Cathedral Cities of Italy
by W. W. Collins · English · Gutenberg #37692 · 410,809 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Cathedral Cities of Italy
Author: W. W. Collins
Release date: October 10, 2011 [eBook #37692]
Language: English
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[Illustration: image of the book's cover: CATHEDRAL CITIES
OF ITALY
ILLUSTRATED BY
W. W. COLLINS R I]
CATHEDRAL CITIES
OF ITALY
_UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME_
CATHEDRAL CITIES OF ENGLAND. By GEORGE GILBERT. With 60
reproductions from water-colours by W. W. COLLINS, R.I. Demy 8vo,
16s. net.
CATHEDRAL CITIES OF FRANCE. By HERBERT and HESTER MARSHALL. With 60
reproductions from water-colours by HERBERT MARSHALL, R.W.S. Demy
8vo, 16s. net. Also large paper edition £2 2s. net.
CATHEDRAL CITIES OF SPAIN. Written and illustrated with 60
reproductions from water-colours by W. W. COLLINS, R.I. Demy 8vo,
16s. net. Also large paper edition (limited) £2 2s. net.
_BOOKS ILLUSTRATED BY JOSEPH PENNELL_
ITALIAN HOURS. By HENRY JAMES. With 32 plates in colour and
numerous illustrations in black-and-white by JOSEPH PENNELL. Large
crown 4to. Price 20s. net.
A LITTLE TOUR IN FRANCE. By HENRY JAMES. With 94 illustrations by
JOSEPH PENNELL. Pott 4to. Price 10s. net.
ENGLISH HOURS. By HENRY JAMES. With 94 illustrations by JOSEPH
PENNELL. Pott 4to. Price 10s. net.
ITALIAN JOURNEYS. By W. D. HOWELLS. With 103 illustrations by
JOSEPH PENNELL. Pott 4to. Price 10s. net.
CASTILIAN DAYS. By the Hon. JOHN HAY. With 111 illustrations by
JOSEPH PENNELL. Pott 4to. Price 10s. net.
London: WILLIAM HEINEMANN
21 Bedford Street, W.C.
[Illustration: S. PETER'S, ROME]
CATHEDRAL CITIES
OF ITALY
WRITTEN AND ILLUSTRATED
BY
W. W. COLLINS, R.I.
[Illustration: colophon]
LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN
NEW YORK: DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
1911
_All rights reserved
Copyright, London, 1911, by William Heinemann
and Washington, U.S.A., by Dodd, Mead & Co._
PREFACE
The cathedral cities of Italy, the heir of all the ages in art, are as
full of enchantment to the lover of architecture as to the poet, the
painter, and the historian. Side by side with the great churches that
give them their crowning splendour are the public buildings,
universities, palaces, and fountains that tell the story of the glorious
past, and form the best monument of their great creators. These
architectural jewels are often set amidst scenes of great natural
beauty, which relieve and enhance the perfection of their art. Every
traveller in Italy will recall the emotion with which he first saw Rome
rising from the green stretches of the Campagna, recognised the domes
and campaniles of Florence, or lifted up his eyes to one of those
towered "cities set upon an hill, which cannot be hid"--Siena, Perugia,
or Orvieto. Among the many appeals which Italy makes to æsthetic
appreciation is that of infinite variety. In no country are the
different styles and periods so wonderfully exemplified. Here we may
range from Rome and Verona, with their relics of the antique
world--amphitheatres, temples, and thermæ--to the Byzantine glories of
Ravenna and Venice, the Romanesque grandeur that finds typical
expression in the cathedral of Pisa, and thence to the manifestations of
that Gothic art which, though it was alien to the climate and character
of Italy and so struck no deep roots into the soil, intervened between
Romanesque architecture and that of the Renaissance as a brilliant
episode, and finds stupendous expression in the thousand pinnacles of
Milan.
It is with Christian Italy that we have to deal, the Italy of
cathedrals, and it is at Ravenna and at Venice that we may trace the
decline of Roman architectural methods and the gradual merging of these
into Byzantine forms. Though the great Basilica Ursiana of the fourth
century has disappeared, Ravenna has preserved many famous monuments of
the fifth century: the votive church of Galla Placidia, sister of the
Emperor Honorius, the Baptistery, the aulic church of the Gothic
conqueror Theodoric, Sant' Apollinare Nuovo, and the churches of San
Vitale and Sant' Apollinare in Classe. Venice, rising to power and
splendour when Ravenna fell on evil days, secured the heritage of her
glory, and carried on the Byzantine tradition in the cathedral of
Torcello, the church of San Zaccaria, and above all in the incomparable
San Marco. At Pisa the Romanesque evolution culminated in a unique group
of buildings, famous throughout the world, while at Milan and in the
surrounding district the local type of Romanesque became sufficiently
individual to figure as an independent style under the title of Lombard
architecture. Of this subdivision of Romanesque the prototype seems to
have been the great church of Sant' Ambrogio at Milan, while San Michele
at Pavia is another early and important example. Italy's essays in
Gothic are scattered throughout the length and breadth of the peninsula,
from Como to Naples. The Broletto at Como and the monastic buildings at
Vercelli are said to have inaugurated them. Good examples are the
cathedral at Como, the church of San Francesco at Assisi, the cathedral
of Orvieto, San Petronio and San Francesco at Bologna, and San Lorenzo
at Genoa.
But it is to the Renaissance architecture of Italy that many of us will
turn as the most intimate expression of the Italian spirit, to the works
of Brunellesco, Michelozzo, and Cronaca at Florence, of Palladio at
Venice and Vicenza, of Bramante, and, above all, of Michelangelo at
Rome, notably in his great life-work, the church of St. Peter. The
exuberant later style that resulted from a too ardent application of the
principles of Michelangelo and is known as Baroque, though generally
reprobated at present, must not be too sweepingly condemned. It had an
exponent of great talent in Bernini, and it will hardly be denied that
it gave grandiose expression to the tendency of a splendour-loving age,
and that Rome owes to its exponents much of the scenic effectiveness of
her streets and the impressive magnificence of her interiors.
CONTENTS
PAGE
COMO 1
MILAN 7
PAVIA 17
BERGAMO 23
BRESCIA 29
VERONA 35
PADUA 49
VENICE 61
RIMINI 91
FERRARA 99
RAVENNA 107
BOLOGNA 123
PARMA 137
GENOA 145
PISA 157
LUCCA 169
FLORENCE 179
PERUGIA 199
ASSISI 211
SIENA 217
ORVIETO 229
ROME 239
NAPLES 265
SALERNO 279
PALERMO 285
ILLUSTRATIONS
_To face
page_
Como. The Brotello and Cathedral 2
Milan. The Cathedral 10
Pavia. The Cathedral 18
Bergamo 24
Brescia 32
Verona. The Porch of the Cathedral 38
Verona. Interior of S. Zeno 42
Verona. The Market Place 46
Padua. The Cathedral 50
Padua. S. Antonio 56
Venice. St. Mark's 62
Venice. Interior, St. Mark's 70
Venice. The Palazzi Foscari e Giustiniani 80
Venice. The Lion of S. Mark's 84
Torcello. Sta Fosca and Cathedral 90
Rimini. Isotta's Tomb in the Cathedral 96
Ferrara. The Cathedral 102
Ravenna 110
Ravenna. S. Apollinare Nuovo 116
Bologna. Interior of S. Petronio 130
Bologna. S. Domenico 134
Parma. The Cathedral and Baptistery 138
Genoa. An Old Street 146
Genoa. Façade of the Cathedral 152
Pisa. The Baptistery 162
Pisa. The Campanile and Duomo 164
Lucca. The Porch of the Cathedral 170
Lucca. From the City Walls 174
Lucca. S. Michele 176
Florence. Or S. Michele and the Palazzo dell'Arte di Lana 180
Florence. The Campanile 186
Florence. Ponte Vecchio 190
Florence. The Duomo, from the Boboli Gardens 198
Perugia. The Cathedral and Old Town 200
Perugia. The Porta Susanna 204
Perugia. The Piazza Garibaldi 206
Assisi. The Cathedral 214
Siena. The Cathedral 218
Siena. Interior of Cathedral 222
Siena. The Arco di S. Giuseppe 226
Siena. Under the Walls 228
Orvieto. La Porta Maggiore 230
Orvieto. The Façade of the Cathedral 232
Rome. On the Palatine 240
Rome. S. Peter's Frontispiece
Rome. The Arch of Titus 250
Rome. S.S. Trinità de' Monti 256
Rome. The Isle of S. Bartolomeo 260
Naples. Interior of the Cathedral 268
Naples. S. Domenico Maggiore 272
Posillipo. The Bay of Naples from 276
Salerno. A Pulpit in the Cathedral 282
Palermo. The Cathedral 286
Palermo. The Cloisters of S. Giovanni degli Eremiti 296
Palermo. Mte Pelligrino 298
Monreale. The Cloisters 302
COMO
On a flat piece of land at the southern extremity of Italy's most
beautiful lake, the ancient Lacus Larius, stands a city whose history
dates back to the days when a Grecian colony nestled at the foot of the
mountains which lie east and west of the modern Como. Numerous relics of
Roman days found at different times, testify to the truth of the younger
Pliny's letters that the Comum Novum of Julius Cæsar was in a
flourishing condition during the writer's life, and enjoyed all the
privileges attached to a _municipium_.
At the present day Como is best known as a starting-point for tourists
who board the steamers at the quay and leave their decks at one of the
many delightful spots which fringe the shores of a lake whose
attractions cannot be overwritten. The sun shines on an endless panorama
which changes every minute as the steamer pants over the blue waters,
breaking up and dispelling the reflections of verdure-clad slopes and
stern crags which lie mirrored on the surface. Hamlets like Nesso cling
to the rocks and bridge the _orriao_ or torrent, as it enters the lake
in a foaming cascade. Monster hotel settlements like Bellagio and
Cadenabbia lie further up the water, opposite to Varenna with its golf
course and English caravanserai. Little is left to remind one of those
bloody sixteenth-century days when Il Medeghino from his stronghold of
Musso ruled the lake, and with his fleet of seven big ships and
countless smaller craft blockaded the City of Como, held for Charles V.
by the Marquis of Pescara, and compelled the Spaniards to come to terms.
Nothing more warlike nowadays ruffles the serenity of the waters than
the evil-looking little _dogana_ craft which flash their light along the
shores, sweeping every tiny bay in search of _contrabbandieri_. Though
much could be written about the internecine wars the mountains have
seen, it is not with Gian Giacomo de' Medici this chapter is concerned,
but with the city itself, which lies away out of sight of the great
corsair's Castle of Musso.
[Illustration: THE BROTELLO AND CATHEDRAL, COMO]
The Cathedral of Como, built entirely of marble, was commenced in 1396
from the plans of Lorenzi de' Spazi. The west façade, begun in 1460, was
finished by Tomaso Rodario in the last few years of that century. It is
Italian Gothic, with the exception of the three doorways, which are rich
Lombard work; and, like all façades of the same style in Italy, has the
appearance of simply facing or being stuck on to the building
itself. Despite the adornment of statues and bas-reliefs, scrolls and
arabesques, it has a very severe and flat look, which is unrelieved by
the recesses containing busts of the two Plinys on either side of the
central doorway, or the deep-set windows and canopied niches above. A
fine wheel window occupies a position above the principal door and
between these is a good Gothic screen with figures in five niches
flanked by a couple of windows on either side.
The north side of the façade adjoins the Brotello, through the arches of
which one reaches the north doorway. This is decidedly good. The porch
is supported by elegant pillars and adorned by arabesques with birds,
animals, and other figures. It was executed from designs by Rodario, and
with the south portal possesses all the merit that good Renaissance work
gives to both. The windows of the aisles are beautifully ornamented with
decoration of the same character, and the slender pinnacles with their
pierced galleries, albeit they remind one in their whiteness of the
superior pieces of an ivory chess set, break the line of the roof in a
most agreeable manner. The dome lacks proportion and is of the over-done
style of French eighteenth-century work.
The interior of the cathedral is Gothic and Renaissance. The nave and
aisles belong to the earlier date. The groining is good, but spoilt, as
is generally found to be the case throughout Italy, by gilded and
coloured bosses which mar the otherwise simple effect of the vaulting.
The transepts and choir are Renaissance, and though the sympathies of
the northman are more with the sterner style, it must be owned that in
Como's cathedral the scheme of decoration found in these is more fitting
and better of its sort than in the Gothic half of the building. At the
west end of the nave stands the circular Baptistery attributed to
Bramante, close by which are a lion and lioness, the former grasping a
deer and the latter suckling her young. They support the two holy water
basins. Among the pictures of interest which the cathedral contains is a
good Bernardino Luini of the Virgin, and two glazed and framed frescoes
of the Nativity and Adoration by the same hand.
The illustration shows the Brotello or old town hall, and the pinnacles
and north walls of the Cathedral. The Brotello is faced with banded
black and white marble, the common device for exterior walls in most
Italian Gothic churches, and in this case justified by the beautiful
colour it has taken on with age. The building stands mellowed by the
hand of Time, a memorial of the days of the old Italian Republics; and
its counterpart existed in every Lombard city. Above the arches, under
which the good citizens were wont to discuss the affairs of their town
while sauntering to and fro in the cool shade, is the great hall wherein
the chief of the municipality assembled. From the window in the centre
access was obtained to the bar, or _ringhiéra_ outside, from which
addresses were delivered to the crowd below, who in constitutional
language formed the _parliamento_ and from whom the powers of government
emanated.
Two of the old city gateways still exist, the latter of which, the Porta
del Torre, leading out on the high road to Milan is to-day but an empty
five-storied shell. The old walls may be traced even now on the three
sides of the city away from the water-front. But for these there is very
little left to show the extent of a place which was once a serious rival
to Milan. The staple industry is stone-working, for which the Comaschi
have for centuries been widely known. In former times Como was justly
celebrated for the products of its looms, excelling in number those at
Lyons. Nowadays it exports the raw silk; the looms have sadly fallen off
and diminished, and small industries have taken the place of those that
brought considerable wealth to the pockets of its merchants.
MILAN
When the great wave of conquest which swept mid-Europe in the fifth
century broke against the walls of Châlons-sur-Marne and the westward
march of Attila and his Huns was checked, the defeated hordes of the
East followed their chief across the Alps and invaded the plain that
stretches away now, just as it did in those far-off days, to the sunny
seas that beat against the southern slopes of the Apennines. In the
centre of this plain stood Mediolanum, a city ranking second only to
Rome, and her greatest colony in the Peninsula. So rich and prosperous a
place became of necessity the object of attack, and the hosts that
looked to "the Scourge of God" as leader, swept into and through the
fair city, sacking it completely. Rebuilt, but once again undergoing the
same fate at the hands of Frederick I. in 1162, there remain but a
colonnade of sixteen Corinthian columns near the Porta Ticinese, a few
tablets and fragments let into the walls of other gateways, and some
relics in the museum, to tell of the past glories of Rome's great
colony.
Milan, as we know it now, is the centre of commercial Italy. Intersected
by an excellent system of tramways, with beautiful public gardens and
magnificent buildings, it is up to date in every way and stands quite
apart from all the other cities with which this book is concerned. The
one thing that, perhaps, above all others places it in this position is,
however, no product of this commercial age, but its world-famous work of
art, the great cathedral, through the lofty aisles of which still
reverberates the grand music of the Ambrosian Ritual. The exterior of
this immense church, next in Italy to St. Peter's in size, is adorned by
a forest of spires, pinnacles, turrets and lace-like tracery. In the
midst of all this rises the central tower with its airy spire, from the
base of which on a clear day the snow-clad peaks of the Alps may be seen
stretching miles on miles away, and bounding the whole of the northern
horizon by a lovely dreamland of colour.
Very few buildings compel one's admiration as this does, an admiration
wrung in my case from a mind out of sympathy with everything that lacks
the dignity of repose; but such is the effect obtained by hundreds of
pinnacles and statues, by the turreted flying buttresses, by the filling
of every available foot of space with ornament, that one cannot but
appreciate the result of the skill and patience so truly Italian, which
has carried out these infinite details and produced the great work that
stands in the Piazza del Duomo. The present fabric, dedicated "Mariæ
Nascenti," is the third cathedral built on the site: the first was
destroyed by Attila in 452, and the second by Barbarossa in 1162. The
foundation-stone was laid in 1387 by Gian' Galeazzo Visconti, who from a
northern clime sought his architect, Heinrich Ahrler, of Gmünden. From
that time down to the present day many have had a hand in its making,
among them Bramante, Leonardo da Vinci, and Giulio Romano, and the
wonder is that the great structure is not far more full of incongruities
than it is. The whole exterior is built of white marble from the
quarries of la Gandoglia on the Simplon Road, given by the founder for
this purpose.
The façade rises with a course of open Gothic work to the gable above,
and is divided into five sections which terminate in clusters of Gothic
turrets surmounted by pinnacles and statues. The central doorway is
surrounded by excellent Renaissance sculpture, the door itself being a
magnificent piece of seventeenth-century bronze work. On each side are
two more portals. The bases of the intervening buttresses contain
splendid panels, and the Caryatides, which support the slender Gothic
shafts right and left, by Rusca and Carabelli, are extremely good in
pose and execution. The great façade designed by Pellegrini for S. Carlo
Borromeo in 1560 was never carried out owing to the saint's death while
Pellegrini was away in Spain working on the Escorial for Philip II. The
east end is the oldest part of the building, and is almost entirely
taken up by three grand Gothic windows. The east window, which is of
most beautiful tracery, was executed from the designs of a Frenchman,
Nicholas Bonaventure. Both the other windows are fine, but the upper
portion or rose pattern, although in itself very delicate, appears
"stuck in," and not part of the design; some of the glass in these is
very rich in colour. The archivolts of the arches are filled with
figures which follow the curve in a rather uncomfortable style, not only
here but in every other window save the fine classical of the façade.
[Illustration: THE CATHEDRAL, MILAN]
The interior is grand, and of immense height, albeit the vaulting with
its admirably painted tracery is evidence of the great skill of the
Italian at "faking." The mellow light from the amber coloured glass of
the octagon and the twilight filtering through the gorgeous hues of the
other windows is remarkably and impressively pleasing. The columns of
the nave, in clusters of eight shafts, are eighty feet high, and carry
narrow capitals of foliage which form the base to eight canopied niches
occupied by figures of saints--a fine feature. The aisles are double,
the outside being lower than that next the nave. The four columns at the
crossing which support the octagon are of larger dimensions than those
in the nave. Two semicircular pulpits covered with bas-reliefs of gilded
bronze stand on either side of the steps leading into the choir, to the
solemn darkness of which the shadows thrown from the sounding-boards
above make pictorially a good foreground introduction. These pulpits are
supported by caryatides representing the Evangelists and four doctors of
the Church.
The choir was designed by Pellegrini, and contains a fine
sixteenth-century tabernacle of gilded bronze. Beneath is the
subterranean church, through which one enters the tiny chapel, under the
central spire, wherein is deposited, in a magnificent silver shrine the
gift of Philip IV. of Spain, the body of S. Carlo Borromeo dressed in
full pontificals. Born in 1538 he was created cardinal by his uncle,
Pius IV., in 1561. After the close of the Council of Trent he assisted
other prelates to draw up the epitome of Catholic doctrine, the
"Catechismus Tridentinus"; but it is more for his good works and great
charity, especially during the plague of 1576, that he lives in the
hearts of the Milanese.
In the north transept is a very good example of the metal work of the
thirteenth century, in the shape of a fine bejewelled bronze
candelabrum. It forms a tree and has many quaint figures in its
intricate design. In a chapel in this aisle is the old wooden crucifix
which S. Carlo carried when barefooted he tramped the streets during the
plague, tending the sick. In the south transept close to the corner near
the staircase leading on to the roof is a monument to Giacomo and
Gabriele de' Medici, brothers of Pius IV., and a bronze statue of S.
Bartolommeo which represents him flayed. The south sacristy door is a
fine specimen of Gothic work. Unlike the exterior effect, nothing
obtrudes inside this great cathedral. The eye on entering looks straight
up to the east, conscious as it travels there, of great pillars rising
into the gloom of the vault above, of fine glass and restful solemnity,
in which even the chapels in the aisles are lost, to be discovered later
on only when searched for.
Next to "Mariæ Nascenti," but taking precedence in archæological
interest, is the church of S. Ambrogio, a basilica dedicated by the
Saint when bishop of Milan in 387 to SS. Gervasius and Protasius. It was
enlarged and rebuilt in 881 and restored by Ricchini in 1631, all the
original features being faithfully preserved. A closed courtyard stands
below the level of the piazza outside and forms the Atrium beyond which
no catechumens were allowed to pass. The capitals of the columns here
have the tendency of early Christian Art and adaptations of Runic and
Byzantine carving. The church is Lombardo Romanesque. Beneath the
gallery over the peristyle is the celebrated door, well guarded by an
iron grille, some of the cypress-wood panels of which formed portions of
the gate of the Basilica Portiana closed by S. Ambrose against the
Emperor Theodosius after his cruel slaughter in Thessalonica. The nave
is entered by two side doors and is composed of eight bays, the columns
of which are slender in proportion for the deep shadows of the dark
aisles. Pilasters run up to the low round vaulting, the large galleries
over the aisles being divided by these. Up a few steps which cross the
nave at the last bay, and behind a low marble balustrade, is the High
Altar, enclosed by one of the finest extant relics of the goldsmith's
art. This magnificent casing bears the name of its German maker,
Wolvinius. Some of the panels, notably that of the Transfiguration, are
very Greek in treatment. The back is almost of better workmanship than
the front and is more interesting, as Wolvinius has here illustrated the
principal events in the life of the founder. The enamelled borders of
these silver-gilt panels are of exquisite design. One of the saint as a
child asleep in his cradle with a swarm of bees hovering around,
considered a presage of future eloquence, is very naïve. The
_baldachino_ above this altar is borne by four grand columns of black
porphyry.
Up twelve steps are the choir and tribune, and at the end of these is
the primitive throne of the Archbishop of Milan, known as the chair of
S. Ambrose. The eighteen seats occupied by the suffragans of the
province no longer exist, having been replaced in the sixteenth century
by carved wooden stalls, and thus has perished a feature identical with
the Cathedral at Torcello. The semi-domed roof of the Tribune is covered
with a fine ninth-century mosaic which represents the seated figure of
the Almighty, beneath whom are SS. Candida, Gervasius, Protasius,
Marcellina and Satirus, and a representation of the cities of Milan and
Tours--Tours because there, when S. Martin was undergoing martyrdom, the
spirit of S. Ambrose went to give him strength. Beneath the choir is the
crypt, and at its termination, exactly under the high altar in the
church above, in a splendid casket of silver and crystal, repose the
remains of three Saints, Ambrose, Gervasius and Protasius. There is a
curious pulpit in the church of very early Lombard work, with an "Agape"
or love feast carved upon its panels. Close by upon a granite pillar
rests a bronze serpent, said to be the brazen serpent of the desert and
presented to Archbishop Arnulphus by the Emperor of Constantinople. S.
Ambrogio was the church in which the Lombard rulers were crowned with
the Iron Crown that is the chief attraction in the neighbouring city of
Monza.
So well known are the art treasures of Milan that it is hardly necessary
to do more than allude to the many works of great interest in the Brera,
formerly a Jesuit college, and in the celebrated Biblioteca Ambrosiana;
or that greatest wonder of all which has drawn so many pilgrims to the
Cenacolo, the refectory near the church of Santa Maria della Grazie--the
much restored Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci. The Castello of Milan
was at one time the residence of the great Visconti family, and at the
death of the last male representative passed by marriage into the hands
of the first duke of the Sforza line. It was during their reign that
Milan took the lead in the fashion of Europe (whence we have the word
"milliner") and it was then that Leonardo wrought his masterpieces,
including that great equestrian statue of Francesco Sforza which was the
wonder of Milan, and of which posterity was so unhappily robbed by the
French invasion.
PAVIA
From its position close to the confluence of the rivers Po and Ticino,
Pavia, the "City of a hundred Towers," was for centuries a point of
strategic importance. It is at present a great artillery station. Of its
hundred towers that stood at intervals around the eleventh-century
walls, hardly one remains, and the old fortifications which had been
reconstructed at a later date, are rapidly being converted into a
spacious and shady boulevard. The celebrated bridge is however still
intact, despite many violent floods, a delight to the eye and a pleasant
promenade on a hot day. This notable structure, which spans the Ticino,
was built by one of the great Visconti family--Gian' Galeozzo--and is
roofed in.
Pavia at one time was rich in noble churches. Many have been demolished,
others have fallen into decay. The cathedral, dedicated to S. Stefano,
stands on the site of one erected in the seventh century. The present
edifice was designed by Bramante and constructed under the direction of
one of his pupils, Cristoforo Rocci. In the original plan the nave,
transepts, and choir were all of one size, but the nave is the only part
in which the great architect's measurements were followed. The façade,
approached by a good flight of steps, is unfinished. On the north, and
adjoining a fine example of a late Romanesque gateway, stands the
_campanile_.
The interior of the main building is grey stone which has not been
spoilt by the application of the whitewash brush. A fine pulpit,
somewhat similar to those at Milan, stands out from one of the massive
piers that support the octagon. It is of singularly large dimensions and
is supported by well-carved wooden figures of the Fathers of the Church.
The octagon, which carries a good dome and tower and is best seen from
the market square, rises well above the roofs of the nave and choir. A
gallery running round the entire cathedral forms a triforium, broken
only by _trasparente_ lights in the apse and side chapels of the choir.
These windows accentuate the bad points of the _barroque_ altars
beneath. The clerestory lights are circular. If it were not for the
magnificent tomb in which repose the remains of S. Augustine, the
greatest of the Fathers of the Latin Church, the cathedral would be,
notwithstanding the fame of its designer, the least interesting
ecclesiastical building in Pavia.
[Illustration: THE CATHEDRAL, PAVIA]
Experts disagree as to who was responsible for the fine monument which
covers S. Augustine's remains. The body of the saint had been removed
from Hippo, a suffragan see of Carthage, to Sardinia during the Arian
persecutions. It rested there until Liutprand, the Lombard king, having
purchased it, placed it in the church of S. Pietro in Cielo d'Oro; and
when this church was destroyed it was conveyed to the cathedral. On
certain festivals the silver casket, portions of which are the original,
that contains the bones of the saint robed in full pontificals is
removed from its usual position and hoisted up behind the tomb, so that
the devout can mount a temporary wooden stair and look on all that is
left of the great father.
A figure of the saint lies stretched on the sepulchral urn that usually
holds the silver casket. This rests on the basement, or lowest, of the
four tiers that compose the monument. Around it are figures of the
lesser saints of his Order. Above are bas-reliefs of the chief events in
his life and the miracles which after his death were performed in
different places through his intercessions. The liberal arts, the
cardinal virtues, and many symbols adorn the tomb, which is also
decorated with statues of saints and angels, two hundred and ninety in
all. They are extremely well executed and enhance the beauty of the
design.
The church of S. Michele is a primitive structure and bears traces of
being the precursor of all ecclesiastical edifices of the Lombard style
of architecture. It was originally a basilica, but short transepts have
been added and the roof, which is groined, is vaulted with stone. The
oldest part of the church is the crypt, which is under the choir. This
is probably the building, or part of it, in which Unulfus sought
sanctuary in 661 when fleeing from King Grimoladus. Four compound piers
in the nave are adorned with an extraordinary series of sphinxes,
symbols, animals and other figures. The façade is decorated with reliefs
in a richly coloured sandstone, and has a gabled gallery that is
continued round the exterior as far as the apse.
The portals are covered with a profusion of very archaic imagery in
which Pagan as well as Christian subjects form most of the decoration.
Sculptured bands of sandstone are placed in courses along the whole
front and medallions let into the walls. These are very massively built
of stone, and though restoration is evident throughout the church it
still bears the impress of great age.
Sta. Maria del Carmine is a fourteenth-century building of Gothic
design, and is one of the very best examples of brickwork in all Italy.
The beautiful rose window of the west front and the three pointed doors
with their well-moulded terra-cotta ornament could hardly be finer.
Seven elegant pinnacles stand on the rather heavy cornice, forming a
good set off to the _campanile_, which, surmounted by a brick spire, is
a landmark in the district. The brick piers of the interior are
exceptionally good; four squares constitute the nave, the arches of each
carry simple groining. Two small lancet-shaped arches, out of all
proportion with the massive brick piers that support them, open into the
aisles. They have double capitals, the upper being of stone, the lower
of carved brick.
In the ruined church of S. Pietro in Cielo d'Oro stood the tomb of
Boethius, who under Theodoric held high office in the state. Boethius
was executed in Pavia after a long and rigorous confinement in the Casa
Malsap ina, during which he wrote his incomparable "Consolations of
Philosophy." This work was translated into many languages and was one of
the most widely known treatises in the Middle Ages. Alfred the Great
translated it into Saxon. Another connection with England exists through
Archbishop Lanfranc who accompanied William the Conqueror across the sea
and was made prelate of Canterbury. The district round Pavia is not
healthy, a condition due probably to the intricate system of irrigation
by which the pastures are kept green with a rank-growing grass. Between
Pavia, Piacenza and Lodi--a triangle with the last-named at the
northern point--lies the country which yields the best Parmesan cheese.
The fields are of three kinds, those nearly always under water, those
irrigated, and those used for rotation crops. The cattle that are
utilised for cheese-making are mostly Swiss bred, and being valuable are
well looked after. They are stalled at sundown in the buildings attached
to the great farms, where farmhouse, cottages, barns and stables are all
enclosed within a high wall. The little rectangular patches of meadow on
which they feed are enclosed by rows of poplars or willows which make
the landscape very monotonous. In winter a dense fog often shrouds the
countryside and a deadly chill pervades the atmosphere, while the
humidity of summer, when the sun draws the moisture from the soaking
earth, is very enervating.
BERGAMO
When October comes in its yearly round and the autumn afternoons close
in, it is sometimes good to sit idly outside a caffè with the pernicious
cigarette and ruminate on the glories of a past summer--better this than
to hustle up the street a sight-seeing. A hot day was ending and the
Bergamo of mediæval times towered above the haze of a sun-baked land and
the smoke that curled upwards in thin wreaths from the city below. "La
Città Alta" thus raised its head proudly against the copper-coloured
sky, thrusting its bulwarks to the edge of one of the last spurs of the
Alps that here creep down on to the plain. What a grand prospect from
the shady boulevard on those ramparts which encircle the old fortress!
The sun has not yet set; beneath lies the Borgo S. Leonardo, the lower
city, a busy place with factory chimneys on its outskirts; beyond, a sea
of verdure, cut by lines of tall poplars and here and there a slender
_campanile_, stretches away over Lombardy until lost in the haze past
the towers and domes of Monza, Cremona, and distant Milan.
There is something very fascinating in the quiet and exclusive old city.
Its streets are steep and narrow, its houses seem to rake the sky, the
rattle of wheels does not often disturb the aristocratic silence, a
silence accentuated tenfold when one has left behind its busy plebeian
partner on the plain below, and whisked upwards by the funicular, found
oneself suddenly amidst high walls. Great spaces of faced stone are
these walls, pierced by tiny windows, almost forbidding in their
austerity; and though glimpses of foliage and flowering creepers break
through, the pervading air is one of mystery and intrigue.
In the wars with Austria, Bergamo was a great rallying-point for
patriots and a continual thorn in the side of that polyglot empire. The
names of heroic Bergamasque who died for their country are inscribed on
sundry tablets on the walls under the old Brotello. This interesting
building stands at one end of the little Piazza Garibaldi, and is
somewhat similar to the one which forms the illustration to Como, with
the difference that here a fine open stairway leads up to the first
floor. The great hall is now occupied as a library. In a corner at the
head of the stairs rises a massive quadrangular belfry, one of the
prominent features in the outline of "La Città Alta."
[Illustration: BERGAMO]
Beyond the Brotello lies the Cathedral, a well-proportioned Renaissance
building, which, by its juxtaposition to the much more ancient church of
Sta Maria Maggiore, looks comparatively of recent date. It is
constructed entirely of white marble and has a good dome. A Madonna by
G. Bellini behind the high altar is its great treasure, and the only
thing in it worthy of notice.
Sta Maria is an early Lombard pile of buildings, with a very lofty tower
and an octagon over the crossing, which rises in four galleried storeys
surmounted by a low spire. Good galleries extend round the exterior of
the apse, and side chapels are thrust out at odd places with no
particular plan. The east porch is by far the most interesting feature,
and is an elaborate piece of work in _breccia_ and white marble. The
supporting pillars rest on the backs of two lions, the old
ecclesiastical symbol of strength, the columns of the portal are
beautifully sculptured, and one of them, encircled with admirable
figures, is very fine. Above is a canopy under which, on his horse, sits
King Lupus with two attendants, while beneath a second canopy on top are
statuettes of the Virgin and Child, and the two Marys. The west porch is
almost similar to this, but of not so intricate a design. It has also no
canopies, but is surmounted by a turret niche, let into the wall of the
main building, in which is the figure of the patroness. The doors of
these two portals are of superbly grained rosewood. They open into the
transepts, which are the finest portions of the interior, the carved
choir stalls and screen by Stefano da Bergamo are considered the best in
Italy.
Adjoining the east porch is the Capella Colleoni, the mausoleum of
Bartolommeo Colleoni the celebrated _condottiere_ of the fifteenth
century, whose equestrian statue in front of the church of SS. Giovanni
e Paolo in Venice is remarkable, not only as a work of art, but as
exemplifying the power and rugged strength of a great man.
The façade is terribly ornate, with chequer work in white and black
marble, red and yellow busts and medallions, twisted pillars and strange
arabesques. The interior contains the tomb of Bartolommeo who sits
astride his horse. It is rather too elaborate to be entirely pleasing.
At the south end is one of the finest examples of _intarsia_, or inlaid
wood-work, in Italy. The subjects of the three panels represent the
entry into Jerusalem, and scenes from the stirring times in which the
great _condottiere_ played so prominent a part. The backgrounds are
evidently of landscape in the neighbourhood. Not only is the spirit and
execution of this fine work extremely good, but the colour surpasses
anything of the sort I have seen. It is kept under lock and key,
enclosed in three rosewood panels of well-selected grain. Not far from
the chapel is the house in which Donizetti died. The Borgo S. Leonardo
is of older date than "La Città Alta," although it is the more modern of
the two. On the base of a damaged Corinthian column standing in the
small piazza of Sta Maria d'Oleono is an old Latin inscription which
tells that the column was erected where once stood a heathen temple, and
that S. Alessandro, standard-bearer to the Theban Legion, overthrew the
heathen pillar by a miracle, the column being erected by members of the
municipality with the alms of the faithful. It is doubtful whether the
Pergamus of ancient writers is the city on the hill or its sister on the
plain; this relic rather points to the latter as the site. In the Borgo
a fair, held for a month from the middle of August, and known as the
Fiera di Sant' Alessandro, has taken place without intermission since
the tenth century--surely a record; and there is no doubt that in the
ancient Italian drama, harlequin, personifying the manners and jargon of
the neighbouring Val Brembana, was a Bergamasque, and originated at this
ancient festival.
BRESCIA
Brescia, like Bergamo, is situated on the fringe of the mountains and
the plains, and like Bergamo played an important part in the wars
against Austria. Its _castello_ stands high above the rest of the city,
but in the face of the power possessed of modern arms it would not be
worth a garrison. So its ramparts and entrenchments have been wisely
converted into a pleasant garden from which wide views of rolling
country and level plain extend.
Many traces of the Roman colony of Brescia remain, but it was due to a
small boy of the virile race that populate the city that the most
interesting was unearthed. When a child, Girolamo Ioli was much
exercised in mind about a Corinthian column that stuck out of the ground
and around which he was wont to play. In maturer years the curiosity of
youth was still the ruling passion, and he made it his business to
agitate. Like many another agitator his demands were in time gratified,
and excavations were commenced which resulted in the unearthing of a
building erected by Vespasian it is supposed in the year 72--the
supposition resting on fragmentary inscriptions. Palace of Justice or
temple, this building is now the museum, and contains one of the finest
bronzes Italy can boast of. Found in 1826, this beautiful winged figure
of Victory, which is six feet high, still bears a trace of the silver
fillet interwoven with a wreath of laurel-leaves that bound her hair.
The last-century additions of a shield, which she was thought to have
held, and a helmet under one of her feet, have been removed, and Victory
stands in the state in which she was discovered. The head and limbs are
finely modelled, and the arrangement of the drapery could not be
excelled.
Down the wide street in front of the Museum a Corinthian column and
heavy frieze, supported by massive brick pillars, have been excavated.
Opposite these relics is the huge Martinengo Palace. In a line due south
is the church of Sta Afra built on the site of a temple to Saturn. Most
of the houses in the vicinity have Roman masonry in their basements and
Roman inscriptions let into their walls. From this one gathers that
ancient Brixia occupied this part of the later city. Write it down to
the credit of Brescia that her citizens passed a law as early as 1480
that all antiquities found should be preserved and given up to the town.
There are two cathedrals in Brescia, La Rotunda and the Duomo Nuovo.
The former is one of the most interesting ecclesiastical buildings in
Italy. Constructed of stone, with a red brick dog-tooth cornice and
twenty-four brick arches, supported by white marble pilasters forming an
arcade into which the exterior is divided, a most pleasing effect is
obtained. In the interior a circular colonnade, composed of eight
extremely massive four-sided piers bearing round arches, supports the
stone dome. It is supposed to be of seventh-century construction, and is
evidently on the site of an earlier Roman building, as fragments of a
mosaic floor exist beneath the present one. This, which is partly
tesselated, is much below the level of the ground outside. Lower still,
beneath the presbytery and choir, down twenty steps, is a very ancient
crypt, in which forty marble columns support the round arches that carry
the weight of the fabric above. None of these columns is more than five
feet high. Half a dozen blocked up lights, with bases not more than
three feet from the floor, are evidence that outside, the level of the
ground was at one time far below where it is at present.
The Duomo Nuovo is a finely proportioned edifice and one of the best
seventeenth-century churches in the country. The façade is immense and
gains by its simplicity. The fine dome is said to be the third in size
in Italy; and the lofty interior of white marble, unspoilt by any colour
or decoration, gains in space from the fact that there is but one bay to
the nave, producing the effect on the senses that one is everywhere
standing under the spacious height of Brescia's greatest landmark. The
houses of the piazza outside are chiefly occupied by metal-workers, and
those who know the incessant din produced by the tapping of their
hammers, will quite understand that it was impossible to make a sketch
of these two churches as they stand together.
[Illustration: BRESCIA]
Adjoining the Duomo Nuovo is the Brotello with its fine Torre del
Popolo, an embattled tower. The inner courtyard is partly of red brick
with a good corridor of the thirteenth century, formed of pointed and
round arches and brick groining. Another fine tower stands in the Piazza
Vecchia, the Torre del' Orologio. Its enormous dial marks the hours from
I to XXIV, the course of the sun and moon, and has the signs of the
Zodiac displayed on its face. Two figures that stand on top of the tower
strike the hours in a similar way to those on the Clock Tower of Venice.
At the west end of the piazza is La Loggia, the town hall, a good
example of an early sixteenth-century building. It was commenced, to be
accurate, by Tornasso Formentone in 1492 and continued from his
designs as far as the first floor. Sansovino was responsible for
the second, and Palladio completed what the other two had begun. The
building, however, as a whole, is superb. Magnificent arches support the
first floor, to which a grand open staircase leads. The medallions and
figures which adorn the exterior are extremely good, and the frieze and
cornice are equally so. The rich colour of the marble employed lends a
beautiful tone to a beautiful building. Unfortunately the interior was
burnt out in January 1575. The fire which consumed it is supposed to
have originated at the instigation of those who wished to destroy
certain ancient charters granting liberties to the inhabitants.
The Torre della Pallata is in a corner of the square--a good specimen of
castellated architecture, which rises from a sloping base of immense
stones and terminates with a projecting turret.
Brescia contains many fine palaces, and from the streets into which they
open one often gets a glimpse, through the iron grille of their portals,
of a charming arcaded court. The splash of a flower embowered fountain
is music to ear and the cool shade under the arches a rest for eye.
VERONA
Those who enter the Brenner Pass, and with faces set towards Italy,
leave Innsbruck behind, may have noticed how, after toilsome puffing and
straining uphill, the train suddenly seems to draw breath and glide
smoothly onwards with increased pace. At the side of the iron road a
little thread of water dances merrily over a pebble bed in its haste to
reach the sunny plains that lie to the south of the great mountain
barrier. Further on the rail and its sparkling attendant part company to
join later, when, from their slender origin, the waters have become a
rushing river--the river Adige. The mountains are behind, to the north;
the character of the landscape has changed, and within a horseshoe bend
of the swift stream, well-nigh enclosed by it, lies Verona.
Verona "La Degna," Verona the Worthy, a city crammed with the history of
past wars, a city of colour, in its bricks, in its stones, in its marble
walls and fresco adorned palaces. Wherever one turns, be it the pale
green of the river on which the wheels of those watermills, so like the
Noah's Ark of childhood's days, for ever turn, or the brilliant and
keen blue of the sky, there is always colour for the eye in Verona.
Colour for the mind too lies concealed in its streets and buildings.
Greek, Roman, Ostrogoth and Frank, Italians and Austrians, have all
ruled here. Ruled and gone and left their trace on this beautiful
city--the key to Alt' Italia--which Italy once more holds and guards
with jealous eye. Long may she keep it.
Verona is connected with two great names in the history of Italian
architecture, Frà Giaconda, the monk who in the early days of
Renaissance was supreme in the north, and Sanmicheli. Many of the fine
palaces the former designed bear evidence of his talent and justify the
summons to Rome, where he went at an advanced age to superintend the
building of St. Peter's. The latter, who evolved the triangular and
pentangular bastion, is more widely known in the science of
fortification than as a builder. Frà Giacondo's finest work in Verona is
undoubtedly the Palazzo del Consiglio, the old town hall called "La
Loggia," which stands on the north side of the Piazza dei Signori, one
of the most architecturally beautiful squares in Italy. The Palazzo
della Ragione, with a courtyard and grand open stairway of the
fourteenth century, is on the south of the square next door to the
Tribunale, and the Prefettura is opposite. The fine portal of the
latter is one of Sanmicheli's works. These magnificent buildings, with
the exception of the first-named, were all at one time or another
palaces of the great family of Scaligeri or Della Scala, and in one of
them Dante, whose statue is in the centre of the Piazza, found refuge
when driven from Florence.
The family of Scaligeri, although settled in Verona as early as 1085,
comes first before the historian at the death of the bloody tyrant
Ezzelino in 1261. Verona, freed from his terrible rule, became at that
date a free town, and Mastino della Scala accepted the office of
Capitano del Popolo. Onwards for over a hundred years the Scaligeri
governed Verona; and during the reign of the most famous of the race,
Francesco, or "Can Grande," Great Dog, it became the gathering-place for
men of note of all sorts, and his palace the home of the great poet. The
family crest, a ladder, is to be seen all over the city, while the
unique group of the Scala tombs is without a parallel.
This wonderful group stands outside the little church of Sta Maria
Antica at the end of a passage leading out of the Piazza dei Signori.
Of these tombs, that of Mastino I. is a simple sarcophagus ornamented
with nothing but a cross. It was at one time covered with a canopy, but
the stones of this, being handy, were used for the restoration of Sta
Maria Antica close by. The tomb of Can Grande forms the canopy over the
portal of this church. Columns support its three storeys. Upon a
sarcophagus lies an effigy of the Great Dog with his good sword at his
side; above is his equestrian statue in full armour. Mastino II, who
succeeded his uncle Can Grande, is likewise represented by a recumbent
figure on the sarcophagus of his tomb, which is also crowned by an
equestrian statue in armour. The visor of his helmet is drawn down, and
thereby hangs the tale that Mastino was ashamed to show his face, even
to his wife, after he had treacherously slain with his own sword his
relative, Bishop Bartolommeo della Scala. Can Signorio's monument,
though not the most elaborate, is decidedly the finest. At the four
corners under beautiful pointed canopies, are the figures of Sigismundo,
Alexius, St. George, and Signorio himself. A great deal of the bronze
work and detail about this tomb is very good, and the equestrian figure
on the top is excellent. There, gathered together, these warrior princes
of the great family repose in their last long sleep. Those who deem the
pen mightier than the sword, may care to reflect that a fame more
universal and lasting than that of all the Delia Scalas has been
attained by a French scholar of the sixteenth century who also bore the
name of Scaliger. Yet even this prince of learning was prouder of his
traditional descent from the noble Veronese house than of all his
achievements in the world of letters.
[Illustration: THE PORCH OF THE CATHEDRAL, VERONA]
And Verona's churches? Tradition says that Charlemagne erected the first
building on the site of the Cathedral. The present edifice, though
almost entirely reconstructed in the fifteenth century, was commenced in
the tenth. The most ancient part that remains, probably a portion of the
first church, is the apse, which on its exterior bears traces of Roman
influence. It is very simply built of a small cut grey freestone, faced
with flat pilasters terminating in Roman capitals, above which is a
frieze of floral pattern. In the remainder of the building Verona marble
and the rich yellow stone of the district are used.
The double-arched west porch of the twelfth century is exceptionally
good. Two colossal gryphons support elegant columns, and still command a
certain amount of awe amongst the smaller children who play about the
Piazza del Duomo. Both arches are round; the lower is supported by four
columns, the upper by eight. Representations on the inner shafts of the
lower arch of the two Paladins, Roland and Oliver, give a semblance to
the tradition that Charlemagne had something to do with the first church
erected here. Oliver holds his celebrated sword, on which is inscribed
_Du-rin-dar-da_. Roland is cross-legged and bears his shield. They are
both seen in the illustration. The colour of this porch and façade is
very beautiful. Great blocks of red marble intermingle with yellow
stone, white and pink marble courses continue the construction above,
and arabesques of a weathered grey stone complete the harmony. The fine
south portal is an earlier erection. Some ancient frescoes decorate the
lunette, and monsters grin at one like a nightmare from above.
The interior is lofty and very striking. Tremendous columns support the
low Gothic roof, the vaulting of which hardly exceeds the height of the
arches between the nave and aisles. Many signs of "giving way" and
cracks in the masonry have necessitated iron girders, which detract
somewhat from a fine effect. The heavy capitals of the nave columns are
rendered rather unsightly by three courses of floral design. The aisles
are pointed, narrow, and very good. Encircling the high altar is a
colonnade screen, which though beautiful in itself and designed by
Sanmicheli, is sadly out of place. The fine bronze crucifix which
surmounts it is by Gianbattista da Verona.
The cloisters lie on the north side of the Cathedral. About half a dozen
feet below the level of the pavement, standing on its base, is a fine
Corinthian column, with a Roman floor around. Between them and the
early Lombard church of S. Giovanni in Fonte is a tortuous corridor
lined with sepulchral slabs of many archbishops and bishops. This little
dark church is formed of four small bays and was formerly the old
baptistery. In the centre of the nave stands a huge octagonal font, with
a smaller one inside, wherein stood the officiating priest. The figures
in bas-relief on these two fonts, which by the way are cut from one
solid block of marble, are well worth studying.
Another Gothic church is Sant' Anastasia, which was commenced by the
Dominicans in the thirteenth century and is still incomplete. The nave
is very fine and has the same low vaulting that is a feature in the
Cathedral; its walls, too, are cracked and held together by iron
girders. Close to the west door in the interior are two humpbacked
figures which hold the Holy Water basins and are of some interest. One
of them was executed by the father of Paolo Veronese and the other by
Alessandro Rossi, who took his cripple son "Gobbino" for his model.
The most interesting ecclesiastical fabric in the city is, however, the
church of San Zenone. It is unspoilt by anything flamboyant or gaudy,
and is a fine example of Romanesque architecture--some consider it the
finest in North Italy. A ninth-century building stood here before the
present structure was begun in 1138. The west façade is marble, the
apse and sides of alternating brick and marble courses. The great portal
is a most elaborate example of early twelfth-century work, on which are
rudely sculptured knights engaging in deadly combat, scriptural subjects
and imitations of Roman bas-reliefs with Latin inscriptions. Theodoric
on horseback, with feet in stirrups--a very early representation of
such--and Roman dress, engages in the chase of the deer with the Devil.
The attendant dogs are evil spirits furnished to the Emperor by the
Arch-fiend. The ninth-century bronze doors are very remarkable and
consist of forty-two square plates fixed on to pine-wood. The subjects
of each panel, which are Biblical, are most interesting; some of the
little figures wear the conical flat-brimmed hat that may still be seen
on the heads of the shepherds in the more remote districts of Venetia.
These doors boast no handles, but two huge grotesque heads do duty
instead, and are the means of opening and closing them. Above the portal
is a wheel-of-fortune window executed by Briolotus. At the top is the
figure of a king, and at the bottom lies a prostrate man; between these
two are many figures climbing up and falling down in their efforts to
reach the best place. The façade terminates in a gable, with a lean-to
on either side.
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF S. ZENO, VERONA]
The interior is very striking, not only in its good proportions but in
its simplicity, which no side-altars mar. As in the cathedral at
Chester, one enters from the west down a flight of steps, held a moment
in admiration by the solemn grandeur of this fine church. The beautiful
larch roof soars away far above the mellowed floor, the warm colour of
the walls and depth of shadow through the arches of the crypt below the
choir, create a harmony of colour from our point of vantage not often
met with in Italy's churches. The aisles are divided from the nave by
alternate piers and red marble pillars, the former with ascending Doric
pilasters, two of which, near the west end, support a flying arch
beneath the roof and are evident traces of an early vaulting. At the end
of the nave, and occupying its last three bays, is the raised choir
reached by two flights of marble steps on either side of those leading
down into the crypt. On the red marble balustrade of the choir are
figures of Christ and the twelve apostles. In a niche on the south side
is a forbidding looking figure of S. Zeno, the patron saint of the city,
who, being an African, is represented with a black face. The apse at the
east end was rebuilt in the fifteenth century and has Gothic windows.
The old Benedictine cloisters of the once attached monastery stand on
the north, and contain amongst other tombs twenty-nine of the Della
Scalas. The cloisters and tombs are admirably preserved. The former
consists of brick arches, pointed on the east and west, and round on the
north and south, supported by coupled columns of red marble. Of Verona's
forty churches these three are the most typical and interesting, and San
Zenone, with its great architectural simplicity and wonderful
_campanile_, holds the palm.
It is a city of shapely bell-towers; every church has one. Some are
high, others low and unpretending; some are flat topped, others
embattled or crowned by the red brick spire which greets one further
west in the lake country. But the most beautiful of all is that which
stands at a corner of the Piazza dei Signori, adjoining the Palazzo
della Ragione, and rears its head over two hundred and fifty feet from
the pavement below. Like a queen, this graceful Campanile del Municipio
stands, dominating her subjects the other towers, with all the tinkling
bells they contain. Across the river from the vantage-ground of the
terrace on the hill beneath the Castello S. Pietro, Verona lies mapped
out. Her dull red and brown roofs remind one of the harmonious colours
of a Bokharan rug. Immediately below, at the foot of the hill, are the
ruins of the Roman theatre, and the green waters of the Adige, rushing
under the arches of the old stone bridge close by. Straight as a line
ran the Roman street to the Porta dei Borsari, erected under the
Emperor Gallienus in 265, and out into the country beyond. Between this
old gateway, which stands athwart the street almost blocking it, and the
river, is mediæval Verona, intersected and crossed by hundreds of
_vicoli_, or lanes, and full of subjects for a painter's brush in the
_cortili_ that fringe them. At the corner of the Vicola Pigna and the
"Alley of the Jutting Stone," is a low marble column with a huge
fir-cone on the top, a reminiscence of Roman days. Near at hand is the
fine palace that Sanmicheli erected for the Miniscalchi family, and in a
lane a few steps away, a crumbling remnant of another fine house with a
beautiful portal and row of windows. These are but a few things in the
secluded byways of old Verona, where one's feet continually led one on
journeys of discovery. Many a silent and deserted courtyard I found,
where the grass shyly thrust its head between the cobblestones, and
where creepers came wantonly trailing down over old walls in a sweet
endeavour to hide the decay of man's handiwork.
From all these it is but a step to the focus of the city's life, the
Piazza delle Erbe, the forum of Roman rule, and the most picturesque
market square in Italy. In the centre--and seen in the sketch--is the
small open tribune which occupies the place of an old building where
the newly elected Capitano del Popolo was invested with the insignia of
his office. The fountain farther up the square was erected by
Berengarius in 916, and supplied with fresh water by Can Signorio. The
figure surmounting it gazes stonily every day over a sea of umbrellas
which shelter the market folk below. Can Signorio beautified his native
city, and erected the tower at the end of the piazza--a tower which can
boast of the first public clock. The Lion of St. Mark stands on an
isolated column, surrounded by vegetable and fruit stalls, in front of
the Palazzo Tresa, a highly ornate specimen of the seventeenth century.
Many of the old houses still bear traces of the frescoes which covered
them, and which at one time must have made Verona's streets veritable
galleries of decorative art. Others retain the marble balconies which
formed so fascinating a feature of the city's architecture.
[Illustration: THE MARKET PLACE, VERONA]
Of earlier days there still remains one of the grandest ruins in
Italy--the celebrated Amphitheatre. It was the night of a hot day; a
blood-red moon, mounting on her upward path in the copper-coloured sky,
left a grim mass of deep shadow beneath. Bats were hawking in and out of
the black shadow, as yet unrelieved by the electric lights, and the
spacious piazza was nearly empty. An ominous feeling, intensified by
the distant hum of the busier parts of the city, unsettled one's
nerves. My thoughts travelled back to the time when, there behind that
gloomy mass, slaves would be cleansing the arena after a scene of cruel
sport, and the distant hum was nothing but the excited throngs
discussing the brutal slaughter. Did the great poet in his twilight
wanderings ever see such a moon and such a sky? It was certainly an
evening that would have enticed him to shun the noisy company of his
fellow men and saunter alone in the shadow of the great Amphitheatre.
Perhaps his spirit was there now. Small wonder that in my dreams that
night the howls of a cruel audience and the gentleness of the lonely
poet were mixed up in inextricable confusion.
PADUA
The quaint old city of Padua lies on the beaten track to Venice. In its
great Basilica repose the remains of St. Anthony. Giotto's frescoes in
the Church of the Madonna are still a glory to behold, its university is
one of the oldest in Europe, and the modern epicure can drink coffee of
the very best at Pedrocchi's, an establishment as well known amongst
Italians as the celebrated Florian's at Venice. The origin of Padua goes
back to Antenor, whose tomb occupies a corner near the Ponte de Lorenzo
close to the house at one time inhabited by Dante. A sarcophagus was
discovered in 1274 during excavations for the building of a foundling
hospital, and when opened, a skeleton of immense size, one hand still
gripping a sword, was seen inside. Who could it be but Antenor? There
was Virgil's authority for it that he had founded Padua--so Antenor it
was who lay there in his stone coffin, and the good folk of Padua
carried the sarcophagus and its contents to the church of S. Lorenzo
amidst great excitement. The church has been demolished but the tomb was
spared.
Padua's tortuous streets are lined with arcades, and although modern
requirements have ordained that some should be altered and the houses
pulled down, it still preserves an air of mediæval antiquity. Situated
on the winding little river Bacchiglione and intersected by other small
streams, it forms in the itinerary of the tourist a sort of prelude to
Venice. Innumerable bridges span these waterways. Some of them are of
Roman construction; and wherever one's footsteps lead one, be it along
the _riviere_--the open streets that run by the side of the streams--or
the narrow ways that may be likened to a rabbit warren, the great charm
of bygone days lingers in them all, and still clings to its old walls
and bridges.
The Cathedral, with an incomplete façade, was not finished till 1754. It
is a vast, ugly structure of brick with a _campanile_ and dome. The
whitewashed interior possesses no redeeming feature; unless it be a
rather pleasing course of grey marble that runs round on a level with
the capitals of the grey columns. A bust of Petrarch, who was a canon
here, and some beautiful twelfth-century MSS. with exquisite miniatures
in the sacristy, are the most interesting things it contains. If there
is but little in the Cathedral worthy of notice there is much in the
other churches of Padua.
[Illustration: THE CATHEDRAL, PADUA]
Sta Giustiana is a very fine building of the sixteenth century,
commenced from designs by Padre Girolamo da Brescia and finished fifty
years later by Andrea Morone. All its altars are decorated with scrolls
and floral patterns, in the inlaid marble work for which Italy has been
famous for many generations.
The church of S. Agostino degli Eremitani is a solemn building of a
single nave three hundred feet in length, which was constructed at the
latter end of the thirteenth century. Its sacristy is used by the
students of the university as their chapel, and many memorials of the
most famous among them cover its walls. The tombs the church contains
are very interesting. One with a magnificent canopy is of the fifth Lord
of Padua, Jacopo di Carrara, a friend of Petrarch's, while other members
of this extinct family lie buried in the church. The Carraras were Lords
of Padua for many generations; the last of the great race with his two
sons held the city in 1405 against the Venetians, but famine so reduced
the garrison that they surrendered themselves to the besiegers and were
conveyed prisoners to Venice. The Council of Ten decreed that they
should be strangled in their cells, and a member of the noble Venetian
family of Priuli performed this disgraceful murder in the dungeons of
the Doge's palace.
Sta Maria dell' Arena, or the church of the Madonna of the Arena,
stands practically in what was the Roman Amphitheatre. About the year
1306, a certain Enrico Scrovengo, who was owner of the Arena and
adjacent land, built within its precincts a chapel of the Annunciation,
known as Sta Maria dell' Arena. Giotto was working in Padua at the time,
and Enrico recognising his talent employed him to build and decorate the
little chapel. It consists of a single nave with a Gothic apse, and tiny
sacristy in which is a monument to the founder, whose tomb is behind the
altar. It is not the province of this book to deal with the pictorial
art of the country, but Giotto's frescoes which cover the walls of this
little church stand far above all else--not excepting Fra Angelico's
beautiful decorations in the monastic cells of S. Marco at Florence--in
the deep piety and tender expression of intense religious feeling they
portray.
The greatest church that Padua possesses is the huge building dedicated
to S. Antonio--"il Santo," as he is called by the Padovanese. This
enormous fabric of marble and brick, stands facing a wide open piazza on
two sides of which are low houses--houses of three storeys are very rare
in the older parts of the city. Opposite the façade is Donatello's grand
equestrian statue of Erasmo da Narni, or Gattamelata, bearing his name,
"Opus Donatelli Flor." In the piazza is the Scuoio del Santo and the
little church of San Giorgio, the sepulchral chapel of the Sograna
family; close by which is the tomb of Rolando Piazzola with a fine
Gothic canopy.
The seven domes of S. Antonio cluster round a heavy central spire, and
two beautiful bell-towers rise elegantly to a height above; from
wherever one sees the church, these domes and spires compose and "pile"
well. Il Santo died in 1231, and Padua decided to erect a suitable
building to hold his sacred remains. Niccolò Pisano was requisitioned
for the task, but was not given a free hand. He was informed that he
must follow the fashion of the day and produce a real Gothic edifice.
His failure to carry out these instructions can be best seen in the
façade, where the three portals are very poor; nevertheless, and despite
his leanings towards other styles, he was able to introduce something of
the Gothic in his bell-towers, in the open galleries round the exterior
of the apse, and the arcading of the west front, with a mixed result
that has produced a really stupendous church. The best decoration of the
exterior is contained in the three west doors of bronze, which are
exceedingly good.
The fine interior is most impressive, but what the result will be when
the present scheme of decoration, already begun in the choir and apse,
is carried out, it is difficult to say. The chapel of Il Santo is half
way up the north aisle. Lights burn day and night before the altar,
beneath which repose the saint's remains. Four fine columns support the
somewhat heavy frieze of the great Renaissance screen by Sansovino,
which separates it from the aisle. Two of these columns have a charming
idea in their capitals, where little sea-horses take the place of the
acanthus leaf. The screen is terminated by two very beautiful pilasters
adorned with exquisite arabesques. The interior of this interesting
chapel is lined with nine reliefs, one of which, by Sansovino, is rather
curious and certainly very gruesome. The sculptor has represented a
suicide with a gaping crowd of women surrounding him in his
self-inflicted death agonies. Two enormous silver candlesticks, partly
of Gothic and partly Renaissance design, stand at the foot of the steps
of the altar, and bronze figures and silver angels are placed upon the
balustrade. In the vestibule between this chapel and the next hang
hundreds of votive offerings of all descriptions, forming a museum of
the tangible homage paid to the saint by his devotees. The next chapel
is the only part left of an ancient fabric which stood here long before
the good Padovanese raised the present magnificent church as a memorial
of their venerated saint.
In the south aisle, opposite to and corresponding with Il Santo's
chapel, is one dedicated to S. Felix, which is fronted by a good screen
decorated with an effective fish-scale pattern of Verona marble. It
contains a good altar, placed high above a flight of steps, and some
interesting fourteenth-century frescoes. A thick coating of paint quite
spoils the well-carved Gothic stalls, and it is to be hoped that when
the scheme of decoration reaches this chapel these fine stalls will be
scraped and then left in their pristine state. In another chapel are the
tombs of Gattamelata and his son; these and two monuments designed by
Sanmicheli on two of the piers of the nave are the best in the church.
The presbytery is cut off from the nave by a low balustrade, in the
centre of which, rising in a bold sweep, is a very fine bronze gate. The
High Altar, impressively placed at the top of some steps, has eight
splendid panels containing bas-reliefs by Donatello. The master was also
responsible for the fine group of the Madonna and Saints, as well as the
huge crucifix, which are placed above it. The magnificent bronze
candelabrum, which stands to the left of the altar, is twelve feet high.
Its maker, Andrea Riccio, spent ten years over the work before he
considered it fit to leave his studio. The figures at the base are
symbolical of Music, History, Destiny, and Astrology, forming with
those above, a paschal candlestick that is one of the finest pieces of
bronze work in any church in the country. The sanctuary beyond the apse
was an addition of the year 1693, and occupies the most eastern dome
seen in the illustration. Great gilded sliding doors hide a wonderful
example of fifteenth-century goldsmith's work, a casket with Il Santo's
tongue inside, and many other sacred relics, as well as Gattamelata's
marshal's baton. The great doors are surrounded by work of the late
seventeenth century, an example of the bad taste and very low ebb
ecclesiastical art had sunk to at that period. Cherubs and nude female
figures playing stringed instruments--angels apparently--circle round S.
Antonio, who is borne aloft by other nudes. The extravagance of the
whole thing is a jarring note amongst much that is extremely fine.
The monks of the brotherhood of S. Antonio still inhabit the conventual
buildings attached to the church, and their dark-robed figures pass
silently to and fro in the cloistered courts of the monastery. The walls
of these three courts are lined with fine tombs and memorial slabs, and
it was from one of these cloisters the illustration was taken. A great
magnolia tree grows on the well-kept grass which covers the ground like
green velvet. No sound from the outside world penetrated this
sequestered nook. The only note to break the silence was the drowsy
hum from a voice at prayer in one of the little green-shuttered rooms
above, and the occasional twittering of a canary in its cage. One worked
undisturbed at those domes and towers which compose so well and seem to
reach up to the very heavens.
[Illustration: S. ANTONIO, PADUA]
Padua's university was founded in 1221 by the Emperor Frederick II. on
the site of the Inn of the Ox, and is still called il Bò. Its handsome
courtyard, attributed to Palladio, is adorned with armorial bearings of
distinguished _alumni_. At the head of the great staircase is a statue
to Elena Piscopia, a poetess, musician, and fluent linguist; she
received a doctor's degree and died a spinster in 1684. The anatomical
theatre is the oldest in Europe. Among other famous men connected with
il Bò the names of Baldus, who taught law, and Galileo, who expounded
mathematics, must be mentioned.
Padua also possesses the oldest Botanical Gardens in Europe, which were
instituted by the Venetian Senate in 1543. Many of the exotics which
grow now all over Europe were first established here, brought from the
East by Venetian traders, and the botanist can spend many interesting
hours in this well cared for and shady retreat.
A vast building with a remarkable history occupies one whole side of the
market square. A much-travelled architect and engineer, Fra Giovanni,
visited Padua in the fourteenth century, bringing with him drawings of
an Indian palace; these so pleased the Padovanese that he was asked to
construct a roof to their great hall, the three divisions of which had
been destroyed by fire. Fra Giovanni set to work, and his vaulted wooden
ceiling, one of the largest in Europe, stands covering the principal
chamber of the Palazzo della Ragione, though the roof above was renewed
in 1857. The paintings on the walls of this magnificent room have by
degrees replaced a series of frescoes by Giotto. They are mostly
mystical and symbolical, the best among them being those representing
Justice and Prudence. The wooden horse which stands in the hall is
supposed to have been the model for Donatello's bronze horse on which
Gattamelata is seated in the famous equestrian statue outside S.
Antonio. The fine _loggia_ on the ground floor of the palazzo is of
later date than the original parts of the building, which were designed
by Pietro Cozzo and constructed in the years 1172 to 1219. In a street
not far off is another beautiful building, the early-Renaissance Loggia
del Consiglio, with its fine stairway and open arcade. In front of this
is an antique column with the Lion of S. Mark, the sign that the city at
one time belonged to the Republic of Venice. Many other houses in this
quaint old town are of great interest, and the windings of its streams
as they meander past rose-covered walls and low roofs, with perhaps a
tapering _campanile_ or a dome towering above, afford a rare field for
endeavours with the pencil and brush.
VENICE
Venice, which has no counterpart in the world, is a city of all others
in which one can linger on in a dream taking no count of time. The days
run into weeks, these spread themselves into months, and it becomes more
and more difficult to tear oneself away from the entrancing "Mistress of
the Seas," from her Cathedral and all her other marvellous buildings;
from her seductive gondolas and silent canals; from her picture
galleries, and alas! from the fragrant coffee we sip idling away the
time under the colonnade outside Florian's in the Piazza.
Well, the seductive cup is drained and while our cigarette is alight let
us look round. Directly opposite to us, on the north side of this grand
square, stretches the long colonnade of the Procuratie Vecchie, built
early in the sixteenth century as a habitation for the procurators of S.
Mark. It is one of the best examples of early Renaissance architecture
in Italy; nobler, simpler than the Procuratie Nuove where we sit, which
was built in the last quarter of the same century. An arcaded building
in the classical style erected by Napoleon in 1810 connects the western
extremities of the two Procuratie. It is a pity that this great
Renaissance Piazza should be completed by an inferior bit of modern work
instead of such a brilliant gem of the Renaissance style as Sansovino's
Libreria Vecchia--at present invisible to us round the corner. To this
building, which faces the Doge's Palace, no higher tribute could be
given than to say that its perfection fairly distracts the admiration of
the onlooker from the wonderful Gothic pile before it.
But all this is _Hamlet_ without the Prince. It is time to leave the
shadow of the arches, to step out into the open, and to surrender
ourselves to the spell of the great church which draws one with an
irresistible fascination from the first moment we set foot in the
Piazza. S. Mark's rises bounding the vision at the eastern end of the
great square with its gorgeous façade and cool grey domes. So rich is
the colouring and so strange the outline that one wonders almost whether
architecture has not passed here into the sister art of painting.
[Illustration: S. MARK'S, VENICE]
Yes, there stands a building surpassingly fascinating, unique and
outside all comparison with any other church in the country. Planned as
a Greek Cross, like S. Sophia at Constantinople, it is reminiscent of
the East far more than any building in the peninsula, or even in
Sicily where some with direct Arab influence still exist. The great
traders of Venice who lavished their wealth on its decoration, and whose
every homeward bound ship brought back from the Orient a choice column,
a rare piece of marble, or some such thing as a contribution towards its
making, helped to raise it bit by bit until the wonderful church grew to
be what we find it to-day, the most seductive ecclesiastical fabric in
Italy.
It was not until the year 1807 that S. Mark's became the Cathedral
church of Venice. Before this date the Patriarchal seat was the church
of S. Pietro di Castello, and S. Mark's simply the chapel attached to
the Doge's Palace. In 828 the body of the Evangelist, stolen from
Alexandria, was brought to Venice and S. Theodore the tutelary saint
deposed to make way for a more important patron. S. Mark's remains were
then placed in a church which was destroyed by fire in 976. The
following year saw the first stone laid of a building which is perhaps
the most interesting in Christendom; but it was not until eighty years
had passed that the walls were finished, and seventy more gone by before
it was consecrated. The interior sustaining walls are brick, and are
lined with marble or covered with mosaics and decorated with every sort
of inlay. The _tout ensemble_ of this is an extraordinarily harmonious
mixture of styles which compels unceasing admiration.
Standing at the west end of the Piazza one sees, almost stretching
across the further side, a marvellous façade of deep shadowed arches;
the tympanums seem to sparkle with jewels; the arches are supported by
what appears to be a forest of columns, orderly in rank, receding into
the shadow. Above, to give quality to this shade, is a flat surface that
runs from end to end of the façade, broken by a central semicircular
window, and crowned with Gothic turrets, crocketed finials and angels
with wings outspread. Then, surmounting all are five wondrous domes,
Oriental in themselves, so overpoweringly Oriental that the eye, unable
at this distance to discriminate, telegraphs to the brain the magic
words--"The East!" Spoils from the East, from Greece, from Syria, from
Egypt; mosaics of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, bronze horses
of Roman origin, Gothic saints under canopied turrets, flag poles with
the crimson banner and golden Lion of S. Mark, all arranged without
disorder, but all succumbing to the majesty of the marvellous domes.
More Eastern than European is the Venetian's love of colour, and this is
the note most deeply impressed on the mind with regard to S.
Mark's--five grey domes, a foil to the brilliant mosaics and many-hued
marble columns and walls below, but blending with them so subtly that
the whole is one gorgeous chromatic scale.
The effect of the blazing sun pouring down on the façade at midday,
casting deep shadows under the arches, is very fine. Again, in the
evening when the domes are alight with the last rays of the dying orb
and the great Piazza is in cool shade, the glories of the wonderful
fabric assume a dramatic effect which becomes almost tragic as the light
disappears and everything subsides into a monotone. Colour begets more
subtlety in grey weather; every note that might jar on the eye is then
diffused among the quieter tones around, and for this reason the pearly
sky of a grey day was chosen to depict S. Mark's. The great _campanile_
which fell to the ground on July 14, 1902, is now in course of
re-erection. For some years past the necessary but hideous hoarding at
its base has interfered with the beauty of the Piazza. The illustration
does not show this but depicts the length of the façade, with the
beautiful Porta della Carta and corner of the Doge's Palace beyond.
The lowest portion of the façade is formed as a vestibule with seven
arches, the last one of which at each end is open through. All the
columns and their capitals (spoils from the East) are of much older date
than the building. Very few of these capitals fit the _abacus_ on which
they rest; most of them are exquisitely carved with foliage free from
all imagery. The central arch is larger than the others. Under it is a
grand door of forty-eight bronze panels inlaid with silver. The
workmanship of the other doors which flank this is also very fine. The
intricate Byzantine carving above these forms a scheme of decoration
wherein figures, birds, beasts and arabesques run in a perfect riot of
fanciful design. The vaulting of the vestibule is covered with mosaics
of different periods. Those of the twelfth century are concerned with
the Creation of the Firmament and the Creation of Life; the story of
Adam and Eve continued on to the Deluge and Noah; the tragedy of Cain
and Abel; Joseph's dream, Pharaoh and the story of Moses. The general
scheme throughout is of white figures, mostly nude, on a green ground.
Although not in any way comparable to the earlier mosaics at Ravenna,
these are far better in style and true feeling for the enrichment of a
flat surface than those of later date in the lunettes above the façade
arches. Here the _raison d'être_ of mosaic has been made subservient to
an attempt to imitate the shades and gradations of an oil painting. The
most important of these later mosaics is that which was executed from a
design by Titian by the brothers Zuccati in the sixteenth century,
wherein S. Mark appears in pontifical robes. It is above the centre
door. On the pavement beneath is a red and white lozenge of marble
marking the spot where Pope Alexander III. and Barbarossa were
reconciled in July 1177, through the intervention of the Venetian
Republic. Many inscribed slabs of marble bearing legends in Greek and
Syriac, and Roman bas-reliefs, are let into the walls of the vestibule,
evidence of offerings towards the building of the fabric. All the
archivolts of the five large arches are decorated with symbolic
carvings; the most interesting being that of the main entrance, where a
charmingly quaint story illustrative of peasant life in the twelve
months of the year tells in a realistic way the labours of those who
till the soil. February with a little figure sitting at a fire warming
his hands is particularly naïve.
On the south, S. Mark's joins the Doge's Palace by means of the Porta
della Carta. At the base of a column which stands in an angle of the
wall are four porphyry figures of knights in chain mail with arms round
one another's necks. This group is supposed to have come from Acre.
Detached from the main building, and not far from its south-west corner,
are two short rectangular columns with Greek inscriptions. They were
brought from the church of S. Saba at Ptolemais in 1256. Amongst other
interesting spoils there is a slab let into the north wall on which
Ceres, holding a torch in each hand, appears drawn in a chariot by two
dragons. It seems to be a very early Persian work. But the best known,
and certainly the finest gift the exterior of the building can boast, is
that of the four bronze horses which stand over the principal entrance.
Sent from Constantinople in 1204 by order of the Doge Dandolo as part of
the spoils of victory when that city fell to the arms of the Venetians
in the fourth Crusade, these horses at one time adorned the triumphal
arch of Nero in Rome. Both Domitian and Trajan transferred them in turn
to arches of their own; and Constantine conveyed them across the seas to
his new capital in the East, where he also put them up over an arch. In
1797, when the Republic of Venice was no more, Napoleon took these
already much-travelled horses from S. Mark's façade to Paris and placed
them on the top of the Arc du Carrousel. After the peace in 1815 the
Austrian Emperor, Francis I. caused them to be returned to their former
position, and there they remain to-day.
Three doors open into the cathedral from the vestibule, and two on the
north side. The interior strikes one at first as being very dark; but
when the eye becomes accustomed to the half-light and is familiar with
everything within, this wears off, and the senses are rather soothed
than otherwise by the mystic gloom. Indeed, it is a great relief to
find oneself inside out of the glare of the Piazza, and, seated in a
corner perhaps, quietly contemplating the grand mosaics which cover the
vaulting from end to end. It is quite impossible to describe these
adequately in a short chapter which deals with other things as well, but
noting them in guide-book fashion one observes that those in the aisles
on either side of the main entrance depict the Acts and Miracles of the
Apostles. On the vaulting of the dome which forms, so to speak, the foot
of the Greek cross, is the Descent of the Holy Ghost. The great central
dome is covered by twelfth-century mosaics of the Ascension, and the
vault between this and the first dome with Christ's Passion and
Resurrection. The vaulting of the two domes which compose the arms of
the cross is decorated by work of later date; that on the north with the
history of S. John, and that on the south with the saints. The chapel of
S. John which is in the north transept was converted in the seventeenth
century into one dedicated to the Miraculous Virgin of Constantinople.
In the south transept also a rededication has taken place; the chapel of
S. Leonard being turned into that of the Holy Sacrament.
Behind the gorgeous marble screen which divides the presbytery from the
body of the church the high altar rises beneath a canopy of _verde
antico_ borne by four columns. Two of these columns are eleventh century
and are elaborately carved in courses of innumerable figures. They came
from Pola when Venice subdued Istria, and are much more interesting than
the other two of a later date; the remains of S. Mark rest within this
magnificent shrine. On the screen itself stand the Evangelist, the
twelve Apostles, and Mary.
At the back of the high altar is the Pala d'Oro, the greatest treasure
the cathedral possesses, and the most celebrated golden altarpiece in
existence. The upper part came from Constantinople in 976, the lower
about the middle of the fourteenth century. It is composed of
eighty-three panels of Greek and Byzantine design filled with enamelled
figures, studded with uncut gems and precious stones, and covered with
Greek and Latin inscriptions. More gorgeous than that of S. Ambrogio in
Milan, this magnificent piece of goldsmith's art glitters and sparkles
in a wonderful manner when lit up by the candles used at high mass, and
is without doubt the most splendid ecclesiastical treasure in Italy.
[Illustration: INTERIOR, S. MARK'S, VENICE]
The fifth or eastern dome which is over the presbytery is covered with
mosaics representing Christ and the Prophets, and one that is hardly
visible of S. Mark is on the walls of the east end. The great figure of
Christ faces the church and in its simplicity is very impressive.
The gallery, which is where the triforium would be in a Gothic building,
runs round the whole cathedral and is pierced on its inner side only.
The walls at the back and above are decorated with more mosaic work
dealing with acts of martyrdom, and the Translation and Recovery of the
Body of the Lord. When stray beams of sunlight find their way through
the openings in the domes and pass along the gold background, lighting
up in odd places small portions of these wonderful _tesseræ_ pictures,
the effect is very beautiful. All the angles of this mosaic work are
rounded off and the travelling rays glinting first on one golden corner,
then on another, are strangely attractive to eyes accustomed to the
greater architectural severity of a northern clime. The well-chosen
slabs that line the lower portions of the cathedral walls have taken to
themselves a sombre, dusky hue, a pale velvety brown, but there can be
no doubt that in their pristine state they realised in their splendour
the Venetian's love of colour.
The strange pulpit, which with part of the rood screen seen in the
illustration stands to the north of the steps leading into the
presbytery, is arranged in a double tier, and is entered by a double
winding stair from the vestibule of the Capella de S. Pietro. Its
curious domed sounding-board is very reminiscent of the East. Mention
has already been made of the chapels of the Miraculous Virgin and S.
Leonard. That dedicated to S. Peter is behind this pulpit on the north
side of the presbytery. It has a door leading out into the piazza. The
corresponding chapel to the south is dedicated to S. Clement. At the end
of the north transept is another to S. Isidore--a dark, solemn little
place. The sacristy is beyond the chapel of S. Peter at the back of the
presbytery. It is a fine apartment with mosaics from designs by Titian
and his pupils, which may be studied as a good example of Renaissance
decoration in _tesseræ_. Sansovino, who executed the beautiful door, is
said to have had it in hand for twenty years.
The baptistery is entered from the south aisle, and with the adjoining
Cappella Zeno is one of the most interesting parts of S. Mark's. In the
former is the monument and sarcophagus of Doge Andrea Dandolo, who died
in 1354. It is a grand specimen of the sculpture of the age. The
recumbent figure of the Doge, who was the last to be buried in S.
Mark's, is very serene in its realisation of the Last Sleep. All the
mosaics the chamber contains were given and paid for by Andrea. Most of
them naturally relate to the Holy Rite. The font is very ancient, and
has a fine bronze cover designed by Sansovino and surmounted by a
statuette of S. John the Baptist. A very beautiful low relief of four
crossed swords which compose a cross, with birds beneath, is let into
one of the walls. On the vaulted roof of the Cappella Zeno, the life of
the Evangelist, whose body at first rested here, is well depicted in a
series of mosaics. The centre of the chapel is occupied by the tomb of
Cardinal Zeno, who left the bulk of his immense fortune to S. Mark's.
The altar stands under a bronze canopy covering figures of Our Lady (who
wears a gilded shoe), S. Peter, and S. John the Baptist. The legend runs
that the Virgin gave her bronze shoe once to a poor votary and it was
immediately turned into gold. From this incident the chapel, which
became the Cardinal's Mausoleum, is also known as that of the Madonna
della Scarpa.
Venice possesses nearly seventy churches, but of these only the two most
celebrated can be mentioned in this chapter. They are SS. Giovanni e
Paolo, and the Frari. The former had its origin in the great preaching
Order of S. Dominic, and the latter in that of S. Francis. These saints,
bound by vows of poverty, went forth preaching humility, and so great a
meed of success did they attain, that we find throughout the country, as
a result of their crusade, huge churches like these built to hold large
congregations. In Venice both Orders had their following among different
patrician families, who were mainly responsible for the monetary
assistance the Orders received, and who therefore acquired a sort of
prescriptive right to burial space within the holy walls they had helped
to raise. For this reason the tombs we find in SS. Giovanni e Paolo and
the Frari are not only an epitome of the rulers of Venice, but in them
can be traced from the earliest Gothic the different styles of Venetian
decorative art as exemplified in her sepulchral monuments.
SS. Giovanni e Paolo is a fine brick building of early Italian Gothic,
which was commenced in 1246 and finished in 1390. Its length is three
hundred and thirty feet, its width at the transepts one hundred and
forty-three, and in the nave ninety-one feet. From this it will be seen
that the transepts are short. The spacious nave has five bays, the
arches of which are supported by single columns of grey stone with
simple floral capitals. The vaulting, as is usual in Italian Gothic, is
low. The galleried triforium has small outlets into the church, and a
clerestory of pointed lights in groups of three has taken the place of
much larger single windows. The aisles are narrow. The apsidal choir is
architecturally very striking. From a few feet above the floor rise the
long narrow windows of the apse reaching up beyond the base of the
vaulting and giving an idea of immense height. The glass they contain
is, however, very crude; and, unfortunately, a terrible pink wash covers
the walls, so pink that the beauty of the architectural features is
considerably marred. The choice of material and the selection of colour
has more to do with the success or failure of a building than is
generally realised. The transepts, nave, and aisles are coloured grey,
and harmonise with the stone columns mentioned above, and with the
monuments of faintly tinted marble which crowd the walls of the aisles.
Among the most notable tombs are those of the Mocenigo family, a family
which possessed the whole of the west wall of the church, and whose
monuments almost cover it. Of the three equestrian tombs that are in the
church, pride of place must be given to the one put there to Niccolo
Orsini, who commanded the Republic's forces in the war against the
League of Cambray. The gilded group of the general and his horse above
the sarcophagus is full of life and vigour. The simple but very
beautiful tomb of Paolo Loudan, on which his recumbent figure in full
chain mail lies stretched, is a fine work of the middle of the
fourteenth century.
The grand monument to Andrea Vendramin, who died in 1478, and who was
the first of the new nobility to be elevated to the position of
sovereign, is the most refined example of a Renaissance tomb in Venice.
The Doge lies, with face turned towards the spectator, on a couch
supported by eagles. Behind him are pages and other attendants. The
carving and arabesques of the canopy and its supports, into which notes
symbolical of naval power are crowded, though extremely intricate, are
very pure in style. In the lunette beneath the arch kneels the Doge, who
is being recommended to Our Lady by S. Mark. Opposite to this beautiful
tomb is the Gothic memorial to Doge Michele Morosini, who died in 1382.
The background of the central portion is a good mosaic of the
Crucifixion, in front of which the aquiline features of the recumbent
Duke are very prominent. The niches on either side are filled with
figures of different saints, and the whole is surmounted by S. Michael
with the Dragon.
The exterior of the church, especially the apse, which rises without a
single buttress, is very impressive. A good Gothic portal occupies the
centre of the unfinished west façade, which is flanked by
thirteenth-century sarcophagi let into niches in the walls. Close by,
and occupying one side of the Campo in which the church stands, is the
Scuola di S. Marco. This building, now a hospital, was erected in 1485
by Martino Lombardi, and is noteworthy for the curiously conceived
façade that faces the square. This is composed of richly coloured marble
divided into panels, on which in low relief different buildings are seen
in acute perspective. They recall the same sort of decoration which
prevails in the frescoes at Pompeii, but so cleverly did Lombardi
arrange his scheme that their absolute falsity in no way detracts from
the general design of the building.
In front of the façade stands the magnificent equestrian statue to that
prince of _condottieri_ whose mausoleum at Bergamo has already been
mentioned, Bartolommeo Colleoni. A man amongst men, stern, defiant and
resourceful, his grand figure embodies all that a leader in troublous
times should be. Firmly gripping his saddle, he sits his horse with head
thrown back and a face which betokens the masterful haughtiness of the
man. The group was designed by Leonardo da Vinci's master, Andrea
Verrocchio, and finished by Alessandro Leopardi. It vies with
Donatello's equestrian group of Gattamelata at Padua in being perhaps
the best Italian Renaissance statue extant.
The Frari is a church which grew out of the accumulated funds of the
Franciscans, whose enormous monastery, now holding the municipal
archives, adjoins it. This great church was commenced in 1250 and
finished in 1338, and contains the monuments and tombs of some of the
city's rulers, as well as many of the Venetian nobility who in bygone
days made their names famous in its annals. The west façade has a simple
Gothic doorway and four round windows, one of which, larger than the
others, is above the figure of Christ that occupies the apex of the
arch. Like SS. Giovanni e Paolo the east end is architecturally the most
interesting part of the fabric. Two flights of lofty windows with
exceedingly good tracery admit light into the apse. This has been
continued south by later additions as far as the wall of the transept.
The transept being thus enlarged has four apsidal chambers that form a
pleasing sequence to the big eastern apse. The exterior of the church,
when viewed from the little Campo S. Rocco outside the east end,
composes extremely well. The four small apses lead up to the big one,
behind which and beyond the roof line one sees the great Campanile
rising over the north transept. The Frari is built of brick with a
simple decorative feature in the form of a course of Venetian Gothic at
the top.
Owing to subsidence of the foundations the interior is now undergoing
extensive repair. The nave is very lofty, with single columns of grey
stone that have floral capitals. The groining ribs of the vault are of
red brick and the arches of the bays are grey stone. Two of the nave
columns are massively constructed of brick, and form with the brick
walls of the aisles and the grey colour of the stone a very charming
scheme. The choir occupies the last two bays of the nave, and as is the
case in the cathedrals of Spain, is cut off from the body of the church
by a rood screen. The portion of this which is in the nave is debased
Renaissance, but that in the aisles is earlier and much better. The
choir stalls are very finely carved and decorated with superb _intarsia_
work. The little door by which the canons enter the choir is
particularly good in this respect, with a beauty much enhanced by the
design on the doorposts. Round these cling vines and grape clusters. The
clerestory consists of round windows with double lights, but there is no
triforium. Among the most interesting monuments are those erected to
Beato Pacifico, the Franciscan architect of the church, which is in the
south transept, and one to Titian in the south aisle. His masterpiece of
the Assumption, now in the Accademia delle Belle Arti, was painted for
the Frari.
The domestic architecture of Venice is far more interesting than that
with which we have just dealt. Peculiar to Venetia, it is the outcome
of that period when, the city's trade being well established in
northern climes, new ideas and fashions travelled back from countries
over the great mountain chain and began to commingle with the older
traditions of the East. Not only on the Grand Canal, but in many of the
quiet byways of the Silent City, one comes across beautiful examples of
that entrancing style of façade, the Venetian Gothic.
As the gondola glides swiftly over the waters of the great highway of
Venice there comes into sight a group of palaces which occupies the only
real angle of the Grand Canal. This group is formed of the celebrated
houses built by the Foscari and Giustiniani families, and is somewhat in
the style of the Doge's Palace, the first-named being contemporary with
it. The flat brick façades are broken by rows of elegant windows, some
with, some without balconies. The deeply-recessed arcading of the
central lights of the first and second storeys gives just the right
amount of shade to an otherwise flat surface, which the windows above
and at either side only slightly relieve. A course of white marble
edging and heavy foundations of enormous blocks of the same give
solidity, and most beautifully frame the pale-red brick of which the
Venetians were so fond. Rows of _pali_, or posts, painted with the
colours of the owner, serve as a dock for waiting gondolas. The
water of the canal, never quiescent, is a puzzle for the painter who
would study reflections. The tide ebbs and flows on the great highway,
the convenient but hideous steamboat rushes by, gondolas groan and creak
against their moorings, and a kaleidoscope of ever-changing shapes and
colours well-nigh drives him to despair.
[Illustration: THE PALAZZI FOSCARI E GIUSTINIANI, VENICE]
Further up the Grand Canal is a very ornate palace, the Ca d'Oro, with
angles softened by three twisted columns instead of the more usual one
in this type of building. Its façade was designed by Giovanni and
Bartolommeo Buon, who built the Piazzetta in front of the Doge's Palace.
At one time it was entirely covered with gilt--hence the name. Down near
the Salute, where the canal opens out to the sea, are the Palazzo da
Mula and the fascinating little Palazzo Contarini-Fasan, with its lovely
traceried balconies. These are all Venetian Gothic. Of other styles the
Byzantine Palazzi, da Mosto and Loudan, the latter Byron's Venetian
home, and the Renaissance Palazzi, Rezzonico, where Browning lived,
Camerlanghi, Manzoni, with a frieze of eagles, Pesaro, and Dario, with
plaques of coloured marble on its façade, are the most celebrated. Most
of them are cracking and bulging, and more than one owes its present
existence to the iron clamps which hold it together. It is much to be
feared that the utilitarian steamboat and ever-increasing motor-boat
traffic will sooner or later be responsible for the destruction of many
a beautiful building, the foundations of which were never intended to
withstand the strain of the great extra wash it creates.
In a safer position than most is the Doge's Palace, that magnificent
construction which almost distracts attention from S. Mark's by its
side.
The first building to be constructed for the rulers of Venice stood on
the site of the Palace and was erected in 813. Fire subsequently
destroyed it and also the edifice which replaced the smoking ruins. The
present building was commenced in 1301 and save for the outer walls was
almost gutted in 1574 and 1577. Palladio, the foremost architect of the
day, contended that it would be dangerous to attempt any reconstruction
unless these walls were demolished, and it speaks volumes for the good
taste of the Senate that his scheme for pulling them down and putting up
another palace in his own hard classic style was not adopted. The
exterior as we see it is almost entirely due to the talented family of
Buon--Giovanni, the father, and his two sons, Pantaleone and
Bartolommeo. It is, however, much to be regretted that while restoring
the façades this celebrated family of _tajapieri_, or stonecutters, did
not adhere to the level and beautiful design of the two windows which
escaped the fire at the east end of the façade that looks over the Riva
degli Schiavoni out to sea. The short massive columns of the lower
colonnade give an idea of immense strength to the great flat space
above. The capitals of these stunted columns are extremely interesting.
The Virtues and Vices find places amidst their foliage, as do the most
famous of Rome's Emperors and Philosophers, the signs of the Zodiac and
many other symbols. Twisted shafts, one of the types of Venetian Gothic,
terminate the three angles of the upper part of the two façades. Their
bases are composed of sculptured groups. The angle nearest to S. Mark's
has the Archangel Michael with the Judgment of Solomon below him. The
next, at the south-west corner, is a group of Adam and Eve with Gabriel
above. In the last, Noah, drunk with wine, is being covered by two of
his sons, and above them is S. Raphael with Tobias, who holds a fish.
A noble window and pierced balcony of early fifteenth-century work
occupies the centre of the upper arcade which faces the sea. This
beautiful window and marble balcony open out from the great Sala
Maggiore Consiglio. Above the moulding of the window is a figure of
Justice, and below in flanking niches are SS. Peter, Paul and Mark;
Faith, Hope and Charity; and the four Cardinal Virtues. A fine loggia,
with cusped arches and quatrefoils above, runs round both the exposed
sides of the Palace. The plan of the building is an irregular square
with a great courtyard inside. The courtyard is Renaissance, the east
side being a particularly good example of a period when the wealth of
Venice was lavished on her buildings.
In the north-east corner of this court and opposite to the Porta della
Carta, is the famous Scala dei Giganti, erected by Rizzio in 1483. At
the head of this magnificent Staircase of the Giants, the Doges were
crowned with the Cap of Authority. From it an open corridor runs right
and left. On the right the Scala d'Oro ascends to the second floor. Only
those whose names were inscribed in the Libro d'Oro were permitted to
use this stairway, which led to that portion of the Palace occupied by
the Doges and their attendant nobles. The continuous suite of
magnificent apartments through which the visitor wanders seem full of
emptiness and sadly want the stately figures and quaint dress, the
sonorous voices and courtly manners of the bygone age that once peopled
them and made them live. The gorgeously gilded and coloured ceilings
become not only oppressive from their magnificence, but wearisome by
their repetition; and despite the great traditions that cling to the
Palace and the remembrance of the history made within these chambers, it
is with a sigh of relief that one steps out on to the balcony where
Justice holds the Scales above our head, and drinks in the balmy air
that floats in over the lagoons keeping Venice pure and sweet.
[Illustration: THE LION OF S. MARK'S, VENICE]
Outside on the Riva at the end of the Piazzetta are two columns of
granite that were brought to Venice in 1180 by Doge Michiel. One came
from Syria, the other from Constantinople. On the capital of one is the
Winged Lion of S. Mark, the emblem of Venice's patron saint; an emblem
which is to be found in every city in the country that owned allegiance
to the Doge's rule. On the other is a figure of S. Theodore, who stands
over a crocodile. S. Theodore, it will be remembered, was the tutelary
saint of Venice before his deposition on the arrival of S. Mark's body;
but this statue was not put up on the monolith until the year 1329.
These two great columns look across the water to the isle of S. Giorgio
Maggiore, where Palladio's great church stands in its chilly splendour.
Beyond are the lagoons and the open sea. The marble-paved landing-stage
on which they stand is from one point of view the most interesting part
of Venice. On it her great traders and merchants gathered when the
long-expected ships from the East came into sight; and as they swept
proudly up the channels and dropped anchor opposite, one can well
imagine the excitement of the thankful owners who would in a few minutes
go on board and learn of the success or failure of the long voyage just
ended.
The oldest part of Venice lies across the Rialto bridge, on the island
of Rivo Alto, where the fish and vegetable markets now are. As this
little town grew more prosperous a wooden bridge, replaced in 1588 by
the present one, was built to connect Rivo Alto with the island
opposite; and by degrees the seventy-two islands on which the city is
built became absorbed within her borders. It must never be forgotten
that Venice, until connected with the mainland by a railway bridge,
always faced the sea, which, as Grant Allen writes, was the front door.
Long before the Venice of Rivo Alto came into being, there was a
flourishing little city not many miles away on the island of Torcello.
At the time when Attila and his Huns descended on the Roman colony of
Aquileia and wrought devastation throughout that flourishing outpost of
the world's greatest city, many of the inhabitants, leaving their
desolate homes to the mercy of the invader, fled to the swamps and
islands at the estuaries of the rivers Po, Adige, and Brenta. Amidst
these dismal surroundings the greater number found refuge on the island
of Torcello. From Torcello the refugees in time pushed out to the
surrounding islands, and an important station was established on Rivo
Alto. Thus began Venice; and from this little island grew that great
Republic, the Mistress of the Seas, which down to the time of the French
Revolution had never seen a conquering host enter its waterways.
As early as 641 Torcello possessed a cathedral. This was rebuilt in 874,
and parts of the structure were later on incorporated into the building
which stands to-day just as it did when finished in the early eleventh
century by Bishop Orseolo. Its architectural interest lies in its being
an Italian church on strict Byzantine lines, and it is one of the
earliest examples of cultivated native art. Its exterior possesses the
simplicity of all early work and stands up like a great barrack, with
its _campanile_ a landmark for miles over the dreary waste of waters.
The interior is very austere and cold. The bays on either side of the
nave separate it from the aisles. The columns that support the round
arches are a light grey marble; the capitals, Corinthianized Byzantine.
The clerestory lights, which are placed just under the roof, are on the
south side only, those on the north having been blocked up at some
remote period. The south aisle is lit by narrow round-headed windows,
each of which has a great marble shutter slab on the outside still
swinging in its marble socket--a reminiscence of Ancient Rome, and one
that exists in the Roman butchers' shops of to-day. A rood-screen shuts
off the choir, the four panels of it facing the nave are particularly
fine examples of the art of the early eleventh century. The two centre
panels have each a couple of peacocks with necks outstretched feeding on
foliage; and in the two outer two lions are sculptured in perspective, a
rather unusual thing for so early a work. These panels support six
elegant columns, which in their turn hold a series of painted panels of
wood of the fourteenth century on which the Madonna and twelve Apostles
are represented. A very fine pulpit, with reading-desk below, is to the
north of the screen. It has an interesting bas-relief at the base,
reconstructed in the twelfth century.
Behind the high altar, under which rest the remains of S. Eliodorus, is
the tribune. This part of the church is unique. The apse is arranged in
eight semicircular rows of seats, occupied at one time by the lesser
clergy, in the centre of which, elevated to a position just under the
small eastern light, is the bishop's throne. The throne is approached by
a dozen steps separated from the rows of seats by a marble wall. The
seats in times gone by were white marble, but have been recently
restored and are now of brick. Despite their present warm colour, the
damp chilliness of this beautiful little church strikes a mournful note
hardly relieved by the flaring red brick, or the gorgeous tone of the
mosaics which cover the vaulting of the choir and apse.
In the semi-dome of the apse a dignified Madonna and Child gaze serenely
below, with white-robed Apostles ranged round. The mosaics, however,
which cover the west wall are of greater artistic interest, being of the
ninth century. They illustrate the narrative of early Christian
tradition and are divided into five bands carrying out its ideas. The
marvellous tessellated floor of the cathedral has withstood, in a
wonderful manner, the damp and ravages of time, but, like that of S.
Mark's, is very uneven. There is an air of decay and long oblivion about
the whole building that nothing can efface.
Outside, and joined to the cathedral by a cloistered walk, is the church
of Sta. Fosca. Originally a basilica of the ninth century, this much
dilapidated little edifice was rebuilt in 1008 in the shape of a Greek
cross. A rotunda occupies the centre, inside which runs a grey pillared
arcade built to support a dome that was never constructed. There are
three apses; the middle one has two rows of blind arcading with
ornamental brickwork above. A brick loggia, covered with whitewash, is
outside, and connects with the cloister and the cathedral. Sta. Fosca
suffered martyrdom at Ravenna her native city, and her remains were
brought here, and this now damp ruinous little church built around them.
On the green grass of the little piazza, which one can hardly realise
was once the focus of a thriving city, stands an ancient stone chair
called "The Throne of Attila." It most probably was used at the
inauguration ceremony of Torcello's chief magistrates. A column of later
date is beside it, and behind them, occupying one side of this deserted
square, is the Palazzo del Commune, a building of the thirteenth
century, now used as the museum wherein are gathered all the relics of
Torcello's ancient glory that time unearths. As the gondola carries one
back to Venice it threads deserted canals, and passes under many a
bridge the voussoirs of which are the only remaining stones of
structures that spanned the water and connected the islands over which a
populous civilisation spread itself. Save for the "quack" of an
occasional duck hidden in the reeds of the marsh and the garrulity of
the gondolier all is silence and solitude. A vast sky above but adds to
the feeling of desolation, as, level with the water's edge, we skim
along. Who can tell whether Venice herself one day may not become what
fascinating though dreary Torcello now is!
[Illustration: S. FOSCA AND CATHEDRAL, TORCELLO]
RIMINI
It is not every visitor to Rome who, passing under the Porta del Popolo
and seeing in front a straight road with a row of squalid dwellings on
one side, knows that that road, the old Via Flaminia, terminates on the
Adriatic coast at far-off Rimini. This, the great highway out of Rome
northwards, enters Rimini under the noble Arch of Augustus, a very fine
gateway built of _travertine_. Passing through the market-place named
the Piazza Giulio Cesare--for here stands a pedestal with the legend
that from it Julius Cæsar harangued his troops after the crossing of the
Rubicon--it runs on and out of the city over the bridge that crosses the
river Marrecchia. This bridge, which was commenced during the reign of
Augustus and finished by Tiberius, is one of the best preserved in
Italy. Of its five arches, that in the centre has the greatest span, and
the two which flank it are a little larger than those at either end.
Traces of pediments may still be seen on its massive buttresses. The
parapet is capped by a rounded stone course. From the two central piers
inwards and over the arch this course is raised to a higher level than
on the remainder of the bridge. In summer a shallow little river
meanders in silvery threads over the pebbles which form the almost dry
bed of the stream, and finds its way under the arches into the harbour
half a mile beyond. In winter a rushing torrent has for centuries beaten
against the piers that the workmen of Augustus' time laid so well. The
road above, no longer the Via Flaminia but now the Via Æmilia, runs out
over the plain in a north-westerly direction to Rome's ancient colonies
in the province from which it derives its name. Many fragments and
columns, let into the walls and forming part of the building material of
the houses of Rimini, are evidence of its importance in the days of the
early emperors. Those were days when it formed with Pesaro, Fano,
Sinigallia and Ancona, the group known as the five "Maritime Cities,"
and was one of the Capital's great Adriatic ports. The sea is but a mile
off and the level sands of Rimini nowadays attract hundreds of summer
visitors who take advantage of their unrivalled bathing facilities.
The first bishop was appointed to Ariminium as early as 260, and
ninety-nine years later the celebrated council of the Arians and
Athanasians met to deliberate over their differences in the city. In
the sixteenth century, when it formed part of Otho III.'s empire, a
Malatesta was appointed viceroy of Le Marche, and the long connection of
this family with Rimini then commenced. The most renowned member of the
"Wrong-heads" was undoubtedly Sigismondo, a man of great ferocity of
disposition and licentious in his habits. Like many another bellicose
noble, Sigismondo had two sides to his nature, and whatever his faults,
it is to his credit that many of his leisure hours were spent in the
company of philosophers and men of pacific tastes. It is due to his
patronage of Art that the genius of Leo Battista Alberti, another
curious and complex product of the age, found scope in the great church
of S. Francesco. We owe to these two men--one the patron, the other the
architect--the best example of transition from Gothic to Renaissance
which Italy possesses.
The cathedral, a Gothic edifice dedicated to S. Francesco, was but one
hundred years old when Sigismondo set Alberti to work on its
transformation. Malatesta undoubtedly intended it to be the mausoleum of
his race, and that is what this most unecclesiastical building, which is
called the Tempio di Malatesta, is. The façade is extremely simple. It
is spaced out into three equal divisions. The centre is occupied by the
portal which has a good pediment and a round arch borne by highly
ornate pilasters. On either side are four Corinthian columns supporting
the three flat-membered arches of the façade. Over them is a broad
frieze. The bases of these columns stand on a very beautiful course
which is continued round the two sides of the Tempio. At intervals,
amidst finely-chiselled heraldic roses and little elephants, are
alternating shields bearing the I and S of Isotta and Sigismondo--initials
that are found in every available place throughout the building--and
the coat of arms of the Malatesta.
On the north and south sides of the building a grand row of seven broad
round arches, on massive rectangular piers, throws a deep shadow on to
the sarcophagi of the men who were Sigismondo's companions in his
peaceful hours. These sarcophagi are placed between the piers, well
above the spectator, on the basement which is built out from the brick
wall of the original Gothic cathedral. Like the façade, this grand
colonnade and its base are lined with white marble. Among the sarcophagi
is one which contains a trophy brought by Sigismondo from the East.
The civilisation of the Middle Ages produced a curious phase of religion
that showed itself not only in the Church, which distributed the bodies
of Christian martyrs all over the country and robbed the catacombs of
Rome for sacred relics in order that they might be adored in other
places, but also in the action of the great nobles, who, to gain a
little immortality, brought back from distant wars all they could lay
hands on that might redound to their heavenly credit. In the case of
Sigismondo it was, let us believe, a love of literature that prompted
the theft of the bones of the great Platonist, Gemisthus Pletho, and
placed them in the stone chest under one of Alberti's arches. There they
rest near those containing the remains of kindred natures whom the
warlike noble claimed as intimate friends.
The interior of the Tempio consists of a nave with side chapels and an
apsidal choir. The roof is good open woodwork. There are four chapels on
either side with the original pointed vault and groining. The Gothic
arches which open on to the nave are covered with classic ornament. The
spandrils are coloured green and are embossed with shields and a
splendid floral design. The wall spaces between each chapel, as well as
the west end, have a wonderful arrangement of very beautiful Corinthian
pilasters that rest on a sculptured frieze with a blue ground on which
are shields bearing the I and S. From this frieze depend floral festoons
on bands of green and red, with medallions of coloured marble beneath.
At the bases of the pilasters are figures holding shields. The whole of
this design is executed in a grey stone of the same colour as that in
the illustration. The piers of the arches of the two first chapels on
either side are enriched by figures of knights and dames; the third by
beautiful panels of nymphs and children carrying garlands, &c., on a
light blue ground reminiscent of the Della Robbia. The fourth chapel on
the south side has figures symbolical of the months of the year and the
signs of the Zodiac; while that on the north has figures of saints on
its piers, to which, instead of the usual classic bases, elephants of
black marble have been substituted. The first chapel south is dedicated
to S. Sigismondo, who sits on two of these great beasts. The Malatesta
crest is above the altar. On one wall are delicately carved figures of
angels drawing aside curtains from a crucifix; repeated on another,
where the angels in even better attitudes part the curtains from a small
closed window that looks into the Sanctuario. So delicately cut are
these beautiful figures that the art which produced them seems almost
plastic. The Sanctuario is closed and contains a fresco of Sigismondo
Malatesta kneeling before his patron saint. The next chapel appears in
the illustration. It is dedicated to S. Michele, whose figure above the
altar is supposed to be a portrait of Isotta. She is interred in the
tomb which the sketch shows. During the life of Sigismondo's two wives
she was his mistress, but at the death of the second he married her and
the record of their wedded life is a happy one. Her tomb is borne by
elephants on brackets and is surmounted by a knight's helm with the
Malatesta crest above.
[Illustration: ISOTTA'S TOMB IN THE CATHEDRAL, RIMINI]
The first chapel on the north side of the nave has a tomb placed high up
on the wall, which contains the remains of as many of Sigismondo's least
famous ancestors as he could lay hands on. The chapel is known as the
Capella dell' Acque from an ancient statue of the Madonna which
represents her as sending down rain. On the base of the pillars of this
chapel are portraits in low relief of Sigismondo. The low brow, hooked
nose, and cruel mouth tell one plainly that the sardonic expression of
the face does not belie the character of this extraordinary man. On the
wall to the right of the west door is his tomb, which, considering the
part he played in the history of his day, must be acknowledged as very
simple and plain.
The other chapels are full of the tombs of the illustrious members, male
and female, of the House of Malatesta.
Along the length of the nave in front of all these chapels runs a
splendid marble screen or balustrade. At every fourth pillar, on the
marble rail, stands a charming little cherub resting on a shield or
holding a bunch of flowers or basket of fruit. The screen of the last
chapel on each side is of red Verona marble and is perforated by the
elephant head of the Malatesta and gorgeously designed arabesques in
circles. From one end to the other the screens stand out from the
chapels into the nave, and are raised two steps above the red-tiled
floor. Such are some of the features which go to make the Tempio di
Malatesta one of the most extraordinary cathedrals in Italy.
There is little else to attract the visitor to Rimini, unless it be to
undertake a visit to the tiny Republic of S. Marino. A pleasant day's
excursion may be taken to this quaint little stretch of territory which
is so picturesquely situated on a spur of the Alban mountains a few
miles from the city.
FERRARA
At the foot of the Euganean hills, those hills which stand like
sentinels detached from the northern ramparts of Venetia, and guarding
the tract of country that stretches eastwards to the sea between Rovigo
and Venice, are the ruins of a castle--the Castello d'Este--whose lords
at one time played a prominent part in the history of Italy. Of Lombard
origin, these Margraves of Este had ruled the surrounding country for
three centuries prior to 1452, in which year Pope Paul III. created
Borso d'Este Duke of Ferrara, and the family, as long as it lasted, was
thenceforth inseparably connected with the subject of this chapter. More
honours were bestowed on Borso when the Emperor Frederick III. gave him
the titles of Duke of Modena and Reggio, and he held the domains of
those places as fiefs for his overlord. Borso's grandson Alphonso
married the notorious Lucrezia Borgia; but to Azzo d'Este, Margrave of
Este in the year 1110, belongs a greater claim to fame. Scion of a
junior branch of the Welfs or Guelphs he succeeded to the Duchy of
Bavaria on the death of his grandfather, the last male representative
of the elder branch of the family, and from his off-spring grew the
Guelph Houses of Hanover and Brunswick, from the former of which is
descended our own Royal line. In the sixteenth century the Court of
Ferrara was second to none in Europe for its patronage of the Arts and
Literature, and the House of Este will always be handed down to
posterity as one that did much to raise the culture of Italy to a very
high pitch.
In the centre of the city, surrounded by a moat and entered by two
bridges which span it, the great pile that Ferrara's rulers erected
stands haughtily four-square, with four immense towers at the corners.
Here in safety dwelt those mighty princes who brought renown to the city
that lay around and beyond; and here in a dungeon below the level of the
water, Duke Niccolo III. caused his wife and her paramour, who was one
of his own natural sons, to be put to death; a tragedy which gave Byron
his subject in the poem "Parisina." This huge fortress, like most of the
other buildings in Ferrara, is constructed of brick. Ferrara's streets
are wide, and though its palaces and houses do not rise to any great
height, the gardens behind them, enclosed by high walls, give an air of
spaciousness and aristocratic bearing that attest its former importance.
Most of these palaces and houses are decorated with beautifully moulded
brick or terra cotta courses; and the well-proportioned windows on their
flat street fronts create the impression of great space, which is the
chief characteristic of Ferrara. There is one important building,
however, which is constructed of stone, the Palazzo de' Diamanti, so
called from the peculiar facets of the material with which it is built.
Ferrara possessed a school of painting of its own, and it is in this
palace that the best examples have been placed. The great palace of the
Bentivoglio family, where many celebrities have lodged, has a heavy
stone cornice and baroque decoration on its vast brick sides. The Casa
di Ariosto, built by the poet himself in the years 1526-28, and in which
he died, with an inscription on its walls he composed, is another fine
house. The hospital of Sta Anna, a most beautiful red brick and terra
cotta building, has cloistered courts; and the cellar which was Tasso's
prison for five months until he was removed, still a prisoner, to a
better room, can be seen. In the _castello_ itself Calvin the reformer
found an asylum, befriended by Renée, the wife of Duke Ercole d'Este,
who paid forfeit for her temerity by being separated from husband and
children by a Papal Bull.
The Cathedral was begun in 1135, and its exterior belongs almost
entirely to that period. The west façade is a very good example of
Lombardo Gothic. It is divided into three equal portions each of which
is surmounted by a gable containing what was at one time a wheel window.
The central part has a good porch somewhat similar in design to the one
at Verona. The semicircular arch is borne by columns supported by two
dwarf figures bent double with the weight of their burden; they squat on
the backs of lions, one of which holds a bull and the other a ram
between its forepaws. Above this is an open gallery with very beautiful
twisted pillars and quatrefoil piercing in the three arches. In the
spandrils of these, and of earlier date, are bas-reliefs of the dead
rising from their tombs, and over them at the base of the canopy above
are reliefs of the Life of Our Saviour, the Virtues, the Vices and Seven
Mortal Sins, as well as the Day of Judgment. The two flanking parts of
the façade, one of which appears in the illustration, have each three
tiers of arcading. The lowest is composed of nine rounded arches with
four-sided columns grouped in triplets, which are enclosed by three
pointed arches. The next tier is of nine pointed arches; and over this
are four pointed arches deeply recessed. Following the line of the gable
is an extremely effective gallery of elegant double columns and pointed
arches, one of the great features of Pisan Gothic so prominent in
the churches of Lucca. Near the base of this wall in a curious pilgrim's
dress with a pleated skirt is the figure of Alberto d'Este.
[Illustration: THE CATHEDRAL, FERRARA]
The whole of the south wall has a double range of arches which very
pleasantly break the monotony of so vast a space of yellow brick. The
grand _campanile_ at the south east-corner was put up by Ercole II., and
is composed of four tiers of round arches on columns with Corinthian
capitals. The alternate bands of red and cream toned marble with which
the exterior is faced give a good decorative effect to this big tower.
The interior of the Cathedral has been modernised and painted to
represent carved stone. Whitewash, generally the alternative to painted
imitation of something substantial in construction, is perhaps
preferable to this form of deception as it does not really interfere
with the proportions of the architect's design. Here, however, the
really fine proportion of the interior is almost destroyed by the
obtrusive colours of the false marble walls, and the representation of
bosses and capitals. The semicircular choir by Rossette was built in
1499 and has a ceiling covered with a fresco of the Last Judgment by
Bastianino, who was one of Michael Angelo's favourite pupils. This
fresco contains portraits of many of the painter's friends who are
depicted in Heaven, while those with whom he was not on good terms are
enduring the tortures of another place.
In the piazza outside the Cathedral a market goes on all day long
throughout the year. It is difficult to analyse the feelings of folk who
in the bitterest of weather unfold their great umbrellas over the fruit
and vegetables exposed for sale. But so it is in Ferrara during November
when the accompanying sketch was made, and every morning sees a thick
coat of ice on the moat surrounding the castle. For although the good
people wrapped themselves in heavy cloaks and thick coats and shivered
over charcoal stoves, they still sat under their umbrellas. Habit breeds
custom and custom lasts for ages.
The old city walls afford a delightful promenade of four miles or more
in length. On one side, the town seems to be right in the middle of a
huge market garden above the trees of which long red roofs and towers
rise upwards. On the other, at this time of year, the last leaves from
rows of poplars and plane trees may be seen gently falling to the ground
in the tranquil frosty air, and when at rest forming a glorious carpet
of russet and orange. Great teams of oxen, six couple to a team, are
straining hard at the plough that cuts deep furrows in the stiff soil.
The trees have long ago been trimmed and the peasants now turn their
hands to the cutting of clay--that stiff clay through which the oxen
toil--for brick-making. Ice covers the water in the fosse, and although
the sun shines brilliantly and the malarial mosquito is no more for at
least eight months, one soon realises that Ferrara is better in the
spring than in late autumn.
RAVENNA
Ravenna is one of those ancient cities the origin of which is lost in
the mist of ages. It is, however, no guess work to say that in the days
before the first unknown settlers found their way to the spot which
became their permanent home, the fertile land in which it now lies
embowered was a vast waste of waters and salt marshes. The first
inhabitants of this dreary region drove piles into the mud, and erected
their dwellings on such foundations as these afforded. Wooden piles will
not last for ever, and the subsequent buildings that were put up, pulled
down and replaced, have accordingly suffered in stability. When the
march of Rome carried her legions north, Ravenna was encircled by a
seagirt wall, and a Roman colony was established which became in
Pompey's day a first-class naval station. Alive to the great strategic
value of the city the Emperor Augustus constructed a new and second
harbour capable of holding two hundred and fifty ships, which he named
Portus Classis. This he connected by a canal with one of the estuaries
of the river Po. Portus Classis lay three miles south of Ravenna, and
between the two there soon sprang up a connecting link, the town of
Cæsarea. The Emperor Honorius made Ravenna the capital of the West, and
both he and his celebrated sister Placidia resided there.
In 493 Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, who had extended his conquests
southwards over the Alps, captured the city, and Ravenna then became the
capital of the Gothic kingdom. During his reign, a reign marked by
absolute religious toleration, Italy was at peace for thirty years.
Ravenna must have been at that time some miles from the coast. Jordanes,
the historian, has handed down the fact that its celebrated Pineta, or
Pine Forest, was in existence in Theodoric's day. Justinian, who drove
out the Goths with the help of Belisarius and Narses, left the
administration in the hands of the latter, who became the first Exarch.
The Exarchs of Ravenna practically governed the entire Italian kingdom;
even the Popes were subject to a rule which lasted one hundred and
eighty-five years. In 1512 the Italian war that followed the League of
Cambray brought a French army under Gaston le Foix into Romagna, and the
bloodiest battle ever fought on Italian soil took place not far from the
city; Gaston losing his life towards the close of the engagement at a
spot marked by an obelisk.
It is, however, in early Christian Art, nowhere so well exemplified as
in the mosaics of Ravenna, that interest is chiefly centred. More than
fourteen centuries have come and gone since the first of these wonderful
wall decorations were placed where they remain to-day. And though
Ravenna and its celebrated Pine Forest are inseparably connected with
the immortal Dante and the poet Byron, and though the sarcophagus and
tomb of the former, tucked away in a corner of a little piazza, draw
many a pilgrim to worship at his shrine, Ravenna lives in its mosaics
and will continue thus to live as long as the walls last on which they
are encrusted.
Theodoric's great basilica possesses one that is universally accepted as
the finest in the world, but the church of S. Vitale is enriched with
the most splendid of all. Close to S. Vitale is the mausoleum which
Honorius' sister, Galla Placidia, built in the form of a Latin cross for
herself and her husbands. In its way it is one of the most perfect gems
of good taste in mural decoration extant. The interior walls are lined
with rare marbles. The arch over the entrance has a mosaic of the Good
Shepherd and His Sheep in subdued greens and greys. The vault of the
first arm of the cross is covered with a most glorious blue ground out
of which shines a multitude of stars in white and gold; this leads the
eye in a perfect harmony of colour to the blue-green ground of the dome,
whereon the four Evangelists and their symbols are portrayed in white
and a dull red. The sarcophagus of the Empress still remains in the
recess beyond, and in the lateral arms of the cross are those of her
brother Honorius and her second husband Constantius III. These three
stand exactly in the same places as they did fourteen hundred years ago.
The mosaic above Placidia's tomb represents Our Lord with an open book
in one hand and a cross in the other. In the centre is a gridiron
towards which He proceeds. On the left side a sort of tomb or cupboard
stands open disclosing on its shelves the bodies of the four
Evangelists, their names being written beneath each body.
In the other recesses stags are seen drinking at fountains, and birds
and arabesques cover the beautiful _tesseræ_ groundwork. The soffits of
all the windows, which are filled with thin slabs of alabaster, are
adorned by a deep red, and a black and white pattern on a gold ground.
[Illustration: RAVENNA]
S. Vitale, the building to the right in the sketch, was erected in the
reign of Justinian by Archbishop Ecclesius on the spot where S. Vitalis
suffered martyrdom. Like most of the early buildings of Ravenna it has
suffered from the nature of the ground on which it stands, and is
buttressed up and held together by great iron ties and clamps. The
interior is a vast circle with a domed roof supported by eight arches
and the same number of piers, between which are semicircular two-storied
recesses. These are divided by three arches with plain columns that have
double capitals. A circular aisle extends round the lower part of the
church carrying a gallery above. The brick walls, against which are
placed many ancient sarcophagi, were originally covered with slabs of
marble, and as S. Vitale and most of Ravenna's other churches are now
_monumentali nazionale_ it is to be hoped that marble may some day once
more line this effective interior.
The superb mosaics on the vault of the Choir and Tribune are of the
sixth century, and as fresh to-day as when first put up. The semi-dome
of the apse has a fine gold ground on which the Almighty is enthroned on
a globe with Archangels around. Above them float crimson and blue
clouds. He gives to S. Vitalis, who stands at His right hand, the crown
of martyrdom; on His left is S. Eutychius offering a model of the
church. The vault of the Tribune itself is decorated with one of the
most gorgeous arrangements of colour in arabesques and birds that could
be imagined. On one wall is a fine mosaic of Justinian surrounded by
courtiers, and S. Maximianus with two accompanying priests. The
Emperor's robe is deep purple embroidered with gold and mother-of-pearl,
those that the others wear are white and gold with coloured edging. On
the opposite wall is the Empress Theodora attended by the ladies of her
court. Here again the costumes give a fine colour note, and the
expressions on the different faces, which are very Eastern in type, are
remarkable. A curtain forms part of the background of this mosaic, and
is, curiously enough, green, white and red, the Italian colours of the
present day. On the arch are half-lengths of our Saviour and the twelve
Apostles, and the two martyred sons of S. Vitalis, SS. Gervasius and
Protasius whose remains rest in the church of S. Ambrogio in Milan.
All the angles of the mosaics are rounded off as in S. Mark's at Venice
and elsewhere. But in S. Vitale they are patterned with bands of
distinct colours, and do not interfere with the general effect as they
do in S. Mark's, where the brilliant gold catches the light and
accentuates the angle. The whole colour scheme of the decoration is
green and white relieved by a dull purple, black and deep red set on a
rich dull golden ground. However much one admires the later mosaics of
Venice and Torcello, Palermo and Monreale, the palm for beautiful colour
must be awarded to the glorious art of Ravenna.
At the bases of the columns in the Choir stand the celebrated pagan
bas-reliefs called the "Throne of Neptune." In both, a sea-monster lies
extended beneath the throne of the god. That on the right has a winged
figure holding a trident; in the other, two figures bear a huge conch
shell. Sea-horses, dolphins and shells, crowded in between Corinthian
pilasters, form the lower panels which two nude boys bear on their
shoulders staggering under the heavy weight.
Ravenna's cathedral contains nothing of any architectural interest, as
it was rebuilt in the bad period of the eighteenth century. The original
edifice, which was erected by S. Ursus in the fourth century, was known
as the "Basilica Ursiana." The Archbishop's Palace adjoins the east end,
and in it is one of Ravenna's earliest places of Christian worship. The
little chapel to which we refer was probably built about 430 and was the
work of Peter Chrysologos. With the exception of painted restorations to
some of its frescoes it is to-day just as it was when the decorators
left it more than fourteen hundred years ago. In the vestibule leading
to the chapel one may see the ivory throne of S. Maximianus. This fine
specimen of sixth-century art is covered with little ivory panels on
which bas-reliefs tell the history of Joseph. In front of the seat are
the Saint's monogram, the panels beneath representing the favourite
theme of our Lord as a shepherd amidst his sheep, with the four
Evangelists attendant. The four legs of the throne appear to be solid
ivory; those at the back go right up to the top and must at one time
have been splendid tusks.
To the north of the Cathedral is the Baptistery. The mosaics of the
fifth century which line the interior are in a very light key of colour,
the scheme employed being light blue, white and gold. Situated between
the eight arches of the octagon are sixteen bas-reliefs of the prophets
executed in a cream-coloured marble. The arches themselves are composed
of two members, one within the other, the outer of which is gold edged
with white; and the inner has a remarkably fine quality of blue
_tesseræ_. In the centre of the dome S. John is seen baptizing our
Saviour, who stands in the waters of Jordan surrounded by the twelve
Apostles. The font, which stands on a fine inverted Corinthian capital,
was at one time a vase in the Temple of Jupiter. This Temple was
situated on the site of the Baptistery, and eight of its columns form
the support of the octagon arches.
The cathedral, which is the church with a dome in the illustration,
possesses one of the round towers peculiar to Ravenna. The date of these
towers is uncertain, but is probably the eleventh or twelfth century.
Insecure foundations have caused most of them to tilt to one side--note
the angle of the Torre del Pubblico in the sketch--and necessitated a
great deal of restoration.
Theodoric erected his palace and the basilica which adjoins, in the wide
thoroughfare that runs north and south from the Porta Serrata to the
Porta Nuova. Very little, if anything, remains of the first-named
building. And judging from the Romanesque features of a brick colonnade
and the portion of a sometime large dwelling that stands behind it, it
is very doubtful whether any of the original palace exists. We have it
on record, too, that Charles the Great carried off the marble columns of
Theodoric's building to adorn his own palace in Aachen; and, as he did
this, there is every probability that he took other material as well.
But, if we have nothing left of the Gothic king's residence, we have his
grand Arian basilica intact. Theodoric dedicated his church to S.
Martin, but when the body of S. Apollinaris was deposited in it, a
rededication to him took place. S. Apollinare Nuovo, as it has since
been called in contradistinction to the other basilica at Classis, is
famous throughout Christendom; famous for the finest mosaic in the
world. On the north wall, in the blank space where the triforium might
be, facing the sun, the Virgin is seen seated on an orange coloured
cushion which rests upon a throne. She holds in her lap the Child. Two
angels stand on either side. Their robes are white, hers is deep purple
fringed with gold and sparkling jewels. Advancing towards her are the
Three Kings of the East, whose names appear above each, Melchior, Gaspar
and Balthassar. In their hands are silver vessels. The first angel holds
his out to receive them. Beyond the kings, in a row, twenty-two virgins
come bearing crowns. They are garbed in light purple with white veils;
round their waists are bejewelled belts. The expression on the face of
each is different, and each is in a slightly different attitude; one is
accompanied by a little white dog. They tread lightly on the green sward
from which many little flowers lift their humble heads. Between each a
palm-tree grows with spreading leaves and clustering dates. It is a
wonderful procession. The eagerness and haste of the Three Kings, the
dignified and stately rhythm of the slowly pacing Virgins are so well
realised, that, although there is no idea of anything but flat
decoration in the rendering, a feeling of continuous motion holds one
throughout. In the darkened corner at the west end of the mosaic
are the walls of the City of Classis. The golden _tesseræ_ of these
walls are so dark and frowning that they might almost be called brown.
Brown they appear to be, but this is because, through an arched opening,
three ships with white sails come gliding into port over the cærulean
blue of the sea. The eye is thus carried along the whole length of the
mosaic without a single jarring note. From the white angels at one end
to the white sails at the other, it travels along with a consciousness
of repose, and one feels instinctively that one is in the presence of a
masterpiece.
[Illustration: S. APOLLINARE NUOVO, RAVENNA]
On the opposite wall, occupying the same position as Classis, are the
city of Ravenna and the palace of Theodoric. Corresponding with the two
and twenty virgins are figures of twenty-five saints clad in white--save
one--and all bearing crowns. Our Saviour, seated between four angels,
gives His benediction to the saints, who advance towards Him. The first,
in a violet robe, is S. Martinus, the patron of the Church when the
sound of the Arian creed filled its aisles. Above both these mosaics are
round-headed clerestory windows with saints and prophets in the panels
between. The ancient marble throne of the Arian bishops still exists in
a little chapel in the north aisle; and here also are some relics of S.
Apollinaris.
One of the architectural features of Ravenna's churches may be seen in
the double capitals of the columns, which give them a sort of stilt, a
peculiarity which does not prevail in churches elsewhere of the same
date--the fifth and sixth centuries. Into these two centuries were
crowded the great architectural works and their interior decorations
that have made Ravenna famous. But it is sad to think that the names of
those whose genius found scope on their walls, if ever recorded, have
been lost.
The other great basilica, dedicated to S. Apollinaris, S. Apollinare in
Classe, stands in solemn loneliness some three miles south of the city.
Of Augustus' great port this church, emblem of stability, alone remains.
Its round _campanile_ towers up over the swampy meadows and uninhabited
district that seem given up entirely to the sky and winds. An atrium,
now reduced to a portico, stood at one time in front of the façade, but
there is nothing to attract one in the barn-like exterior of the
building save the glamour attached to its history, which is accentuated
by the dreary desolation around.
Inside, the nave is divided by twelve round arches on each side; these
are supported by columns of _cipollino_ marble. The Byzantine capitals,
as in S. Apollinare in Nuovo, are surmounted by an impost with a cross
in relief. A fine flight of steps leads up to the High Altar, Choir and
Tribune. The crypt is beneath. The floor of the nave, which slopes
upwards towards the east, is four feet above the original, which was
partly covered with mosaic. A temple of Apollo stood on the site before
the church was erected in the year 534, and this older floor may be part
of the pagan building.
The mosaics of the Choir and Tribune were undergoing restoration at the
time when this was written, but although partly covered up enough was
visible to show that in the semi-dome of the apse a large golden cross,
with a representation of the Almighty's Head in the centre, occupied the
middle of a very brilliant blue circle. The soffit of the arch of the
Choir has a blue ground covered with multi-coloured birds and
arabesques.
Amongst other of Ravenna's churches the modernised basilica of S.
Francesco, the church contiguous to Dante's tomb, contains some ancient
sarcophagi and the finest tomb slab in Italy. This is now out of danger
and has been placed on the west wall of the nave. It originally covered
the remains of Ostasio da Polenta, Lord of Ravenna. He is represented in
the garb of a Franciscan friar and lies outstretched, with beautifully
modelled hands and face, under a very rich Gothic canopy. The Polenta
family were the first to befriend the great poet when he sought refuge
here from Florence.
Adjoining the back premises of one of the hotels is the old Arian
baptistery, now the oratory of Sta. Maria in Cosmedin. It was here that
the first Christian baptism in Ravenna took place. The church of S.
Spirito built by Theodoric opens on to the same courtyard; but, next to
the Gothic king's great basilica, the most interesting building
connected with his name is that which is situated half a mile outside
the Porta Serrata.
A pleasant avenue with well-kept rose beds leads one on towards a
circular building of grey Istrian limestone, which is covered with a
dome of the same material, and we are in the presence of the tomb which
Theodoric erected as the resting-place for his mortal remains. We do not
see it now as it was when the great king's bones reposed in a
sarcophagus within. To the Church of Rome Theodoric was a heretic, and
when the Goths were driven out of Ravenna and the Arian ritual was heard
no more, the Church ordered the sarcophagus to be broken up, and the
ashes of him who was tolerant to all creeds to be scattered to the
winds. The tomb was despoiled of its ornaments, and consecrated and used
as a chapel. Even now it is sublime in its simplicity, and grand in its
massive construction. Its plan is a rotunda resting on a decagonal lower
chamber, each side of which is recessed and arched by great blocks of
limestone set as the Etruscans set the roofs of their tombs. Rising in
two storeys from the ground, which is six feet below the present level
of the surrounding orchards, its dome is barely visible above the tops
of the fruit trees. The lower storey rests on a platform of stone. Its
pavement is always under a few inches of water. The upper storey is
reached by two flights of steps which, built outside, give entrance to
the sepulchral chamber from a gallery or platform that circulates round
the exterior. This gallery formed at one time a portico. The shafts and
bases of the colonnade were found buried in the ground when the last
restoration took place in 1857. A massive cornice with a circular
pattern is on the wall above, and the empty sockets placed at regular
intervals, which one sees below it, presumably held the stone that
formed the roof. The dome is one huge block of stone estimated to weigh
two hundred tons. On its exterior, close to the edge, are a dozen
perforated projections. It is thought that these were used as handles
when the mass was put into position. The summit is flat, and on it at
one time a statue may have stood. Simplicity is almost always one of the
characteristics of the great, and the mausoleum which he erected was
worthy, in its strength and plainness, of Theodoric the Goth.
BOLOGNA
The traveller in Italy must often have noticed the difference in the
shape of the battlements that nowadays add so much to the
picturesqueness of old towers and half-ruined fortress walls. No doubt
he has heard the term "Guelph" or "Ghibelline" applied to them. It is
supposed that "Welf" and "Waiblingen" were first used in Germany as
battle-cries at the conflict of Weinsberg in 1140. When the struggle for
the imperial throne between Philip of Swabia and Otto of Brunswick was
hanging in the balance, the sympathies of Brescia, Milan, and other
Lombard cities were enlisted on the side of Otto the Welf. In the
subsequent feuds between the Pope's party and the Emperor's it became a
necessity for the inhabitants of the cities of the northern part of the
peninsula, if they wished to exist at all, to favour either one side or
the other. The Guelph party were for the Pope, and the Ghibelline were
partisans of the Emperor. And thus we find in the history of most of
these towns an espousal, as policy dictated, of the Pope's cause at one
time, and of the Emperor's some decades later. This apparent
inconsistency was the outcome of family feuds within the city walls. For
a term of years the Guelphic nobles might be in the ascendant, until, on
the death or murder of a leading member, they succumbed to the prowess
of the imperial party. The great families that pinned their faith to the
ascendency of the latter adopted the swallow-tailed battlement on the
towers of their castle walls, to distinguish them from the square-shaped
that were already in existence. Italy throughout the middle ages was
torn by internecine strife which was reflected throughout every class of
society, and the subject of this chapter was no exception. Owning
allegiance to the Pope, the Bolognese overran Romagna and forced the
towns of that province to declare for the Church. In 1249 they defeated
the Modenese at Fossalto and took King Enzio prisoner. For
two-and-twenty years--in fact, for the rest of his life--they kept the
unhappy man confined in the Palace of the Podestà, treated however, as
we should treat a first-class misdemeanant, and according to his rank.
The long-drawn-out feuds of the Lambertazzi and Gieremei families, and
later on those between the great Visconti and Bentivoglio, kept the
Bolognese in a perpetual state of faction fights, which lasted until the
warlike Pontiff Julius II. annexed the city to the States of the
Church.
To go back to its earliest days, we learn that the Etruscan king,
Felsina, founded a city in 984 B.C. where Bologna now stands. He gave it
his own name, and made it the chief of his twelve Etruscan cities.
Bologna can thus, with legitimate pride, point to a history approaching
three thousand years. We find it to-day a typical modern place, with
just enough of the middle ages left to make it one of the most desirable
of all North Italian cities. It possesses hardly a street which is not
arcaded; and the thought arises: "How admirably adapted for street
fighting were these sheltered walks in the days when one half of the
town was at strife with the other!" In the oldest parts of the city the
streets are tortuous and narrow. Arcades in such streets would be just
the very best cover for raiders to steal along at night; and such must
have been the terror of the inhabitants during centuries of discord that
there is scarcely a house which has any windows opening into the
arcades, and those that do are heavily barred. Walking through these
streets, silent witnesses of bloody feuds and severe fights, one cannot
suppress the feeling that the old quarters of Bologna are full of
mystery, and it does not require much imagination to see the Visconti
party creeping along in the shadowed ways for an attack on their
hereditary foes, the Bentivoglio.
So much for the thoughts awakened by Bologna's narrow thoroughfares.
Its chief open square is the Piazza Maggiore, as fine an old Italian
square as can be found anywhere. The celebrated Fontana de Nettuno is in
the centre. A nude bronze statue of the god by Giovanni da Bologna
stands eight feet high, in a somewhat repellent attitude, above the
pedestal and basin. It is always the centre of a lounging crowd which
throngs the square throughout the day. On the west side of the Piazza is
the Palazzo Pubblico, with a façade that still retains, despite
restoration, traces of eight elegant pointed windows. A figure of the
Virgin in terra-cotta, once gilded, stands under a good canopy high up
on the empty space of the great wall of the façade. These comparatively
empty wall spaces are a feature of Bolognese architecture of the
thirteenth century. Pierced by a few windows, they give a great idea of
solidity and strength; and though one finds the same character in the
palaces of Tuscan cities, it is not so prominent there as in the big
buildings of Bologna. An immense entrance gateway opens into a
courtyard, and from this a very fine staircase by Bramante leads up to
the interior. In a smaller court beyond is a very beautiful cistern by
Terribilia. The Hall of Hercules, so called from the colossal statue by
Alfonso Lombardo, vies with the Sala Farnese in splendour. Up to the
year 1848 the palace was the residence of the Legate and the Senator.
The lower portion is now the chief post office of the city.
On the north side of the Piazza is the Palazzo del Podestà. It is a
building that was begun at the commencement of the thirteenth century,
but not until the year 1485 was the façade erected. Of magnificent
proportions, it is chiefly famous as the prison of King Enzio. The great
saloon is still called the Sala del Re Enzio, and among other
vicissitudes was at one time a theatre, and at another the court in
which the national game of _pallone_ was played. A solid-looking and
lofty tower, the Torrazzo dell' Aringo, rises at one end of the façade
above the arcades. On the piers which carry the arches of these may
still be seen the huge wrought-iron brackets, the rings, and the sockets
for supporting banner poles and holding lighted torches.
Along the east side of this part of the Piazza which is =L=-shaped, is the
Portico de' Banchi, a continuous arcade, extending beyond the limits of
the square the whole length of Bologna's great church. This, the church
that the Bolognese in their pride intended should be the largest in
Italy, has not been completed beyond the commencement of the transepts.
The nave and aisles alone are finished; they are three hundred and
eighty-four feet long, and the width, including the chapels, measures
one hundred and fifty. The building is proportionately high, and, as
will be seen in the illustration, is very spacious. It was commenced in
1390 and dedicated to S. Petronio. The architect, Antonio Vincenzi, was
one of the celebrated _Riformati_, and went as ambassador to the
Venetian Republic in 1396.
The Piazza Maggiore slopes downwards from the south. S. Petronio is
situated at its southern end, and orientates south by west. The façade
therefore faces north-east, and for the construction of a level floor
the great church is placed at this end some dozen steps above the
sloping Piazza. In the museum attached to S. Petronio there may be seen
the original designs, elevations, and a model of the finished structure.
Had funds permitted, this façade, placed so well, and with such
magnificent buildings surrounding it, would have been one of the best
Italian attempts to realise a Gothic church. As it is, it is a grand
scheme unfulfilled.
The lower portion of the façade is extremely good, the three canopied
doorways being pure Italian Gothic. They are adorned with bas-reliefs
which represent different scriptural events from the Creation onwards.
Tribolo, an intimate friend of Benvenuto Cellini, was responsible for
the beautiful angels and sibyls round the arch of that on the left
hand. The fine bas-relief of the Resurrection in the lunette, where
Christ is seen among sleeping soldiers, is by Alfonso Lombardi. The
central portal is considered the masterpiece of Jacopo della Quercia,
who was not overpaid by the three thousand golden florins he received
for the work, considering that it took him twelve years to complete. His
noble figure of the Almighty, surrounded by thirty-two patriarchs and
prophets, is extremely fine. The right-hand doorway is another example
of Tribolo's purity of style. The brickwork of the exterior is covered,
round the whole church at the base, by a very fine base-table of white
marble with good mouldings. In the model the entire brick surface is
hidden by the same material. The buttresses are good, and so are the
pointed windows of the aisles, some of which, by the way, contain good
glass.
The interior is very lofty and expansive. Twelve immense piers carry the
arches of the nave, twenty-four smaller ones those of the aisles. The
height of all these may be judged from the illustration, wherein also
the peculiar Italian Gothic capital is seen. Milan's great cathedral and
S. Anastasia in Verona are other specimens of the same style of capital.
They appear to be stuck on to the columns, of which they seem to form a
part, rather than a separate cap for the arches to rest on. One hardly
knows how this particular style grew or where it emanated, but it is not
unlike the palm-leaf capital of an Egyptian column. The aisles are
rather shallow for the width of the nave. The side chapels are shut off
from them by good metal grilles or beautiful marble screens. Four very
ancient black pillars with crosses engraved stand against four of the
aisle piers. They are supposed to have been placed at the gates of old
Bologna by S. Petronio himself, and are much venerated by the Bolognese.
On the floor of the church is traced the celebrated meridian line of
Gian Domenico Cassini. Under the immense canopy which stands over the
high altar Charles V. was crowned in 1530 by Pope Clement VII. The
Emperor had been invited to Italy by the last of the Ducal House of
Sforza, and with his coronation commenced the foreign occupation of
North Italy.
Bologna's cathedral is dedicated to S. Pietro. It is situated in the Via
dell' Indipendenza, but is so wedged in between the high buildings which
adjoin it on both sides that it is difficult to find. S. Pietro is a
huge barn-like edifice commenced in the bad period of 1605. It is a very
ancient foundation with no redeeming architectural features. The most
interesting thing it contains is Ludovico Carracci's celebrated
"Annunciation." After the scaffolding had been removed on the
completion of the work which is over the arch above the high altar,
Carracci discovered some bad drawing in one of the figures. He died soon
after this--from grief, so the story goes, as the authorities would not
permit him to re-erect it at his own cost and remedy the defect.
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF S. PETRONIO, BOLOGNA]
The church of S. Stefano, or rather the seven different edifices which
are thus named, occupies the site of a temple of Isis. It stands below
the level of the little Piazza de S. Stefano, and on its exterior wall
is one of the open-air pulpits not uncommon in Italy. The first church,
called Il Crocifisso, is of the sixteenth century and not interesting.
From a door in the north wall one goes down half a dozen steps into the
second church of the Santo Sepolcro. This is a circular building,
supposed to have been the old baptistery. Twelve columns, brick and
marble alternating, support a good Romanesque gallery under the dome.
The six marble shafts came from the pagan temple. In the centre is a
grand altar-pulpit, which has a stairway leading up on either side.
Under the altar is an urn which at one time held the remains of S.
Petronio. On the stone floor a shutter of iron covers the well that
possesses miraculous properties, these having been imparted to it by the
saint. The church dates from the tenth century. An iron grille in one of
the walls shuts off the oldest church of all, a basilica of the fourth
century. It is dedicated to SS. Paolo e Pietro. Forty-eight columns with
Byzantine and Greek capitals support the brick barrel vault of the nave.
This is dimly lighted by small round clerestory windows. The altar
stands in the tribune at the top of much-worn limestone steps. This also
has a brick vault. At the end of the narrow aisles are the sarcophagi of
S. Agricola and S. Vitalis--Bologna's S. Vitalis. The next church, if it
may be so called, is formed by the small court known as the Atrio di
Pilato. It has never been touched since the eleventh century, and
contains a very ancient font. Down more steps is the church of the
Confessio. This old crypt must be a good twenty feet below the level
outside. The quadripartite vaulting is borne by thick stunted columns
that are barely five feet high, though one is said to be the exact
height of Christ. It is very dark, and dates from the tenth century. The
sixth church is the passage which leads to the seventh and last, that of
the Trinity. Four rows of columns with Byzantine and Romanesque capitals
support the roof of this square building. In one of the chapels, in a
galleried niche, there is an extraordinary life-sized wooden group of
the Adoration of the Magi. Mary wears a crown of brass studded with
uncut stones. On the Child's head is a mitre of the same. The
expressive faces of the Three Kings, who bring offerings, are extremely
naïve. The first wears the conical hat of the ancient shepherds of the
hills of Venetia that one still comes across in out-of-the-way
districts.
The adjoining cloisters of the suppressed Celestine monastery are
remarkable in the solidity of the short pillars, not four feet high,
which form the lower colonnade. These are in absolute contradistinction
to the elegant double shafts of the upper gallery. The brickwork
throughout the whole of S. Stefano is very good. Concentric patterns,
squares, chequer work where small squares of marble and glazed tiles
have been introduced, diamonds, and oblongs are arranged in a perfect
harmony of design the like of which one cannot find in Italy. The
exterior of S. Sepolcro is, in this respect, unsurpassed.
Bologna's university is one of the oldest in Italy, and the first in
which academical degrees were conferred. It was founded in 1119 by
Irnerius. Numerous schools were established in the West after Byzantine
authority had faded away. Among the first was that of Bologna, where
Pepo began to expound the law in 1075. Irnerius followed him
five-and-twenty years later and introduced the Justinian code. His
followers became known as Glossatori, a word derived from the Greek
[Greek: glôssa], originally meaning a _tongue_. The last of these
glossators was Accursius, who compiled the _glossæ_ known as the "Glossa
ordinaria," a work which soon became the acknowledged authority. The
visitor who wanders through the city and finds himself in the
market-square will there see outside the church of S. Francesco three
canopied tombs. The sarcophagi which rest on a platform borne by pillars
are those of three Glossatori, and one of them contains the remains of
Accursius. The canopies of these tombs are covered with green tiles. S.
Francesco is a fine Gothic church with two elegant _campanili_. It is
undergoing extensive restoration, and, though of some architectural
interest, does not compare in other ways with that of S. Domenico.
This church, wherein repose the remains of the founder of the Order of
Preaching Friars or Dominicans, was begun with the intention of
following the prevailing fashion of the day and constructing another
Gothic fabric. Except for the pointed windows in some of the chapels, S.
Domenico bears no traces of this intention. The interior of white
marble, in a medley of styles in which poor Renaissance predominates, is
very cold. The exterior has a very heavy frieze of white marble; the
commencement of its outer covering carried no further than this. It is
seen in the sketch, which also shows the canopied tomb of the
learned jurist, Rolandino Passageri, who was selected by the city to
frame the reply to the letter in which the Emperor Frederick II.
demanded the release of his illegitimate son Enzio. In the church lie
Guido Reni, whose tomb is in the chapel shown with the heavy frieze, and
his talented fellow-artist Elisabetta Sirani, King Enzio, Taddeo Pepoli,
Captain of the People in 1334, and the great S. Dominick.
[Illustration: S. DOMENICO, BOLOGNA]
Born in Old Castile in 1170, S. Dominick was ordained priest in 1198.
His fiery zeal against "heretics" and his extraordinary preaching powers
soon brought him into great prominence. He was instrumental in
establishing courts for trial and punishment of obstinate "heretics."
The commissioners, who were invested with a jurisdiction that gave them
powers of torture, and life and death, were known as "Inquisitors," and
their conclaves paved the way for the dreaded Inquisition. S. Dominick's
tomb is one of the finest in North Italy. It is one of the earliest
works that the genius of Niccolò Pisano produced, having been completed
thirty years before his masterpiece at Pisa was begun. A magnificent
iron grille separates the chapel from the nave. On the top rail are four
very charming little figures in bronze of saints. The tomb is adorned by
bas-reliefs illustrating the chief events in the life of the saint.
Below these is a very delicately carved set of smaller ones by Alfonso
Lombardi, which form a sort of _predella_, and are nearly three hundred
years later. The urn which contains the saint's remains is behind the
upper set. A small statue of S. Petronio in front is by Michael Angelo,
and the best of the beautiful little angels at the corners claims the
same hand as its sculptor. Cherubs at the top of the monument hold two
very heavy festoons of flowers, which somewhat mar the fine composition
of the whole. From this it is evident that the exuberance of Pisano's
youth had yet to learn the reticence which comes with age.
No description of Bologna would be complete without mention of its
wonderful towers. The graceful Torre Asinelli rises to a height of three
hundred and twenty-one feet, and, although nearly four feet out of the
perpendicular, tapers upwards so imperceptibly that the inclination is
not noticeable. Close by it stands the Torre Garisenda, built by the two
brothers Garisenda. It leans ten feet in one direction and three in
another, and rises to a height of one hundred and sixty feet. Although
the guide-books tell one it was thus constructed, it has undoubtedly
sunk into its position, as the different stages inside slope with the
inclination of the tower. These two are not the only towers of Bologna,
but, being situated in the centre of the oldest quarters of the city,
are those that are best known.
PARMA
Parma is very much like any other of the smaller cities of Italy. It can
however boast of a prehistoric lake-dwelling settlement, unearthed in
1864, and a still later, though very early origin as an Etruscan colony.
To-day it is a bright little place pleasantly situated on the broad
stream that gave it its name. If it were not, however, for its
cathedral, its ancient baptistery, and its inseparable connection with
the art of Correggio, there would be but little to interest the stranger
or even call for a halt at its railway station. Four bridges span the
river Parma, and from each the blue line of the Apennines may be seen
stretching away over the tops of the orchards until lost in the distant
haze. The old Roman road, the Via Æmilia, which we have already seen
started out of Rimini, bisects Parma from east to west, and crosses the
river by a fine old bridge, the Ponte de Mezzo. This is the only
structure of the four which can lay claim to any age. It has a narrow
roadway inclining up to the centre with high parapets on either side,
and partakes very much of the character of a Roman edifice. Except for
a few inscribed slabs there is nothing of any consequence left to remind
one that the pleasant little city of to-day was once a flourishing
colony of Imperial Rome. In the Guelph and Ghibelline feuds it espoused
the Pope's cause and successfully withstood a siege by Frederick II. In
1341 it came into the hands of the Visconti, Dukes of Milan, and was
associated with that duchy for two hundred years. Pope Julius II.
incorporated it with the Papal States, and thirty years after this the
reigning Pope, Paul III., gave it to his natural son Pietro Luigi
Farnese. This family supplied seven dukes to Parma where they reigned
until the male line became extinct in the year 1731. The Bourbons came
into possession of the duchy through Marie Louise, and with the
assassination in the public thoroughfare of Duke Charles III., its
history may be said to have come to an end.
The cathedral and baptistery, with the ecclesiastical buildings which
form the square in which they stand, make a group of much interest. The
first named is a very fine example of Romanesque work. It was commenced
in 1058, but not consecrated until fifty years later, nor really
completed till the middle of the thirteenth century. The façade is
however entirely the original design.
[Illustration: THE CATHEDRAL AND BAPTISTERY, PARMA]
Two rows of arcades traverse its length; the lower is on a level with
and carried through the upper portion of the central porch. A third
follows the line of the gable under a heavy cornice. The porch is
similar to the one illustrated of Verona's cathedral. Two colossal lions
bear the burden of the double canopies and were the work of Bono da
Bisone. The sun is sculptured on the keystone of the arch, and in the
soffits the months are illustrated by a series of reliefs of
agricultural pursuits, as in S. Mark's at Venice. A good many Roman
tablets have been used as decoration and for building material along the
whole façade. Two other doors, as well as the central portal, give
entrance to the church. The only other feature of the exterior worth
mention is the beautiful red brick _campanile_ with its green tiled
spire.
The first impression one receives of the interior is that of extreme
solemnity and great majesty. It never wears off. The high altar, a blaze
of silver and gilt, stands well placed eighteen steps above the nave.
The transepts also are thus situated, and there is enough length in the
seven bays that separate the aisles from the nave to put the choir well
back from the spectator as he enters at the west door. From the high
altar the eye instinctively travels upwards to the spandrils in the drum
of the dome where part of Correggio's grand frescoes are seen. The
fourteen fluted columns of the nave are quadrangular. Seven have
Corinthian capitals and seven are Romanesque with traces of Byzantine
origin in the figures, beasts and birds which form the volutes. Some of
these are peacocks with curling outstretched necks; others are the heads
and upper limbs of human figures. The triforium gallery has elegant
pillars in pairs, that support round arches. The clerestory is placed
very high. The vaulting of the nave is peculiar, it is elliptical. The
whole of the walls are covered with frescoes by Lattanzio Gambara and
Girolamo Mazzuola, who was a pupil of Parmigianino. A frieze is above
the capitals of the fluted pilasters that support the arch of the choir
and runs on into the transepts. It is symbolical of the strength of the
Church. Lions are seen here hunting antelopes, deer, and other animals;
that is, the Church is chasing away all evil doers.
The crypt under the choir is architecturally interesting, as it shows in
some of the capitals of its thirty-eight columns the evolution from pure
Byzantine to Lombardo-Romanesque work. But perhaps it will be the
frescoes in the dome that draw visitors to this fine church rather than
its architectural features. In the decoration of this Correggio
surpassed himself in his mastery of _chiaroscuro_ and the foreshortening
of the human figure. The "Assumption of the Virgin," though very
adversely criticised when finished, and now greatly injured by damp and
neglect, is still one of the grandest paintings of its sort extant.
Almost adjoining the south-west corner of the cathedral, and built on
sloping ground, stands Parma's celebrated baptistery. It was begun in
the year 1196, from designs by Benedetto Antelami. The construction was
for many years very spasmodic, and wholly ceased when the bloodthirsty
Ezzelino da Romana governed North Italy for Frederick II. in the
thirteenth century, and forbade the inhabitants to quarry any more
marble. At his death it was pushed on, and in the end finished towards
the close of that century, a date which accounts for the pointed arches
at the top of the interior. It is built of Verona marble, and is an
octagon with three arched portals, on which are some very interesting
sculptures of Old Testament history. Jacob, out of whom grows a tree in
the branches of which are his brothers with Moses at the top, is on one
side of the north door. Another tree, with David and Solomon and the
Prophets, is a pendant on the other. The south doorway is decorated in a
similar style, but the trees are full of all the birds apparently then
known. Barn-door fowls, storks, parrots, eagles, ducks, and peacocks,
&c. &c., find a place in this extraordinary aviary in stone. Signs of
the Zodiac form a sort of frieze on the lower portions of the eight
sides of the exterior. Four tiers of columns forming open galleries
support a continuous architrave, which, whatever the architectural
merits, is not artistically a pleasing arrangement. The interior is
sixteen-sided. Between each division a long marble shaft is carried from
its base on the floor right up to the converging ribs of the pointed
vaulting. The whole of the walls and vault are covered with frescoes.
The upper are early, and appear to be almost contemporaneous with the
finishing of the building. The lower bear the names of Niccolo da Reggio
and Bartolino da Piacenza, and are of fourteenth-century date. The Life
of John the Baptist naturally takes precedence in these interesting
examples of mural decoration. The huge font in the centre of the
baptistery is cut out of a single block of marble. It has a centre
compartment like that already described in S. Giovanni in Fonte, in
Verona. The registers of the baptistery go back as far as the year 1459,
since when it is known that all the babies born in Parma have been
received into the Faith within its walls.
The church of S. Lodovico, also called S. Paolo, was formerly attached
to a Benedictine nunnery. Correggio's celebrated series of pagan
frescoes cover the walls of the "parlour" of the nunnery. They were
executed to the order of the abbess, Giovanna da Piacenza, and are more
fitted for a "Trianon" than a convent. Minerva, Juno, Bacchus, and other
heathen gods and goddesses, with Cupids, and such-like profanities, are
most charmingly arranged amidst a lattice pattern of flowers and
foliage. At the period, the beginning of the sixteenth century, when
this dainty scheme was painted, great licence and irregularities
prevailed in some of these conventual establishments. The abbess and her
nuns often entered into all the gaieties of the outside world and
indulged in the vices pertaining to it. In this case the wrath of the
austere Adrian VI. was visited on Giovanna and her flock, and S. Paolo
was closed, the abbess dying within a month after this humiliation.
GENOA
The poet Tasso in his "Jerusalem Delivered" sings of the exploits of the
great commander of the First Crusade; and although Godfrey de Bouillon
had little to do with Genoa, it was from its port that his fleet spread
sail in 1096 and disappeared over the southern horizon on its way to the
Holy Land. Nearly three years had passed in hard fighting before Godfrey
and his army found themselves before the walls of Jerusalem. Meanwhile
the Second Crusade had started from Genoa, under the command of
Guglielmo Embrianco. He joined forces with De Bouillon, and the Holy
City fell to their arms on July 15, 1099. Embrianco covered himself with
glory; and on his return, among other treasures, brought home the
celebrated Sacro Catino, which he presented to his native city. This
dish of green glass is in the Cathedral. For centuries it was supposed
to have been fashioned from a single emerald, and tradition has it as
the very dish, the Holy Grail, which held the Paschal Lamb at the Last
Supper.
The port of Genoa is very different now to what it was in those early
days. Ships of all nationalities and every sort of build find refuge
behind the numerous breakwaters which protect them from every gale that
blows. The Molo Vecchio is the oldest of these shelters, and built upon
half its length is an old quarter that is one of the fast-vanishing
slums of the city. On the sea-ward side of this mole the Mura della
Malapaga frowns on incoming craft, just as when in days gone by it bid
defiance to the enemies of Genoa whose temerity had led them thus far in
attacks on the city. It is terminated by a grand sea-gateway of very
massive construction. At the end of a subsequent extension the old
lighthouse rises, now well within the port. The house still stands in
the old quarter in which Marco Polo was imprisoned after the defeat of
the Pisans at the battle of Curzola, when he was taken captive. The Molo
Nuovo stretches from the west side of the port near the tall Pharo, and,
running outwards, bends back and covers the Molo Vecchio from the
southerly gales.
[Illustration: AN OLD STREET, RAVENNA]
Genoa's quays present a busy picture with the endless traffic that makes
her the premier port of Italy. Strings of heavily laden carts drawn by
teams of great mules are continually passing to and fro. Cabs rattle on
the pavements, their drivers cracking their whips, the horses'
heads decorated with the long tail feathers of the Amherst pheasant that
dance about to the music of the harness-bells. Groups of boys play pitch
and toss with coins, and still cry "Croce e Griffo" ("Cross or
Gryphon"), a cry as old as the wars with Pisa. Itinerant pedlars pester
folk to buy what no one seems to want. Under the arcades that face the
sea-front shops of all sorts exhibit everything the seafarer can
possibly require, and a lively business goes on in restuffing the
emigrants' mattresses with dry sea-weed or hay. Up, behind all this,
narrow streets wind through the old parts of the city and form an
intricate maze wherein it is not difficult to miss one's way. Many of
the houses here are seven, eight, or nine storeys high. All the day's
washing--and every day is washing day--hangs out from the windows on
long bamboos, or flutters from a cord stretched across the confined
thoroughfares. Fowls, in their inquisitive endeavours to find food, try
to satiate an appetite which is never satisfied. They are all scraggy.
Dark courtyards at the bottom of these tall dwellings teem with
screaming children and scolding women who are engaged at the fountain
troughs with the washing. The ear-splitting cries of hawkers hasten
one's footsteps down the steep descents, and one dodges out of their way
only to lose oneself in vain attempts to leave the picturesque but
squalid quarters of old Genoa.
However fascinating these slums may be--and they can hold their own from
the painter's point of view with those in any other Mediterranean
port--it must be acknowledged that the palaces for which Genoa is justly
famous have hardly a rival. Historically the most interesting is the
Palazzo di S. Giorgio, which stands close to the quayside at the east
end of the Piazza Caricamento. It was erected in 1261 by Guglielmo
Boccanegra, Captain of the People, for his own residence. At his death
it was taken over as the government office for the registration of
public loans, or _compere_, and named the Palazzo della Compere. In 1407
the Banking Company which practically ruled commercial Genoa acquired it
as their headquarters, and its name was changed to that of the city's
patron saint. This bank was the oldest in the world. It originated after
the Genoese had driven the Venetians out of Constantinople, and so
crippled the trade of their great Adriatic rival that for a time they
were masters of nearly all the Eastern commerce that flowed westwards.
This increase in prosperity was to a great extent the cause of the
formation of a trading company, which accepted deposits and advanced
loans to others than its own members. Thus was founded a bank that
carried on its business successfully until the last Doge of Genoa was
unseated and the mushroom Republic of Liguria proclaimed. The bank's
property was then confiscated, and Genoa, governed by time-servers and
place-hunters, fell upon evil days.
The Palazzo has been much altered and restored, but retains some of the
original Genoese Gothic of Boccanegra's building. The Grand Hall on the
first floor contains many statues of the city's benefactors and
prominent men, and is an interesting epitome of their charities, which
are commemorated on tablets attached to each. Some of these statues are
seated, others are standing. The former are of men who purchased their
niche in this Temple of Fame by payment of one hundred thousand livres
to the state; while those who wished to be handed down to posterity at a
cheaper rate had to content themselves with effigies that for ever are
on two legs. The building is now the Customs House, and so once more
money passes through different hands within its walls.
There are no other streets in Italy which can boast such an array of
noble houses as the renamed Strada Nuova, now the Via Garibaldi, and the
Via Balbi. The Palazzo Rosso has a magnificent _sala_ that has a roof
decorated with the armorial bearings of the Brignole family and those
they intermarried with. The Municipality is now lodged in the Palazzo
Doria Tursi. It has a grand façade flanked by open arcades with gardens
on top, and was built for one of the Grimaldi by Rocco Lurago, a Como
architect. Christopher Columbus was born in Genoa, and a bust of him
stands in the great hall of the palace, the Sala della Giunta. In its
pedestal are some of his autograph letters to the Banco di S. Giorgio.
His family came from Piacenza, but at the time of his birth his father
was warden of the Porto dell' Olivella, one of the city gates. The
Palazzo Ducale, a huge building of mixed styles, was begun in the
thirteenth century but not finished until the sixteenth. The Palazzo
Durazzo has a grand vestibule and the finest staircase of all. The
Palazzo Doria, standing alone in a delightful garden which extends
towards the harbour, is beautified by a good _loggia_ with arcades. Many
are the palaces built by the great families of Genoa, the Spinola,
Pallavicini, Balbi, Fieschi, Cambiasco, and others, as well as those
already mentioned. They all contain large collections of pictures and
other treasures, and it can certainly be said that the old nobility have
left a hall-mark on their city. The earlier buildings all possessed
towers, and during the Guelph and Ghibelline feuds, when street
fighting was ever recurrent, these vantage positions were of immense
strategic value--it was so pleasant to put the opposing faction _hors de
combat_ by pouring boiling pitch and molten lead on to the heads below!
Street fighting became at length such a nuisance to the peaceable
inhabitants that the order went forth that all towers were to be
demolished, with one exception, the tower that Guglielmo Embrianco
attached to his house. This alone was spared. And it is due to the
veneration in which his name was held that it stands to-day the solitary
defensive relic of Genoa's family feuds. It will be noticed that some of
these palaces are faced, like the Cathedral, with bands of black and
white marble. This distinction was granted to the four noble houses of
Doria and Spinola, who were adherents of the Pope, and Fieschi and
Grimaldi, who took the Emperor's side in all wars.
The Cathedral is a good example of what may be termed Genoese Gothic. It
is dedicated to S. Lorenzo, and was consecrated by Pope Gelasius II. in
1118. The façade, separated into three unequal parts, is a good example
of thirteenth-century Gothic. The _piazza_ on to which it faces slopes
sharply downhill--all Genoa is up and down hill--and the Cathedral rises
well on its tier of steps. Bands of black and white form the exterior
wall of the whole building, and are effectively carried through the
recesses of the portals. The centre porch has twisted columns, which are
carried round the splay of the arch. The columns themselves alternate
with others that are circular. The bases and pedestals are covered
either with carving or inlaid chequer and lozenge patterns. The two
flanking porches are similar, and assist very greatly to increase the
pleasing effect of this somewhat elaborate treatment, which is
heightened by the two detached spiral columns on either side and those
that terminate the façade at each end. In the tympanum over the central
doorway is a figure of S. Lawrence lying nude on a gridiron. The fire
beneath is stoked and kept alive by bellows handled by those who
assisted at his martyrdom. Above is a figure of the Almighty surrounded
by an angel, a lion, a peacock, and a deer. The detached column at the
south-west angle of the façade, seen in the illustration, carries a
figure of the patron saint under a canopy. It rests on the back of a
lion; four smaller beasts of the same species encircle the base. The two
huge _couchant_ lions at either end of the steps are of much later date
than these. From the south-west angle a fine turreted tower rises
upwards from the square, and with its copper dome forms a great feature
of the Cathedral as one walks up the Strada Carlo Felice. This
street is narrow and full of traffic, so much so that it is with
difficulty one makes out the many mutilated tablets with Roman
inscriptions, built haphazard into the south wall of the Cathedral, and
the canopied mediæval tombs let in above.
[Illustration: FAÇADE OF THE CATHEDRAL, GENOA]
The interior of the building is disappointing. One expects to find more
space. A gallery at the west end, under which you find yourself directly
upon entering, forms a sort of atrium. It is supported by very massive
clustered columns which carry a good groined vault with heavy ribs. This
was originally the _cantoria_, or organ-loft. Nine small bays on either
side separate the nave from the aisles. The single columns of the arches
are of red and purple marble from the renowned quarries at Tortosa, in
Spain. At each corner of the black marble bases, and touching the
_torus_ of the column, the head of a bird or animal has been carved. The
arches of the bays are pointed. Above them is an open triforium formed
by rows of small stunted arches that are carried by single and clustered
columns in banded black and white. The clerestory is of small narrow
single lights. The transepts are Renaissance, and the choir a mixture of
styles.
The chapel of St. John the Baptist in the north aisle bears a
resemblance to that of "Il Santo" at Padua. Four slender carved pillars
support the entablature of good Renaissance design, on which are
exceptionally well arranged panels illustrating the saint's life.
Filippo Doria erected the canopy borne by porphyry columns which stands
over the altar. Under this, enclosed in an iron casket within a marble
ark, on which are sculptured reliefs, are the remains of St. John.
Genoa's fleet was homeward bound after one of the crusades, when,
through stress of weather, it took shelter in the port of Myrra, in
Lycia. Hearing that a monastery close by contained the sacred remains of
the saint, some of the bolder spirits of the fleet entered the church
attached, and, despite the protests of their co-religionists, carried
off in triumph all that remained of St. John. The relics were presented
to their own Cathedral of S. Lorenzo on arriving home. Here they have
rested ever since. No women are admitted into the chapel--a prohibition
imposed by Pope Innocent VIII. in remembrance of the guilt of Herodias.
The Treasury holds many things of value and inte
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