CHAPTER XX
FLORENCE AND HER PROPHET
It was drawing towards evening, as two travelers, approaching Florencefrom the south, checked their course on the summit of one of the circleof hills which command a view of the city, and seemed to look down uponit with admiration. One of these was our old friend Father Antonio,and the other the cavalier. The former was mounted on an ambling mule,whose easy pace suited well with his meditative habits; while the otherreined in a high-mettled steed, who, though now somewhat jaded underthe fatigue of a long journey, showed by a series of little livelymotions of his ears and tail, and by pawing the ground impatiently,that he had the inexhaustible stock of spirits which goes with goodblood.
"There she lies, my Florence," said the monk, stretching his hands outwith enthusiasm. "Is she not indeed a sheltered lily growing fair amongthe hollows of the mountains? Little she may be, sir, compared to oldRome; but every inch of her is a gem,--every inch!"
And, in truth, the scene was worthy of the artist's enthusiasm. Allthe overhanging hills that encircle the city with their silveryolive-gardens and their pearl-white villas were now lighted up withevening glory. The old gray walls of the convents of San Miniato andthe Monte Oliveto were touched with yellow; and even the black obelisksof the cypresses in their cemeteries had here and there streaks anddots of gold, fluttering like bright birds among their gloomy branches.The distant snow-peaks of the Apennines, which even in spring longwear their icy mantles, were shimmering and changing like an opal ringwith tints of violet, green, blue, and rose, blended in inexpressiblesoftness by that dreamy haze which forms the peculiar feature ofItalian skies.
In this loving embrace of mountains lay the city, divided by the Arnoas by a line of rosy crystal barred by the graceful arches of itsbridges. Amid the crowd of palaces and spires and towers rose centraland conspicuous the great Duomo, just crowned with that magnificentdome which was then considered a novelty and a marvel in architecture,and which Michel Angelo looked longingly back upon when he was goingto Rome to build that more wondrous orb of Saint Peter's. White andstately by its side shot up the airy shaft of the Campanile; and theviolet vapor swathing the whole city in a tender indistinctness, thesetwo striking objects, rising by their magnitude far above it, seemed tostand alone in a sort of airy grandeur.
And now the bells of the churches were sounding the Ave Maria, fillingthe air with sweet and solemn vibrations, as if angels were passingto and fro overhead, harping as they went; and ever and anon thegreat bell of the Campanile came pulsing in with a throb of sound ofa quality so different that one hushed one's breath to hear. It mightbe fancied to be the voice of one of those kingly archangels that onesees drawn by the old Florentine religious artists,--a voice grave andunearthly, and with a plaintive undertone of divine mystery.
The monk and the cavalier bent low in their saddles, and seemed to joindevoutly in the worship of the hour.
One need not wonder at the enthusiasm of the returning pilgrim ofthose days for the city of his love, who feels the charm that lingersaround that beautiful place even in modern times. Never was there aspot to which the heart could insensibly grow with a more home-likeaffection,--never one more thoroughly consecrated in every stone bythe sacred touch of genius.
A republic, in the midst of contending elements, the history ofFlorence, in the Middle Ages, was a history of what shoots and blossomsthe Italian nature might send forth, when rooted in the rich soilof liberty. It was a city of poets and artists. Its statesmen, itsmerchants, its common artisans, and the very monks in its convents,were all pervaded by one spirit. The men of Florence in its bestdays were men of a large, grave, earnest mould. What the Puritansof New England wrought out with severest earnestness in theirreasonings and their lives, these early Puritans of Italy embodiedin poetry, sculpture, and painting. They built their Cathedral andtheir Campanile, as the Jews of old built their Temple, with awe andreligious fear, that they might thus express by costly and imperishablemonuments their sense of God's majesty and beauty. The modern travelerwho visits the churches and convents of Florence, or the museumswhere are preserved the fading remains of its early religious Art, ifhe be a person of any sensibility, cannot fail to be affected withthe intense gravity and earnestness which pervade them. They seemless to be paintings for the embellishment of life than eloquentpicture-writing by which burning religious souls sought to preach thetruths of the invisible world to the eye of the multitude. Through allthe deficiencies of perspective, coloring, and outline incident to thechildhood and early youth of Art, one feels the passionate purposeof some lofty soul to express ideas of patience, self-sacrifice,adoration, and aspiration far transcending the limits of mortalcapability.
The angels and celestial beings of these grave old painters are asdifferent from the fat little pink Cupids or lovely laughing childrenof Titian and Correggio as are the sermons of President Edwards fromthe love-songs of Tom Moore. These old seers of the pencil give yougrave, radiant beings, strong as man, fine as woman, sweeping downwardin lines of floating undulation, and seeming by the ease with whichthey remain poised in the air to feel none of that earthly attractionwhich draws material bodies earthward. Whether they wear the morningstar on their forehead or bear the lily or the sword in their hand,there is still that suggestion of mystery and power about them, thatair of dignity and repose, that speak the children of a nobler racethan ours. One could well believe such a being might pass in his serenepoised majesty of motion through the walls of a gross material dwellingwithout deranging one graceful fold of his swaying robe or unclaspingthe hands folded quietly on his bosom. Well has a modern master of artand style said of these old artists, "Many pictures are ostentatiousexhibitions of the artist's power of speech, the clear and vigorouselocution of useless and senseless words; while the earlier efforts ofGiotto and Cimabue are the burning messages of prophecy delivered bythe stammering lips of infants."
But at the time of which we write, Florence had passed through herages of primitive religious and republican simplicity, and was fasthastening to her downfall. The genius, energy, and prophetic enthusiasmof Savonarola had made, it is true, a desperate rally on the verge ofthe precipice; but no one man has ever power to turn back the downwardslide of a whole generation.
When Father Antonio left Sorrento in company with the cavalier, itwas the intention of the latter to go with him only so far as theirrespective routes should lie together. The band under the command ofAgostino was posted in a ruined fortress in one of those airily perchedold mountain-towns which form so picturesque and characteristic afeature of the Italian landscape. But before they reached this spot,the simple, poetic, guileless monk, with his fresh artistic nature,had so won upon his traveling companion that a most enthusiasticfriendship had sprung up between them, and Agostino could not find itin his heart at once to separate from him. Tempest-tossed and homeless,burning with a sense of wrong, alienated from the faith of his fathersthrough his intellect and moral sense, yet clinging to it with hismemory and imagination, he found in the tender devotional fervor ofthe artist monk a reconciling and healing power. He shared, too, inno small degree, the feelings which now possessed the breast of hiscompanion for the great reformer whose purpose seemed to meditatenothing less than the restoration of the Church of Italy to theprimitive apostolic simplicity. He longed to see him,--to listen to theeloquence of which he had heard so much. Then, too, he had thoughtsthat but vaguely shaped themselves in his mind. This noble man, sobrave and courageous, menaced by the forces of a cruel tyranny, mighthe not need the protection of a good sword? He recollected, too, thathe had an uncle high in the favor of the King of France, to whom he hadwritten a full account of his own situation. Might he not be of use inurging this uncle to induce the French King to throw before Savonarolathe shield of his protection? At all events, he entered Florence thisevening with the burning zeal of a young neophyte who hopes to effectsomething himself for a glorious and sacred cause embodied in a leaderwho commands his deepest veneration.
"My son," said Father Antonio, as they raised their heads after theevening prayer, "I am at this time like a man who, having long beenaway from his home, fears, on returning, that he shall hear some eviltidings of those he hath left. I long, yet dread, to go to my dearFather Girolamo and the beloved brothers in our house. There is apresage that lies heavy on my heart, so that I cannot shake it off.Look at our glorious old Duomo;--doth she not sit there among thehouses and palaces as a queen-mother among nations,--worthy, in hergreatness and beauty, to represent the Church of the New Jerusalem, theBride of the Lord? Ah, I have seen it thronged and pressed with themultitude who came to crave the bread of life from our master!"
"Courage, my friend!" said Agostino; "it cannot be that Florencewill suffer her pride and glory to be trodden down. Let us hastenon, for the shades of evening are coming fast, and there is a keenwind sweeping down from your snowy mountains." And the two soon foundthemselves plunging into the shadows of the streets, threading theirdevious way to the convent.
At length they drew up before a dark wall, where the Father Antoniorung a bell.
A door was immediately opened, a cowled head appeared, and a cautiousvoice asked,--
"Who is there?"
"Ah, is that you, good Brother Angelo?" said Father Antonio, cheerily.
"And is it you, dear Brother Antonio? Come in! come in!" was thecordial response, as the two passed into the court; "truly, it willmake all our hearts leap to see you."
"And, Brother Angelo, how is our dear father? I have been so anxiousabout him!"
"Oh, fear not!--he sustains himself in God, and is full of sweetness tous all."
"But do the people stand by him, Angelo, and the Signoria?"
"He has strong friends as yet, but his enemies are like raveningwolves. The Pope hath set on the Franciscans, and they hunt him asdogs do a good stag. But whom have you here with you?" added the monk,raising his torch and regarding the knight.
"Fear him not; he is a brave knight and good Christian, who comes tooffer his sword to our father and seek his counsels."
"He shall be welcome," said the porter, cheerfully. "We will have youinto the refectory forthwith, for you must be hungry."
The young cavalier, following the flickering torch of his conductor,had only a dim notion of long cloistered corridors, out of which nowand then, as the light flared by, came a golden gleam from some quaintold painting, where the pure angel forms of Angelico stood in thegravity of an immortal youth, or the Madonna, like a bending lily,awaited the message of Heaven; but when they entered the refectory, acheerful voice addressed them, and Father Antonio was clasped in theembrace of the father so much beloved.
"Welcome, welcome, my dear son!" said that rich voice which hadthrilled so many thousand Italian hearts with its music. "So you arecome back to the fold again. How goes the good work of the Lord?"
"Well, everywhere," said Father Antonio, and then, recollecting hisyoung friend, he suddenly turned and said,--
"Let me present to you one son who comes to seek yourinstructions,--the young Signor Agostino, of the noble house ofSarelli."
The Superior turned to Agostino with a movement full of a generousfrankness, and warmly extended his hand, at the same time fixing uponhim the mesmeric glance of a pair of large, deep blue eyes, whichmight, on slight observation, have been mistaken for black, so greatwas their depth and brilliancy.
Agostino surveyed his new acquaintance with that mingling of ingenuousrespect and curiosity with which an ardent young man would regardthe most distinguished leader of his age, and felt drawn to him by acertain atmosphere of vital cordiality such as one can feel better thandescribe.
"You have ridden far to-day, my son,--you must be weary," said theSuperior, affably; "but here you must feel yourself at home; commandus in anything we can do for you. The brothers will attend to thoserefreshments which are needed after so long a journey; and when youhave rested and supped, we shall hope to see you a little more quietly."
So saying, he signed to one or two brothers who stood by, and,commending the travelers to their care, left the apartment.
In a few moments a table was spread with a plain and wholesome repast,to which the two travelers sat down with appetites sharpened by theirlong journey.
During the supper, the brothers of the convent, among whom FatherAntonio had always been a favorite, crowded around him in a state ofeager excitement.
"You should have been here the last week," said one; "such a turmoil aswe have been in!"
"Yes," said another, "the Pope hath set on the Franciscans, who, youknow, are always ready enough to take up with anything against ourorder, and they have been pursuing our father like so many hounds."
"There hath been a whirlwind of preaching here and there," said athird, "in the Duomo, and Santa Croce, and San Lorenzo; and they havebattled to and fro, and all the city is full of it."
"Tell him about yesterday, about the ordeal," shouted an eager voice.
Two or three voices took up the story at once, and began to tell it,all the others correcting, contradicting, or adding incidents. Fromthe confused fragments here and there Agostino gathered that therehad been on the day before a popular spectacle in the grand piazza,in which, according to an old superstition of the Middle Ages, FraGirolamo Savonarola and his opponents were expected to prove the truthof their words by passing unhurt through the fire; that two immensepiles of combustibles had been constructed with a narrow passagebetween, and the whole magistracy of the city convened, with a throngof the populace, eager for the excitement of the spectacle; that theday had been spent in discussions, and scruples, and preliminaries; andthat, finally, in the afternoon, a violent storm of rain arising haddispersed the multitude and put a stop to the whole exhibition.
"But the people are not satisfied," said Father Angelo; "and there areenough mischief-makers among them to throw all the blame on our father."
"Yes," said one, "they say he wanted to burn the Holy Sacrament,because he was going to take it with him into the fire."
"As if it could burn!" said another voice.
"It would to all human appearance, I suppose," said a third.
"Any way," said a fourth, "there is some mischief brewing; for here isour friend Prospero Rondinelli just come in, who says, when he camepast the Duomo, he saw people gathering, and heard them threatening us:there were as many as two hundred, he thought."
"We ought to tell Father Girolamo," exclaimed several voices.
"Oh, he will not be disturbed!" said Father Angelo. Since theseaffairs, he hath been in prayer in the chapter-room before the blessedAngelico's picture of the Cross. When we would talk with him of thesethings, he waves us away, and says only, 'I am weary; go and tellJesus.'"
"He bade me come to him after supper," said Father Antonio. "I willtalk with him."
"Do so,--that is right," said two or three eager voices as the monk andAgostino, having finished their repast, arose to be conducted to thepresence of the father.