siena, should be compared with the two works on the same subject (Coronation of the Virgin) by Neri di Bicci. In the great group of saints beside it you will now have no difficulty in distinguishing, to the left, St. Peter Martyr with his wounded head, in Dominican robes; St. Paul, with his sword; St. Bartholomew, with his knife; to the right, St. Peter, with the keys; St. John the Baptist; St. Dominic, with his lily; and St. Thomas Aquinas, with his ray-bearing book. Notice that this is therefore a Dominican work. As a matter of fact, it long occupied the High Altar of Santa Maria Novella, which shows how important it is to understand the origin of a picture. You can now see why the Virgin is there (the church being hers); and why the Dominicans and St. John the Baptist accompany her. A little inspection will also enable you to identify many other figures, such as that of St. Gregory the Pope (behind Peter and John), with the Spirit as a dove whispering in his ear, as always. Remember each saint you identify, and use him for later identifications.