Certosa di Firenze

“ Once at Fiesole, by whatever means you reach it, do not neglect to climb the monastery steps to the very top. It is a day of climbing, and a hundred or more steps either way mean nothing now. For here is a gentle little church with swift, silent monks in it, and a few flowers in bowls, and a religious picture by that strange Piero di Cosimo whose heart was with the gods in exile; and the view of Monte Ceceri, on the other side of Fiesole, seen through the cypresses here, which could not be better in disposition had Benozzo Gozzoli himself arranged them, is very striking and memorable. ”

“ Certosa is a large and beautiful place that tops a hill, about three miles outside of Florence, and I enjoyed going there, although it made me feel sad. I suppose my feeling was silly, but the order is an ancient one; they take in no new members, and all that are left to rattle around in the very big place are a half dozen tottering old men, whose hands shake as they unlock the heavy doors for you, and whose breath grows short as they travel the long stairs that take one up to the Capella Prima, which means the main chapel. ”

“ The collection of paintings, contained in twelve rooms, may be visited on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays from 10 till 2. Entrance by No. 7 Via Parione.
Next to the church S. Giovannino (see p. 264) , at No. 1 Via Cavour, is the Prefettura della Provincia di Firenze, formerly the Palazzo Riccardi, 300 feet long by 90 in height. This, the cradle of the Medicean family, was erected in 1431, after the design of Michelozzi, by Cosmo Pater Patriae, and continued to be the residence of the Medici till 1540, when it was abandoned for the Palazzo Vecchio. ”

“ It is certain, indeed, that there is no truth in the tradition which represents him as having designed, in 1473, the celebrated façade of the Certosa itself. His residence there appears to have been of eight years’ duration, from 1486, when he furnished the designs of the figures of the virgin, saints and apostles for the choir-stalls, executed in tarsia or inlaid wood work by Bartolommeo Pola, till 1494, when he returned to Milan. ”

“ Inn: Europa. A poor town, with marble works near the station outside of the walls, where baths are chiefly made. On the first large house, right hand of square, a tablet informs us that in it Michael Angelo Buonarrotti, on the 27th April 1518, “strinse nuovi contratti per la facciata di S. Lorenzo in Firenze.” S. Martino (13th cent.) has a fine wheel window, of the kind found in nearly all the churches in this neighbourhood. At the entrance opposite the Campanile (1380) is a font about the same period. In the interior of the church are handsome marble columns, confessionals, pulpit, and font. ”

“ La Bella Firenze, lying dream-enchanted among her amethyst hills, would draw her lover from the wilds of Siberia, for even one of those etherial evenings, when the stars blaze in a splendor over San Miniato, or one rose-crowned morning, when the golden sunshine gilds the tower of the old cathedral on Fiesole. ”

“ In 1255, as is recorded by an inscription, building was commenced. According to Vasari the first architect was Arnolfo di Lapo, but some ten years later the Dominican friars, Fra Sisto da Firenze and Fra Ristoro da Campo, who together built the church of Sta. Maria Novella, were called in. Whether the palace was ever inhabited by the Captain of the People, or when it was finished, is not known, but in 1261 Guido Novello, the Podestà who ruled the city in the name of King Manfred, was living in it, and named the street Ghibellina, after his party. By law the Podestà had to be a “foreigner,” i. ”

“ The beautiful court and stairway, surrounded by statues and armorial bearings, the ascent guarded by the symbolical lion of Florence and leading to an open loggia, is the work of Benci di Cione and Neri di Fioraventi, 1333-1345. The palace is now the National Museum of Sculpture and kindred arts and crafts. Keeping to the left, round the court itself, we see a marble St. Luke by Niccolò di Piero Lamberti, of the end of the fourteenth century, from the niche of the Judges and Notaries at Or San Michele; a magnificent sixteenth century portalantern in beaten iron ”

“ It is when seen from a distance that the full worth and power of the great Cathedral force themselves upon the beholder. Looking down upon Florence from one of the neighboring heights, the beautiful city seems to lie gathered under the shelter of its mighty Duomo. ”

“ It is six hundred years old and perhaps was designed by Giotto himself.
The emptiness of the Duomo is another of its charms. Nothing is allowed to impair the vista as you stand by the western entrance: the floor has no chairs; the great columns rise from it in the gloom as if they, too, were rooted. The walls, too, are bare, save for a few tablets.
The history of the building is briefly this. The first cathedral of Florence was the Baptistery, and S. John the Baptist is still the patron saint of the city. ”

“ I have looked at the wonderful Duomo. This cathedral! After all, the elaborate grace of the Pisan cathedral is one thing, and the massive grandeur of this of Florence is another and better thing; it struck me with a sense of the sublime in architecture. At Pisa we say, 'How beautiful!' here we say nothing; it is enough if we can breathe. The mountainous marble masses overcome as we look up—we feel the weight of them on the soul. ”

“ Duomo and campanile make as fair a couple as ever builders brought together: the immense comfortable church so solidly set upon the earth, and at its side this delicate, slender marble creature, all gaiety and lightness, which as surely springs from roots within the earth. For one cannot be long in Florence, looking at this tower every day and many times a day, both from near and far, without being perfectly certain that it grows—and from a bulb, I think—and was never really built at all, whatever the records may aver. ”

“ He has left an interesting chronicle of contemporary events in Florence. The magnificent palace at the corner of the Piazza S. Spirito was let in 1568 by Rinieri’s son for two years to Don Garcia di Toledo, brother of Eleonora, wife of Cosimo I. Giovanni, last of the Dei family, died in 1683, and left his patrimony to the Buonomini di S. Martino, a confraternity which still exists and does much good among the poor who are ashamed to beg. They sold the palace the following year to Donato Guadagni. ”

“ But in a church to which the poor carry their troubles, with a dim light and a little incense, it is perfect, far beyond painting in its tenderness and symbolic value. I speak of course of the Madonnas and altar-pieces. When the della Robbias worked for the open air—as in the façade of the Children's Hospital, or at the Certosa, or in the Loggia di San Paolo, opposite S. Maria Novella, where one may see the beautiful meeting of S. Francis and S. Dominic, by Andrea—they seem, in Italy, to have fitness enough ”

“ The Madonna and Child with the Angels, watching over the young Cardinal's repose, are especially beautiful. The Virtues on the ceiling are by Luca della Robbia, and the Annunciation opposite the tomb by Alessio Baldovinetti. The Gothic sacristy was built for one of the great Alberti family, Benedetto di Nerozzo, in 1387, and decorated shortly after with a splendid series of frescoes by Spinello Aretino, setting forth the life of St. ”

“ These illustrious visitors were received with honours by the magistrates of Florence: a palace was assigned for their abode, and several nobles were commissioned to shew them all that was curious in the city. Florence was then one of the finest towns in Italy; yet certainly its beauty must have been far inferior to that which it boasts at present. Its chief ornaments were palaces of massy stone, surmounted by high towers, each able to sustain a siege: some specimens of this architecture, the Palazzo Strozzi, and the Palazzo Pitti, now a ducal residence, exist to this day. ”

“ The truth is, we are all well tired of short journeys, and look forward with pleasure to a whole month of Zelphine's kind of travelling, living in Florence and making half-day trips to Fiesole, La Certosa, and some of the lovely villas on the hillsides near by.
We reached Florence last night so late that the long twilight had quite faded, and darkness veiled the charms of this most beautiful city. As we drove along the Lung' Arno, its lights revealed glimpses here and there of the shining river and picturesque bridges, with a line of dark mountains rising beyond and above them. ”

“ He, too, became famous in Venice, as did the two brothers Cristoforo and Antonio Mantegazza, who had just been trained under Jacopo da Tradate at Milan. Indeed, the network of this marvellous company of sculptor-builders is at this epoch interwoven in a most complicated manner between Milan, Certosa, Como, Monza, and Venice.
The façade of the Certosa forms precisely the same discord with the body of the building that the façade of Milan does, but here the Renaissance face is so rich and gorgeous that one almost forgives the discord. ”

“ A new prophet had arisen, and, from the pulpits of San Marco and Santa Maria del Fiore, the stern Dominican, Fra Girolamo Savonarola, denounced the corruption of the day and announced that speedy judgment was at hand; the Church should be chastised, and that speedily, and renovation should follow. Prodigies were seen. The lions tore and rent each other in their cages; lightning struck the cupola of the Duomo on the side towards the Medicean palace; while in his villa at Careggi the Magnifico lay dying, watched over by his sister Bianca and the poet Poliziano. ”

“ As the front of so beautiful and wonderful a church it may be inadequate, but as a structure of black and white marble it will do. To my mind nothing satisfactory can now be done in this medium, which, unless it is centuries old, is always harsh and cuts the sky like a knife, instead of resting against it as architecture should. But when it is old, as at S. Miniato, it is right.
S. Croce is the Westminster Abbey of Florence. Michelangelo lies here, Machiavelli lies here, Galileo lies here; and here Giotto painted, Donatello carved, and Brunelleschi planned. ”

“ He is the Emperor John Paleologus who came to Florence to attend the Council, and round him are graceful, lithe, young pages on foot, while others follow on horseback crowned with wreaths of pink roses. The landscape is rocky and broken, winding roads lead up to fortified hill-towns and castles, and rivers rush down to the plain. A window has been cut in this wall, but without doing the irreparable damage committed by the Marchese Francesco Riccardi who, in order to widen the staircase leading from the courtyard up to the first floor, cut a corner out of the chapel. ”

“ A book is to me like a hat or coat—a very uncomfortable thing until the newness has been worn off.
It is in the churches of Florence that my enthusiasm reaches its meridian. This solemn cathedral, with its richly dight windows,—whose warm hues must have been stolen from the palette of Titian or Tintoretto,—makes me forget all earthly hopes and sorrows; and the majestic Santa Maria Novella and San Lorenzo, with their peaceful cloisters and treasures of literature and art, appeal strongly to my religious sensibilities, while they completely satisfy my taste. ”

“ Inside is a very pretty loggia and the rooms are well-proportioned. It is sad to see one of the most exquisite buildings in Florence falling to ruin.
Opposite the palace, on the Piazza di Sta. Trinita, stands the column described by Evelyn in his Diary as being “of ophite, upon which is a statue of Justice, with her balance and sword, out of porphyry, and the more remarkable for being the first which had been carved out of that hard material, and brought to perfection, after the art had been utterly lost ”

“ Within the palace a large room, with a remarkably fine ceiling by Giuliano da San Gallo, is decorated with a series of frescoes from Roman history intended to be typical of events in the lives of Cosimo the Elder and Lorenzo the Magnificent. Vasari says that, for a villa, this is la più bella sala del mondo. The frescoes, ordered by Pope Leo X. and the Cardinal Giulio, under the direction of Ottaviano dei Medici, were begun by Andrea dei Sarto, Francia Bigio and Jacopo da Pontormo, left unfinished for more than fifty years, and then completed by Alessandro Allori for the Grand Duke Francesco. ”

“ The Certosa is magnificently kept, and in order to make it even more “smart,” the old pavement has been replaced by a very bright mosaic one, which reflects the church like glass. But of all, the choir is the most magnificent, the tabernacle and altar-screen being sumptuous sixteenth century Renaissance work, and on either side of the altar the walls are decorated with rich sculpture.
In the transepts are two monuments, viz., those of Gian-Galeazzo Visconti, the founder of the church, and of Ludovico Moro and his wife, Beatrice d’Este. ”

“ There is the monument erected to Galileo which represents the earth turning round the sun with the emphatic words: Eppur si muove. Here too repose the ashes of Machiavelli and Michel Angelo. This church is in fact the Westminster Abbey of Florence.
To go from the Piazza del gran Duca to the Piazza del Duomo, where stands the Cathedral, you have only to pass thro' a long narrow street or rather alley (for it is impervious to carriages) with shops on each side and always filled with people going to or returning from the Duomo. This Cathedral is of immense size. ”