Orvieto

“ We came to Orvieto by rail and scaled her precipice on the funicular, which connects the station down on the plain with the city on the rock above. If we had come by road, only a toilsome climb of several [319] miles would have brought us to the grim Porta Maggiore, where Boniface VIII., in his twofold tiara, keeps watch from his niche above the gateway.
Does any city frown so fiercely on the traveller as Orvieto? The arch is gloomy and the road within is dark and steep. ”

“ Our way lay through the snow-covered hills and their leafless forest, and long after we had left Orvieto behind again and again a rise in the road would bring it full in sight on its base of tufa, girt by its walls, the Gothic lines of the cathedral sharp against the clear, brightening sky. ”

“ Finished as it is, the façade of Orvieto presents a wilderness of beauties. Its pure white marble has been mellowed by time to a rich golden hue, in which are set mosaics shining like gems or pictures of enamel. A statue stands on every pinnacle; each pillar has a different design; round some of them are woven wreaths of vine and ivy; acanthus leaves curl over the capitals, making nests for singing birds or Cupids; the doorways are a labyrinth of intricate designs, in which the utmost elegance of form is made more beautiful by incrustations of precious agates and Alexandrine glasswork. ”

“ We saw it first at sunset, when its exquisite colors were intensified, and glowed in harmony with the delicate rose and rich golden glory of the sky. With its vast mosaic front and exquisite Gothic arches and spires, the Cathedral of Orvieto is the central point of shining light in the old gray-brown town which it crowns. This evening it was like a jewel with a thousand facets gleaming in the sunset light, and, as many travellers have asserted, its immense rose-window above the cathedral portal is in itself worth a journey to Orvieto. ”

“ Mountains of the most graceful forms girdle in this paradise, and, from the height whence we first gaze upon it, endless distances are seen, blue and roseate and snowy, melting into infinity of space; while, from the valley itself, rises, island-like, a mass of orange-coloured rock, crowned with old walls and houses and churches, from the centre of which is uplifted a vast cathedral, with delicate spray-like pinnacles, and a golden and jewelled front,—and this is Orvieto. ”

“ For not even the shrill music of Luca Signorelli's angels, hovering above the gloomy fortresses of Orvieto with their hair streaming in the breeze of the dawn, can raise her up to life. She is a city of the dead—shrivelled and dark-browed, standing high over the plain on an island of volcanic rock, 'dark-stained with hue ferruginous,' like Malebolge within the depths of hell. ”

“ Under the darkness of the clouds, soaring high as a glorious vision above the miserable houses—a peacock in a hen-coop, a miracle of marbles and mosaics—the Duomo of Orvieto!... No one who has ever seen the building can forget it, for it is like a great surprise; it startles and astounds one in the midst of the decay around it. Here, if anywhere in Umbria, the power of the Pope or of the Church was sealed on the rebellious souls of its inhabitants ”

“ It is so much larger than Orvieto, and brighter, and yet it is a hill town with streets that tumble into one another, and picturesque arches, and though it hasn't an Orvieto Cathedral, it has more beautiful churches than one expects to find in a place of its size. ”

“ But be grateful that you do not have to fight your way up the mountain. If d'Ucello were to choose to resist, your [148] army would be months taking Orvieto. Let us be glad the podesta was sensible and surrendered. Orvieto is a beautiful city. Its people will be eager to show their gratitude to a conqueror gracious to them. The ease with which you win their hearts will in turn impress your own Sienese people with your statesmanship. ”

“ It is a strange coincidence, as though some deep emotion had moved these Tuscans to expression, that in Orvieto we see not only the beginnings of realism in sculpture but the masterpiece of the first great painter of the Quattrocento, who gave life to the human form in fresco. Every one knows that Vasari claims for his kinsman, Luca of Cortona, the honour of having inspired the Last Judgement of Michelangelo. ”

“ Statues of gigantic size adorn the nave. Of these the most beautiful are the work of Ippolito Scalza, an artist whom Orvieto claims with pride as one of her own sons. The long line of saints and apostles whom they represent, conduct us to the high altar surrounded by its shadowy frescoes, and gleaming with the work of carvers in marble and bronze and precious metals. But our steps are drawn towards the chapel of the south transept, where now a golden light from the autumnal sunset falls across a crowd of worshippers. From far and near the poor people are gathered. Most of them are women. ”

“ Siena or Florence, Pisa or Lucca, any of the flowery cities of Tuscany would have been its proper setting. It is too gay for Umbria, whose hills are bathed in the serene, ineffable calm of a mystic holiness, who, remembering her many saints, still keeps the low estate of a handmaiden of the Lord. It is like a golden iris plucked from some Tuscan garden, and transplanted upon the bosom of this sombre precipice of tufa upheaved by Nature in primeval struggles. For chance and the Papacy have grafted the most exotic bloom of Italian Gothic architecture upon the rock of Orvieto. ”

“ Banners with fringes of gold and silver swung at the tops of poles. Seeking protection from the mid-August heat, men walked horses in the shade of the woods.
Beyond the treetops rose a distant pedestal of grayish-yellow rock crowned by a city. An astonishing sight, Orvieto.
"The Holy Father will be meeting us at the cathedral and will say a special mass of thanksgiving for the safe arrival of the ambassadors," said de Verceuil. "I want the entry of the Tartars into Orvieto to impress both the Tartars themselves and the pope and his courtiers." [119]
"Monsters!" ”

“ Yet here perhaps we have the clue to the meaning of his frescoes in the Cathedral of Orvieto. For he had loved exceedingly, and seen his loved one lowered to the unresponsive earth. Do not we too know what it is, in spite of all our creeds and our philosophies, to weep for the gentle voice and the dear brave eyes and the comforting hand of those others whom we shall never meet again except in dreams? And it is not only the spirit that we cry for, but the body. ”

“ The following afternoon the sky was heavily overcast, but the rain had stopped. From the northwest tower of the Palazzo Baglioni, Simon could see that Perugia was a much bigger city than Orvieto. Like most Italian cities, it was built on a hilltop. But while Orvieto was flat on top of its great rock, Perugia stood on sloping ground, and the town had several levels.
"Simon!"
Simon turned to see Friar Mathieu's white head emerge from the trapdoor opening to the tower roof. As he hurried over to give the old man a hand up, his heartbeat speeded up. The wait for news must be at an end. ”

“ John of Pisa not only adopts Gothic tracery, but first allows himself enthusiastic use of rampant vegetation;—and here, in the facade of Orvieto, you have not only perfect Gothic in the sentiment of Scripture history, but such luxurious ivy ornamentation as you cannot afterwards match for two hundred years. ”

“ In Orvieto there are two young men also of that same profession, one a painter called Cesare del Nebbia, and the other a sculptor, both well on the way to bringing it about that their city, which up to the present has always invited foreign masters to adorn her, will no longer be obliged, if they follow up the beginnings that they have made, to seek other masters. ”

“ We made our discoveries, saw much, learned not a little philosophy. And, most of all, we caught a glimpse of the heart of Umbria—Umbria of the saints. We watched the gathering of the golden maize in the plain below Assisi while [viii] we walked with St. Francis among the vines and olives; we saw the vintage being brought home with song and thanksgiving at Orvieto and Viterbo. We dwelt among beautiful simple-hearted men and women, living in little farms far from the toil of the modern world, who still worship God in the gladness of their hearts and the spirit of the ardent thirteenth century ”

“ Not the endless flatness and fruitfulness of Lombardy, where the mists steam up in the evening golden round the great misty golden descending sun-ball, and the buildings flush like the cheeks of Correggio's joy-drunken seraphs, and the thin, clear outline of the rows of poplars looks against the sky like the outshaken golden hair combed into minute filaments of one of Lionardo's women. Nor the dreary wastes of sere oakwoods and livid sand-hills of Orvieto; nor the sea of lush vegetation gilded by the sun, merging into the vaporous damp blue sky of the plain of Lucca. ”

“ Who shall restore vigour to these dead bones? we cry. If Italy is to live again, she must quit her ruined palace towers to build fresh dwellings elsewhere. Filth, lust, rapacity, treason, godlessness, and violence have made their habitation here; ghosts haunt these ruins; these streets still smell of blood and echo to the cries of injured innocence; life cannot be pure, or calm, or healthy, where this curse has settled.
Occupied with such reflections, we reach the streets of Orvieto. They are not very different from those of most Italian villages, except that there is little gaiety about them. ”

“ In this respect they come rather under the head of realistic than of decorative art.
Lorenzo Maitani was a genuine leader of his guild of craftsmen, and superintended the large body of architects Page 228 who worked at Orvieto, stone masons, mosaicists, bronze founders, painters, and minor workmen. He lived until 1330, and practically devoted his life to Orvieto. It is uncertain whether any of the Pisani were employed in any capacity, although for a time it was popularly supposed that the four piers on the façade were their work. ”

“ We must send Lorenzo to Siena with enough of our precious stones to raise an army big enough to overwhelm the papal soldiery and the Orvieto militia. It may take time to persuade the Sienese to act. It will take more time to muster an army and march on Orvieto. We must begin as quickly as we can. With the pope in Ghibellino hands, with the Ghibellini in a position to sway the outcome of the next papal election, we may yet keep the French out of Italy. ”

“ It is impossible to name a single architect for any of these great buildings; they were all the united work of a self-governed guild.
During the centuries when the Duomo of Siena rose into beauty, her sister of Orvieto also grew under the hands of the same brotherhood.
Lorenzo Maitani, having been trained by his master, Giovanni di Pisa, at Siena, was called to Orvieto in 1310. His family lasted long in the guild, and won much fame. His father Vitale was a master sculptor who had worked under Niccolò and Giovanni. ”

“ And as Hubert of Lucca was the master of the new buildings at Florence, I have chosen the Cyclopean horizontal from his native city of Lucca; and as our Nicholas and John brought their new Gothic style into practice at Orvieto, I have chosen the Cyclopean polygonal from their adopted city of Orvieto.
Both these examples of architecture are early thirteenth-century work, the beginnings of its new and Christian style, but beginnings with which Nicholas and John had nothing to do; they were part of the national work going on round them. ”

“ The names of many others may be collected from books; as an Andrea, and a Bartolommeo, both of Orvieto, and a Mariotto da Viterbo, and others who worked at Orvieto from 1405 to 1457; and some who painted in Rome itself, a Giovenale and a Salli di Celano, and others now forgotten. But without pausing on these, we will advert to the artists of Piceno, of the State of Urbino, and the remaining parts of Umbria: where we shall meet with the traces of schools which remained for many years. ”

“ Yes, Signorelli's fresco in Orvieto Cathedral is indeed a resurrection, the resurrection of human beauty after the long death-slumber of the Middle Ages. And the artist would seem to have been dimly conscious of the great allegory he was painting. Here and there are strewn skulls; skeletons stand leering by, as if in remembrance of the ghastly past, and as a token of former death; but magnificent youths are breaking through the crust of the earth, emerging, taking shape and flesh ”

“ Besides this, they were sent by the same man to S. Maria in Orvieto, where, for its façade, they made many figures in marble which were passing good for those times. But among others who assisted Giovanni in the work of the Vescovado in Arezzo, Agostino and Agnolo, sculptors and architects of Siena, surpassed in time all the others, as will be told in the proper place. But returning to Giovanni; having departed from Orvieto, he came to Florence, in order to see the fabric of S. Maria del Fiore that Arnolfo was making, and likewise to see Giotto, of whom he had heard great things spoken abroad ”

“ The bronze-coloured body of the god is magnificently modelled, with a solidity unequalled even in the Orvieto frescoes. The style of Pollaiuolo is noticeable, in the attitude of the youth lying at his feet, particularly in the treatment of the legs. The figure of Echo is repeated later in "The Crowning of the Elect," in Orvieto, though there it has lost much of the idyllic charm of this wood-nymph. The grouping of the figures is perhaps less happy than usual, but this time the bad values of distance are no doubt due to the rough treatment the painting has undergone. ”