An Introduction to the Study of Robert Browning's Poetry Part 36

n.o.bly, n.o.bly Cape Saint Vincent to the north-west died away; Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, reeking into Cadiz Bay; Bluish mid the burning water, full in face Trafalgar lay; In the dimmest north-east distance, dawned Gibraltar grand and gray; "Here and here did England help me,--how can I help England?"--say, Whoso turns as I, this evening, turn to G.o.d to praise and pray, While Jove's planet rises yonder, silent over Africa.

Old Pictures in Florence.

1.

The morn when first it thunders in March, The eel in the pond gives a leap, they say.

As I leaned and looked over the aloed arch Of the villa-gate this warm March day, No flash snapped, no dumb thunder rolled In the valley beneath where, white and wide And washed by the morning water-gold, Florence lay out on the mountain-side.

-- St. 1. washed by the morning water-gold: the water of the Arno, gilded by the morning sun;

"I can but muse in hope, upon this sh.o.r.e Of golden Arno, as it shoots away Through Florence' heart beneath her bridges four."

--Casa Guidi Windows.

2.

River and bridge and street and square Lay mine, as much at my beck and call, Through the live translucent bath of air, As the sights in a magic crystal-ball.

And of all I saw and of all I praised, The most to praise and the best to see Was the startling bell-tower Giotto raised: But why did it more than startle me?

-- St. 2. the startling bell-tower Giotto raised: the Campanile of the Cathedral, or Duomo, of Florence (La Cattedrale di S. Maria del Fiore), begun in 1334.

"The characteristics of Power and Beauty occur more of less in different buildings, some in one and some in another.

But all together, and all in their highest possible relative degrees, they exist, as far as I know, only in one building of the world, the Campanile of Giotto."--Ruskin.

But why did it more than startle me?: There's a rumor "that a certain precious little tablet which Buonarotti eyed like a lover" has been discovered by somebody. If this rumor is true, the speaker feels that Giotto, whom he has so loved, has played him false, in not favoring him with the precious find. See St. 30.

"The opinion which his contemporaries entertained of Giotto, as the greatest genius in the arts which Italy in that age possessed, has been perpetuated by Dante in the lines in which the illuminator, Oderigi, says:--

"'In painting Cimabue fain had thought To lord the field; now Giotto has the cry, So that the other's fame in shade is brought'

(Dante, 'Purg.' xi. 93).

"Giotto di Bondone was born at Del Colle, a village in the commune of Vespignano near Florence, according to Vasari, A.D. 1276, but more probably A.D. 1266. He went through his apprenticeship under Cimabue, and practised as a painter and architect not only in Florence, but in various parts of Italy, in free cities as well as in the courts of princes. . . . On April 12, 1334, Giotto was appointed by the civic authorities of Florence, chief master of the Cathedral works, the city fortifications, and all public architectural undertakings, in an instrument of which the wording const.i.tutes the most affectionate homage to the 'great and dear master'. Giotto died January 8, 1337."

--Woltmann and Woermann's History of Painting.

For a good account of the Campanile, see Susan and Joanna Horner's 'Walks in Florence', v. I, pp. 62-66; Art. in 'Macmillan's Mag.', April, 1877, by Sidney Colvin,--'Giotto's Gospel of Labor'.

3.

Giotto, how, with that soul of yours, Could you play me false who loved you so?

Some slights if a certain heart endures Yet it feels, I would have your fellows know!

I' faith, I perceive not why I should care To break a silence that suits them best, But the thing grows somewhat hard to bear When I find a Giotto join the rest.

4.

On the arch where olives overhead Print the blue sky with twig and leaf (That sharp-curled leaf which they never shed), 'Twixt the aloes, I used to learn in chief, And mark through the winter afternoons, By a gift G.o.d grants me now and then, In the mild decline of those suns like moons, Who walked in Florence, besides her men.

-- St. 4. By a gift G.o.d grants me now and then: the gift of spiritual vision.

5.

They might chirp and chaffer, come and go For pleasure or profit, her men alive-- My business was hardly with them, I trow, But with empty cells of the human hive; --With the chapter-room, the cloister-porch, The church's apsis, aisle or nave, Its crypt, one fingers along with a torch, Its face set full for the sun to shave.

6.

Wherever a fresco peels and drops, Wherever an outline weakens and wanes Till the latest life in the painting stops, Stands One whom each fainter pulse-tick pains: One, wishful each sc.r.a.p should clutch the brick, Each tinge not wholly escape the plaster, --A lion who dies of an a.s.s's kick, The wronged great soul of an ancient Master.

-- St. 6. "He sees the ghosts of the early Christian masters, whose work has never been duly appreciated, standing sadly by each mouldering Italian Fresco."--Dowden.

7.

For oh, this world and the wrong it does!

They are safe in heaven with their backs to it, The Michaels and Rafaels, you hum and buzz Round the works of, you of the little wit!

Do their eyes contract to the earth's old scope, Now that they see G.o.d face to face, And have all attained to be poets, I hope?

'Tis their holiday now, in any case.

8.

Much they reck of your praise and you!

But the wronged great souls--can they be quit Of a world where their work is all to do, Where you style them, you of the little wit, Old Master This and Early the Other, Not dreaming that Old and New are fellows: A younger succeeds to an elder brother, Da Vincis derive in good time from Dellos.

-- St. 8. Much they reck of your praise and you!: the Michaels and Rafaels. Leonardo da Vinci (b. at Vinci, in the Val d'Arno, below Florence, 1452); "in him the two lines of artistic descent, tracing from cla.s.sic Rome and Christian Byzantium, meet."--Heaton's 'History of Painting'. Dello di Niccolo Delli, painter and sculptor, fl. first half 15th cent.

9.

And here where your praise might yield returns, And a handsome word or two give help, Here, after your kind, the mastiff girns, And the puppy pack of poodles yelp.

What, not a word for Stefano there, Of brow once prominent and starry, Called Nature's Ape and the world's despair For his peerless painting? (see Vasari.)

-- St. 9. "Stefano is extolled by Vasari as having left Giotto himself far behind, but it is very difficult to ascertain what were really his works."--Heaton. "Stefano appears from Landinio's Commentary on Dante to have been called 'scimia della natura', the ape of nature, which seems to refer to the strong realistic tendencies common to the school."--Woltmann and Woermann's History of Painting.

Giorgio Vasari, an Italian painter of Arezzo, b. 1512, d. 1574; author of 'Vite de' piu excellenti pittori scultori ed architettori'.

Florence, 1550.

10.

There stands the Master. Study, my friends, What a man's work comes to! So he plans it, Performs it, perfects it, makes amends For the toiling and moiling, and then, 'sic transit'!

Happier the thrifty blind-folk labor, With upturned eye while the hand is busy, Not sidling a glance at the coin of their neighbor!

'Tis looking downward makes one dizzy.