Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa

o him she knows she has not much to offer, just a few things passing strange or beautiful, that are spread out for him as at a fair, on the grass of a meado

tter, and moves to the song of the sea: still she keeps her old ways about her, the life of to-day has not troubled her at all. In her palaces the great mirrors are still filled with the ghosts

rebuilt of stone after the great victory off the coast of Sicily, and finished in 1046 [47] . This bridge, called the Ponte Vecchio, took ten years to build, and any doubt we might have as to whether it was of wood or stone is set at rest by Tronci, [48] who tells us that in 1382, "Pietro Gambacorta, together with the Elders and the Consiglio dei Cittadini, determined to rebuild in stone the bridge of wood which passed over Arno from the mouth of the Strada del Borgo to that of S. Egidio, for the greater ornament of the city, chiefly because there were many s

en the palaces of marble, their wrinkled image reflected in the stream, till it is lost in the green fields on its way to the sea; while on the other side, looking eastward, on either side the river are the palaces of Byron and Shelley, just before the hideous iron bridge, where Arno turns suddenly into the city from the plain and the hills. To the south of th

. It came to pass as it pleased God, that when he was riding to the chase in the country of Bonsollazzo, he lost sight of all his followers in a wood, and came out, as he supposed, at a workshop where iron was wont to be wrought. Here he found men black and deformed, who in place of iron seemed to be tormenting men with fire and with hammer, and he asked them what this might be: and they answered and said that these were damned souls, and that to similar pains was condemned the soul of the Marquis Hugh by reason of his worldly life, unless he should repent. With great fear he commended himself to the Virgin Mary, and when the vision was ended he remained so pricked in spirit, that after his return to Florence he sold all his patrimony in Germany and commanded that seven monasteries should be founded. The first was the Badia of Florence, to the honour of St. Mary; the second, that of Bonsollazzo, where he beheld the vision; the third was founded at Arezzo, the fourth at Poggibo

he sun on those buildings, that seem to be made of old ivory intricately carved and infinitely noble. Standing there as though left stranded upon some shore that life has long

dorn the church. In 1065 we read that the Pope received under his protection the Chapter and Canons of Pisa. The Cathedral was finished in about thirty years, and was consecrated by Pope Gelasius II in 1118. The architects, two dim names still to be read on the fa?ade ever kissed by the setting sun, were Rainaldus and Busketus. They built in that Pisan style which, as some of us may think, was never equalled till Bramante and his disciples dreamed of St. Peter's and built the little church at Todi, and S. Pietro in Montorio. However this may be, the Duomo of Pisa, the first modern cathedral of Italy, was to be the pattern of many a church built later in the contado, and even in Lucca and Pistoja and the country round about. It was a style

eautiful part of the church. It consists of seven round arches; in the centre and in each alternate arch is a door of bronze made by Giovanni da Bologna in 1602. Above these arches is the first tier of columns, eighteen in number, of various coloured marbles, supporting the round arches of the first storey; above, the roof of the aisles slopes gradually inwards, and is sup

the end of the fifteenth century, and the altar, a dreadful over-decorated work, of the year 1825. Matteo Civitali of Lucca made the wooden lectern behind the high altar, and Giovanni da Bologna forged the crucifix, while Andrea del Sarto, not at his best, painted the Saints Margaret and Catherine, Peter and John, to the right and left of the altar. The capital of the porphyry column here is by Stagio Stagi of Pietrasanta, while the porphyry vase is a prize from a crusade. The mosaics in the apsis are much restored, but they are the only known work of Cimabue, [56] and are consequentl

alvi, but the work went very slowly forward. In 1164, out of 34,000 families in Pisa subject to taxes, each gave a gold sequin for the continuation of the work, bu

ithhold my hand from desecrating further that which is still so lovely. Only, if you would hear the heavenly choirs before death has his triumph over you, go by night

ious marbles, in which every Pisan child has been christened since

a from Apulia, possibly after many wanderings, in about 1250, his childhood had been passed not among the Tuscan hills, but in Southern Italy among the relics of the Roman world. It is not any sudden revelation of Roman splendour he receives in the Campo Santo of Pisa, but just a reminder, as it were, of the things of his childhood, the broken statues of Rome that littered the country of his birth. Thus in a moment this Southerner transforms the rude art of his time here in Tuscany, the work of Bonannus, for inst

in support the steps. A "trefoil arch" connects the six chief pillars, on each of which stands a statue of a Virtue. It is here that we came for the first time upon a figure not of the Christian world, for Fortitude is represented as Hercules with a lion's cub on his shoulder. In the spandrels of the trefo

eight. It is antiquity flowering again in a Christian soil, with a certain new radiance and s

rved them thus in high relief with the very splendour of old Rome in every line. And in the Crucifixion you see Christ really for the first time as a God reigning from the cross; while Madonna, fallen at last, is not the weeping Mary of the Christians, but the mother of the Gracchi who has lost her elder son. In the Last Judgment it is a splendid God you see among a crowd of men with heads like the busts in a Roman gallery, with all the aloofness and dignity of t

many spoils of marbles brought by the armaments of Pisa to this city." Among these ancient sarcophagi there is one where you may find the Chase of Meleager and the Calydonian boar; this was placed by the Pisans in the fa?ade of the Duomo opposite S. Rocco, and was used as a tomb for the Contessa Beatrice, th

o of the Triumph of Death that one stays longest, trying to understand the dainty treatment of so horrible a subject. Those fair ladies riding on horseback with so brave a show of cavaliers, even they too must come at last to be just dust, is it, or like that swollen body, which seems to taint even the summer sunshine, lying there by the wayside, and come upon so unexpectedly? What love-song was that troubadour, fluttering with ribbons, singing to that little company under the orange-trees, cavaliers and

in the world do frescoes like these stain the walls out of doors amid a litter of antique statues, graves, and flowers over the heroic or holy dead? Here you may see life at its sanest and most splendid moments. In the long hot days of the vintage, for instance, when the young men tread the wine-press, the girls bear the grapes in great baskets, and boy and girl together pluck the purple fruit. Call it, if you will, the Drunkenness of Noah, you will forget the subject altogether in your delight in the sun and the joy of the vintage itself, where the girls dance among the vines under the burden of the grapes, and the little children play with the dogs, and the goodman tastes the wine. Or again, in the fresco of the Tower of Babel: think if you can of all the mere horror of the c

stamped with a relief of the Annunciation, for it used to ring the Ave. I think there can be no reasonable doubt that the lean of the Tower is due to some terrible accident which befell it after the third gallery had been built, for the fourth gallery, added in 1204 by Benenabo, begins to rectify the sinking; the rest, built in 1260, continues to throw the weight from the lower to the higher side. As we know, the whole Piazza was a marsh, and just as the foundations of the Tower of S. Niccolò have given a little, so these sank much earlier, offering an unique opportunity to a

is a crucifix by Giunta Pisano which used to hang in the kitchen of the Convent of S. Anna, [64] not far away, where Emilia Viviani was "incarcerated," as Shelley says. Close by are the few remains of the Baths of Hadrian. At the corner we pass into Via S. Anna, and then, taking the first turning to the left, we come into the great Piazza di S. Caterina, before the church of that name. Built in the thirteenth century, it has a fine Pisan fa?ade, but the church is now closed and the convent has become

y of his portraits. In the old Chapter-house are some fragments of the pulpit from the Duomo by Giovanni Pisano, destroyed in the fire of 1595. Here we may see very easily the difference between father and son. It is no longer the influence of the antique that gives life to Italian sculpture, but certainly French work, something of that passionate r

of stained parchments, is the precious remnant of the Cintola del Duomo, that girdle of Maria Assunta which used to be bound round the Duomo. [66] It took some three hundred yards of the fabric, crusted with precious stones, painted with miniatures, sewn with g

cifixes by Giunta Pisano, and a little marvellous portrait o

s though fainting with the sweetness of her weeping, leans a little, her sleepy, languorous eyes drooping under her heavy hair, which a jewelled ribbon hardly holds up. Something in this "primitive" art has been lost when we come to Angelico, some almost morbid loveliness that you may find even yet in the air about Perugia a

the doorway of a contadino's house the targone [or shield] with which his sires played at Ponte." [69] The city and countryside being thus divided into two camps, as it were, each chose an army, that was divided into six squadre of from thirty to sixty soldati. The squadre of the north were, Santa Maria with a banner of blue and white; San Michele, whose colours were white and red; the Calci, white and green and gold; Calcesana, yellow and black; the Mattaccini, white, blue, and peach-blossom; the

trial match, in which the players were chosen for the Battaglia generale, which took place on some later date agreed u

ing, the city was illuminated. The great procession (the squadre in each camp, in the order in which I have named them) took place on the day of battle, each army keeping to its

e protected with gaiters, while round the neck a quilted collar was tied to save the collar bone. The only weapon allowed was the targone, a shield of wood curved at the top, and almost but not quite pointed at the foot. At the back of this were two handles, which were gripped by both hands, and the blow delivered with the small

a scarlet uniform with white facings, the two southerners a green uniform with white facings. Two other comandanti in each army stood on the ground. The two first were unarmed

dle of the bridge. This was lowered across the bridge to divide the two armies; and at the close of the fig

was alight with bonfires, the houses were decorated, everyone was in the streets; while south of Arno the city was in darkn

and drummers; and then the triumphal chariot, drawn by four or six horses richly draped and adorned with emblems and mottoes. It was accompanied and escorted by knights and gentlemen on horseback. The noble ladies of the city followed in their carriages, and behind them thronged an infinite people (infinito popolo) scattering

t, the former also perish with them. The Giuoco del Ponte was a relic of popular chivalry, one of the innumerable knightly games which adorned the simple, artistic, warlike life of the hu

full of beauty. How quiet now is this old city that once rang with the shouts of the victors home from some sea fight, or returned from the Giuoco. Only, as you pass along Via S. Francesco and turn into Piazza di S. Paolo, the children gather about you, reminding you that in Italy even th

ed as a charnel house, the guide-book tells you, but maybe it is not any memory of the unremembered and countless dead that has stirred in your heart, but some stranger impulse urging you to a dislike of the darkness, that dim mysterious light that is part of the north and has nothing to do with Italy. How full of twilight it is, yet once in this place a temple to Apollo stood, full of the sun, almost within sound of the sea, when, we know not how, [74] the Pisans received

an old man crept toward me; he seemed as old as the church itself. "The Signore would see the church," he asked; "who can the Signore wish for better than myself

colossal Christ, His feet nailed separately to the cross, His body tortured and emaciated, a hideous mask of death;-here in the temple of Apollo. "It is here," said he, smiling, "that Paganism and Christianity were married; and in the temple lie the dead, and in the church the living pray, as you see, Signore, beside these old pillars that were not b

on the Lung' Arno, in a world neither Pag

elmo, that disciple of Niccolò Pisano. Fra Guglielmo died in the convent of S. Caterina, for he had been fifty-seven years in the Dominican Order. Tronci tells us that, being one day in Bologna, where he had gone with Niccolò his master to make a tomb for S. Domenico, when the old tomb was opened he secretly took a bone and hid it,

re the pillars. A certain Buono is said to have built a church here in 990; but little, however, now remaining can be

nstance, before a house in a street on the left, Via del Monte, following which we come into the m

opposite this is a palace under which the road passes, built to the shape of the Piazza; it marks the spot where the Tower of Hunger once stood, where the eagles of the Republic were housed, and where Conte

f the Mediterranean, to redeem their captives, and to convert these Moors to Christianity; nor were they wanting in war, for they fought at Lepanto. Cosimo placed the Order under the protection of St. Stephen, because he had gained his greatest victory on that saint's day. The Knights seem to h

site the Palazzo Conventuale, and pass into Via S. Sisto, we come to the church of that saint, where also the Grand Council used to meet. It was founded to commemorate the great victories that came to Pisa on that day. Those antique columns are the spoil of war, as Tronci tells us. [79] Returning to the Piazza, and leaving it by Via S. Frediano, we soon come to the church of that saint, with its lovely and spacious nave and antique columns. A little farther on is the University, La Sapienza, founded by Conte Fazio della Gherardesca in 1338. In that year Conte Fazio enlarged the Piazza degli Anziani, so that la nobilità should be able to walk there more readily; and to

n part of Pisa, S. Paolo a Ripa d'Arno is abandoned by the riverside on the verge of the country, for the fields are at its threshold. And indeed, this desolate church is really older than the Duomo, for, as some say, it served as the Great Church of Pisa while the Cathedral was building. Founded, as the Pisans assert, by Charlem

ost all that is left of the great arsenal built in 1200. And then you will not pass without entering, it may b

of the city named after her who gave the alarm nearly a thousand years ago when the Saracen sails hove in sight.-Ah, do not be in a hurry to leave Pisa for any other city. Let us think of old things for a little, and be quiet.

TNO

, Rer. Ital. Scrip): "Fecerunt bellum Pisani cum Lucensibus in Aqua longa

Pisa fuit firmata de tota Sardinia a R

ali Pisani, Livo

Ibid.

d in this year S. Martino the Duomo of Lucca. Ad ann. 111

ty was unwalled (p. 38). But even in the eleventh century Pisa was a walled city; the first walls included only the Quartiere di Mezzo; and in those days the city proper, the walled part, was called "Populus Pisanus," while the suburbs were called Cinthicanus, Foriport

ci, op. c

ci, op. c

lfi that they brough

of the city was Conte T

elline side by the interference of the Papacy against her in Cor

one perchè si comincio la guerra da' Fiorentini a' Pisani,

ave the signal for flight at Meloria; but in fact it does not, for Pisa elected Ugol

them to be

ow to be called the Tower of Hunger) was the mew of the eagles. For even as the Romans kept wolves on the Capitol, so the Pis

ven, and all the allies, including the Guelphs of Romagna, who were

to Pisano: "Furono allora disfatt

e prize of victory, a piece of silk not too much unlike the banners given

e of the B.V.M. It encircled the Duomo-a most splendid and unique thing, only

e Museo, room

nci, op.

ronci, op.

mprisoned h

ci, op. c

Sanese in Mur

, Palio and

nci, op.

and all sleeping within, of his awakened maid-servant and frightened wife, i

smondi, op.

smondi, op.

ci, op. c

ci, op. c

print is

ng this game and the Palio,

like that of Firenze, seems rather to have

ci, op. c

f Tuscany. The Pisans reckoned from the Incarnation. The year began, therefore, on 25th March: so did the Florentine and the

ci, op. c

s long by 35-

ory of Painting in Italy, new edi

Duomo. Mr. Carmichael, in his book, In Tuscany, gives a full accoun

valcaselle, op. c

valcaselle, op. c

e below

1904), in which Mr. Carmichael wrote the Italian part. He h

ale dei Trovatelli close to S. Mi

See p

lcaselle, op. cit,

da I.B. Supin

See p

ugh France to Florence, p. 224) says it m

liam Heywood's exhaustive work on Italian med

lati, Il Gioco del Pon

n the great Salone-the first room you

e illustrated in the Oplomachia Pisa

ure of poems and Relazioni,

el Ponte, Firenze, 1877. See

ntioch, and founded the Church of S. Pietro in Grado, and cons

ci, op. c

ace it may be, for the baths

annot find words enough to express its beauty: "Questo Lung' A

no that Ruggiero condemned

ci, op. c

ci, op. c