BEING STRAY NOTES OF FIVE YEARS OF TRAVEL.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLI, Issue 9, 26 August 1908, Page 22

BEING STRAY NOTES OF FIVE YEARS OF TRAVEL.

By

WINIFRED H. LEYS, AUCKLAND.

THE lil\ how it has entered into the ideal of the Florentines ! Srp, rstition ran high in the early day* of Christianity, and the ciigin of the Florentine coat of arms is a pretty story. While a battle with an invading army of barbarians was raging on the hills towards Fiesole. the

aged Bishop Zanobius was praying earnestly for the preservation of his city. Florence. His prayers rising from the valley to the heavens were answered by the appearance, in the midst of the battle, of a young maiden —Saint Repa rata —who, carrying in her hand a blood-red banner, on which was embroid-

FLORENCE, THE LILY AT THE FOOT OF THE APENNINES.

ered a snow-white lily, put fear into he heart of the barbarian foe, and the day was won for the Florentines. This lily on a red ground, with various additions and modifications has been adopted as the Florentine coat of arms since that lay, 405 A.D. When journeying from Milan, our first glimpse of Florence is the dis-

tant one from the mountains; and as we look down upon her, stretching away on either side of the Arno, she appears verypeaceful and self-contained. But, while descending the hills among the vineyards, cornfields, and sweet-seenve.l gardens, there are moments of blackness, as we pass into the depth of a tunnel, that cast a shadow over the brilliancy of th? scene, even as did those w«.is and feuds that have been as thund vrlouds darkening for brief periods tin sunny Irstory of Florence. Though by natr.r • th** Florentines are of the nervous tmn|M'iament that turns instinctively to an artistic rather than to a military life, yet in the middle ages their pride rose to th? necessity of the times, ami th-sy c< n-<pi<-i(d here and conquered there, ami gr?w wealthy and influential. They enslaved the surrounding cities, but had ninth ado to keep peace between the nobles within their own walls. Guelph banished Ghibelline, and Ghibelline banished Guelph, and in later years, when Bianchi strove against Neri, it was onlv a c< rtinuation of the same »i 1 feud of nob’e against noble. Yet. in spß** »f the fact that the city must have been in pe?|Mtual disturbance with the-e rival houses carrying their vengeance e/cn into tin* city streets, the dreamy, sensitive nature of the Florentine was pl inning a id developing and furthering the k::*p don: of art in a manner that must seem for ever wonderful. It is to us almost incredible, to think that Dante himself fought in the battle of Campaidin >. and that the beautiful campanile of th? shep-herd-artist Giotto was rising even while the lower classes were revolting to gain the reins of government. War and strife came to them from within and without, but the nature of the Florentines asserted itself throughout. and never for long do they so »m have forgotten the things beautiful. Today. as we visit the city, and learn the story of Cimabue. of Giotto, of Ghiberti, of Michael Angelo, wo cannot doubt that Florence was the art-mother of Italy for well-nigh four centuries. The progression from Cimabue to Raphael—who. though not a native of Florence, o.ved much to her influence—w\as steadv, and Florentine art attained its zenith In the sixteenth century. It is of art that we think when we are in Florence, and of the wonderful impetus that this city gave to the whole world of art during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Not so much do we think of the enormous

wealth of Florence in those days, or of the pride with which she boasted that there was gold enough in the eoffers to build the whole city in marble. Even the memory of the ’Medici does not obtrude itself very conspicuously upon us. Yet

they were a wonderful family, raising themselves from the position of merchants to be the first dukes of Florence. But to-day we only care for them in so much as they were the patrons and encouragers of art. The lavish chapel of variegated marble, in San Lorenzo, where most of the ’Medici family are buried, though it is one of the most costly mausoleums in existence, does not interest us so much as the tombs that Michael Angelo designed for two of their family, Giuliano and Lorenzo, and that

are in the New Sacristy of San Lorenzo. It is not that we remember much of Lorenzo, or Giuliano de ’Medici, but our interest is in the master’s noble statues of these merchant-princes ami in the magnificent symbolic figures which he

carved upon the tombs. And, besides our natural enthusiasm for genius, how could we help pondering on the people themselves, who, in 1280, followed the Madonna or Ciniabue through the streets rejoicing at this supremely beautiful thing. In fact, we thought so much of these art-loving people of the past that we passed day by day through the streets, and very seldom thought of the Florentines of to-day. But when we spent a morning or two in the workshops of the sculptors, the stone-inlavers, and

art jewellers, and mosaic workers, th m I felt how strongly had this artistic on vircnment affected even the present-day dwellers in the city. Their work is not of the revolutionising order of the men of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, but it is full of grace, and '.n-

genuity, and clever de signing ‘hat : s Scaicely equalled elsewhere. When the hot September sun smiled day after day. eom|»ellrng us to rest indoors during tlx' hours from 12 a.m. to 2.30 p.m. our time among the treasures of past glory seemed to gallop along so

speedily that ti morning in the art shops admiring th<‘ beautiful porcelains or th * inlaid stone, or the exquisite statuary, and a few minutes of chaffering with tho jewellers as we passed to and fro over the Ponte Vecchio, or jewellers’ bridge, was all that we could’ spare. One of the workers of inklid stone showed me a piece of jade, which, to his great surprise. ) recognised as some of our own New Zealand greenstone. He had only a very small piece and admired the rich colouring very much, hut complained that the stone was exceedingly hard to cut. Half the treasures that are hidden away in Florence we never saw : hut if in Milan ami in Venice we crossed the borders of the kingdom of Italian art. in Florence we may go as far into the heart of that realm as our inclinations and instincts permit. A little history crept in here and there; a few dates confronted and astounded us; and so. as we moved from the streets to the piazzas, from the piazzas to the churches, from the churches to the galleries, art was the beginning and ending of our quest. During our first visit to Florence we stayed at an hotel in the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele, but none of us cared to repeat the experiment. Not that there is anything wrong with the hotel, nor with the piazza, which is really one of the most modern squares in Florence. But the proximity to the Duomo we found Io be a serious drawback. After a long day of sight-seeing w e felt the need of a good night’s rest, and did not welcome the early awakening we received from tin* bell of the Campanile, which, when it commenced, seemed to awaken all the bells in Florence: and their combined efforts set up such a jingle-

jangle that the sleep fairies were frightened clean away. On the first morning after our arrival it Seemed very romantic to be aroused by these bells, calling

and answering one another in the grey dawn, but when this happened morning after morning we forgot to soliloquise, and, instead, became extremely irritated.

So. on the occasion of our second visit to Florence, we took rooms in the Grand Bretagne on the Lungarno, and found it to be very peaceful. There, when at a. sensible hour 1 threw up my window, I looked out on to the river Arno, which, in the summer at least, is picturesque only when the early morning shadows are cast upon its muddy waters. But •even that picturesque element would not persuade me that the fish the men catch out of the river during those early mornings is a wholesome form of diet. Still, it is handy to live on the Arno’s banks, for you uiay. as 1 saw many do, drop out a.sort of shrimp net from your window and draw in a fry for breakfast. If 1 might write the unvarnished truth I should state frankly that the Arno, at its best, looks unromantic; but then I don’t think it is quite permissible to criticise the river of which Dante and Petrarch have sung, and a halo hangs around it that even its twentieth century reality cannot banish. Our art quest began with Giotto—Giotto. the pupil of Cimabue. and builder of the campanile, and painter of the frescoes in Santa Croce. Here, too. we put into practice advice that an art critic once gave to me. “Don’t muddle your centuries, ’ he said; “don’t contrast Cimabue. who lived about the middle of the thirteenth century with Leonardo da Vinci who lived during the latter years of th? fifteenth century. Take the masters in their natural order and sequence as far as you are able, and the interest that galleries will yield you is abounding; on the other hand, if you trudge round and look from one picture to another, indiscriminately. you will learn nothing, and become hopelessly bored.” So we took three of the churches first, because they were rising in Florence during the same period—Santa Croce, the church of the Franciscans, being commenced in 1294, Santa Maria Novella, the church of the Dominicans, in 1279, and the great Duomo in 1298. The Duomo was built for th? glory of the city and the beauty of the world, but the churches of the Black and White Friars are essentially homes of worship. If we are a good deal disappointed in the Hat roof of Santa Croce, and miss the high arched vaulting of th.? northern gothic churches, there is so much of interest in the church that we soon forget its unattractive proportions. It is the home of genius and the resting place of th.? noble dead. They are to right and left of us as we pass up the aisles. Here lies Machiavelli the statesman. and near by is the poet Alfieri. To Santa Croce come artists and sculptors to pay their homag? at the tomb of Michael Angelo, that great and versatile man. Moving on. we step gently aside from the simple slab on the floor that marks the resting place of Rossini. Tablets and monuments stand to right and I,? ft of us as wo pass up to the inimitable frescoes of Giotto, ami each is memorial of some worthy life. Three of the twelve chapels that form the eastern end of Santa Croce are completely the work of this pre-eminent genius of Florence.

sVhen in Italy. I looked upon bo much {which I fully realised was worthy of all Jhc honour it receives, but which I felt it jwould be mere pretence to say I understood or appreciated, that it was a very pleasing sensation to find myself in the Cappella Bardi —one of the twelve chap-els—-in front of Giotto’s frescoes of St. Francis, and to feel honestly and wholeheartedly in touch with them. They jvere painted long, long ago, but we can still see the warm, bright colouring in ithe scenes that represent the stirring life rd St. Francis, and then the cold, grey, sad colouring with which Giotto tells the etory of the death of the saint. Worthily, indeed, are these considered the finest .works of Giotto. Ghirlandajo’s bright frescoes behind the high altar of Santa Maria Novella are not so full of religion’s intensity as those paintings of Giotto, but, as a fhureh, Santa Maria Novella has more charm. Before we entered we felt captivated by the marble facade, the work of ‘Alberti "two centuries after the commencement of the church. After the brilliancy of the piazza the interior of the church Bcems dim, very dim, almost gloomy. As we entered, the sounds of the organ and of voices mingled in song drowned for jhe moment our tourist instincts, and we sank down on a seat and listened. The song was reverential and pleading, but, Bitting still in the dimness, and looking up the church towards the two raised chapels at the eastern end, I thought how joyfully it rose on the long ago day when the Florentines in triumphant profession brought the Madonna of Happiness from Uimabue’s home, and placed it in the Rucellai chapel—one of the two chapels at which I was looking. To one of the twentieth century this Madonna’s etory seems very mythical, but that morning, amid the lighted candles, the swaying of censers, the heavy odour of incense, and the song of the priests, there seemed to be just a trace of the exaltation that must have possessed the thirteenth Century Florentines when they were so (delighted with the work of this man Cimabue, who was Giotto’s master and who had “recovered the principles of Classic composition,” that the whole populace flocked to his home, and, when his (Madonna was finished took it and brought it to Santa Maria Novella. After the crude and almost repulsive pictures of early Christian art, this Virgin With the human face was indeed something to be joyful over. To-day, with our (advancement in art, the Madonna of Happiness seems less beautiful to us, but when I stood in the Rucellai chapel, Where the great procession placed her, the thought of the happiness she conferred on the thirteenth century Florentines was so absorbing that all the other wonders of Santa Novella, even the frescoes of the Strozzi and of the Spanish chapels became as dim unrealities in. tire memory of it. It was much the same with the Baptistery. Out in the sunlight we were full of admiration for Pisano’s and Ghiberti’s Carved bronze doors—unquestionably the most beautiful and most wonderful doors in all the world —but, as we passed inside, we somehow forget the art in dwelling on the huihan associations. A frightened child was crying in its mother’s arms beside the font, where every child of Florence, from Ithe twelfth century until to-day, has been baptised—even the long line of great men, of whom Dante seems the greatest. In those days, when Dante grew to manhood, and dreamt of his Beatrice, loveliest of womankind, the Baptistery was a familiar landmark, but the marble Duomo opposite was only commenced some three years before Dante left Florence, never to return, and Giotto's supremely beautiful campanile, that rises beside the Duomo, Dante never saw. But, for us it is all there in the Piazza del Duomo—the Baptistery which Dante knew, the Campanile that was Giotto’s triumph, and the Duomo that Arnolfo planned, and Giotto continued after Arnolfo’s death, and Brunelleschi almost finished, crowning it with his symmetrical dome which did not cast its shadow across Florence for fully 100 years after the baby Dante Alighieri was carried from the Baptistery. My thoughts are wandering at this moment to an amusing incident which °f C “F red ona morning as we came out *l. « Baptistery, and crossed over to Duomo. A hawker—oh! beware Of

the rogues—glided up to us and opened up a box ho was carrying, and. tried to tempt us with some bronze medallions. We waved him away and passed on, but he was persistent, and, in truth, one of the medallions was rather pretty, so with a careless glance at the tray, one of us asked how much he wanted for them. “Ninety liras each* (£3 12/), was the immediate reply, to which our looks of silent scorn seemed the only necessary answer. “Well, signor, how much you pay!” queried the hawker. “Five lira,” my father answered, hoping that by so belittling his wares to freeze off our importunate follower. “Very well, signor,” said the hawker, “here it is for you.” Goodness me! to be asked ninety liras and to have five liras accepted, all in one breath, this set us all agasping. We took the medallion with an unpleasant suspicion that, of all the impudent swindlers this man was the prince. Out of curiosity I priced a facsimile in a shop, and found the real price to be four liras, so the scoundrel had made one lira on the deal, anyway. Though we must confess that the cathedral facade of various coloured marble is really modern, being completed in 1886, still its newness is no detriment to it, for it follows closely the scheme of marble in which the rest of the cathedral is built. The exterior of the Duomo—or Cathedral—is so brilliant, that the interior seems like the dull grey gloom before the morning mists are raised. However, as our eyes grew accustomed to the sombre light that filters through the glorious painted-glass windows, the great aisles separated from the nave by pillars, the absence of chapels opening from these aisles and the general spaciousness, made the Duomo seem different to all the other churches of Florence. Immediately the idea arose, how splendid it would be if filled with a vast assembly of worshippers. The mosaics on Brunelleschi’s lofty dome are so obscure in the dimness that we can scarcely see them, and though some of Donatello’s splendid evangelists and the monuments to Brunelleschi and Giotto are here, we somehow felt that the Duomo is not impressive, from any detailed ornamentation, but because within its walls such a great host might raise a psalm of praise. To-day Florence is many thousands of miles away, and the.memory of her matchless possessions comes back to me under various circumstances. I think I can best recall the Florentine galleriesas I watch a lovely sunset across our own well-loved harbour. The corridors and rooms of the Uffizi and the Pitti galleries and the Academy mass together into a blaze of colour, forming a glorious background in the western sky, out of which, one by one, the noble works detach themselves and float across the sea towards me. Titian’s Flora gleams out in her deep dull gold, and in a pale green filmy cloud I find Botticelli’s Judith that I searched for in the Uffizi because Ruskin lavished such insistent praise upon it. But Judith and her servant are soon blotted out by Botticelli’s Venus in her shell barque, as she floats onwards over the rippling waves. That isolated glowing cloud, how like it is to the Tribuna of the Uffizi, in that it is the triumph of the sunset, for every work the Tribuna holds, both in sculpture and in art, is a masterpiece. The radiant beauty of the cloud is not more supreme than Titian’s Venus of Urbino, as she lies before us in her glowing perfection, nor softer and more enrapturing than the beautiful woman’s head once known as the Fornarina, and said to be by Raphael, but now attributed to Piombo. What could be more dainty and ethereal than the wisp of white cloud floating in front of all the rest? .Surely only the Venus de ’Medici, that most beautiful embodiment of goddess and woman. So many of the Uffizi wonders belong to the peace of sunset. Verrocchio's Annunciation is one of these, for the master—who was, it is said, the first teacher of Leonardo da Vinci—■ painted the Virgin at her prie dieu in the garden, while through the glowing of the setting sun the angel, with raised wings, kneels before her. One has Been, and praised, and forgotten so many Madonnas, but the two Raphael Madonnas of the Pitti gallery, once seen could never be forgotten. They hang on opposite walls of the Hall of Saturn, and looking from the Madonna seated in the chair, with the infant Saviour on her knees (Madonna della Sedia) across to the gentle Madonna del Granduca, clasping the beautiful child in her arms, it is, I think, a matter of temperament, which one would

consider the finer. There is a meek, sweet purity in the face of the Madonna del Granduca that is nearest to my ideal of the Virgin. Looking out at my sunset and thinking awhile on the galleries of Florence, a host of impressions drift across my mind with as steady a flight as the sea-gulls that go by to their homes in the glowing west. But it would be wearisome to others if I said much of Titian's portrait of a Young Englishman, or Giorgione’s Concert, or Guido Reni’s Cleopatra. When we wore a bit bewildered by the pictures, the Bargello came as a wholesome tonic to our perhaps overstrained capacities, for, besides, the number of marble and bronze statues by Donatello, Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, Michael Angelo, and Cellini, there are most interesting collections of mosaics, tapestries, ivories, and the beautifully-moulded terra-cotta works of the two Della Robbia. The building itself is of groat importance, for it was erected in 1255 for the home of the Podesta, or chief magistrate of Florence.

A few stops from the Bargello brings us to the Piazza Signoria, the most historic square in Florence. It is a very irregular piazza, but it has ever been the centre of the life of Florence. I put up my camera one morning in the court of the Palazzo Vecchio—which, constructed in the 13th century as the seat of the Florentine Government (Il Fignoria), rises in one corner of the piazza—for I wanted to photograph Verrocchio's pretty boy on the fountain, and beyond him the Loggia dei Lanzi, with Cellini’s Perseus and the other notable marble and bronze statues. But I soon discovered that this court was a short cut to the Via di Ninna, and that the stream of people passing through it jvas ceaseless. In about ten minutes I had collected such a crowd around 1 , in front, and behind the camera, that a policeman requested me to move on. So I made the ■best of a momentary opportunity, and was not surprised to find my picture sadly under-exposed. One would need to be up with the birds to successfully photograph the Loggia dei Lanzi from which, in olden times, all solemn declarations were read to the people, for the Piazza Signoria is one of the busiest squares of Florence. Here, in this very square, were enacted! (he most terrible scenes in the life of Savonarola. What a leap to this arena of civic life from the cells in the monastery of San Marco, where there is naught but a bed and four plain walls embellished only with the pious pictures by Fra Angelico. What a leap from the quiet cloistered garden where he taught a few of the brethren, and into which no sound of the outer world ever penetrated. But the first step from the garden was to the pulpit of San Marco, where his eloquence so stirred the hearts of the people that they brought their art treasures to the Piazza Signoria, and flung these things that the frenzied monk had cursed, upon the fire he had kindled. But, ah! what a fall! it is dreadful, indeed, to think of the tortured monk standing in the same Piazza Signoria with the sullen crowd watching the flames as they lick up, and up, and consume his shrinking flesh. After four o’clock the light in the churches is bad, and the galleries are closed, so in the cool of the evening we several times took the electric car up the winding Viale dei Colli to the Piazzale Michclangiolo, from which we looked down upon Florence and across it to Fiesole. The hills sloping away from the Piazzale are covered with villas, and lovely gardens and patches of olive. On the Piazzale itself is a bronze representation of Michael Angelo’s David, the original of which stands in its own little room in the Acadtemy of Florence. Speaking of Fiesole, we rode up the hills on an electric tram one afternoon, and, after an hour or so exploring the ruined Roman amphitheatre and the town, we thought it would be pleasant to drive slowly down amid the olive groves and rose-gardens, following the winding path that keeps the city in view; so we engaged a cab. For a while all was delightful, but, when wo were about mid-way down the hillside, the wretched driver turned his horse down a steep incline that led, between two high walls, direct to Florence, and setting that horse at a gallop in a twinkling dispelled all ideas of sweetness and repose, and l in a few minutes brought Us pell-mell back to the city. His haste to be rid »f ns and gain the promised “ da here ” was moat alarming, and if we did not cause the death of at least three inoffensive peasants, it was certainly our good fortune.

As we turn our back on Florence we feel rewarded for the xnteileitual effort that she has demanded of us. In her streets and churches and galleries she has given ug sights and sensations that are not merely pleasant for the moment, but by golden roads she has led us back along the centuries, showing us, if we have eyes to see, that it is well for a people in their prosperity to cultivate the arts of peace, for the power of these never wanes and the appreciation of them belongs to no one race or time, but is universal and for all the ages. Next week—ROME.