WITH all the treasures of my historic reading in mind from the lives of the Medici and Savonarola to that of Michelangelo and the Florentine school of artists, I was keen to see what Florence would be like. Mrs. Q. had described it as the most individual of all the Italian cities that she had seen. She had raved1 over its narrow, dark, cornice-shaded streets, its fortress-like palaces, its highly individual churches and cloisters2, the way the drivers of the little open vehicles plied3 everywhere cracking their whips, until, she said, it sounded like a Fourth of July in Janesville. I was keen to see how large the dome4 of the cathedral would look and whether it would really tower conspicuously5 over the remaining buildings of the city, and whether the Arno would look as picturesque6 as it did in all the photographs. The air was so soft and the sun so bright, although sinking low in the west, as the train entered the city, that I was pleased to accept, instead of the ancient atmosphere which I had anticipated, the wide streets and rows of four- and six-family apartment houses which characterize all the newer sections. They have the rich browns and creams of the earlier portion of Florence; but they are very different in their suggestion of modernity. The distant hills, as I could see from the car windows, were dotted with houses and villas7 occupying delightful8 positions above the town. Suddenly I saw the Duomo; and although I knew it only from photographs I recognized it in an instant. It spoke9 for itself in a large, dignified10 way. Over the housetops it soared like a great bubble;372 and some pigeons flying in the air gave it the last touch of beauty. We wound around the city in a circle—I could tell this by the shifting position of the sun—through great yards of railway-tracks with scores of engines and lines of small box-cars; and then I saw a small stream and a bridge,—nothing like the Arno, of course,—a canal; and the next thing we were rolling into a long crowded railway-station, the guards calling Firenze. I got up, gathered my overcoat and bags into my arms, signaled a facino and gave them to him; and then I sought a vehicle that would convey me to the hotel for which I was bound—the Hotel de Ville on the Arno. I sat behind a fat driver while he cracked his whip endlessly above the back of a lazy horse, passing the while the showy façade of Santa Maria Novella, striped with strange bands of white and bluish gray or drab,—a pleasing effect for a church. I could see at once that the Florence of the Middle Ages was a much more condensed affair than that which now sprawls11 out in various directions from the Loggia dei Lanzi and the place of the cathedral.
The narrow streets were alive with people; and the drivers of vehicles everywhere seemed to drive as if their lives depended on it. Suddenly we turned into a piazza12 very modern and very different from that of Santa Maria Novella; and then we were at the hotel door. It was a nice-looking square, as I thought, not very large,—clean and gracious. To my delight I found that my room opened directly upon a balcony which overlooked the Arno, and that from it, sitting in a chair, I could command all of that remarkable13 prospect14 of high-piled medieval houses hanging over the water’s edge. It was beautiful. The angelus bells were ringing; there was a bright glow in the west where the sun was going down; the water of the stream was turquoise15 blue, and the walls of all the houses seemingly brown. I stood373 and gazed, thinking of the peculiarly efficient German manager I had encountered, the German servants who were in charge of this hotel, and the fact that Florence had long since radically16 changed from what it was. A German porter came and brought my bags; a German maid brought hot water; a German clerk took my full name and address for the register, and possibly for the police; and then I was at liberty to unpack17 and dress for dinner. Instead I took a stroll out along the stream-banks to study the world of jewelry18 shops which I saw there, and the stands for flowers, and the idling crowd.
I dare not imagine what the interest of Florence would be to any one who did not know her strange and variegated19 history, but I should think, outside of the surrounding scenic20 beauty, it would be little or nothing. Unless one had a fondness for mere21 quaintness22 and gloom and solidity, it would in a way be repulsive23, or at best dreary24. But lighted by the romance, the tragedy, the lust25, the zealotry, the brutality26 and the artistic27 idealism that surrounds such figures as Dante, the Medici, Savonarola, Donatello, Michelangelo, Brunelleschi, and the whole world of art, politics, trade, war, it takes on a strange luster28 to me, that of midnight waters lighted by the fitful gleams of distant fires. I never think of it without seeing in my mind’s eye the Piazza della Signoria as it must have looked on that day in 1494 when that famous fiasco, in regard to “the test by fire,” entered into between Savonarola and the Franciscan monks29, took place,—those long, ridiculous processions of Dominicans and Franciscans, Savonarola bearing the chalice30 aloft; or that other day when Charles VIII of France at the instance of Savonarola paraded the street in black helmet with mantle31 of gold brocade, his lance leveled before him, his retainers gathered about him, and then disappointed the374 people by getting off his horse and showing himself to be the insignificant32 little man that he was, almost deformed33 and with an idiotic34 expression of countenance35. Neither can I forget the day that Savonarola was beheaded and burnt for his religious zealotry in this same Piazza della Signoria; nor all the rivals of the Medici hung from the windows of the Palazzo Vecchio or beheaded in the Bargello. Think of the tonsured36 friars and grave citizens of this medieval city, under Savonarola’s fiery37 incitement38, their heads garlanded with flowers, mingling39 with the overwrought children called to help in purifying the city, dancing like David before the ark and shouting “Long live Christ and the Virgin40, our rulers”; of the days when Alessandro Medici and his boon41 companion and cousin, Lorenzo, rode about the city on a mule42 together, defiling43 the virtue44 of innocent girls, roistering in houses of ill repute, and drinking and stabbing to their hearts’ content; of Fra Girolamo preaching to excited crowds in the Duomo and of his vision of a black cross over Rome, a red one over Jerusalem; of Machiavelli writing his brochure “The Prince”; and of Michelangelo defending the city walls as an engineer. Can any other city match this spectacular, artistic, melodramatic progress in so short a space of time, or present the galaxy45 of artists, the rank company of material masters such as the Medici, the Pazzi, the Strozzi, plotting and counter-plotting to the accompaniment of lusts46 and murders? Other cities have had their amazing hours, all of them, from Rome to London. But Florence! It has always seemed to me that the literary possibilities of Florence, in spite of the vast body of literature concerning it, have scarcely been touched.
The art section alone is so vast and so brilliant that one of the art merchants told me while I was there that at least forty thousand of the city’s one hundred and seventy375 thousand population is foreign (principally English and American), drawn47 to it by its art merits, and that the tide of travel from April to October is amazing. I can believe it. You will hear German and English freely spoken in all the principal thoroughfares.
Because of a gray day and dull, following the warmth and color and light of Perugia and Rome, Florence seemed especially dark and somber48 to me at first; but I recovered. Its charm and beauty grew on me by degrees so that by the time I had done inspecting Santa Maria Novella, Santa Croce, San Marco, the Cathedral group and the Bargello, I was really desperately49 in love with the art of it all, and after I had investigated the galleries, the Pitti, Uffizi, Belle50 Arti, and the Cloisters, I was satisfied that I could find it in my heart to live here and work, a feeling I had in many other places in Europe.
Truly, however, there is no other city in Europe just like Florence; it has all the distinction of great individuality. My mood changed about, at times, as I thought of the different periods of its history, the splendor51 of its ambitions or the brutality of its methods; but when I was in the presence of some of its perfect works of art, such as Botticelli’s “Spring” in the Belle Arti, or Michelangelo’s “Tombs of the Medici” in San Lorenzo, or Titian’s “Magdalen,” or Raphael’s “Leo X” in the Pitti, or Benozzo Gozzoli’s fresco52 (the journey of the three kings to Bethlehem) in the old Medici Palace, then I was ready to believe that nothing could be finer than Florence. I realized now that of all the cities in Europe that I saw Florence was possessed53 of the most intense art atmosphere,—something that creeps over your soul in a grim realistic way and causes you to repeat over and over: “Amazing men worked here—amazing men!”
It was so strange to find driven home to me,—even more here than in Rome, that illimitable gulf54 that divides376 ideality of thought and illusion from reality. Men painted the illusions of Christianity concerning the saints and the miracles at this time better than ever before or since, and they believed something else. A Cosimo Medici who could patronize the Papacy with one hand and make a cardinal55 into a pope, could murder a rival with the other; and Andrea del Castagno, who was seeking to shine as a painter of religious art—madonnas, transfigurations, and the like—could murder a Domenico Veneziano in order to have no rival in what he considered to be a permanent secret of how to paint in oils. The same munificence56 that could commission Michelangelo to design and execute a magnificent façade for San Lorenzo (it was never done, of course) could suborn the elective franchise57 of the people and organize a school on the lines of Plato’s Academy. In other words, in Florence as in the Court of Alexander VI at Rome, we find life stripped of all sham58 in action, in so far as an individual and his conscience were concerned, and filled with the utmost subtlety59 in so far as the individual and the public were concerned. Cosimo and Lorenzo de’ Medici, Andrea del Castagno, Machiavelli, the Pazzi, the Strozzi,—in fact, the whole “kit and kaboodle” of the individuals comprising the illustrious life that foregathered here, were cut from the same piece of cloth. They were, one and all, as we know, outside of a few artistic figures, shrewd, calculating, relentless60 and ruthless seekers after power and position; lust, murder, gormandizing, panoplizing, were the order of the day. Religion,—it was to be laughed at; weakness,—it was to be scorned. Poverty was to be misused61. Innocence62 was to be seized upon and converted. Laughing at virtue and satisfying themselves always, they went their way, building their grim, dark, almost windowless palaces; preparing their dungeons63 and erecting64 their gibbets for their enemies. No wonder377 Savonarola saw “a black cross over Rome.” They struck swiftly and surely and smiled blandly65 and apparently66 mercifully; they had the Asiatic notion of morality,—charity, virtue, and the like, combined with a ruthless indifference67 to them. Power was the thing they craved—power and magnificence; and these were the things they had. But, oh, Florence! Florence! how you taught the nothingness of life itself; its shams68; its falsehoods; its atrocities69; its uselessness. It has never been any wonder to me that the saddest, darkest, most pathetic figure in all art, Michelangelo Buonarroti, should have appeared and loved and dreamed and labored70 and died at this time. His melancholy71 was a fit commentary on his age, on life, and on all art. Oh, Buonarroti, loneliest of figures: I think I understand how it was with you.
Bear with me while I lay a flower on this great grave. I cannot think of another instance in art in which indomitable will and almost superhuman energy have been at once so frustrated72 and so successful.
I never think of the great tomb for which the Moses in San Pietro in Vincoli—large, grave, thoughtful; the man who could walk with God—and the slaves in the Louvre were intended without being filled with a vast astonishment73 and grief to think that life should not have permitted this design to come to fulfilment. To think that a pope so powerful as Julius should have planned a tomb so magnificent, with Michelangelo to scheme it out and actually to begin it, and then never permit it to reach completion. All the way northward74 through Italy this idea of a parallelogram with forty figures on it and covered with reliefs and other ornaments75 haunted me. At Florence, in the Belle Arti, I saw more of the figures (casts), designed for this tomb—strange, unfolding thoughts half-hewn out of the rock, which suggest the source from which Rodin has drawn his inspiration,—and378 my astonishment grew. Before I was out of Italy, this man and his genius, the mere dreams of the things he hoped to do, enthralled76 me so that to me he has become the one great art figure of the world. Colossal77 is the word for Michelangelo,—so vast that life was too short for him to suggest even a tithe78 of what he felt. But even the things that he did, how truly monumental they are.
I am sure I am not mistaken when I say that there is a profound sadness, too, running through all that he ever did. His works are large, Gargantuan79, and profoundly melancholy; witness the Moses that I have been talking of, to say nothing of the statues on the tombs of the Medici in San Lorenzo at Florence. I saw them in Berlin, reproduced there in plaster in the Kaiser-Friederich-Museum, and once more I was filled with the same sense of profound, meditative80 melancholy. It is present in its most significant form here in Florence, in San Lorenzo, the façade of which he once prepared to make magnificent, but here he was again frustrated. I saw the originals of these deep, sad figures that impressed me as no other sculptural figures ever have done. “Dawn and Dusk”; “Day and Night.” How they dwell with me constantly. I was never able to look at any of his later work—the Sistine Chapel81 frescoes82, the figures of slaves in the Louvre, the Moses in San Pietro in Vincoli, or these figures here in Florence, without thinking how true it was that this great will had rarely had its way and how, throughout all his days, his energy was so unfortunately compelled to war with circumstance. Life plays this trick on the truly great if they are not ruthless and of material and executive leanings. Art is a pale flower that blooms only in sheltered places and to drag it forth83 and force it to contend with the rough usages of the world is to destroy its perfectness.379 It was so in this man’s case who at times, because of unlucky conjunctions, was compelled to fly for his life, or to sue for the means which life should have been honored to bestow84 upon him, or else to abandon great purposes.
Out of such a mist of sorrow, and only so, however, have come these figures that now dream here year after year in their gray chapel, while travelers come and go, draining their cup of wonder,—rising ever and anon to the level of the beauty they contemplate85. I can see Browning speculating upon the spirit of these figures. “Night” with her heavy lids, lost in great weariness; and “Day” with his clear eyes. I can see Rodin gathering86 substance for his “Thinker,” and Shelley marveling at the suggestions which arise from these mighty87 figures. There is none so great as this man who, in his medieval gloom and mysticism, inherited the art of Greece.
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1
raved
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| v.胡言乱语( rave的过去式和过去分词 )；愤怒地说；咆哮；痴心地说 | |
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cloisters
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| n.（学院、修道院、教堂等建筑的）走廊( cloister的名词复数 )；回廊；修道院的生活；隐居v.隐退，使与世隔绝( cloister的第三人称单数 ) | |
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plied
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| v.使用（工具）( ply的过去式和过去分词 )；经常供应（食物、饮料）；固定往来；经营生意 | |
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dome
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| n.圆屋顶，拱顶 | |
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conspicuously
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| ad.明显地，惹人注目地 | |
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picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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villas
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| 别墅，公馆( villa的名词复数 )； （城郊）住宅 | |
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delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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dignified
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| a.可敬的，高贵的 | |
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sprawls
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| n.（城市）杂乱无序拓展的地区( sprawl的名词复数 )；随意扩展；蔓延物v.伸开四肢坐[躺]( sprawl的第三人称单数 )；蔓延；杂乱无序地拓展；四肢伸展坐着（或躺着） | |
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piazza
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| n.广场；走廊 | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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turquoise
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| n.绿宝石；adj.蓝绿色的 | |
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radically
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| ad.根本地，本质地 | |
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unpack
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| vt.打开包裹（或行李），卸货 | |
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jewelry
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| n.（jewllery）（总称）珠宝 | |
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variegated
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| adj.斑驳的，杂色的 | |
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scenic
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| adj.自然景色的，景色优美的 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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quaintness
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| n.离奇有趣，古怪的事物 | |
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repulsive
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| adj.排斥的，使人反感的 | |
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dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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lust
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| n.性(淫)欲；渴(欲)望；vi.对…有强烈的欲望 | |
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brutality
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| n.野蛮的行为，残忍，野蛮 | |
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artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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luster
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| n.光辉；光泽，光亮；荣誉 | |
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monks
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| n.修道士，僧侣( monk的名词复数 ) | |
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chalice
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| n.圣餐杯；金杯毒酒 | |
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mantle
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| n.斗篷，覆罩之物，罩子；v.罩住，覆盖，脸红 | |
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insignificant
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| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
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deformed
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| adj.畸形的；变形的；丑的，破相了的 | |
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idiotic
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| adj.白痴的 | |
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countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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tonsured
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| v.剃( tonsure的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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fiery
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| adj.燃烧着的，火红的；暴躁的；激烈的 | |
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incitement
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| 激励； 刺激； 煽动； 激励物 | |
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mingling
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| adj.混合的 | |
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virgin
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| n.处女，未婚女子；adj.未经使用的；未经开发的 | |
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boon
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| n.恩赐，恩物，恩惠 | |
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mule
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| n.骡子，杂种，执拗的人 | |
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43
defiling
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| v.玷污( defile的现在分词 )；污染；弄脏；纵列行进 | |
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virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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galaxy
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| n.星系；银河系；一群(杰出或著名的人物) | |
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46
lusts
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| 贪求（lust的第三人称单数形式） | |
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47
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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somber
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| adj.昏暗的，阴天的，阴森的，忧郁的 | |
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49
desperately
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| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
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50
belle
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| n.靓女 | |
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51
splendor
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| n.光彩；壮丽，华丽；显赫，辉煌 | |
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52
fresco
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| n.壁画；vt.作壁画于 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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54
gulf
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| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
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cardinal
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| n.(天主教的)红衣主教；adj.首要的，基本的 | |
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munificence
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| n.宽宏大量，慷慨给与 | |
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franchise
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| n.特许，特权，专营权，特许权 | |
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sham
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| n./adj.假冒(的)，虚伪(的) | |
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subtlety
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| n.微妙，敏锐，精巧；微妙之处，细微的区别 | |
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relentless
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| adj.残酷的，不留情的，无怜悯心的 | |
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61
misused
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| v.使用…不当( misuse的过去式和过去分词 )；把…派作不正当的用途；虐待；滥用 | |
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62
innocence
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| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
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dungeons
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| n.地牢( dungeon的名词复数 ) | |
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64
erecting
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| v.使直立，竖起( erect的现在分词 )；建立 | |
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blandly
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| adv.温和地，殷勤地 | |
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66
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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68
shams
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| 假象( sham的名词复数 )； 假货； 虚假的行为（或感情、言语等）； 假装…的人 | |
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atrocities
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| n.邪恶，暴行( atrocity的名词复数 )；滔天大罪 | |
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70
labored
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| adj.吃力的，谨慎的v.努力争取(for)( labor的过去式和过去分词 )；苦干；详细分析；（指引擎）缓慢而困难地运转 | |
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71
melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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72
frustrated
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| adj.挫败的，失意的，泄气的v.使不成功( frustrate的过去式和过去分词 )；挫败；使受挫折；令人沮丧 | |
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73
astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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74
northward
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| adv.向北；n.北方的地区 | |
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75
ornaments
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| n.装饰( ornament的名词复数 )；点缀；装饰品；首饰v.装饰，点缀，美化( ornament的第三人称单数 ) | |
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76
enthralled
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| 迷住，吸引住( enthrall的过去式和过去分词 )； 使感到非常愉快 | |
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77
colossal
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| adj.异常的，庞大的 | |
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78
tithe
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| n.十分之一税；v.课什一税，缴什一税 | |
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79
gargantuan
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| adj.巨大的，庞大的 | |
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80
meditative
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| adj.沉思的，冥想的 | |
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81
chapel
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| n.小教堂，殡仪馆 | |
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82
frescoes
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| n.壁画( fresco的名词复数 )；温壁画技法，湿壁画 | |
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83
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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84
bestow
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| v.把…赠与，把…授予；花费 | |
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85
contemplate
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| vt.盘算，计议；周密考虑；注视，凝视 | |
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86
gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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87
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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