Mornings in Florence Part 7

III. The Descent of the Holy Ghost, on the left hand. The Madonna and disciples are gathered in an upper chamber: underneath are the Parthians, Medes, Elamites, etc., who hear them speak in their own tongues.

Three dogs are in the foreground--their mythic purpose the same as that of the two verses which affirm the fellowship of the dog in the journey and return of Tobias: namely, to mark the share of the lower animals in the gentleness given by the outpouring of the Spirit of Christ.

IV. The Church sailing on the Sea of the World. St. Peter coming to Christ on the water.

I was too little interested in the vague symbolism of this fresco to examine it with care--the rather that the subject beneath, the literal contest of the Church with the world, needed more time for study in itself alone than I had for all Florence.

On this, and the opposite side of the chapel, are represented, by Simon Memmi's hand, the teaching power of the Spirit of G.o.d, and the saving power of the Christ of G.o.d, in the world, according to the understanding of Florence in his time.

We will take the side of Intellect first, beneath the pouring forth of the Holy Spirit.

In the point of the arch beneath, are the three Evangelical Virtues.

Without these, says Florence, you can have no science. Without Love, Faith, and Hope--no intelligence.

Under these are the four Cardinal Virtues, the entire group being thus arranged:--

A B C D E F G

A, Charity; flames issuing from her head and hands. B, Faith; holds cross and shield, quenching fiery darts. This symbol, so frequent in modern adaptation from St. Paul's address to personal faith, is rare in older art. C, Hope, with a branch of lilies. D, Temperance; bridles a black fish, on which she stands. E, Prudence, with a book. F, Justice, with crown and baton. G, Fort.i.tude, with tower and sword.

Under these are the great prophets and apostles; on the left,[Footnote: I can't find my note of the first one on the left; answering to Solomon, opposite.] David, St. Paul, St. Mark, St. John; on the right, St.

Matthew, St. Luke, Moses, Isaiah, Solomon. In the midst of the Evangelists, St. Thomas Aquinas, seated on a Gothic throne.

Now observe, this throne, with all the canopies below it, and the complete representation of the Duomo of Florence opposite, are of finished Gothic of Orecagna's school--later than Giotto's Gothic. But the building in which the apostles are gathered at the Pentecost is of the early Romanesque mosaic school, with a wheel window from the duomo of a.s.sisi, and square windows from the Baptistery of Florence. And this is always the type of architecture used by Taddeo Gaddi: while the finished Gothic could not possibly have been drawn by him, but is absolute evidence of the later hand.

Under the line of prophets, as powers summoned by their voices, are the mythic figures of the seven theological or spiritual, and the seven _ge_ological or natural sciences: and under the feet of each of them, the figure of its Captain-teacher to the world.

I had better perhaps give you the names of this entire series of figures from left to right at once. You will see presently why they are numbered in a reverse order.

Beneath whom 8. Civil Law. The Emperor Justinian. 9. Canon Law. Pope Clement V. 10.

Practical Theology. Peter Lombard. 11. Contemplative Theology. Dionysius the Areopagite. 12. Dogmatic Theology. Boethius. 13. Mystic Theology.

St. John Damascene. 14. Polemic Theology. St. Augustine. 7. Arithmetic.

Pythagoras. 6. Geometry. Euclid. 5. Astronomy. Zoroaster. 4. Music.

Tubalcain. 3. Logic. Aristotle. 2. Rhetoric. Cicero. 1. Grammar.

Priscian.

Here, then, you have pictorially represented, the system of manly education, supposed in old Florence to be that necessarily inst.i.tuted in great earthly kingdoms or republics, animated by the Spirit shed down upon the world at Pentecost. How long do you think it will take you, or ought to take, to see such a picture? We were to get to work this morning, as early as might be: you have probably allowed half an hour for Santa Maria Novella; half an hour for San Lorenzo; an hour for the museum of sculpture at the Bargello; an hour for shopping; and then it will be lunch time, and you mustn't be late, because you are to leave by the afternoon train, and must positively be in Rome to-morrow morning.

Well, of your half-hour for Santa Maria Novella,--after Ghirlandajo's choir, Orcagna's transept, and Cimabue's Madonna, and the painted windows, have been seen properly, there will remain, suppose, at the utmost, a quarter of an hour for the Spanish Chapel. That will give you two minutes and a half for each side, two for the ceiling, and three for studying Murray's explanations or mine. Two minutes and a half you have got, then--(and I observed, during my five weeks' work in the chapel, that English visitors seldom gave so much)--to read this scheme given you by Simon Memmi of human spiritual education. In order to understand the purport of it, in any the smallest degree, you must summon to your memory, in the course of these two minutes and a half, what you happen to be acquainted with of the doctrines and characters of Pythagoras, Zoroaster, Aristotle, Dionysius the Areopagite, St. Augustine, and the emperor Justinian, and having further observed the expressions and actions attributed by the painter to these personages, judge how far he has succeeded in reaching a true and worthy ideal of them, and how large or how subordinate a part in his general scheme of human learning he supposes their peculiar doctrines properly to occupy. For myself, being, to my much sorrow, now an old person; and, to my much pride, an old-fashioned one, I have not found my powers either of reading or memory in the least increased by any of Mr. Stephenson's or Mr.

Wheatstone's inventions; and though indeed I came here from Lucca in three hours instead of a day, which it used to take, I do not think myself able, on that account, to see any picture in Florence in less time than it took formerly, or even obliged to hurry myself in any investigations connected with it.

Accordingly, I have myself taken five weeks to see the quarter of this picture of Simon Memmi's: and can give you a fairly good account of that quarter, and some partial account of a fragment or two of those on the other walls: but, alas! only of their pictorial qualities in either case; for I don't myself know anything whatever, worth trusting to, about Pythagoras, or Dionysius the Areopagite; and have not had, and never shall have, probably, any time to learn much of them; while in the very feeblest light only,--in what the French would express by their excellent word 'lueur,'--I am able to understand something of the characters of Zoroaster, Aristotle, and Justinian. But this only increases in me the reverence with which I ought to stand before the work of a painter, who was not only a master of his own craft, but so profound a scholar and theologian as to be able to conceive this scheme of picture, and write the divine law by which Florence was to live.

Which Law, written in the northern page of this Vaulted Book, we will begin quiet interpretation of, if you care to return hither, to-morrow morning.

THE FIFTH MORNING.

THE STRAIT GATE.

As you return this morning to St. Mary's, you may as well observe--the matter before us being concerning gates,--that the western facade of the church is of two periods. Your Murray refers it all to the latest of these;--I forget when, and do not care;--in which the largest flanking columns, and the entire effective ma.s.s of the walls, with their riband mosaics and high pediment, were built in front of, and above, what the barbarian renaissance designer chose to leave of the pure old Dominican church. You may see his ungainly jointings at the pedestals of the great columns, running through the pretty, parti-coloured base, which, with the 'Strait' Gothic doors, and the entire lines of the fronting and flanking tombs (where not restored by the Devil-begotten brood of modern Florence), is of pure, and exquisitely severe and refined, fourteenth century Gothic, with superbly carved bearings on its shields. The small detached line of tombs on the left, untouched in its sweet colour and living weed ornament, I would fain have painted, stone by stone: but one can never draw in front of a church in these republican days; for all the blackguard children of the neighbourhood come to howl, and throw stones, on the steps, and the ball or stone play against these sculptured tombs, as a dead wall adapted for that purpose only, is incessant in the fine days when I could have worked.

If you enter by the door most to the left, or north, and turn immediately to the right, on the interior of the wall of the facade is an Annunciation, visible enough because well preserved, though in the dark, and extremely pretty in its way,--of the decorated and ornamental school following Giotto:--I can't guess by whom, nor does it much matter; but it is well To look at it by way of contrast with the delicate, intense, slightly decorated design of Memmi,--in which, when you return into the Spanish chapel, you will feel the dependence for its effect on broad ma.s.ses of white and pale amber, where the decorative school would have had mosaic of red, blue, and gold.

Our first business this morning must be to read and understand the writing on the book held open by St. Thomas Aquinas, for that informs us of the meaning of the whole picture.

It is this text from the Book of Wisdom VII. 6.

"Optavi, et datus est mihi sensus.

Invocavi, et venit in me Spiritus Sapientiae, Et preposui illam regnis et sedibus."

"I willed, and Sense was given me.

I prayed, and the Spirit of Wisdom came upon me.

And I set her before, (preferred her to,) kingdoms and thrones."

The common translation in our English Apocrypha loses the entire meaning of this pa.s.sage, which--not only as the statement of the experience of Florence in her own education, but as universally descriptive of the process of all n.o.ble education whatever--we had better take pains to understand.

First, says Florence "I willed, (in sense of resolutely desiring,) and Sense was given me." You must begin your education with the distinct resolution to know what is true, and choice of the strait and rough road to such knowledge. This choice is offered to every youth and maid at some moment of their life;--choice between the easy downward road, so broad that we can dance down it in companies, and the steep narrow way, which we must enter alone. Then, and for many a day afterwards, they need that form of persistent Option, and Will: but day by day, the 'Sense' of the rightness of what they have done, deepens on them, not in consequence of the effort, but by gift granted in reward of it. And the Sense of difference between right and wrong, and between beautiful and unbeautiful things, is confirmed in the heroic, and fulfilled in the industrious, soul.

That is the process of education in the earthly sciences, and the morality connected with them. Reward given to faithful Volition.

Next, when Moral and Physical senses are perfect, comes the desire for education in the higher world, where the senses are no more our Teachers; but the Maker of the senses. And that teaching, we cannot get by labour, but only by pet.i.tion.

"Invocavi, et venit in me Spiritus Sapientiae"--"I prayed, and the Spirit of Wisdom," (not, you observe, _was given_, [Footnote: I in careless error, wrote "was given" in 'Fors Clavigera.] but,) "_came_ upon me." The _personal_ power of Wisdom: the "[Greek: sophia]" or Santa Sophia, to whom the first great Christian temple was dedicated. This higher wisdom, governing by her presence, all earthly conduct, and by her teaching, all earthly art, Florence tells you, she obtained only by prayer.

And these two Earthly and Divine sciences are expressed beneath in the symbols of their divided powers;--Seven terrestrial, Seven celestial, whose names have been already indicated to you:--in which figures I must point out one or two technical matters, before touching their interpretation. They are all by Simon Memmi originally; but repainted, many of them all over, some hundred years later,--(certainly after the discovery of America, as you will see)--by an artist of considerable power, and some feeling for the general action of the figures; but of no refinement or carelessness. He dashes ma.s.sive paint in huge s.p.a.ces over the subtle old work, puts in his own chiaro-oscuro where all had been shadeless, and his own violent colour where all had been pale, and repaints the faces so as to make them, to his notion, prettier and more human: some of this upper work has, however, come away since, and the original outline, at least, is traceable; while in the face of the Logic, the Music, and one or two others, the original work is very pure. Being most interested myself in the earthly sciences, I had a scaffolding put up, made on a level with them, and examined them inch by inch, and the following report will be found accurate until next repainting.

For interpretation of them, you must always take the central figure of the Science, with the little medallion above it, and the figure below, all together. Which I proceed to do, reading first from left to right for the earthly sciences, and then from right to left the heavenly ones, to the centre, where their two highest powers sit, side by side.

We begin, then, with the first in the list given above, (Vaulted Book, page 75):--Grammar, in the corner farthest from the window.

1. GRAMMAR: more properly Grammatice, "Grammatic Act" the Art of _Letters_ or "Literature," or using the word which to some English ears will carry most weight with it,--"Scripture," and its use. The Art of faithfully reading what has been written for our learning; and of clearly writing what we would make immortal of our thoughts. Power which consists first in recognizing letters; secondly, in forming them; thirdly, in the understanding and choice of words which errorless shall express our thought. Severe exercises all, reaching--very few living persons know, how far: beginning properly in childhood, then only to be truly acquired. It is wholly impossible--this I say from too sorrowful experience--to conquer by any effort or time, habits of the hand (much more of head and soul) with which the vase of flesh has been formed and filled in youth,--the law of G.o.d being that parents shall compel the child in the day of its obedience into habits of hand, and eye, and soul, which, when it is old, shall not, by any strength, or any weakness, be departed from.

"Enter ye in," therefore, says Grammatice, "at the Strait Gate." She points through it with her rod, holding a fruit(?) for reward, in her left hand. The gate is very strait indeed--her own waist no less so, her hair fastened close. She had once a white veil binding it, which is lost. Not a gushing form of literature, this,--or in any wise disposed to subscribe to Mudie's, my English friends--or even patronize Tauchnitz editions of--what is the last new novel you see ticketed up today in Mr. Goodban's window? She looks kindly down, nevertheless, to the three children whom she is teaching--two boys and a girl: (Qy. Does this mean that one girl out of every two should not be able to read or write? I am quite willing to accept that inference, for my own part,--should perhaps even say, two girls out of three). This girl is of the highest cla.s.ses, crowned, her golden hair falling behind her the Florentine girdle round her hips--(not waist, the object being to leave the lungs full play; but to keep the dress always well down in dancing or running). The boys are of good birth also, the nearest one with luxuriant curly hair--only the profile of the farther one seen. All reverent and eager. Above, the medallion is of a figure looking at a fountain. Underneath, Lord Lindsay says, Priscian, and is, I doubt not, right.

_Technical Points_.--The figure is said by Crowe to be entirely repainted. The dress is so throughout--both the hands also, and the fruit, and rod. But the eyes, mouth, hair above the forehead, and outline of the rest, with the faded veil, and happily, the traces left of the children, are genuine; the strait gate perfectly so, in the colour underneath, though reinforced; and the action of the entire figure is well preserved: but there is a curious question about both the rod and fruit. Seen close, the former perfectly a.s.sumes the shape of folds of dress gathered up over the raised right arm, and I am not absolutely sure that the restorer has not mistaken the folds--at the same time changing a pen or style into a rod. The fruit also I have doubts of, as fruit is not so rare at Florence that it should be made a reward. It is entirely and roughly repainted, and is oval in shape. In Giotto's Charity, luckily not restored, at a.s.sisi, the guide-books have always mistaken the heart she holds for an apple:--and my own belief is that originally, the Grammatice of Simon Memmi made with her right hand the sign which said, "Enter ye in at the Strait Gate," and with her left, the sign which said, "My son, give me thine Heart."

II. RHETORIC. Next to learning how to read and write, you are to learn to speak; and, young ladies and gentlemen, observe,--to speak as little as possible, it is farther implied, till you _have_ learned.

In the streets of Florence at this day you may hear much of what some people call "rhetoric"--very pa.s.sionate speaking indeed, and quite "from the heart"--such hearts as the people have got. That is to say, you never hear a word uttered but in a rage, either just ready to burst, or for the most part, explosive instantly: everybody--man, woman, or child--roaring out their incontinent, foolish, infinitely contemptible opinions and wills, on every smallest occasion, with flashing eyes, hoa.r.s.ely shrieking and wasted voices,--insane hope to drag by vociferation whatever they would have, out of man and G.o.d.

Now consider Simon Memmi's Rhetoric. The Science of Speaking, primarily; of making oneself _heard_ therefore: which is not to be done by shouting. She alone, of all the sciences, carries a scroll: and being a speaker gives you something to read. It is not thrust forward at you at all, but held quietly down with her beautiful depressed right hand; her left hand set coolly and strongly on her side.

And you will find that, thus, she alone of all the sciences _needs no use of her hands_. All the others have some important business for them.

She none. She can do all with her lips, holding scroll, or bridle, or what you will, with her right hand, her left on her side.

Again, look at the talkers in the streets of Florence, and see how, being essentially _un_able to talk, they try to make lips of their fingers! How they poke, wave, flourish, point, jerk, shake finger and fist at their antagonists--dumb essentially, all the while, if they knew it; unpersuasive and ineffectual, as the shaking of tree branches in the wind.