Florence: Ghiberti's Gates of Paradise

 Before leaving Florence's Baptistery, Edward Hutton described Ghiberti's famous doors and their great significance on the art of the Renaissance.

 

There, amid a framework of exquisite foliage, leaves, birds, and all kinds of life, he has set the gospel story in twenty panels, beginning with the Annunciation and ending with the Pentecost; and around the gate he has set the four Evangelists and the doctors of the Church and the prophets….

In looking on these beautiful and serene works, we may already notice an advance on the work of Andrea Pisano in a certain ease and harmony, a richness and variety, that were beyond the older master. Ghiberti has already begun to change with his genius the form that has come down to him, to expand it, to break down its limitations so that he may express himself, may show us the very vision he has seen. And the success of these gates with the people certainly confirmed him in the way he was going. In the third door, that facing the Duomo, which Michelangelo has said was worthy to be the gate of Paradise, it is really a new art we come upon, the subtle rhythms and perspectives of a sort of pictorial sculpture, that allows him to carve here in such low relief that it is scarcely more than painting, there in the old manner, the old manner but changed, full of a sort of exuberance which here at any rate is beauty. The ten panels which Ghiberti thus made in his own way are subjects from the Old Testament: the Creation of Adam and Eve, the story of Cain and Abel, of Noah, of Abraham and Isaac, of Jacob and Esau, of Joseph, of Moses on Sinai, of Joshua before Jericho, of David and Goliath, of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. 

 

Ghiberti: Abraham and Isaac *

 

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*Note: Looking carefully at the panel of Abraham and Isaac, at the bottom left we see Abraham offering hospitality to three visitors (angels) who return the favor by promising that his elderly wife, Sara, will finally bear him an heir. Sara looks on behind a curtain and laughs at the idea. At the upper right we see Abraham about to follow the Lord's bidding and sacrifice the heir, Isaac. At the last moment, an angel from above stops Abraham from plunging the knife into Isaac. At the bottom left, we see Isaac reconciled with his step-brother Ishmael, the son of Sara's slavegirl, Hagar.

 

 

Edward Hutton: Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa, second edition, London, 1908. Pp. 171-2.

Florence: Baptistery

 

 

Edward Hutton began his account of the Piazza del Duomo with a discussion of the ancient Baptistery. When we visited, we got in before the crowds by attending daily Mass. 

On coming into the Piazza del Duomo, perhaps from the light and space of the Lung’ Arno from the largeness of the Piazza della Signoria, one is apt to think of it as too small for the buildings which it holds, as wanting in a certain spaciousness such as the Piazza of St. Peter at Rome certainly possesses, or in the light of the meadow of Pisa; and yet this very smallness, only smallness when we consider the great buildings set there so precisely, gives it an element of beauty lacking in the great Piazza of Rome and in Pisa too—a certain delicate colour and shadow and a sense of nearness, of homeliness almost; for the shadow of the dome falls right across the city itself every morning and evening. And indeed the Piazza del Duomo of Florence is still the centre of the life of the city… 

 

This enduring vitality of a place so old, so splendid, and so beloved, is, I think, particularly manifest in the Church of S. Giovanni Battista, the Baptistery. It is the oldest building in Florence, built probably with the stones from the Temple of Mars about which Villani tells us, and almost certainly in its place; every Florentine child, fortunate at least in this, is still brought there for baptism, and received its name in the place where Dante was christened, where Ippolito Buondelmonti first saw Dianora de’ Bardi, where Donatello has laboured, which Michelangelo has loved….

 

The mere form, those octagonal walls which, so it is said, the Lombards brought into Italy, go to show that the church was used as a Baptistery from the first, though Villani speaks of it as the duomo; and indeed till 1550 it had the aspect of such a church as the Pantheon of Rome, in that it was open to the sky, so that the rain and the sunlight have fallen on the very floor trodden by so many generations. Humble and simple enough as we see it to-day before the gay splendour of the new façade of the Duomo, it has yet those great treasures which the Duomo cannot boast, the bronze doors of Andrea Pisano and of Ghiberti….

 

It is strange to find Ghiberti’s work thus completing that of Andrea Pisano, who, as it is said, had Giotto to help him, till we understand that these southern gates stood where now are the “Gates of Paradise” before the Duomo. Standing there as they used to do before Ghiberti moved them, they won for Andrea not only the admiration of the people, but the freedom of the city. To-day we come to them with the praise of Ghiberti ringing in our ears, so that in our hurry to see everything we almost pass them by; but in their simpler, and, as some may think, more sincere way, they are as lovely as anything Ghiberti ever did, and in comparing them with the great gates that supplanted them, it may be well to remind ourselves that each has its own merit in its own fashion.

 

 

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Edward Hutton: Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa, second edition, London, 1908. Pp. 169-171.

Florence: Loggia de' Lanzi

Edward Hutton regarded the Loggia de' Lanzi as a gay and charming spot among the imposing Palazzo of the Signoria, and the stern statues like Cellini's Perseus that brought back memories of the past.

 

As you enter the Loggia de’ Lanzi, gay with children now, once the lounge of the Swiss guard, whose barracks were not far away, you wonder who can have built so gay, so happy a place beside the fortress of the Signoria. …Even now, in spite of forgotten greatness, it is still a garden of statues. Looking over the Piazza stands the Perseus of Cellini, with the head of Medusa held up to the multitude, the sword still gripped in his hand. It is the masterpiece of one who, like all the greatest artists of the Renaissance… did not confine himself to one art, but practiced many. And though it would be unjust to compare such a man as Cellini with the greatest of all, yet he was great not only as a sculptor and a goldsmith, but as a man of letters and as a man of the world. His Perseus, a little less than a demigod, is indeed not so lovely as the wax model he made for it, which is now in the Bargello; but in the gesture with which he holds out the severed head from him, in the look of secret delight that is already half remorseful for all that dead beauty, in the heroic grace with which he stands there after the murder, the dead body marvellously fallen at his feet, Cellini has proved himself the greatest sculptor of his time. (165-6)…

 

The great fountain which plays beside the Palazzo, where of old the houses of the Uberti stood, is rich and grandiose perhaps, but in some unaccountable way adds much to the beauty of the Piazza. How gay and full of life it is even yet, that splendid and bitter place, that in its beauty and various, everlasting life seems to stand as the symbol of the city, so scornful even in the midst of the overwhelming foreigner who has turned her into a museum, a vast cemetery of art….

 

It was past midnight when once more I came out of the narrow ways, almost empty at that hour,  when every footfall resounds between the old houses, into the old Piazza to learn this secret. Far away in the sky the moon swung like a censer, filling the place with a fragile and lovely light…. 

 

In the Loggia de’ Lanzi the moonlight fell among the statues, and in that fairy light I seemed to see in those ghostly still figures of marble and bronze some strange fantastic parable, the inscrutable 

prophecy of the scornful past. Gian Bologna’s Sabine woman, was she not Florence struggling in the grip of the modern vandal; Cellini’s Perseus with Medusa’s head, has it not in truth turned the city to stone?

The silence was broken; something had awakened in the Piazza: perhaps a bird fluttered from the battlements of the Palazzo, perhaps it was the city that turned in her sleep. No, there it was again. It was a human voice close beside me: it seemed to be weeping.

 

I looked around: all was quiet. I saw nothing, only there at the corner a little light flickered before a shrine; and yes, something was moving there, someone who was weeping. Softly, softly over the stones I made my way to that little shrine of Madonna at the street corner, and I found, ah! no proud and scornful noble mourning over dead Florence, but an old woman, ragged and alone, prostrate under some unimaginable sorrow, some unappeasable regret.

 

Did she hear as of old—that Virgin with half-open eyes and the sidelong look? God, I know not if she heard or no. Perhaps I alone have heard in all the world.

 

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Florence:Piazza della Signoria

 In 1907 Edward Hutton began his tour of Florence by ascending the hill to San Miniato and viewing the city from the Piazzale Michelangelo. But then, he descended into the city and began with a discussion of the famous Piazza della Signoria. Then, as now, one of the great pleasures of visiting Italy is just watching the people.

In every ancient city of the world, cities that in themselves for the most part have been nations, one may find some spot holy or splendid that instantly evokes an image of that of which it is a symbol,--which sums up, as it were, in itself all the sanctity, beauty and splendour of her fame, in whose name there lives even yet something of the glory that is dead….

 

Something of this power of evocation may still be found in the Piazza della Signoria of Florence: all the love that founded the city, the beauty that has given her fame, the immense confusion that is her history, the hatred that has destroyed her, lingers yet in that strange and lovely place where Palazzo Vecchio stands like a violated fortress, where the Duke of Athens was expelled the city, where the Ciompi rose against the Ghibellines, where Jesus Christ was proclaimed King of the Florentines, where Savonarola was burned, and Alessandro de’ Medici made himself Duke.

 

It is not any great and regular space you come upon in the Piazza della Signoria…but one that is large enough for beauty, and full of the sweet variety of the city; it is the symbol of Florence—a beautiful symbol.

 

In the morning the whole Piazza is full of sunlight, and swarming with people: there is a stall for newspapers; here, a lemonade merchant dispenses his sweet drinks. Everyone is talking; at the corner of the Via Calzaioli a crowd has assembled, a crowd that moves and seems to dissolve, that constantly reforms itself without ever breaking up. On the benches of the loggia men lie asleep in the shadow, and children chase one another among the statues. Everywhere and from all directions cabs pass with much cracking of whips and hallooing. There stand two Carabinieri in their splendid uniforms, surveying this noisy world; an officer passes with his wife, leading his son by the hand; you may see him lift his sword as he steps on the pavement. A group of tourists go by, urged on by a gesticulating guide; he is about to show them the statues in the loggia; they halt under the Perseus….

 

And surely the Piazza, which has seen so many strange and splendid things, may well tolerate this also; it is so gay, so full of life. Very fair she seems under the sunlight, picturesque too, with her buildings so different and yet so harmonius. On the right the gracious beauty of the Loggia de’ Lanzi; then before you the lofty, fierce old Palazzo Vecchio; and beside it the fountains play in the farther Piazza. Cosimo I rides by as though into Siena, while behind him rises the palace of the Uguccioni, which Folfi made; and beside you the Calzaioli ebbs and flows with the noisy life, as of old the busiest street of the city.

 

Loggia de' Lanzi

 

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Edward Hutton: Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa, second edition, London, 1908. Pp. 161-2.

Return to Florence

 In "Florence and Northern Tuscany", Edward Hutton began his discussion of the city of Florence with a kind of overview. He started at the Uffizi, walked along the Lung' Arno, crossed the river at the Ponte Vecchio, and then climbed the hill to the Piazzale and the church of S. Miniato to look down on the beautiful city. 

 

So, under the cool cloisters of Palazzo degli Uffizi I shall come at last on to Lung’ Arno, where it is very quiet, and no horses may pass, and the trams are a long way off. And I shall lift up my eyes and behold once more the hill of gardens across Arno, with the Belvedere just within the old walls, and S. Miniato, like a white and fragile ghost in the sunshine, and La Bella Villanella couched like a brown bird under the cypresses above the grey olives in the wind and the sun. And something in the gracious sweep of the hills, in the gentle nobility of that holy mountain which Michelangelo has loved and defended, which Dante Alighieri has spoken of, which Giovanni Manetti has so often climbed, will bring the tears to my eyes, and I shall turn away towards Ponte Vecchio, the oldest and most beautiful of the bridges, where the houses lead one over the river, and the little shops of the jewellers still sparkle and smile with trinkets. And in the midst of the bridge I shall wait awhile and look on Arno. Then I shall cross the bridge and wander upstream towards Porta S. Niccolo, that gaunt and naked gate in the midst of the way, and there I shall climb through the gardens up the steep hill…to the great Piazzale, and so to the old worn platform before S. Miniato itself, under the strange glowing mosaics of the façade: and, standing on the graves of dead Florentines, I shall look down on the beautiful city.

 

Marvellously fair she is on a summer evening as seen from that hill of gardens, Arno like a river of gold before her, leading over the plain lost in the farthest hills. Behind her the mountains rise in great ampitheatres, -- Fiesole on one side, like a sentinel on her hill; on the other, the Apennines, whose gesture, so noble, precise, and splendid, seems to point ever towards some universal sovereignty, some perfect domination, as though this place had been ordained for the resurrection of man. Under this mighty symbol of annunciation lies the city, clear and perfect  in the lucid light, her towers shining under the serene evening sky. Meditating there alone for a long time in the profound silence of that hour, the whole history of this city that witnessed the birth of the modern world, the resurrection of the gods, will come to me….

 

So I shall dream in the sunset. The Angelus will be ringing from all the towers, I shall have celebrated my return to the city that I have loved. The splendour of the dying day will lie upon her; in that enduring and marvellous hour, when in the sound of every bell you may find the names that are in your heart, I shall pass again through the gardens, I shall come into the city when the little lights before Madonna will be shining at the street corners, and the streets will be full of the evening, where the river, stained with fading gold, steals into the night to the sea. And under the first stars I shall find my way to my hillside. On that white country road the dust of the day will have covered the vines by the way, the cypresses will be white half-way to their tops, in the whispering olives the cicale will still be singing… In the far sky, marvellous with infinite stars, the moon will sail like a golden rose in a mirror of silver. Long and long ago the sun will have set, but when I come to the gate… one will say Chi e, and I shall make answer. So I shall come into my house, and the triple lights will be lighted in the garden, and the table will be spread. And there will be one singing in the vineyard, and I shall hear, and there will be one walking in the garden, and I shall know. 

 

 

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Edward Hutton: Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa, second edition, London, 1908. Pp. 157-160.

From Pisa to Florence

Edward Hutton apparently walked from Pisa to Florence. On the way he passed through Montelupo where he saw a Madonna by some follower of Botticelli, and then a magnificent view of the whole valley of the Arno, and finally, Florence itself.

 

It was already midday when I came to the little city of Montelupo at the foot of these hills, and, in front of a beautiful avenue of plane trees, to the trattoria, a humble place enough, and full at that hour of drivers and countrymen, but quite sufficient for my needs, for I found there food, a good wine, and courtesy. Later in the afternoon, climbing the stony street across Pesa, I came to the church of S. Giovanni Evangelista, and there in the sweet country silence was Madonna with her Son and four Saints, by some pupil of Sandro Botticelli.

 

It is not any new vision of the Madonna you will see in that quiet country church, full of afternoon sunshine and wayside flowers, but the same half-weary maiden of whom Botticelli has told us so often, whose honour is too great for her, whose destiny is more than she can bear. Already she has been overwhelmed by our praise and petitions; she has closed her eyes, and has turned away her head, and while the Jesus Parvulus lifts his tiny hands in blessing, she is indifferent, holding him languidly, as though but half attentive to those priceless words which St. John, with the last light of a smile still lingering round his eyes, notes so carefully in his book. Something of the same eagerness, graver, and more youthful, you may see in the figure of St. Sebastian, who, holding three arrows daintily in his hand, has suddenly looked up at the sound of that divine childish voice. Two other figures, S. Lorenzo and perhaps S. Roch, listen with a sort of intent sadness there under that splendid portico, where Mary sits on a throne, she who was the carpenter’s wife, with so little joy or even surprise….

 

But though Montelupo possesses such a treasure as this picture, for me at least the fairest thing within her keeping is the old fortress, ruined now, on her high hill, and the view one may have thence. For, following that stony way which brought me to S. Giovanni, I came at last to the walls of an old fortress, that now houses a few peasants, and turning there saw all the Val d’Arno, from S. Miniato far and far away to the west, to little Vinci on the north, where, as Vasari says, Leonardo was born; while below me beside Arno, rose the beautiful Villa Ambrogiana, with its four towers at the corners…

 

To-day Montelupo is but a village… And before I had gone a mile upon my road the whole character of the way was changed; no longer was I crossing a great plain, but winding among the hills, while Arno, noisier than before, fled past me by an ever narrower bed among the rocks and buttresses of what soon became little more than a defile between the hills….

 

And indeed, when at last I had left the splendid villa of Antinori far behind, evening came as I entered Lastra, and by chance taking the wrong road… I climbed the hill to S. Martino a Gangalandi. Standing there in the pure calm light just after sunset, the whole valley of Florence lay before me. To the left stood Signa, piled on her hill like some fortress of the Middle Age; then Arno, like a road of silver, led past the Villa delle Selve to the great mountain Monte Morello, and there under her last spurs lay Florence herself, clear and splendid like some dream city, her towers and pinnacles, her domes and churches shining in the pure evening light like some delectable city seen in a vision far away, but a reality, and seen at last.

 

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Edward Hutton: Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa, second edition, London, 1908. Pp. 146-148. 

Pisa: Cemetery and Tower

 Edward Hutton completed his tour of Pisa's Campo Santo with descriptions of the cemetery and the famous leaning tower.

 

Out of the dust and heat of the Piazza one comes into a cool cloister that surrounds a quadrangle open to the sky, in which a cypress still lives. The sun fills the garden with a golden beauty in which the butterflies flitter from flower to flower over the dead. I do not know a place more silent or more beautiful….

 

For, indeed, in what other land than this could a cemetery be so beautiful, and where else in the world do frescoes like these stain the walls out of doors amid a litter of antique statues, graves, and flowers over the heroic or holy dead? Here you may see life at its sanest and most splendid moments. In the long hot days of the vintage, for instance, when the young men tread the wine-press, the girls bear the grapes in great baskets, and boy and girl together pluck the purple fruit. Call it, if you will, the Drunkenness of Noah, you will forget the subject altogether in your delight in the sun and the joy of the vintage itself, where the girls dance among the vines under the burden of the grapes, and the little children play with the dogs, and the goodman tastes the wine….Thus alone in this place of death Pisa lives, ah! Not in the desolate streets of the modern city, but fading on the walls of her Campo Santo, a ghost among ghosts, immortalized by an alien hand.

 

Coming last of all to the greatest wonder of the Piazza, it is really with surprise you find the Campanile so beautiful, perhaps the most beautiful tower of Italy. It is like a lily leaning in the wind, it is like the slanting horn of a unicorn, it is like an ivory Madonna that the artist has not had the heart to carve since the ivory was so fair. Begun in 1174, it was designed by Bonannus. He made it all of white marble, which has faded now to the colour of old ivory. Far away at the top of the tower live the great bells, and especially La Pasquarecchia, founded in 1262, stamped with a relief of the Annunciation, for it used to ring the Ave. I think there can be no reasonable doubt that the lean of the Tower is due to some terrible accident which befell it after the third gallery had been built, for the fourth gallery, added in 1204 by Benenabo, begins to rectify the sinking; the rest built in 1260, continues to throw the weight from the lower to the higher side….It is strange that a northerner, William of Innspruck, finished the Tower from the fifth story in 1260; and it may well be that this Teuton brought to the work something of a natural delight in such a thing as this, and contrived to finish it, instead of beginning again. It seems necessary to add that the tower would be more beautiful if it were perfectly upright. (115-117)…

 

Ah, do not be in a hurry to leave Pisa for any other city. It may be that we shall never see that line of hills again—Monte Pisani; it were better to look at them a little carefully. A little while before today the most precious of our dreams was not so lovely as that spur of the Appennines. (128)

 

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Edward Hutton: Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa, second edition, London, 1908.