JOHN RUSKIN
MORNINGS IN FLORENCE I
FIRST MORNING
SANTA CROCE
[Giotto, Campanile, Santa
Croce, de' Bardi Chapel, Baptistry, Santa Maria
Novella, Arnolfo di Cambio, Duomo, Certosa]
F there be one artist, more than another, whose
work it is desirable that you should examine in Florence,
supposing that you care for old art at all, it is Giotto. You
can, indeed, also see work of his at Assisi; but it is not
likely you will stop there, to any purpose. At Padua there is
much; but only of one period. At Florence, which is his
birthplace, you can see pictures by him of every date, and
every kind. But you had surely better see, first, what is of
his best time and of the best kind. He painted very small
pictures and very large—painted from the age of twelve to
sixty—painted some subjects carelessly which he had little
interest in—some carefully with all his heart. You would
surely like, and it would certainly be wise, to see him first
in his strong and earnest work,—to see a painting by him, if
possible, of large size, and wrought with his full strength,
and of a subject pleasing to him. And if it were, also, a
subject interesting to yourself,—better still.
2. Now, if indeed you
are interested in old art, you cannot but know the power of
the thirteenth century. You know that the character of it was
concentrated in, and to the full expressed by, its best king,
St. Louis. You know St. Louis was a Franciscan, and that the
Franciscans, for whom Giotto was continually painting under
Dante's advice, were prouder of him than of any other of their
royal brethren or sisters. If Giotto ever would imagine
anybody with care and delight, it would be St. Louis, if it
chanced that anywhere he had St. Louis to paint.
Also, you know that he
was appointed to build the Campanile of the Duomo, because he
was then the best master of sculpture, painting, and
architecture in Florence, and supposed to be without superior
in the world.1
And that this commission
was given him late in life (of course he could not have
designed the Campanile when he was a boy); so therefore, if
you find any of his figures niched under pure campanile
architecture, and the architecture by his hand, you know,
without other evidence, that the painting must be of his
strongest time.
So if one wanted to find
anything of his to begin with, especially, and could choose
what it should be, one would say, "A fresco, life size, with
campanile architecture behind it, painted in an important
place; and if one might choose one's subject, perhaps the most
interesting saint of all saints—for him to do for us—would be
St. Louis."
Colonel Goff,
water colour of Santa Croce
3. Wait then for an
entirely bright morning; rise with the sun, and go to Santa
Croce, with a good opera-glass in your pocket, with which you
shall for once, at any rate, see an "opus"; and, if you have
time, several opera. Walk straight to the chapel on the right
of the choir ("k" in your Murray's guide). When you first get
into it, you will see nothing but a modern window of glaring
glass, with a red-hot cardinal in one pane—which piece of
modern manufacture takes away at least seven-eighths of the
light (little enough before) by which you might have seen what
is worth sight. Wait patiently till you get used to the gloom.
Then, guarding your eyes from the accursed modern window as
best you may, take your opera-glass and look to the right, at
the uppermost of the two figures beside it. It is St. Louis,
under campanile architecture, painted by—Giotto? or the last
Florentine painter who wanted a job—over Giotto? That is the
first question you have to determine; as you will have
henceforward, in every case in which you look at a fresco.
Santa Croce, Capella de' Bardi
St Louis, King of France, top right, no longer exists
Sometimes there will be
no question at all. These two grey frescos at the bottom of
the walls on the right and left, for instance, have been
entirely got up for your better satisfaction, in the last year
or two—over Giotto's half-effaced lines. But that St. Louis?
Re-painted or not, it is a lovely thing,—there can be no
question about that; and we must look at it, after some
preliminary knowledge gained, not inattentively.
4. Your Murray's Guide
tells you that this chapel of the Bardi della Libertà, in
which you stand, is covered with frescos by Giotto; that they
were whitewashed, and only laid bare in 1853; that they were
painted between 1296 and 1304; that they represent scenes in
the life of St. Francis; and that on each side of the window
are paintings of St. Louis of Toulouse, St. Louis king of
France, St. Elizabeth of Hungary, and St. Claire,—"all much
restored and repainted." Under such recommendation, the
frescos are not likely to be much sought after; and
accordingly, as I was at work in the chapel this morning,
Sunday, 6th September, 1874, two nice-looking Englishmen,
under guard of their valet de place, passed the chapel without
so much as looking in.
You will perhaps stay a
little longer in it with me, good reader, and find out
gradually where you are. Namely, in the most interesting and
perfect little Gothic chapel in all Italy—so far as I know or
can hear. There is no other of the great time which has all
its frescos in their place. The Arena, though far larger, is
of earlier date—not pure Gothic, nor showing Giotto's full
force. The lower chapel at Assisi is not Gothic at all, and is
still only of Giotto's middle time. You have here, developed
Gothic, with Giotto in his consummate strength, and nothing
lost, in form, of the complete design.
By restoration—judicious
restoration, as Mr. Murray usually calls it—there is no saying
how much you have lost, Putting the question of restoration
out of your mind, however, for a while, think where you are,
and what you have got to look at.
5. You are in the chapel
next the high altar of the great Franciscan church of
Florence. A few hundred yards west of you, within ten minutes'
walk, is the Baptistery of Florence. And five minutes' walk
west of that is the great Dominican church of Florence, Santa
Maria Novella.
1807. Firenze. Il
Battistero (Dal VII e VIII secolo, restaurato e rivestito di
marmi di Arnolfo di Cambio) For larger image, click here
On Back: '5551. Firenze. Chiesa e Piazza di S.
Maria Novella. Edit. Brunner & C., Como, Stab.
eliografico'. For larger image, click here
Get this little bit of
geography, and architectural fact, well into your mind. There
is the little octagon Baptistery in the middle; here, ten
minutes' walk east of it, the Franciscan church of the Holy
Cross; there, five minutes walk west of it, the Dominican
church of St. Mary.
Now, that little octagon
Baptistery stood where it now stands (and was finished, though
the roof has been altered since) in the eighth century. It is
the central building of Etrurian Christianity,—of European
Christianity.
From the day it was
finished, Christianity went on doing her best, in Etruria and
elsewhere, for four hundred years,—and her best seemed to have
come to very little,—when there rose up two men who vowed to
God it should come to more. And they made it come to more,
forthwith; of which the immediate sign in Florence was that
she resolved to have a fine new cross-shaped cathedral instead
of her quaint old little octagon one; and a tower beside it
that should beat Babel:—which two buildings you have also
within sight.
6. But your business is
not at present with them; but with these two earlier churches
of Holy Cross and St. Mary. The two men who were the effectual
builders of these were the two great religious Powers and
Reformers of the thirteenth century;—St. Francis, who taught
Christian men how they should behave, and St. Dominic, who
taught Christian men what they should think. In brief, one the
Apostle of Works; the other of Faith. Each sent his little
company of disciples to teach and to preach in Florence: St.
Francis in 1212; St. Dominic in 1220.
The little companies
were settled—one, ten minutes' walk east of the old
Baptistery; the other five minutes' walk west of it. And after
they had stayed quietly in such lodgings as were given them,
preaching and teaching through most of the century; and had
got Florence, as it were, heated through, she burst out into
Christian poetry and architecture, of which you have heard
much talk:—burst into bloom of Arnolfo, Giotto, Dante,
Orcagna, and the like persons, whose works you profess to have
come to Florence that you may see and understand.
Florence then, thus
heated through, first helped her teachers to build finer
churches. The Dominicans, or White Friars the Teachers of
Faith, began their church of St. Mary's in 1279. The
Franciscans, or Black Friars, the teachers of Works, laid the
first stone of this church of the Holy Cross in 1294. And the
whole city laid the foundations of its new cathedral in 1298.
The Dominicans designed their own building; but for the
Franciscans and the town worked the first great master of
Gothic art, Arnolfo; with Giotto at his side, and Dante
looking on, and whispering sometimes a word to both.
7. And here you stand
beside the high altar of the Franciscans' church, under a
vault of Arnolfo's building, with at least some of Giotto's
colour on it still fresh; and in front of you, over the little
altar, is the only reportedly authentic portrait of St.
Francis, taken from life by Giotto's master. Yet I can hardly
blame my two English friends for never looking in. Except in
the early morning light, not one touch of all this art can be
seen. And in any light, unless you understand the relations of
Giotto to St. Francis, and of St. Francis to humanity, it will
be of little interest.
Observe, then, the
special character of Giotto among the great painters of Italy
is his being a practical person. Whatever other men dreamed
of, he did. He could work in mosaic; he could work in marble;
he could paint; and he could build; and all thoroughly: a man
of supreme faculty, supreme common sense. Accordingly, he
ranges himself at once among the disciples of the Apostle of
Works, and spends most of his time in the same apostleship.
Now the gospel of Works,
according to St. Francis, lay in three things. You must work
without money, and be poor. You must work without pleasure,
and be chaste. You must work according to orders, and be
obedient.
Those are St. Francis's
three articles of Italian opera. By which grew the many pretty
things you have come to see here.
Bardi Chapel, fresco of St Louis, King of
France, lost, also most of vault frescoes
8. And now if you will
take your opera-glass and look up to the roof above Arnolfo's
building, you will see it is a pretty Gothic cross vault, in
four quarters, each with a circular medallion, painted by
Giotto. That over the altar has the picture of St. Francis
himself. The three others, of his Commanding Angels. In front
of him, over the entrance arch, Poverty. On his right hand,
Obedience. On his left, Chastity.
Poverty, in a red
patched dress, with grey wings, and a square nimbus of glory
above her head, is flying from a black hound, whose head is
seen at the corner of the medallion.
Chastity, veiled, is
imprisoned in a tower, while angels watch her.
Obedience bears a yoke
on her shoulders, and lays her hand on a book.
Now, this same
quatrefoil, of St. Francis and his three Commanding Angels,
was also painted, but much more elaborately, by Giotto, on the
cross vault of the lower church of Assisi, and it is a
question of interest which of the two roofs was painted first.
Your Murray's Guide
tells you the frescos in this chapel were painted between 1296
and 1304. But as they represent, among other personages, St.
Louis of Toulouse, who was not canonized till 1317, that
statement is not altogether tenable. Also, as the first stone
of the church was only laid in 1294, when Giotto was a youth
of eighteen, it is little likely that either it would have
been ready to be painted, or he ready with his scheme of
practical divinity, two years later.
Farther, Arnolfo, the
builder of the main body of the church, died in 1310. And as
St. Louis of Toulouse was not a saint till seven years
afterwards, and the frescoes therefore beside the window not
painted in Arnolfo's day, it becomes another question whether
Arnolfo left the chapels or the church at all, in their
present form.
9. On which point—now
that I have shown you where Giotto's St. Louis is—I will ask
you to think awhile, until you are interested; and then I will
try to satisfy your curiosity. Therefore, please leave the
little chapel for the moment, and walk down the nave, till you
come to two sepulchral slabs near the west end, and then look
about you and see what sort of a church Santa Croce is.
Without looking about
you at all, you may find, in your Murray, the useful
information that it is a church which "consists of a very wide
nave and lateral aisles, separated by seven fine pointed
arches." And as you will be—under ordinary conditions of
tourist hurry—glad to learn so much, without looking,
it is little likely to occur to you that this nave and two
rich aisles required also, for your complete present comfort,
walls at both ends, and a roof on the top. It is just
possible, indeed, you may have been struck, on entering, by
the curious disposition of painted glass at the east end;—more
remotely possible that, in returning down the nave, you may
this moment have noticed the extremely small circular window
at the west end; but the chances are a thousand to one that,
after being pulled from tomb to tomb round the aisles and
chapels, you should take so extraordinary an additional amount
of pains as to look up at the roof,—unless you do it now,
quietly. It will have had its effect upon you, even if you
don't, without your knowledge. You will return home with a
general impression that Santa Croce is, somehow, the ugliest
Gothic church you ever were in. Well, that is really so; and
now, will you take the pains to see why?
10. There are two
features, on which, more than on any others, the grace and
delight of a fine Gothic building depends; one is the
springing of its vaultings, the other the proportion and
fantasy of its traceries. This church of Santa Croce
has no vaultings at all, but the roof of a farm-house barn.
And its windows are all of the same pattern,—the exceedingly
prosaic one of two pointed arches, with a round hole above,
between them.
And to make the
simplicity of the roof more conspicuous, the aisles are
successive sheds, built at every arch. In the aisles of the
Campo Santo of Pisa, the unbroken flat roof leaves the eye
free to look to the traceries; but here, a succession of
up-and-down sloping beam and lath gives the impression of a
line of stabling rather than a church aisle. And lastly,
while, in fine Gothic buildings, the entire perspective
concludes itself gloriously in the high and distant apse, here
the nave is cut across sharply by a line of ten chapels, the
apse being only a tall recess in the midst of them, so that,
strictly speaking, the church is not of the form of a cross,
but of a letter T.
Can this clumsy and
ungraceful arrangement be indeed the design of the renowned
Arnolfo?
Yes, this is purest
Arnolfo-Gothic; not beautiful by any means; but deserving,
nevertheless, our thoughtfullest examination. We will trace
its complete character another day; just now we are only
concerned with this pre-Christian form of the letter T,
insisted upon in the lines of chapels.
11. Respecting which you
are to observe, that the first Christian churches in the
catacombs took the form of a blunt cross naturally; a square
chamber having a vaulted recess on each side; then the
Byzantine churches were structurally built in the form of an
equal cross; while the heraldic and other ornamental
equal-armed crosses are partly signs of glory and victory,
partly of light, and divine spiritual presence.2
But the Franciscans and
Dominicans saw in the cross no sign of triumph, but of trial.3 The wounds of their Master were to be
their inheritance. So their first aim was to make what image
to the cross their church might present, distinctly that of
the actual instrument of death.
And they did this most
effectually by using the form of the letter T, that of the
Furca or Gibbet,—not the sign of peace.
Also, their churches
were meant for use; not show, nor self-glorification, nor
town-glorification. They wanted places for preaching, prayer,
sacrifice, burial; and had no intention of showing how high
they could build towers, or how widely they could arch vaults.
Strong walls, and the roof of a barn,—these your Franciscan
asks of his Arnolfo. These Arnolfo gives,—thoroughly and
wisely built; the successions of gable roof being a new device
for strength, much praised in its day.
12. This stern humor did
not last long. Arnolfo himself had other notions; much more
Cimabue and Giotto; most of all, Nature and Heaven. Something
else had to be taught about Christ than that He was wounded to
death. Nevertheless, look how grand this stern form would be,
restored to its simplicity. It is not the old church which is
in itself unimpressive. It is the old church defaced by
Vasari, by Michael Angelo, and by modern Florence. See those
huge tombs on your right hand and left, at the sides of the
aisles, with their alternate gable and round tops, and their
paltriest of all possible sculpture, trying to be grand by
bigness, and pathetic by expense. Tear them all down in your
imagination; fancy the vast hall with its massive pillars,—not
painted calomel-pill colour, as now, but of their native
stone, with a rough, true wood for roof,—and a people praying
beneath them, strong in abiding, and pure in life, as their
rocks and olive forests That was Arnolfo's Santa Croce. Nor
did his work remain long without grace.
That very line of
chapels in which we found our St. Louis shows signs of change
in temper. They have no pent-house roofs, but true
Gothic vaults: we found our four-square type of Franciscan Law
on one of them.
It is probable, then,
that these chapels may be later than the rest—even in their
stonework. In their decoration, they are so, assuredly;
belonging already to the time when the story of St. Francis
was becoming a passionate tradition, told and painted
everywhere with delight.
And that high recess,
taking the place of apse, in the centre,—see how noble it is
in the coloured shade surrounding and joining the glow of its
windows, though their form be so simple. You are not to be
amused here by patterns in balanced stone, as a French or
English architect would amuse you, says Arnolfo. "You are to
read and think, under these severe walls of mine; immortal
hands will write upon them." We will go back, therefore, into
this line of manuscript chapels presently; but first, look at
the two sepulchral slabs by which you are standing. That
farther of the two from the west end is one of the most
beautiful pieces of fourteenth century sculpture in this
world; and it contains simple elements of excellence, by your
understanding of which you may test your power of
understanding the more difficult ones you will have to deal
with presently.
13. It represents an old
man, in the high deeply-folded cap worn by scholars and
gentlemen in Florence from 1300—1500, lying dead, with a book
in his breast, over which his hands are folded. At his feet is
this inscription: "Temporibus hic suis phylosophye atq.
medicine culmen fuit Galileus de Galileis olim Bonajutis qui
etiam summo in magistratu miro quodam modo rempublicam
dilexit, cujus sancte memorie bene acte vite pie benedictus
filius hunc tumulum patri sibi suisq. posteris edidit."
Mr. Murray tells you
that the effigies "in low relief" (alas, yes, low enough
now—worn mostly into flat stones, with a trace only of the
deeper lines left, but originally in very bold relief,) with
which the floor of Santa Croce is inlaid, of which this by
which you stand is characteristic, are "interesting from the
costume," but that, "except in the case of John Ketterick,
Bishop of St. David's, few of the other names have any
interest beyond the walls of Florence." As, however, you are
at present within the walls of Florence, you may perhaps
condescend to take some interest in this ancestor or relation
of the Galileo whom Florence indeed left to be externally
interesting, and would not allow to enter in her walls.4
I am not sure if I
rightly place or construe the phrase in the above inscription,
"cujus sancte memorie bene acte;" but, in main purport, the
legend runs thus: "This Galileo of the Galilei was, in his
times, the head of philosophy and medicine; who also in the
highest magistracy loved the republic marvellously; whose son,
blessed in inheritance of his holy memory and well-passed and
pious life, appointed this tomb for his father, for himself,
and for his posterity."
There is no date; but
the slab immediately behind it, nearer the western door, is of
the same style, but of later and inferior work, and bears
date—I forget now of what early year in the fifteenth century.
But Florence was still
in her pride; and you may observe, in this epitaph, on what it
was based. That her philosophy was studied together with
useful arts, and as a part of them; that the masters in
these became naturally the masters in public affairs; that in
such magistracy, they loved the State, and neither cringed to
it nor robbed it; that the sons honoured their fathers, and
received their fathers' honour as the most blessed
inheritance. Remember the phrase "vite pie bene dictus
filius," to be compared with the "nos nequiores" of the
declining days of all states,—chiefly now in Florence, France
and England.
14. Thus much for the
local interest of name. Next for the universal interest of the
art of this tomb.
It is the crowning
virtue of all great art that, however little is left of it by
the injuries of time, that little will be lovely. As long as
you can see anything, you can see—almost all;—so much the hand
of the master will suggest of his soul.
And here you are well
quit, for once, of restoration. No one cares for this
sculpture; and if Florence would only thus put all her old
sculpture and painting under her feet, and simply use them for
gravestones and oilcloth, she would be more merciful to them
than she is now. Here, at least, what little is left is true.
And, if you look long,
you will find it is not so little. That worn face is still a
perfect portrait of the old man, though like one struck out at
a venture, with a few rough touches of a master's chisel. And
that falling drapery of his cap is, in its few lines,
faultless, and subtle beyond description.
And now, here is a
simple but most useful test of your capacity for understanding
Florentine sculpture or painting. If you can see that the
lines of that cap are both right, and lovely; that the choice
of the folds is exquisite in its ornamental relations of line;
and that the softness and ease of them is complete,—though
only sketched with a few dark touches,—then you can understand
Giotto's drawing, and Botticelli's;—Donatello's carving and
Luca's. But if you see nothing in this sculpture, you
will see nothing in theirs, of theirs. Where they
choose to imitate flesh, or silk, or to play any vulgar modern
trick with marble—(and they often do)—whatever, in a word, is
French, or American, or Cockney, in their work, you can see;
but what is Florentine, and for ever great—unless you can see
also the beauty of this old man in his citizen's cap,—you will
see never.
15. There is more in
this sculpture, however, than its simple portraiture and noble
drapery. The old man lies on a piece of embroidered carpet;
and, protected by the higher relief, many of the finer lines
of this are almost uninjured; in particular, its
exquisitely-wrought fringe and tassels are nearly perfect. And
if you will kneel down and look long at the tassels of the
cushion under the head, and the way they fill the angles of
the stone, you will,—or may—know, from this example alone,
what noble decorative sculpture is, and was, and must be, from
the days of earliest Greece to those of latest Italy.
"Exquisitely sculptured
fringe!" and you have just been abusing sculptors who play
tricks with marble! Yes, and you cannot find a better example,
in all the museums of Europe, of the work of a man who does not
play tricks with it—than this tomb. Try to understand the
difference: it is a point of quite cardinal importance to all
your future study of sculpture.
I told you,
observe, that the old Galileo was lying on a piece of
embroidered carpet. I don't think, if I had not told you, that
you would have found it out for yourself. It is not so like a
carpet as all that comes to.
But had it been a modern
trick-sculpture, the moment you came to the tomb you would
have said, "Dear me! how wonderfully that carpet is done,—it
doesn't look like stone in the least—one longs to take it up
and beat it, to get the dust off."
Now whenever you feel
inclined to speak so of a sculptured drapery, be assured,
without more ado, the sculpture is base, and bad. You will
merely waste your time and corrupt your taste by looking at
it. Nothing is so easy as to imitate drapery in marble. You
may cast a piece any day; and carve it with such subtlety that
the marble shall be an absolute image of the folds. But that
is not sculpture. That is mechanical manufacture.
No great sculptor, from
the beginning of art to the end of it, has ever carved, or
ever will, a deceptive drapery. He has neither time nor will
to do it. His mason's lad may do that if he likes. A man who
can carve a limb or a face never finishes inferior parts, but
either with a hasty and scornful chisel, or with such grave
and strict selection of their lines as you know at once to be
imaginative, not imitative.
16. But if, as in this
case, he wants to oppose the simplicity of his central subject
with a rich background,—a labyrinth of ornamental lines to
relieve the severity of expressive ones,—he will carve you a
carpet, or a tree, or a rose thicket, with their fringes and
leaves and thorns, elaborated as richly as natural ones; but
always for the sake of the ornamental form, never of the
imitation; yet, seizing the natural character in the lines he
gives, with twenty times the precision and clearness of sight
that the mere imitator has. Examine the tassels of the
cushion, and the way they blend with the fringe, thoroughly;
you cannot possibly see finer ornamental sculpture. Then, look
at the same tassels in the same place of the slab next the
west end of the church, and you will see a scholar's rude
imitation of a master's hand, though in a fine school.
(Notice, however, the folds of the drapery at the feet of this
figure: they are cut so as to show the hem of the robe within
as well as without, and are fine.) Then, as you go back to
Giotto's chapel, keep to the left, and just beyond the north
door in the aisle is the much celebrated tomb of C.
Marsuppini, by Desiderio of Settignano. It is very fine of its
kind; but there the drapery is chiefly done to cheat you, and
chased delicately to show how finely the sculptor could chisel
it. It is wholly vulgar and mean in cast of fold. Under your
feet, as you look at it, you will tread another tomb of the
fine time, which, looking last at, you will recognize the
difference between the false and true art, as far as there is
capacity in you at present to do so. And if you really and
honestly like the low-lying stones, and see more beauty in
them, you have also the power of enjoying Giotto, into whose
chapel we will return to-morrow;—not to-day, for the light
must have left it by this time; and now that you have been
looking at these sculptures on the floor you had better
traverse nave and aisle across and across; and get some idea
of that sacred field of stone. In the north transept you will
find a beautiful knight, the finest in chiselling of all these
tombs, except one by the same hand in the south aisle just
where it enters the south transept.
2111. Firenze. Chiesa di S. Croce. Monumento a Carlo
Marsuppini. (Desiderio da Settignano) For larger image, click here
Examine the lines of the
Gothic niches traced above them; and what is left of arabesque
on their armour. They are far more beautiful and tender in
chivalric conception than Donatello's St. George, which is
merely a piece of vigorous naturalism founded on these older
tombs. If you will drive in the evening to the Chartreuse in
Val d'Ema, you may see there an uninjured example of this
slab-tomb by Donatello himself; very beautiful; but not so
perfect as the earlier ones on which it is founded. And you
may see some fading light and shade of monastic life, among
which if you stay till the fireflies come out in the twilight,
and thus get to sleep when you come home, you will be better
prepared for to-morrow morning's walk—if you will take another
with me—than if you go to a party, to talk sentiment about
Italy, and hear the last news from London and New York.
1··"Cum
in
universe orbe non reperiri dicatur quenquam qui sufficientior
sit in his et aliis multis artibus magistro Giotto Bondonis de
Florentia, pictore, et accipiendus sit in patriâ, velut magnus
magister."—(Decree of his appointment, quoted by Lord Lindsay,
vol. ii., p. 247.)
2··See,
on this subject generally, Mr. R. St. J. Tyrwhitt's
"Art-Teaching of the Primitive Church." S. P. B. K., 1874.
3··I
have never obtained time for any right study of early
Christian church-discipline,—nor am I sure to how many other
causes, the choice of the form of the basilica may be
occasionally attributed, or by what other communities it may
be made. Symbolism, for instance, has most power with the
Franciscans, and convenience for preaching with the
Dominicans; but in all cases, and in all places, the
transition from the close tribune to the brightly-lighted
apse, indicates the change in Christian feeling between
regarding a church as a place for public judgment or teaching,
or a place for private prayer and congregational praise. The
following passage from the Dean of Westminster's perfect
history of his Abbey ought to be read also in the Florentine
church:—"The nearest approach to Westminster Abbey in this
aspect is the church of Santa Croce at Florence. There, as
here, the present destination of the building was no part of
the original design, but was the result of various converging
causes. As the church of one of the two great preaching
orders, it had a nave large beyond all proportion to its
choir. That order being the Franciscan, bound by vows of
poverty, the simplicity of the worship preserved the whole
space clear from any adventitious ornaments. The popularity of
the Franciscans, especially in a convent hallowed by a visit
from St. Francis himself, drew to it not only the chief civic
festivals, but also the numerous families who gave alms to the
friars, and whose connection with their church was, for this
reason, in turn encouraged by them. In those graves, piled
with standards und achievements of the noble families of
Florence, were successively interred—not because of their
eminence, but as members or friends of those families—some of
the most illustrious personages of the fifteenth century. Thus
it came to pass, as if by accident, that in the vault of the
Buonarotti was laid Michael Angelo; in the vault of the
Viviani the preceptor of one of their house, Galileo. From
those two burials the church gradually be came the recognized
shrine of Italian genius."
F there be one artist, more than another, whose
work it is desirable that you should examine in Florence,
supposing that you care for old art at all, it is Giotto. You
can, indeed, also see work of his at Assisi; but it is not
likely you will stop there, to any purpose. At Padua there is
much; but only of one period. At Florence, which is his
birthplace, you can see pictures by him of every date, and
every kind. But you had surely better see, first, what is of
his best time and of the best kind. He painted very small
pictures and very large—painted from the age of twelve to
sixty—painted some subjects carelessly which he had little
interest in—some carefully with all his heart. You would
surely like, and it would certainly be wise, to see him first
in his strong and earnest work,—to see a painting by him, if
possible, of large size, and wrought with his full strength,
and of a subject pleasing to him. And if it were, also, a
subject interesting to yourself,—better still. 
