INEXHAUSTIBLE ITALY 



325 



town of the Guilds. Its palaces, its 

 bridges, the sweep of its Lung' Arno, its 

 embattled visage with the souls of the 

 houses peering from behind their iron 

 bars at the blue hills, are still the same. 

 The proudest jewels in its crown are 

 the three great buildings in the Piazza 

 Duomo. Oldest of these is the beautiful 

 octagonal Baptistery, with Ghiberti's per- 

 fect bronze doors. "They are fit to be 

 the gates of heaven !" young Michelan- 

 gelo cried when he saw them. 



The cathedral, Sta. Maria dei Fiori — 

 as much a feature of the Florentine land- 

 scape as a man's nose is a part of his 

 face — looms large from any vantage 

 point, its buoyant dome floating airily 

 above the marble paneling of the soft- 

 colored walls. It fills one with admiring 

 astonishment for its symmetrical dimen- 

 sion, its perfect poise, its grandeur, its 

 everlasting strength. Fit companion to it 

 is Giotto's Campanile, slender and strong 

 and graceful as a young maid beside her 

 portly mother. Richly ornamented with 

 bas-reliefs and statues, the superb bell- 

 tower is a marble history, left standing 

 open for the delight of appreciative 

 readers (see page 326). 



the; church of the broken hearts 



As a general thing the intellectuals of 

 Florence went calmly on with their cre- 

 ative work, unmindful of the tumult 

 about them. Not so Dante. With all the 

 fervor of his artistic temperament, he 

 plunged into the thick of politics, in the 

 endeavor to save his beloved citv from 

 being torn to pieces, and was exiled be- 

 fore he reached the zenith of his powers. 



Broken-hearted and bitter, he died at 

 Ravenna in 1321, and his ashes are still 

 there ; but in the old Franciscan church 

 of the Holy Cross rises one of the two 

 monuments disdainful Florence conde- 

 scended to give her greatest poet, whose 

 greatest honor lies in his gift to the 

 world at one splendid sweep of a pure 

 and recreated Italian language — until his 

 time halting and feeble — in that immortal 

 masterpiece of literature, the Divina 

 Commedia. 



This church might well be known 

 as the Broken Hearts, instead of Santa 

 Croce, for near Dante's cenotaph lies 

 the body of that other terrific genius. 



Michelangelo, who, broken in spirit, died 

 gladly when the city so dear to his heart 

 fell once more upon dark and tyrannous 

 days. And Galileo is here, too, and Al- 

 fieri, and Macchiavelli, and many another, 

 a brilliant train. 



Michelangelo's last work is in the 

 Church of San Lorenzo, in the mortuary 

 chapel of the Medici — the great house 

 which deigned to favor him with its pa- 

 tronage or its enmity throughout his life. 

 He did not make portraits of the statues 

 over the tombs of Giuliano and Lorenzo, 

 son and grandson of the Magnifico. 

 When some one remonstrated, he replied 

 with haughty carelessness that he did not 

 suppose people a century later would care 

 much how the Dukes looked. Most prob- 

 ably they didn't ! 



While he was working in the mauso- 

 leum the Medici, who had been expelled 

 for the third time, came thundering at 

 the city's gates. Always a strong re- 

 publican, Michelangelo engineered the 

 fortifications by day and worked stealth- 

 ily on his statues by night. Florence 

 fell ; her sun had set ; and the tombs 

 became less a monument to the tyrants 

 for whom they were reared than to 

 his cherished city. And so he wrought, 

 not the still beauty of the Greeks, but the 

 symbols of his own desperation in the 

 marvelous Twilight and Dawn, and Day 

 and Night upon the tombs. 



THE UFFTZZI AND PITTI PAEACES 



In the two great palaces of the Uffizzi 

 and Pitti are gathered the most inspiring 

 collections in the world of the works of 

 the geniuses who made Florence the peer- 

 less city of art transcendent, and left be- 

 hind them models for all time, not merely 

 of» material beauty and perfection in 

 painting and sculpture, but of thought as 

 well — Fra Angelico of the sexless, radi- 

 ant angels ; Lippo Lippi of the daringly 

 human Madonnas ; visionary Botticelli ; 

 del Sarto of the soulless, exquisite tech- 

 nique as smooth as Nature ; emotional, 

 precocious Correggio ; and R a p h a e 1, 

 greater than all, summing up in his swift, 

 apparently effortless mastery more than 

 the genius of all the rest — color, propor- 

 tion, beauty, intellect, spirituality, and 

 rare human kindness. 



Florence wears a splendid living girdle 



