Val d'Arno Part 12

257. And thus, as we follow our proposed examination of the arts of the Christian centuries, our understanding of their work will be absolutely limited by the degree of our sympathy with the religion which our fathers have bequeathed to us. You cannot interpret cla.s.sic marbles without knowing and loving your Pindar and aeschylus, neither can you interpret Christian pictures without knowing and loving your Isaiah and Matthew. And I shall have continually to examine texts of the one as I would verses of the other; nor must you retract yourselves from the labour in suspicion that I desire to betray your scepticism, or undermine your positivism, because I recommend to you the accurate study of books which have hitherto been the light of the world.

258. The change, then, in the minds of their readers at this date, which rendered it possible for them to comprehend the full purport of Christianity, was in the rise of the new desire for equity and rest, amidst what had hitherto been mere l.u.s.t for spoil, and joy in battle.

The necessity for justice was felt in the now extending commerce; the desire of rest in the now pleasant and fitly furnished habitation; and the energy which formerly could only be satisfied in strife, now found enough both of provocation and antagonism in the invention of art, and the forces of nature. I have in this course of lectures endeavoured to fasten your attention on the Florentine Revolution of 1250, because its date is so easily memorable, and it involves the principles of every subsequent one, so as to lay at once the foundations of whatever greatness Florence afterwards achieved by her mercantile and civic power. But I must not close even this slight sketch of the central history of Val d'Aruo without requesting you, as you find time, to a.s.sociate in your minds, with this first revolution, the effects of two which followed it, being indeed necessary parts of it, in the latter half of the century.

259. Remember then that the first, in 1250, is embryonic; and the significance of it is simply the establishment of order, and justice against violence and iniquity. It is equally against the power of knights and priests, so far as either are unjust,--not otherwise.

When Manfred fell at Benevento, his lieutenant, the Count Guido Novello, was in command of Florence. He was just, but weak; and endeavoured to temporize with the Guelphs. His effort ought to be notable to you, because it was one of the wisest and most far-sighted ever made in Italy; but it failed for want of resolution, as the gentlest and best men are too apt to fail. He brought from Bologna two knights of the order--then recently established--of joyful brethren; afterwards too fatally corrupted, but at this time pure in purpose. They const.i.tuted an order of chivalry which was to maintain peace, obey the Church, and succour widows and orphans; but to be bound by no monastic vows. Of these two knights, he chose one Guelph, the other Ghibelline; and under their balanced power Gruido hoped to rank the forces of the civil, manufacturing, and trading cla.s.ses, divided into twelve corporations of higher and lower arts. [1] But the moment this beautiful arrangement was made, all parties--Guelph, Ghibelline, and popular,--turned unanimously against Count Guido Novello. The benevolent but irresolute captain indeed gathered his men into the square of the Trinity; but the people barricaded the streets issuing from it; and Guido, heartless, and unwilling for civil warfare, left the city with his Germans in good order. And so ended the incursion of the infidel Tedeschi for this time.

The Florentines then dismissed the merry brothers whom the Tedeschi had set over them, and besought help from Orvieto and Charles of Anjou; who sent them Guy de Montfort and eight hundred French riders; the blessing of whose presence thus, at their own request, was granted them on Easter Day, 1267.

[Footnote: The seven higher arts were, Lawyers, Physicians, Bankers, Merchants of Foreign Goods, Wool Manufacturers, Silk Manufacturers, Furriers. The five lower arts were, Retail Sellers of Cloth, Butchers, Shoemakers, Masons and Carpenters, Smiths.]

On Candlemas, if you recollect, 1251, they open their gates to the Germans; and on Easter, 1267, to the French.

260. Remember, then, this revolution, as coming between the battles of Welcome and Tagliacozzo; and that it expresses the lower revolutionary temper of the trades, with English and French a.s.sistance. Its immediate result was the appointment of five hundred and sixty lawyers, woolcombers, and butchers, to deliberate upon all State questions,--under which happy ordinances you will do well, in your own reading, to leave Florence, that you may watch, for a while, darling little Pisa, all on fire for the young Conradin. She sent ten vessels across the Gulf of Genoa to fetch him; received his cavalry in her plain of Sarzana; and putting five thousand of her own best sailors into thirty ships, sent them to do what they could, all down the coast of Italy. Down they went; startling Gaeta with an attack as they pa.s.sed; found Charles of Anjou's French and Sicilian fleet at Messina, fought it, beat it, and burned twenty-seven of its ships.

261. Meantime, the Florentines prospered as they might with their religious-democratic const.i.tution,--until the death, in the odour of sanct.i.ty, of Charles of Anjou, and of that Pope Martin IV. whose tomb was destroyed with Urban's at Perugia. Martin died, as you may remember, of eating Bolsena eels,--that being his share in the miracles of the lake; and you will do well to remember at the same time, that the price of the lake eels was three soldi a pound; and that Niccola of Pisa worked at Siena for six soldi a day, and his son Giovanni for four.

262. And as I must in this place bid farewell, for a time, to Niccola and to his son, let me remind you of the large commission which the former received on the occasion of the battle of Tagliacozzo, and its subsequent ma.s.sacres, when the victor, Charles, having to his own satisfaction exterminated the seed of infidelity, resolves, both in thanksgiving, and for the sake of the souls of the slain knights for whom some hope might yet be religiously entertained, to found an abbey on the battle-field. In which purpose he sent for Niccola to Naples, and made him build on the field of Tagliacozzo, a church and abbey of the richest; and caused to be buried therein the infinite number of the bodies of those who died in that battle day; ordering farther, that, by many monks, prayer should be made for their souls, night and day.

In which fabric the king was so pleased with Niccola's work that he rewarded and honoured him highly.

263. Do you not begin to wonder a little more what manner of man this Nicholas was, who so obediently throws down the towers which offend the Ghibelliues, and so skilfully puts up the pinnacles which please the Guelphs? A pa.s.sive power, seemingly, he;--plastic in the hands of any one who will employ him to build, or to throw down. On what exists of evidence, demonstrably in these years here is the strongest brain of Italy, thus for six shilling a day doing what it is bid.

264. I take farewell of him then, for a little time, ratifying to you, as far as my knowledge permits, the words of my first master in Italian art, Lord Lindsay.

"In comparing the advent of Niccola Pisano to that of the sun at his rising, I am conscious of no exaggeration; on the contrary, it is the only simile by which I can hope to give you an adequate impression of his brilliancy and power relatively to the age in which he flourished.

Those sons of Erebus, the American Indians, fresh from their traditional subterranean world, and gazing for the first time on the gradual dawning of the day in the East, could not have been more dazzled, more astounded, when the sun actually appeared, than the popes and podestas, friars and freemasons must have been in the thirteenth century, when from among the Biduinos, Bonannos, and Antealmis of the twelfth, Niccola emerged in his glory, sovereign and supreme, a fount of light, diffusing warmth and radiance over Christendom. It might be too much to parallel him in actual genius with Dante and Shakspeare; they stand alone and unapproachable, each on his distinct pinnacle of the temple of Christian song; and yet neither of them can boast such extent and durability of influence, for whatever of highest excellence has been achieved in sculpture and painting, not in Italy only, but throughout Europe, has been in obedience to the impulse he primarily gave, and in following up the principle which he first struck out.

"His latter days were spent in repose at Pisa, but the precise year of his death is uncertain; Vasari fixes it in 1275; it could not have been much later. He was buried in the Campo Santo. Of his personal character we, alas! know nothing; even Shakspeare is less a stranger to us. But that it was n.o.ble, simple, and consistent, and free from the petty foibles that too frequently beset genius, may be fairly presumed from the works he has left behind him, and from the eloquent silence of tradition."

265. Of the circ.u.mstances of Niccola Pisano's death, or the ceremonials practised at it, we are thus left in ignorance.

The more exemplary death of Charles of Aujou took place on the 7th of January, then, 1285; leaving the throne of Naples to a boy of twelve; and that of Sicily, to a Prince of Spain. Various discord, between French, Spanish, and Calabrese vices, thenceforward paralyzes South Italy, and Florence becomes the leading power of the Guelph faction.

She had been inflamed and pacified through continual paroxysms of civil quarrel during the decline of Charles's power; but, throughout, the influence of the n.o.bles declines, by reason of their own folly and insolence; while the people, though with no small degree of folly and insolence on their own side, keep hold of their main idea of justice.

In the meantime, similar a.s.sertions of law against violence, and the n.o.bility of useful occupation, as compared with that of idle rapine, take place in Bologna, Siena, and even at Rome, where Bologna sends her senator, Branca Leone, (short for Branca-di-Leone, Lion's Grip,) whose inflexible and rightly guarded reign of terror to all evil and thievish persons, n.o.ble or other, is one of the few pa.s.sages of history during the middle ages, in which the real power of civic virtue may be seen exercised without warping by party spirit, or weakness of vanity or fear.

266. And at last, led by a n.o.ble, Giano della Bella, the people of Florence write and establish their final condemnation of n.o.blesse living by rapine, those 'Ordinamenti della Giustizia,' which practically excluded all idle persons from government, and determined that the priors, or leaders of the State, should be priors, or leaders of its arts and productive labour; that its head 'podesta' or 'power' should be the standard-bearer of justice; and its council or parliament composed of charitable men, or good men: "boni viri," in the sense from which the French formed their noun 'bonte.'

The entire governing body was thus composed, first, of the Podestas, standard-bearer of justice; then of his military captain; then of his lictor, or executor; then of the twelve priors of arts and liberties--properly, deliberators on the daily occupations, interests, and pleasures of the body politic;--and, finally, of the parliament of "kind men," whose business was to determine what kindness could be shown to other states, by way of foreign policy.

267. So perfect a type of national government has only once been reached in the history of the human race. And in spite of the seeds of evil in its own impatience, and in the gradually increasing worldliness of the mercantile body; in spite of the hostility of the angry soldier, and the malignity of the sensual priest, this government gave to Europe the entire cycle of Christian art, properly so called, and every highest Master of labour, architectural, scriptural, or pictorial, practised in true understanding of the faith of Christ;--Orcagna, Giotto, Brunelleschi, Lionardo, Luini as his pupil, Lippi, Luca, Angelico, Botticelli, and Michael Angelo.

268. I have named two men, in this group, whose names are more familiar to your ears than any others, Angelico and Michael Angelo;--who yet are absent from my list of those whose works I wish you to study, being both extravagant in their enthusiasm,--the one for the n.o.bleness of the spirit, and the other for that of the flesh. I name them now, because the gifts each had were exclusively Florentine; in whatever they have become to the mind of Europe since, they are utterly children of the Val d'Arno.

269. You are accustomed, too carelessly, to think of Angelico as a child of the Church, rather than of Florence. He was born in l387,--just eleven years, that is to say, after the revolt of Florence _against_ the Church, and ten after the endeavour of the Church to recover her power by the ma.s.sacres of Faenza and Cesena. A French and English army of pillaging riders were on the other side of the Alps,--six thousand strong; the Pope sent for it; Robert Cardinal of Geneva brought it into Italy. The Florentines fortified their Apennines against it; but it took winter quarters at Cesena, where the Cardinal of Geneva ma.s.sacred five thousand persons in a day, and the children and sucklings were literally dashed against the stones.

270. That was the school which the Christian Church had prepared for their brother Angelica. But Fesole, secluding him in the shade of her mount of Olives, and Florence revealing to him the true voice of his Master, in the temple of St. Mary of the Flower, taught him his lesson of peace on earth, and permitted him his visions of rapture in heaven.

And when the ma.s.sacre of Cesena was found to have been in vain, and the Church was compelled to treat with the revolted cities who had united to mourn for her victories, Florence sent her a living saint, Catherine of Siena, for her political Amba.s.sador.

271. Of Michael Angelo I need not tell you: of the others, we will read the lives, and think over them one by one; the great fact which I have written this course of lectures to enforce upon your minds is the dependence of all the arts on the virtue of the State, and its kindly order.

The absolute mind and state of Florence, for the seventy years of her glory, from 1280 to 1350, you find quite simply and literally described in the ll2th Psalm, of which I read you the descriptive verses, in the words in which they sang it, from this typically perfect ma.n.u.script of the time:--

Gloria et divitie in domo ejus, just.i.tia ejus manet in seculum seculi.

Exortum est in tenebris lumen reotis, misericors, et miserator, et Justus. Jocundus h.o.m.o, qui miseretur, et commodat: disponet sermones suos in judicio. Dispersit, dedit pauperibus; just.i.tia ejus manet in seculum seculi; cornu ejus exaltabitur in gloria.

I translate simply, praying you to note as the true one, the _literal_ meaning of every word:--

Glory and riches are in his house. His justice remains for ever.

Light is risen in darkness for the straightforward people.

He is merciful in heart, merciful in deed, and just.

A jocund man; who is merciful, and lends.

He will dispose his words in judgment.

He hath dispersed. He hath given to the poor. His justice remain!

for ever. His horn shall be exalted in glory.

272. With vacillating, but steadily prevailing effort, the Florentines maintained this life and character for full half a century.

You will please now look at my staff of the year 1300, [Footnote: Page 33 in my second lecture on Engraving.] adding the names of Dante and Orcagna, having each their separate masterful or prophetic function.

That is Florence's contribution to the intellectual work of the world during these years of justice. Now, the promise of Christianity is given with lesson from the fleur-de-lys: Seek ye first the royalty of G.o.d, and His justice, "and all these things," material wealth, "shall be added unto you." It is a perfectly clear, perfectly literal,--never failing and never unfulfilled promise. There is no instance in the whole cycle of history of its not being accomplished,--fulfilled to the uttermost, with full measure, pressed down, and running over.

273. Now hear what Florence was, and what wealth she had got by her justice. In the year 1330, before she fell, she had within her walls a hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants, of whom all the men--(laity)--between the ages of fifteen and seventy, were ready at an instant to go out to war, under their banners, in number twenty-four thousand. The army of her entire territory was eighty thousand; and within it she counted fifteen hundred n.o.ble, families, every one absolutely submissive to her gonfalier of justice. She had within her walls a hundred and ten churches, seven priories, and thirty hospitals for the sick and poor; of foreign guests, on the average, fifteen hundred, constantly. From eight to ten thousand children were taught to read in her schools. The town was surrounded by some fifty square miles of uninterrupted garden, of olive, corn, vine, lily, and rose.

And the monetary existence of England and France depended upon her wealth. Two of her bankers alone had lent Edward III. of England five millions of money (in sterling value of this present hour).

274. On the 10th of March, 1337, she was first accused, with truth, of selfish breach of treaties. On the l0th of April, all her merchants in France were imprisoned by Philip Valois; and presently afterwards Edward of England failed, quite in your modern style, for his five millions.

These money losses would have been nothing to her; but on the 7th of August, the captain of her army, Pietro de' Rossi of Parma, the unquestioned best knight in Italy, received a chance spear-stroke before Monselice, and died next day. He was the Bayard of Italy; and greater than Bayard, because living in a n.o.bler time. He never had failed in any military enterprise, nor ever stained success with cruelty or shame. Even the German troops under him loved him without bounds. To his companions he gave gifts with such largesse, that his horse and armour were all that at any time he called his own. Beautiful and pure as Sir Galahad, all that was brightest in womanhood watched and honoured him.

And thus, 8th August, 1337, he went to his own place.--To-day I trace the fall of Florence no more.

I will review the points I wish you to remember; and briefly meet, so far as I can, the questions which I think should occur to you.

275. I have named Edward III. as our heroic type of Franchise. And yet I have but a minute ago spoken of him as 'failing' in quite your modern manner. I must correct my expression:--he had no intent of failing when he borrowed; and did not spend his money on himself. Nevertheless, I gave him as an example of frankness; but by no means of honesty. He is simply the boldest and royalest of Free Riders; the campaign of Crecy is, throughout, a mere pillaging foray. And the first point I wish you to notice is the difference in the pecuniary results of living by robbery, like Edward III., or by agriculture and just commerce, like the town of Florence. That Florence can lend five millions to the King of England, and loose them with little care, is the result of her olive gardens and her honesty. Now hear the financial phenomena attending military exploits, and a life of pillage.

276. I give you them in this precise year, 1338, in which the King of England failed to the Florentines.

"He obtained from the prelates, barons, and knights of the

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE X.--THE NATIVITY. GIOVANNI PISANO. ]

shires, one half of their wool for this year--a very valuable and extraordinary grant. He seized all the tin "(above-ground, you mean Mr.

Henry!)" in Cornwall and Devonshire, took possession of the lands of all priories alien, and of the money, jewels, and valuable effects of the Lombard merchants. He demanded certain quant.i.ties of bread, corn, oats, and bacon, from each county; borrowed their silver plate from many abbeys, as well as great sums of money both abroad and at home; and p.a.w.ned his crown for fifty thousand florins." [1]

[Footnote 1: Henry's "History of England," book iv., chap. i.]

He p.a.w.ns his queen's jewels next year; and finally summons all the gentlemen of England who had forty pounds a year, to come and receive the honour of knighthood, or pay to be excused!