A Ride on Horseback to Florence Through France and Switzerland. Vol. 2 of 2

hapel of the Pazzi-San Lorenzo-Monument of Cosmo, Pater Patri?-Michael Angelo's Day and Night-Contradictory employments-His reply to a verse addressed to his statue-Cappella de' Principi-Santa Maria N

l by fire-The heavy rain-Savonarola executed-The Appennines-Birthplace of the Maréchale d'Ancre-Tre Maschere-Fog-Rain-Lojano-Crosses-Bologna-Grizzle

ines, and seen hence with her domes and old towers to best advantage. We sat a long time admiring on the stone steps which lead to the garden below; burning and cloudless, the day and the sky were Italian, and being a

noble also. He was young and very handsome. Riding through the streets some days after his promise made, he passed under the windows of the Donati mansion, at one of which stood its lady with her youthful heiress by her side, who was surpassingly lovely. The mother spoke to Buondelmonte reproachfully: "You have made an unworthy election," she said; "the hand of this maiden was destined for you." Whether his first choice had been merely one of interest, or proceeded from an attachment rather fancied than felt, I cannot say; but

The young man soon appeared, attired in white robes, and mounted on a superb courser caparisoned with white also. As he arrived near the statue's pedestal, they rushed upon him, and dragged him from his horse. Mosca Lamberti and Amidei forced him down into the dust a

ivate quarrel, as through their bloody feuds in after times, private intere

, Painting and Architecture. The monument which follows this is by Ricci, and dedicated to Dante's memory, though not raised above his corpse, which Ravenna refused to the ungrateful city. It is a stiff assemblage of colossal figures, the best being that of Poetry, leaning her head on the arm which rests on the cenotaph and dropping the wreath from her hand. Italy stands bolt upright folded in a blanket, and with a tower on her head, one arm stretched upward, the other holding a sceptre, resembling the pole of a French bed. Dante's figure surmounts the monument heavily and ungracefully, and seated in an arm-chair, looking down on the personages who weep for his loss. A contrast to this is the noble tomb of Victor Alfieri, the work of Canova. The medallion containing his likeness is placed on the sarcophagus, and over it stoops and weeps Italy with the grace of a goddess, and the sorrow of his love; it was erected at the expense of the Countess of Albany. Opposite is the white marble pulpit, whose compartments exhibit the sculptured story of St. Francis, by Benedetto da Maiano; the small figures below are those of Faith, Hope, Charity, Force and Justice, and it is difficult to see anything more beautiful. The next mausoleum is that to the memory of Nicholas Machiavelli, with its fine and perhaps unmerited epitaph, "Tantonomini nullum par eulogium, Machiavelli"

, on the design of Brunelleschi. Crossing this cloister, with its well and cabbage garden in the centre, I pushed open the door of a second like itself, similar even to the cabbage crop, but consecrated to the sole use of the friars; for above another door, which shuts in a staircase leading within the convent, was inscribed in large letters, "Silenzium;" so that fearing to disturb the invisible brethren, we went away, and to the church of San Lorenzo, less remarkable for its own beauty than the tombs of its sagrestia by Michael Angelo, and its Cappella de' Principi separated from

ht hand on entering is the tomb of Julian of Medicis, duke of Nemours, the warrior above seated in a niche, the celebrated figures of Day and Night couched on the monument. Opposite is the mausoleum of Lorenzo, duke of Urbino, himself in his niche likewise; a similar tomb below bearing the figures of Twilight and Aurora. The face of Twilight is unfinished. They were the nightly task

e, to sleep,

ow and while sh

ight and sens

ke me not! I

n "Pietre Dure," and with the perfection which belongs to the Florentine art; lapis lazuli, verd antique, porphyry, and mother of pearl, and oriental alabaster, with the jaspers of Cyprus and Sicily, for materials. Of the six sarcophagi, constructed in Egyptian granite and green jasper of Corsica, some bear pillows of red jasper, which the weight of the jewelled crowns they carry seems to have p

llories to expose the condemned prisoners of the Inquisition, when the members of its tribunal were Dominican friars. The church is divided into three aisles, whose arches diminish as they recede, giving it an appearance of extent it does not possess in reality. In

rass, which partly conceal it, an ancient tomb. The windows of the fine chapel, which, in 1566, received the name of Cappella degli Spagnuoli, look beneath the arches of the cloister on this desolate view. It was ceded to the Spaniards, then filling places at court, and occupied in commerce. The workmen, employed in placing ornaments for some festival, good-naturedly desired we w

, and accumulated filth, and a company of oxen, who were tied to the pillars, eating hay, stopped our further progress; and my curiosity being yet unsatisfied, and in search of the second cloister described by guide-books, we returned to and quitted the church once more, and from its entrance on the Place passed into a court, where a comfor

he street in which it stands, a gentleman accosted us, and, looking up, we saw the good-natured old priest again. "In all the years he had lived in Florence," he said, "he had never visited the manufactory, and as our questions concerning it had excited his curios

and flowers inserted in a slab of porphyry. The grapes were each one an amethyst; the currants cornelian; the corn flowers lapis lazuli. The workmen employed in filing the stones to the necessary size and form looked pale and weary over their work. At sixty years old they retire pensioned. The work which, though not the most beautiful, our friend the abbé considered most curious from its difficulty of execution, is the sarcophagus in porphyry, (destined for the Cappella dei Principi, and to be placed over the remains of the Gran Duchessa,) inasmuch as the hard substance has been wrought to as extraordinary perfection as if it were soft alabaster. Thirty men worked at this twelve hours a-day during five years. We parted with regret from the abbé: as we are to leave Florence

eated himself on a bench, but, arrived at it, I found that we were destined to a repose longer than might be desirable, for we were certainly in the private chapel of the monastery, and the monks (unconscious of company) had barred and double locked, silently, but securely, all manner of egress-this and the half dozen other doors which we tried in vain; succeeding only so far as to arrive in a closed corridor, and at a grating through whose bars we could contemplate a little desolate yard of the convent, into which nobody came. The churches of Florence are usually closed from one to three, but how long our imprisonment here

e Parisians to the Bois de Boulogne. It has long alleys of finer trees, and better gr

he view back to the city is, saving that from the Boboli gardens, the be

ken care of, but the stables confined and crowded. Fanny, who had been left alone longer than she appro

hich their carriage had been stopped by robbers who rifled it, held loaded muskets to their breasts, and tore from her neck the gold chain she wore. To-day, by a strange chance, there was seated next me a lady who, some years ago, before we either were married, I had often met in Paris ball-rooms, and now the

painted in oils and fresco by Vasari and other artists. It is a pity that this fine hall should be crooked, which it is so excessively as to injure its effect to the most careless eyes. Round it are fine groups and statues by John of Bologna and Bandinelli; among the former that by Michael Angelo, destined for the mausoleum of Pope Julius the Second, and left unfinished when the artist died; and among the last the statue of John of the Black Bands, the invincible father of Duke Cosmo, the same whose pedestal still remains in an angle of the place of San Lorenzo, which it was destined to occupy. I spare you a lengthened acco

he theological works of St. Thomas of Acquin were his habitual study, and one which he seldom quitted, save for poetical composition, a pastime of which he was passionately fond. A vision seen or fancied by him decided his vocation when two and twenty, though h

Though the Dominicans implored, and Lorenzo demanded, Savonarola refused this mark of condescension; he said that God, not Lorenzo, had elected him prior. At another period Lorenzo requested him, through the medium of some Florentine citizens, to forbear the announcement of coming misfortune to Florence, where such prediction ever created troubles and aroused the disaffected; but Savonarola, far from obeying, foretold on the contrary, that Lorenzo himself would shortly die. This prophecy was verified the 9th of April, 1492; and it is said that Lorenzo, feeling himself dying, chose the

r's excommunication, which however his nuncio, fearful of entering the town, posted without the walls at San Miniato. Savonarola despised his censure, declared its non-validity, and published his famous wo

he curse of God. During three days the young boys gathered their harvest of faded gala dresses and female ornaments, of cards, dice and musical instruments, and on the first day of the carnival, formed of them a pile in the shape of a pyramid before the Palazzo Vecchio. This ceremony completed, there being among the devoted objects many precious manuscripts and the works of Boccaccio, the children were conducted to the cathedral where they heard mass, and after their meal, being attired in white garments and crowned with olive, and bearing small red crosses in their hands, they sought the church once more, deposed there the money collected for the poor, and again forming in procession, arrived on the Piazza del Palazzo Vecchio, lisping Italian hymns; and when the chant was

was the will of Savonarola. The contest growing angry, an hour passed without ending it, and evening closing there fell a heavy rain, which put to flight the two champions and disappointed the multitude assembled there to be amused by their torture. The next day, however, Savonarola's enemies, who felt themselves protected by the Florentine government, took up arms and attacked the convent of San Marco, in which Savonarola and his two disciples were. The monks defended themselves stoutly, for the attack commenced during vespers, and not till dark did the assailants get possession of their persons and drag them to the public prisons. The government now took the affair into its own hands; and Savonarola, accused of uttering prophecies not

ecar

turn my back on. The Appennines appear to less advantage beneath the grey sky than when we crossed them in sunshine, and the Villa Borghese more sad in its desolate grandeur, and saddest of all looked the public cemetery, where

han Florence, and most interesting as the birthplace of the parvenue Leonora Galigai Maréchale d'Ancre, whose fate and fortunes ha

t to his own, which inhabited another stable, having made him postpone the care of ours. Among his favourites he showed me a horse from whose long white tail one lock had been severed, the Italian said in malice, by some person who had thus chosen to annoy him, and whom, could he have discovered, he would have punished with his knife. I assure you his look and gesture were sufficiently expressive to guard the hair of his horse's head henceforward. Having looked in on ours in their uneasy sleeping chamber, in and out of which the oxen s

advance, and we went on silent and shivering, with hardly energy to look back on the view, from this place so beautiful, of hills and plains behind, over which rain and mist were disputing empire. As we advanced, the mist thickened and the rain fell, and the waterproofs did not deserve the name they

ge, having first caught from its cradle her baby. Not seeing the man?uvre as D-- did, I gave her som

they die violently? were they murdered?" "Possibile," said my friend with perfect indifference, as he walked away. The weather cleared just so long, ere we reached our resting-place, as left time for our horses to dry. Drenched ourselves, we gladly took refuge in the clean quiet apartment of the Pellegrino, under which there is, thank heaven! no pump. I had remained up and writing a letter to Paris, when I was roused by a crack and loud exclamation from D--, who had gone to rest, but whose place of repose had sunk suddenly under him, there being not a single screw in the bedstead. While he once more rose and dressed himself, I set forth along corridors, and up one steep stair and down two: for as the new house has been tacked on to the old, the way i

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de, and were swallowed in it the next moment. It was not till we had descended some miles that the fog diminished, and then, after exciting many delusive hopes, showing through it the sun like a paler moon, yielding between its discoloured waves, peeps into the valley, and again floating like smoke before our faces, we fairly left it behind, is

Adelaide Kemble, who is also lodged at La Pace with her father, sang in her apartments till a crowd, collected beneath her windows, silenced her with its bravas. The Italians

1

age also. Modena is a miniature of a fine city, with a handsome ducal palace and pretty gardens, an Accademmia delle Belle Arti, and other public buildings. The palace is large and handsome; the favourite apartments of the duchess, who is very pious, communicating with the convent, and opening on a private corridor, by which she can reach the adjacent church unobserved. The tribune she occupies is so arranged as almost to conceal her presence, glazed and heavily barred like a convent grate. The duke's theatre (for he is extremely fond of theatricals) joins another part of the

. To which he replied, "Cent uno!" with a look of admirin

interior is more striking: flights of steps lead up to the elevated choir, others conduct to the half subterranean church below, where, among numberless light pillars with strange capitals, is the tomb of St. Geminiano, the patron saint of Mode

2

yed, and Fanny informed us of their delinquency by screaming her shrill neigh till she woke us, and D-- proceeded to restore her to her stall, and I to prepare for our journey. Passed again the dark old fortress of Rubiera, and fed our horses before reaching Reggio. We would gladly have found refreshment for ourselves, but it was out of

saw in the window a pamphlet, containing the lives of the five saints canonized in the month of May of this year, 1839, and the ceremonies which took place at Rome. As they

saints we

nso Maria

di Gironim

e della

da San Se

Giuliani

. It seems he was a wondrous child; and when he grew to man's estate, considering studies and fatigues, and maladies, to which he was subject, insufficient to mortify the flesh, he added thereto flagellation, wounds, chains, and hunger: "So that," the pamphlet says, "the Lord God, bei

dily, in divers places at the same time; of the power he had of curing the sick; of his multiplying victuals miraculously, and (last and greatest) on account of the speech of an infamous

d the nickname of Father Hundred Patches, Padre Cento Pezze. He wore beneath it an iron cross, garnished with sharp nails. At last, having suffered from a stroke of apoplexy, he passed five days in quiet contemplation before he died, at the close of which, fixing his eyes on the image s

aste of paradise (gusto di Paradiso), that it was good. Grown up, he passed, safe and sound and dry-footed, over the swollen river Menacch

hich he was about to be guilty; and at this time she enjoyed the familiarity of the child Jesus and of the Virgin, and several times it happened that the Holy Child visited to console her when she wept, and days there were in which the sainted mother consigned the blessed Jesus to her innocent arms, predicting her spiritual union with him. When she grew up, she was now inclosed in prison, now suffered under accusation of practising magic arts; but the only sorrow which cast her