The third Informal Ruskin tour Journey or Ruskin Old Road III starts in Turin.
Here is the itinerary : Turin,
Milan,
Florence,
Lucca,
Pistoia June 3
Lucca, June 4
Pise : June 5
Siena : June 6-8
Assisi : June 9-10
Rome : 11-14
Naples June 15
Pompeii (Vesuvius) : June 16 (why not ?)
Amalfi Coast June 17-20: Amalfi Coast (possibly including a side trip to Paestum which has the best Greek ruins outside of the Peloponnese)
Naples : June 21
June 22: Jim returns to US from Naples
The rules
This is an informal group.
The journey
Turin
Here is the account of a famous incident, (Ruskin’s unconversion), that took place in Turin, from Praeterita, (35.494)
“…And I emphasized Couttet’s disapproval of the whole tour, by announcing to him suddenly that I was going of all places in the world, to Turin!
23. I had still some purpose, even in this libertinage, namely, to outline the Alpine chain from Monte Viso to Monte Rosa….
There, one Sunday morning, I made my way in the south suburb to a little chapel which, by a dusty roadside, gathered to its unobserved door the few sheep of the old Waldensian faith who had wandered from their own pastures under Monte Viso into the worldly capital of Piedmont.
The assembled congregation numbered in all some three or four and twenty, of whom fifteen or sixteen were grey-haired women. Their solitary and clerkless preacher, a somewhat stunted figure in a plain black coat, with a cracked voice, after leading them through the languid forms of prayer which are all that in truth are possible to people whose present life is dull and its terrestrial future unchangeable, put his utmost zeal into a consolatory discourse on the wickedness of the wide world, more especially of the plain of Piedmont and city of Turin, and on the exclusive favour with God, enjoyed by the between nineteen and twenty-four elect members of his congregation, in the streets of Admah and Zeboim.1
Myself neither cheered nor greatly alarmed by this doctrine, I walked back into the condemned city, and up into the gallery where Paul Veronese’s Solomon and the Queen of Sheba glowed in full afternoon light. The gallery windows being open, there came in with the warm air, floating swells and falls of military music, from the courtyard before the palace, which seemed to me more devotional, in their perfect art, tune, and discipline, than anything I remembered of evangelical hymns. And as the perfect colour and sound gradually asserted their power on me, they seemed finally to fasten me in the old article of Jewish faith, that things done delightfully and rightly were always done by the help and in the Spirit of God”.
Milan
Here are Ruskin’s earliest impressions of Milan, from Praeterita, part 1, ch. 6, Schaffausen and Milan, 1833, (35.117)
“We took boat on the little recessed lake of Chiavenna,
and rowed down the whole way of waters, passing another Sunday at Cadenabbia, and then, from villa to villa, across the lake, and across, to Como,1 and so to Milan by Monza.
It was then full, though early, summer time; and the first impression of Italy always ought to be in her summer. It was also well that, though my heart was with the Swiss cottager, the artificial taste in me had been mainly formed by Turner’s rendering of those very scenes, in Rogers’s Italy. The “Lake of Como,” the two moonlight villas, and the “Farewell,”2 had prepared me for all that was beautiful and right in the terraced gardens, proportioned arcades, and white spaces of sunny wall, which have in general no honest charm for the English mind. But to me, they were almost native through Turner,—familiar at once, and revered. I had no idea then of the Renaissance evil in them ; they were associated only with what I had been told of the “divine art” of Raphael and Lionardo, and, by my ignorance of dates, associated with the stories of Shakespeare. Portia’s villa,—Juliet’s palace,—I thought to have been like these.
Also, as noticed in the preface3 to reprint of vol. ii. of Modern Painters, I had always a quite true perception of size, whether in mountains or buildings, and with the perception, joy in it; so that the vastness of scale in the Milanese palaces, and the “mount of marble, a hundred spires,”4 of the duomo, impressed me to the full at once: and not having yet the taste to discern good Gothic from bad, the mere richness and fineness of lace-like tracery against the sky was a consummate rapture to me—how much more getting up to it and climbing among it, with the Monte Rosa seen between its pinnacles across the plain!h
3. On to Florence
Here is Ruskin’s first complete text , Mornings in Florence, with relevant internet links.
If you prefer to start with the LE Introduction of volume 23 of his complete works, click here
Mornings in Florence,
MORNINGS IN FLORENCE
THE FIRST MORNING
SANTA CROCE
1. If 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;1 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—others, 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 you yourself,—better still.
2. Now, if indeed you are interested in old art, you cannot but know the power of the thirteenth century.2 You know that the character of it was concentrated in, and to the full expressed by, its best King, St. Louis.3 You know St. Louis was a Franciscan; and that the Franciscans,
1 [See Ruskin’s account of Giotto and his Works in Padua (Vol. XXIV.).]
2 [Compare Vol. XIX. p. 462.]
3 [For St. Louis in this sense, compare Vol. V. p. 416, and Vol. XII. p. 138. See also Val d’Arno (above, pp. 36, 57).]
295
296
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 in such business to be without superior in the world.* 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, specially, 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.”
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 Guide1). 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
* “Cum in universo orbe non reperiri dicatur quenquam qui sufficientior sit in his et aliis multis artibus magistro Giotto Bondonis de Florentia pictore, et accipiendus sit in patria, velut magnus magister.”—(Decree of his appointment, quoted by Lord Lindsay, vol. ii. p. 247.)
1 [Applicable only to the old editions of Murray. The chapel is on the (spectator’s) right of the choir, the Cappella dei Bardi.]
I. SANTA CROCE 297
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.
Sometimes there will be no question at all. These two grey frescoes at the bottom of the walls on your right and left, for instance, have been entirely got up for your better satisfaction, in the last year or two—over Giotto’s halfeffaced 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 Liberta, in which you stand, is covered with frescoes by Giotto; that they were whitewashed, and only laid bare in 1853; that they were painted between 1296 and 1304;1 that they represent scenes in the life of St. Francis;2 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 frescoes 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
1 [See below, § 8, p. 301.]
2 [See the further account of the frescoes, below, § 51, p. 347; and, for their positions, p. 337 n.]
298 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE
Italy—so far as I know or can hear. There is no other of the great time which has all its frescoes 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 it1—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.2 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.
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 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.3
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
1 [“Restored with much skill and judgment” is the expression, in this case, in the edition of 1864; but after Ruskin’s criticism the praise was omitted.]
2 [The substance of § § 5, 6 had been delivered in the lecture on Arnolfo: see above, pp. 192 seq.]
3 [Compare below, § 120, p. 413.]
Here is the Introduction of vol 23 of Ruskin's works concerning the Val d'Arno 1874 Oxford lectures ....The fact is that, in writing the lectures so carefully, Ruskin had packed them too full 1 See § 157 n., p. 96. 2 See below, pp. 37, 131. lvi to make them readily understandable;1 they were very allusive, and in this edition it has been thought desirable to append a good many notes. The connexion between the artistic criticism and the historical analysis is in fact close and essential, but it is not always readily apparent. Ruskin’s mind, says Professor Norton of these lectures, “was so susceptible to impressions, so receptive of suggestion, so keen in its pursuit of each successive interest, that every new piece of work was apt to open into unexpected directions, and its main stream, diverted into numberless channels, left its original course unfulfilled and spread over a wide delta in a network of streamlets. . . . The lectures are deficient in systematic order, and in thoroughness of treatment. But imperfect in construction and fragmentary in teaching as they are, they are the work of a master so variously accomplished and of such keen vision, that they afford instruction which no other treatises of the subject supply, and which no student of Italian art, competent, through knowledge gained from other sources, to take advantage of what they offer, can neglect without loss.”2 There was in the lectures hardly enough of “Tuscan art” to please those who came to hear about pictures and buildings; while the sketches of Florentine history in the thirteenth century presupposed more familiarity with persons and incidents than perhaps every hearer possessed, or than every reader has always in his mind. The book, in spite of Carlyle’s enthusiastic praise, and though it is full of happy things, has remained one of the less widely read of the author’s works. The additional illustrations introduced in this volume will, it is thought, make several passages of the text more readily interesting; and here, in the introduction, some rough index of the contents may not be out of place. Ruskin’s purpose in this course of Florentine studies has been clearly stated by Professor Norton:— “Their main subject was the splendid revival of the Fine Arts in Tuscany during the thirteenth century. Here, and at this time, they had been instinct with creative imagination, and with passionate emotion. Sculpture, architecture, painting, poetry, had never displayed higher power, nor expressed an intenser life. It was Mr. Ruskin’s intention to trace the sources of this revival in the social, political, and religious influences by 1 See his note on p. 42, where he apologises for “packing sentences together.” 2 Introduction to the American (“Brantwood”) edition of Val d’Arno, pp. v., vii. lvii which the Italian nature was moulded, and the current of its native forces determined. He proposed to study the course of the fates of that land which is still tutress in art of the modern world,1 to show the gradual ascendency of the elements of order in society, resulting in the increase of security and wealth, as well as the invigoration of intelligence, the quickening of the moral sense, the refining and deepening of sentiment, the improvement of manners, and the ardour for expression in monumental works, that they should bear witness to the power, the pride, and the piety of the community.”2 Such a survey required the introduction of many topics often omitted in artistic criticism. Ruskin anticipated a certain restlessness in his audience (§ 255) as he touched on institutions, laws, theology. But the early Florentine artists were in a sense theologians, and the study of “Isaiah and Matthew” is necessary to understand them (§ 257); “the hieroglyphs upon the architecture of a dead nation” cannot be read “without knowing the sculptures and mouldings of the national soul” (§§ 6, 129); “the great fact which I have written this course of lectures to enforce upon your minds is the dependence of all the arts on the virtue of the State and its kindly order” (§ 271). Up to the middle of the thirteenth century, says Ruskin, there is no surviving art except that which was derived from the Greeks (§ 8). He proceeds to discuss in this book the historical conditions in which, in Tuscany, the Christian and the Greek influences combined to create a new birth of art; hitherto, the nations had been “too savage to be Christian” (§§ 54, 248). He maps out roughly the external forces which influenced the Italian states—the “profane chivalry” of Germany, adverse to the Popes and allied with the Ghibellines; the “pious chivalry” of France, the ally of the Church and the Guelphs; and the Eastern powers, at once the enemies and the tutors of the West (§§ 51–53). There were three movements which converged to create the state favourable to the artistic revival. First, freedom of thought: here the source is Germany, and the struggle is illustrated by the long conflict between the Emperor Frederick II. and the Popes (§§ 3, 58). Secondly, the development of the class of craftsmen, the refinements of new art being centrally represented by the Sainte Chapelle (§§ 59, 67, 78). 1 Quoted from Val d’ Arno, § 6. 2 Introduction to the American (“Brantwood”) edition of Val d’ Arno, p. vi. lviii Thirdly, the development of trade (§ 60). Incidentally, Ruskin gives a picture of the ideal state in the Middle Ages (§ 73). Passing more into detail, and coming to the history of Florence in particular, Ruskin’s summary is this: that the history is that of the struggle of the craftsman as against the priest (as in the war of the Pisans with Gregory IX., § 91), and against the pillaging soldier (as in the war of the Lombard League against Frederick II., §§ 91, 96). This latter point is what gives unity to the complicated story of Florence in the thirteenth century. The significant date is 1250, the year of the first Trades Revolt. “Shield and Apron” is the title of Ruskin’s third lecture; or, as he first called it, “The Bottega.”1 The life of the workshop is its theme, the rise of the men “whose bearing is the Apron, instead of the Shield” (§ 72). The next lecture is called “Parted per Pale”; or, as again he first called it, “Peace and War”—the subject is the struggle of Labourer against Knight, the title referring to the shield of Florence (§§ 109, 110). “Resolute maintenance of fortified peace”: that is the ideal of the true burgess (§ 108), symbolised by the building of the Palazzo Vecchio (§ 106). But the Florentines were not content with the passive enjoyment of such peace for themselves; they became armed missionaries of free trade (§ 122). “Pax Vobiscum” is the title of Lecture v. (or, in the original draft, “Peaceful Florence”): her “Year of Victories” crowned honest efforts to make peace by means of war. (Lectures vi. and vii. revert to artistic criticism, in a connexion to be explained presently). The Florentine revolutions were in the name of “Libertas”; but the “Franchise” (title of Lecture viii.), of which Ruskin speaks, is not the same as modern ideas of liberty. In the next lecture he describes some of the feuds which raged “tumultuous and merciless as the Tyrrhene Sea,” but also “with the uses of naturally appointed storm” (§ 248). In the last lecture (“Fleur-de-Lys”), he pursues the historical sketch, and describes the institutions of Florence in the days of her glory (§ 271). Ruskin’s historical allusions and descriptions in the lectures thus summarised are by no means continuous, and some readers may like to consult the brief chronology of events, with references to the paragraphs in the book, which is now appended to the lectures (pp. 177, 178). Into this historical groundwork the study of Tuscan Art is dovetailed. The art primarily studied is that of the two architects and 1 Compare Giotto and his Works in Padua, § 17 (Vol. XXIV. p. 32). INTRODUCTION lix sculptors, Niccola Pisano (1206–1278) and Giovanni, his son (died 1320). Lecture i. (“Nicholas the Pisan”) discusses Niccola’s indebtedness to Greek art, and describes him as “the master of Naturalism in Italy” (§ 17), and also as the author of “your first architecture of Gothic Christianity” (§ 24). In Lecture ii. (“John the Pisan”) the Gothic traceries in Giovanni’s Campo Santo of Pisa are noticed and contrasted with his “utterly Greek fountain of Perugia” (§ 43)—the “Greek profane manner of design properly belonging to civil buildings, as opposed to ecclesiastical and military ones” (§ 44). This starts Ruskin off on the historical sketch summarised above; and if the art of the Pisani be considered the main subject, the following sections and chapters down to ch. v. § 129, or even ch. vii. § 180, are parenthetical. We pick up Niccola again, however, at § 84, when he is called in to pull down the towns of the nobles. The election of Urban IV. as Pope, and his founding of the Cathedral of Orvieto, bring us back to Giovanni and his work there (§ 180), and again on the death of that Pope he is sent for to build his tomb (§§ 40, 43, 180, 189, 261). So, again, the gradual establishment of “fortified peace” in Florence and the destruction of the palaces of the nobles lead to remarks on the character of the early Florentine architecture thus destroyed (§ 136). From them Ruskin passes in Lecture vi. (“Marble Couchant”) to the striped horizontal style of the later Tuscan architecture, a consideration of the proper relation of ornament to construction (§ 146), and a discussion of the Pisan traceries. In Lecture vii. (“Marble Rampant”) the subject is continued, the principles of Cyclopean architecture are discussed, and the exquisite adjustment of the stones by the Pisani described (§ 167)—an adjustment all the more necessary when the ornament is to flow or climb (§ 168), and the marble thus becomes “rampant” (§ 169). In this connexion the grace and luxuriance of Giovanni’s work at Orvieto are described (§ 176). The occasion of it takes us away again, however, to history, and further discussion of the bas-reliefs in Orvieto is consigned to the author’s Appendix, in which he gives notes on the illustrations to the book. MORNINGS IN FLORENCE The spirit in which Ruskin wrote this well-known handbook is sufficiently explained in his own title-page and Preface (p. 293). The scheme of it grew considerably under his hands; for at first, as appears from a letter to Professor Norton of September 16, 1874, the book was intended to contain three chapters only, thus:— “First Morning: Sta. Croce and Gospel of Works. “Second: The Spanish Chapel and Gospel of Faith. “Third: Mio bel San Giovanni.” As published by Ruskin, it consisted of Six Mornings. A Seventh, written by Mr. R. Caird, is now added. Mr. Caird was studying in Italy in 1876–1877, and Ruskin had made his acquaintance. He had sent some suggested corrections for Mornings in Florence, and Ruskin then asked him to write a careful description of the second great fresco by “Memmi” in the Spanish Chapel. Mr. Caird wrote full notes of the fresco, and Ruskin, as will be seen from the following letter, was much pleased with the work:— “I am so very glad to hear from you,” he wrote from Venice (May 3, 1877), “for I have been at last reading your most careful and valuable description of Spanish Chapel with extreme attention, and I propose with your permission to publish it, with a comment or two, as supplementary to Mornings in Florence, in the same form. It is too connected and valuable to be broken up for the pieces I should use, in my own account, and at any rate as that can’t be given now for ever so long, yours had better take its position at once.” Ruskin expresses the same intention in Mornings in Florence (§ 120, see p. 412); and among other material preserved at Brantwood and intended for a continuation of that book was Mr. Caird’s chapter, set up into type. Owing, however, to Ruskin’s serious illness of 1878, which prevented the completion of so much of his work, this additional chapter, which he had intended to publish forthwith, was never issued by him. It is now added from the printed proof. Some other notes by Mr. Caird are given on pp. 455–457. lxii M. de la Sizeranne introduces his charming study of Ruskin with a description of a party of English girls, whom he encountered on the Feast of S. Thomas Aquinas in the Spanish cloister of S. Maria Novella, standing reverently before the fresco of the Sciences, while one of them read from a little book words “which seemed like a tuft of flowers springing from the dust of the past.”1 It was one of the “Mornings in Florence” that was being read, and the thin little parts of this guide-book, pleasantly bound in red and gold and easily pocketable, have been now for thirty years as familiar a companion to the tourist in Florence as Baedeker itself. For the benefit of readers at home, a large number of illustrations have here been introduced. In writing his analysis of the frescoes in the Spanish Chapel, Ruskin was returning in his maturity to works which had fascinated him thirty years before. The reader may be interested in reading, as an introduction to the latter part of Mornings in Florence, the following account of Ruskin’s first impressions which he sent in a letter to his mother, dated Florence, June 9, 1845:— “You know it is quite impossible to be always among saints without feeling better bred for it; and to-day I was all the morning among a host, not of mere saints, but of downright Virtues, in the Chapelle des Espagnols of Santa M. Novella, where the two friends Simone Memmi and Taddeo Gaddi—friends because fellow-pupils of Giotto, and equally venerating and loving their master—worked hand in hand: each trying to set off and adorn the other’s works, so that Vasari exclaimed in a pretty burst of feeling, ‘Oh, noble souls, that without ambition or envy did love each other, so brotherly, and were glad each in his friend’s honour as in his own.’ And there are the Virtues and Sciences sitting side by side about St. Thomas Aquinas, and each Virtue has beneath her, her favourite saint; and each Science, her keenest votary. There is Charity—not our hospital Charity with three babies strangling her, but divine Charity, clothed in red for blood, and with a flame of fire upon her head and a bow in her hand; and under is St. Augustine. And there is Faith guarding Christ’s flock, and a pack of wolves driven away by a whole troop of black and white dogs who bite very hard indeed, so that the wolves roar again; and the black and white dogs who look very sensible about the face are the Dominicans (Domini canes: ask my father), who wore, as you know, black and white robes. 1 Ruskin et la Religion de la Beaute, par Robert de la Sizeranne, 1897, p. 4. lxiii And there is Music, or rather St. Cecilia, and under her is Tubal-Cain, beating on his anvil with two hammers, and starting at the change of sound. And there is—but there isn’t anything that isn’t there, and all so beautiful and pure, and seen by the soft cloister light; for it is in the Chapter House that opens off the green cloister, so called because of the green frescoes of Paolo Uccello (Paul Bird) who painted all the Old Testament there, only inferior to Benozzo Gozzoli’s. The outpouring of mind in these frescoes is something marvellous. The Pitti Palace is such paltry work after them: such labour of oil and varnish over a single head, while the brush of the great old men is rolling out creation after creation—hosts of solemn figures and mighty spirits, all in the pure air and bright light, and all not as if you came to look at them, but as if they came to speak to you.” Yet “youth shows but half”; the message which Ruskin came in after years to hear and to understand in these frescoes of the Spanish Chapel is declared in the present volume.Some loose sheets of the manuscript of Mornings in Florence are among Ruskin’s papers at Brantwood, and one of these is here reproduced (p. 362). In 1882 Ruskin revised the text; the proofs with his corrections are in Mr. Allen’s possession. The revision is here followed, the variations being described either in footnotes or in the Bibliographical Note (p. 288). THE SHEPHERD’S TOWER (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giotto) This publication, issued in 1881, consisted of a Preface and a series of photographs of the bas-reliefs, to illustrate the descriptions of them in Mornings in Florence. The photographs were taken specially for Ruskin. They are here reproduced—necessarily on a reduced scale—from his negatives. The precise share which Giotto had in the construction of the Campanile, and the portion of the sculpture which is of his design or execution, are unsolved, and perhaps insoluble, questions. What is known is that on April 12, 1334 (two years before his death) he was appointed by public decree Capo-Maestro of Sta. Reparata (as the cathedral then in course of construction was still called). Vasari’s statement is that “on the 9th of July 1334, Giotto commenced the campanile of Santa Maria del Fiore . . . all lxiv the historical representations which were to be the ornaments being designed with infinite care and diligence by Giotto himself, who marked out on the model all the compartments where the friezes and sculptures were to be placed, in colours of white, black, and red. . . . And if that which Lorenzo di Cione Ghiberti has written be true, as I fully believe it is, Giotto not only made the model of the campanile, but even executed a part of the sculptures and reliefs—those representations in marble, namely, which exhibit the origin of all the arts. Lorenzo also affirms that he saw models in relief from the hand of Giotto, and more particularly those used in these works: an assertion that we can well believe, for design and invention are the parents of all the arts and not of one only. This campanile, according to the design of Giotto, was to have been crowned by a spire or pyramid, of the height of fifty braccia; but as this was in the old Gothic manner, the modern architects have always advised its omission: the building appearing to them better than it is.”1 In the Opera del Duomo at Siena there is an old drawing which is believed to represent Giotto’s design and shows the tower.2 The passage in Ghiberti’s Commentary on Art is this: “Giotto was most excellent in every branch of the art, and in the art of sculpture also. The first stories in the building which was built by him, of the bell-tower of Santa Reparata, were chiselled and designed by his hand. In my time I have seen models by his hand of the stories mentioned, most excellently designed.” Giotto died in 1336, when the Campanile, it is supposed, had not advanced far beyond the stage containing the first story with the bas-reliefs. Andrea Pisano, and afterwards Francesco Talenti, were commissioned to finish the tower. It will thus be seen that there is excellent evidence for the traditional belief which connects the design of the tower, and the execution of some of the sculpture, with Giotto, for Ghiberti was born hardly fifty years after Giotto’s death. The amount of his handiwork is a question to be decided, if at all, by internal evidence of style. Ruskin’s opinion on such points is expressed in Mornings in Florence (see pp. 423, 424, 425, 430–433); compare also Ariadne Florentina, § 58 (Vol. XXII. pp. 336–337). It is entitled to the more weight from the close study which he had given to the bas-reliefs. He had photographed them, drawn some of them, and repeatedly made 1 Vol. i. p. 114 (Bohn’s edition). 2 A reproduction of the drawing is given in F. Mason Perkins’s Giotto, p. 132. lxv careful notes of their characteristics. In these later studies of “The Shepherd’s Tower” he was returning to a building under which he had lived thirty years before,1 and which he had selected in The Seven Lamps of Architecture as the most perfect in the world.
PISTOIA
LUCCA,
From Praeterita, vol II, § 115. “Another influence, no less forcible, and more instantly effective, was brought to bear on me by my first quiet walk through Lucca.
Hitherto, all architecture, except fairy-finished Milan, had depended with me for its delight on being partly in decay. I revered the sentiment of its age, and I was accustomed to look for the signs of age in the mouldering of its traceries, and in the interstices deepening between the stones of its masonry. This looking for cranny and joint was mixed with the love of rough stones themselves, and of country churches built like Westmoreland cottages.
Here in Lucca I found myself suddenly in the presence of twelfth-century buildings, originally set in such balance of masonry that they could all stand without mortar; and in material so incorruptible, that after six hundred years of sunshine and rain, a lancet could not now be put between their joints.
Absolutely for the first time I now saw what mediæval builders were, and what they meant. I took the simplest of all façades for analysis, that of Santa Maria Foris-Portam, and thereon literally began the study of architecture.”
PISE
SIENNA
ASSISI
The third Informal Ruskin tour Journey or Ruskin Old Road III starts in Turin.
Here is the itinerary : Turin,
Milan,
Florence,
Lucca,
Pistoia June 3
Lucca, June 4
Pise : June 5
Siena : June 6-8
Assisi : June 9-10
Rome : 11-14
Naples June 15
Pompeii (Vesuvius) : June 16 (why not ?)
Amalfi Coast June 17-20: Amalfi Coast (possibly including a side trip to Paestum which has the best Greek ruins outside of the Peloponnese)
Naples : June 21
June 22: Jim returns to US from Naples
The rules
This is an informal group.
The journey
Turin
Here is the account of a famous incident, (Ruskin’s unconversion), that took place in Turin, from Praeterita, (35.494)
“…And I emphasized Couttet’s disapproval of the whole tour, by announcing to him suddenly that I was going of all places in the world, to Turin!
23. I had still some purpose, even in this libertinage, namely, to outline the Alpine chain from Monte Viso to Monte Rosa….
There, one Sunday morning, I made my way in the south suburb to a little chapel which, by a dusty roadside, gathered to its unobserved door the few sheep of the old Waldensian faith who had wandered from their own pastures under Monte Viso into the worldly capital of Piedmont.
The assembled congregation numbered in all some three or four and twenty, of whom fifteen or sixteen were grey-haired women. Their solitary and clerkless preacher, a somewhat stunted figure in a plain black coat, with a cracked voice, after leading them through the languid forms of prayer which are all that in truth are possible to people whose present life is dull and its terrestrial future unchangeable, put his utmost zeal into a consolatory discourse on the wickedness of the wide world, more especially of the plain of Piedmont and city of Turin, and on the exclusive favour with God, enjoyed by the between nineteen and twenty-four elect members of his congregation, in the streets of Admah and Zeboim.1
Myself neither cheered nor greatly alarmed by this doctrine, I walked back into the condemned city, and up into the gallery where Paul Veronese’s Solomon and the Queen of Sheba glowed in full afternoon light. The gallery windows being open, there came in with the warm air, floating swells and falls of military music, from the courtyard before the palace, which seemed to me more devotional, in their perfect art, tune, and discipline, than anything I remembered of evangelical hymns. And as the perfect colour and sound gradually asserted their power on me, they seemed finally to fasten me in the old article of Jewish faith, that things done delightfully and rightly were always done by the help and in the Spirit of God”.
Milan
Here are Ruskin’s earliest impressions of Milan, from Praeterita, part 1, ch. 6, Schaffausen and Milan, 1833, (35.117)
“We took boat on the little recessed lake of Chiavenna,
and rowed down the whole way of waters, passing another Sunday at Cadenabbia, and then, from villa to villa, across the lake, and across, to Como,1 and so to Milan by Monza.
It was then full, though early, summer time; and the first impression of Italy always ought to be in her summer. It was also well that, though my heart was with the Swiss cottager, the artificial taste in me had been mainly formed by Turner’s rendering of those very scenes, in Rogers’s Italy. The “Lake of Como,” the two moonlight villas, and the “Farewell,”2 had prepared me for all that was beautiful and right in the terraced gardens, proportioned arcades, and white spaces of sunny wall, which have in general no honest charm for the English mind. But to me, they were almost native through Turner,—familiar at once, and revered. I had no idea then of the Renaissance evil in them ; they were associated only with what I had been told of the “divine art” of Raphael and Lionardo, and, by my ignorance of dates, associated with the stories of Shakespeare. Portia’s villa,—Juliet’s palace,—I thought to have been like these.
Also, as noticed in the preface3 to reprint of vol. ii. of Modern Painters, I had always a quite true perception of size, whether in mountains or buildings, and with the perception, joy in it; so that the vastness of scale in the Milanese palaces, and the “mount of marble, a hundred spires,”4 of the duomo, impressed me to the full at once: and not having yet the taste to discern good Gothic from bad, the mere richness and fineness of lace-like tracery against the sky was a consummate rapture to me—how much more getting up to it and climbing among it, with the Monte Rosa seen between its pinnacles across the plain!h
3. On to Florence
Here is Ruskin’s first complete text , Mornings in Florence, with relevant internet links.
If you prefer to start with the LE Introduction of volume 23 of his complete works, click here
Mornings in Florence,
MORNINGS IN FLORENCE
THE FIRST MORNING
SANTA CROCE
1. If 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;1 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—others, 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 you yourself,—better still.
2. Now, if indeed you are interested in old art, you cannot but know the power of the thirteenth century.2 You know that the character of it was concentrated in, and to the full expressed by, its best King, St. Louis.3 You know St. Louis was a Franciscan; and that the Franciscans,
1 [See Ruskin’s account of Giotto and his Works in Padua (Vol. XXIV.).]
2 [Compare Vol. XIX. p. 462.]
3 [For St. Louis in this sense, compare Vol. V. p. 416, and Vol. XII. p. 138. See also Val d’Arno (above, pp. 36, 57).]
295
296
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 in such business to be without superior in the world.* 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, specially, 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.”
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 Guide1). 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
* “Cum in universo orbe non reperiri dicatur quenquam qui sufficientior sit in his et aliis multis artibus magistro Giotto Bondonis de Florentia pictore, et accipiendus sit in patria, velut magnus magister.”—(Decree of his appointment, quoted by Lord Lindsay, vol. ii. p. 247.)
1 [Applicable only to the old editions of Murray. The chapel is on the (spectator’s) right of the choir, the Cappella dei Bardi.]
I. SANTA CROCE 297
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.
Sometimes there will be no question at all. These two grey frescoes at the bottom of the walls on your right and left, for instance, have been entirely got up for your better satisfaction, in the last year or two—over Giotto’s halfeffaced 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 Liberta, in which you stand, is covered with frescoes by Giotto; that they were whitewashed, and only laid bare in 1853; that they were painted between 1296 and 1304;1 that they represent scenes in the life of St. Francis;2 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 frescoes 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
1 [See below, § 8, p. 301.]
2 [See the further account of the frescoes, below, § 51, p. 347; and, for their positions, p. 337 n.]
298 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE
Italy—so far as I know or can hear. There is no other of the great time which has all its frescoes 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 it1—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.2 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.
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 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.3
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
1 [“Restored with much skill and judgment” is the expression, in this case, in the edition of 1864; but after Ruskin’s criticism the praise was omitted.]
2 [The substance of § § 5, 6 had been delivered in the lecture on Arnolfo: see above, pp. 192 seq.]
3 [Compare below, § 120, p. 413.]
Here is the Introduction of vol 23 of Ruskin's works concerning the Val d'Arno 1874 Oxford lectures ....The fact is that, in writing the lectures so carefully, Ruskin had packed them too full 1 See § 157 n., p. 96. 2 See below, pp. 37, 131. lvi to make them readily understandable;1 they were very allusive, and in this edition it has been thought desirable to append a good many notes. The connexion between the artistic criticism and the historical analysis is in fact close and essential, but it is not always readily apparent. Ruskin’s mind, says Professor Norton of these lectures, “was so susceptible to impressions, so receptive of suggestion, so keen in its pursuit of each successive interest, that every new piece of work was apt to open into unexpected directions, and its main stream, diverted into numberless channels, left its original course unfulfilled and spread over a wide delta in a network of streamlets. . . . The lectures are deficient in systematic order, and in thoroughness of treatment. But imperfect in construction and fragmentary in teaching as they are, they are the work of a master so variously accomplished and of such keen vision, that they afford instruction which no other treatises of the subject supply, and which no student of Italian art, competent, through knowledge gained from other sources, to take advantage of what they offer, can neglect without loss.”2 There was in the lectures hardly enough of “Tuscan art” to please those who came to hear about pictures and buildings; while the sketches of Florentine history in the thirteenth century presupposed more familiarity with persons and incidents than perhaps every hearer possessed, or than every reader has always in his mind. The book, in spite of Carlyle’s enthusiastic praise, and though it is full of happy things, has remained one of the less widely read of the author’s works. The additional illustrations introduced in this volume will, it is thought, make several passages of the text more readily interesting; and here, in the introduction, some rough index of the contents may not be out of place. Ruskin’s purpose in this course of Florentine studies has been clearly stated by Professor Norton:— “Their main subject was the splendid revival of the Fine Arts in Tuscany during the thirteenth century. Here, and at this time, they had been instinct with creative imagination, and with passionate emotion. Sculpture, architecture, painting, poetry, had never displayed higher power, nor expressed an intenser life. It was Mr. Ruskin’s intention to trace the sources of this revival in the social, political, and religious influences by 1 See his note on p. 42, where he apologises for “packing sentences together.” 2 Introduction to the American (“Brantwood”) edition of Val d’Arno, pp. v., vii. lvii which the Italian nature was moulded, and the current of its native forces determined. He proposed to study the course of the fates of that land which is still tutress in art of the modern world,1 to show the gradual ascendency of the elements of order in society, resulting in the increase of security and wealth, as well as the invigoration of intelligence, the quickening of the moral sense, the refining and deepening of sentiment, the improvement of manners, and the ardour for expression in monumental works, that they should bear witness to the power, the pride, and the piety of the community.”2 Such a survey required the introduction of many topics often omitted in artistic criticism. Ruskin anticipated a certain restlessness in his audience (§ 255) as he touched on institutions, laws, theology. But the early Florentine artists were in a sense theologians, and the study of “Isaiah and Matthew” is necessary to understand them (§ 257); “the hieroglyphs upon the architecture of a dead nation” cannot be read “without knowing the sculptures and mouldings of the national soul” (§§ 6, 129); “the great fact which I have written this course of lectures to enforce upon your minds is the dependence of all the arts on the virtue of the State and its kindly order” (§ 271). Up to the middle of the thirteenth century, says Ruskin, there is no surviving art except that which was derived from the Greeks (§ 8). He proceeds to discuss in this book the historical conditions in which, in Tuscany, the Christian and the Greek influences combined to create a new birth of art; hitherto, the nations had been “too savage to be Christian” (§§ 54, 248). He maps out roughly the external forces which influenced the Italian states—the “profane chivalry” of Germany, adverse to the Popes and allied with the Ghibellines; the “pious chivalry” of France, the ally of the Church and the Guelphs; and the Eastern powers, at once the enemies and the tutors of the West (§§ 51–53). There were three movements which converged to create the state favourable to the artistic revival. First, freedom of thought: here the source is Germany, and the struggle is illustrated by the long conflict between the Emperor Frederick II. and the Popes (§§ 3, 58). Secondly, the development of the class of craftsmen, the refinements of new art being centrally represented by the Sainte Chapelle (§§ 59, 67, 78). 1 Quoted from Val d’ Arno, § 6. 2 Introduction to the American (“Brantwood”) edition of Val d’ Arno, p. vi. lviii Thirdly, the development of trade (§ 60). Incidentally, Ruskin gives a picture of the ideal state in the Middle Ages (§ 73). Passing more into detail, and coming to the history of Florence in particular, Ruskin’s summary is this: that the history is that of the struggle of the craftsman as against the priest (as in the war of the Pisans with Gregory IX., § 91), and against the pillaging soldier (as in the war of the Lombard League against Frederick II., §§ 91, 96). This latter point is what gives unity to the complicated story of Florence in the thirteenth century. The significant date is 1250, the year of the first Trades Revolt. “Shield and Apron” is the title of Ruskin’s third lecture; or, as he first called it, “The Bottega.”1 The life of the workshop is its theme, the rise of the men “whose bearing is the Apron, instead of the Shield” (§ 72). The next lecture is called “Parted per Pale”; or, as again he first called it, “Peace and War”—the subject is the struggle of Labourer against Knight, the title referring to the shield of Florence (§§ 109, 110). “Resolute maintenance of fortified peace”: that is the ideal of the true burgess (§ 108), symbolised by the building of the Palazzo Vecchio (§ 106). But the Florentines were not content with the passive enjoyment of such peace for themselves; they became armed missionaries of free trade (§ 122). “Pax Vobiscum” is the title of Lecture v. (or, in the original draft, “Peaceful Florence”): her “Year of Victories” crowned honest efforts to make peace by means of war. (Lectures vi. and vii. revert to artistic criticism, in a connexion to be explained presently). The Florentine revolutions were in the name of “Libertas”; but the “Franchise” (title of Lecture viii.), of which Ruskin speaks, is not the same as modern ideas of liberty. In the next lecture he describes some of the feuds which raged “tumultuous and merciless as the Tyrrhene Sea,” but also “with the uses of naturally appointed storm” (§ 248). In the last lecture (“Fleur-de-Lys”), he pursues the historical sketch, and describes the institutions of Florence in the days of her glory (§ 271). Ruskin’s historical allusions and descriptions in the lectures thus summarised are by no means continuous, and some readers may like to consult the brief chronology of events, with references to the paragraphs in the book, which is now appended to the lectures (pp. 177, 178). Into this historical groundwork the study of Tuscan Art is dovetailed. The art primarily studied is that of the two architects and 1 Compare Giotto and his Works in Padua, § 17 (Vol. XXIV. p. 32). INTRODUCTION lix sculptors, Niccola Pisano (1206–1278) and Giovanni, his son (died 1320). Lecture i. (“Nicholas the Pisan”) discusses Niccola’s indebtedness to Greek art, and describes him as “the master of Naturalism in Italy” (§ 17), and also as the author of “your first architecture of Gothic Christianity” (§ 24). In Lecture ii. (“John the Pisan”) the Gothic traceries in Giovanni’s Campo Santo of Pisa are noticed and contrasted with his “utterly Greek fountain of Perugia” (§ 43)—the “Greek profane manner of design properly belonging to civil buildings, as opposed to ecclesiastical and military ones” (§ 44). This starts Ruskin off on the historical sketch summarised above; and if the art of the Pisani be considered the main subject, the following sections and chapters down to ch. v. § 129, or even ch. vii. § 180, are parenthetical. We pick up Niccola again, however, at § 84, when he is called in to pull down the towns of the nobles. The election of Urban IV. as Pope, and his founding of the Cathedral of Orvieto, bring us back to Giovanni and his work there (§ 180), and again on the death of that Pope he is sent for to build his tomb (§§ 40, 43, 180, 189, 261). So, again, the gradual establishment of “fortified peace” in Florence and the destruction of the palaces of the nobles lead to remarks on the character of the early Florentine architecture thus destroyed (§ 136). From them Ruskin passes in Lecture vi. (“Marble Couchant”) to the striped horizontal style of the later Tuscan architecture, a consideration of the proper relation of ornament to construction (§ 146), and a discussion of the Pisan traceries. In Lecture vii. (“Marble Rampant”) the subject is continued, the principles of Cyclopean architecture are discussed, and the exquisite adjustment of the stones by the Pisani described (§ 167)—an adjustment all the more necessary when the ornament is to flow or climb (§ 168), and the marble thus becomes “rampant” (§ 169). In this connexion the grace and luxuriance of Giovanni’s work at Orvieto are described (§ 176). The occasion of it takes us away again, however, to history, and further discussion of the bas-reliefs in Orvieto is consigned to the author’s Appendix, in which he gives notes on the illustrations to the book. MORNINGS IN FLORENCE The spirit in which Ruskin wrote this well-known handbook is sufficiently explained in his own title-page and Preface (p. 293). The scheme of it grew considerably under his hands; for at first, as appears from a letter to Professor Norton of September 16, 1874, the book was intended to contain three chapters only, thus:— “First Morning: Sta. Croce and Gospel of Works. “Second: The Spanish Chapel and Gospel of Faith. “Third: Mio bel San Giovanni.” As published by Ruskin, it consisted of Six Mornings. A Seventh, written by Mr. R. Caird, is now added. Mr. Caird was studying in Italy in 1876–1877, and Ruskin had made his acquaintance. He had sent some suggested corrections for Mornings in Florence, and Ruskin then asked him to write a careful description of the second great fresco by “Memmi” in the Spanish Chapel. Mr. Caird wrote full notes of the fresco, and Ruskin, as will be seen from the following letter, was much pleased with the work:— “I am so very glad to hear from you,” he wrote from Venice (May 3, 1877), “for I have been at last reading your most careful and valuable description of Spanish Chapel with extreme attention, and I propose with your permission to publish it, with a comment or two, as supplementary to Mornings in Florence, in the same form. It is too connected and valuable to be broken up for the pieces I should use, in my own account, and at any rate as that can’t be given now for ever so long, yours had better take its position at once.” Ruskin expresses the same intention in Mornings in Florence (§ 120, see p. 412); and among other material preserved at Brantwood and intended for a continuation of that book was Mr. Caird’s chapter, set up into type. Owing, however, to Ruskin’s serious illness of 1878, which prevented the completion of so much of his work, this additional chapter, which he had intended to publish forthwith, was never issued by him. It is now added from the printed proof. Some other notes by Mr. Caird are given on pp. 455–457. lxii M. de la Sizeranne introduces his charming study of Ruskin with a description of a party of English girls, whom he encountered on the Feast of S. Thomas Aquinas in the Spanish cloister of S. Maria Novella, standing reverently before the fresco of the Sciences, while one of them read from a little book words “which seemed like a tuft of flowers springing from the dust of the past.”1 It was one of the “Mornings in Florence” that was being read, and the thin little parts of this guide-book, pleasantly bound in red and gold and easily pocketable, have been now for thirty years as familiar a companion to the tourist in Florence as Baedeker itself. For the benefit of readers at home, a large number of illustrations have here been introduced. In writing his analysis of the frescoes in the Spanish Chapel, Ruskin was returning in his maturity to works which had fascinated him thirty years before. The reader may be interested in reading, as an introduction to the latter part of Mornings in Florence, the following account of Ruskin’s first impressions which he sent in a letter to his mother, dated Florence, June 9, 1845:— “You know it is quite impossible to be always among saints without feeling better bred for it; and to-day I was all the morning among a host, not of mere saints, but of downright Virtues, in the Chapelle des Espagnols of Santa M. Novella, where the two friends Simone Memmi and Taddeo Gaddi—friends because fellow-pupils of Giotto, and equally venerating and loving their master—worked hand in hand: each trying to set off and adorn the other’s works, so that Vasari exclaimed in a pretty burst of feeling, ‘Oh, noble souls, that without ambition or envy did love each other, so brotherly, and were glad each in his friend’s honour as in his own.’ And there are the Virtues and Sciences sitting side by side about St. Thomas Aquinas, and each Virtue has beneath her, her favourite saint; and each Science, her keenest votary. There is Charity—not our hospital Charity with three babies strangling her, but divine Charity, clothed in red for blood, and with a flame of fire upon her head and a bow in her hand; and under is St. Augustine. And there is Faith guarding Christ’s flock, and a pack of wolves driven away by a whole troop of black and white dogs who bite very hard indeed, so that the wolves roar again; and the black and white dogs who look very sensible about the face are the Dominicans (Domini canes: ask my father), who wore, as you know, black and white robes. 1 Ruskin et la Religion de la Beaute, par Robert de la Sizeranne, 1897, p. 4. lxiii And there is Music, or rather St. Cecilia, and under her is Tubal-Cain, beating on his anvil with two hammers, and starting at the change of sound. And there is—but there isn’t anything that isn’t there, and all so beautiful and pure, and seen by the soft cloister light; for it is in the Chapter House that opens off the green cloister, so called because of the green frescoes of Paolo Uccello (Paul Bird) who painted all the Old Testament there, only inferior to Benozzo Gozzoli’s. The outpouring of mind in these frescoes is something marvellous. The Pitti Palace is such paltry work after them: such labour of oil and varnish over a single head, while the brush of the great old men is rolling out creation after creation—hosts of solemn figures and mighty spirits, all in the pure air and bright light, and all not as if you came to look at them, but as if they came to speak to you.” Yet “youth shows but half”; the message which Ruskin came in after years to hear and to understand in these frescoes of the Spanish Chapel is declared in the present volume.Some loose sheets of the manuscript of Mornings in Florence are among Ruskin’s papers at Brantwood, and one of these is here reproduced (p. 362). In 1882 Ruskin revised the text; the proofs with his corrections are in Mr. Allen’s possession. The revision is here followed, the variations being described either in footnotes or in the Bibliographical Note (p. 288). THE SHEPHERD’S TOWER (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giotto) This publication, issued in 1881, consisted of a Preface and a series of photographs of the bas-reliefs, to illustrate the descriptions of them in Mornings in Florence. The photographs were taken specially for Ruskin. They are here reproduced—necessarily on a reduced scale—from his negatives. The precise share which Giotto had in the construction of the Campanile, and the portion of the sculpture which is of his design or execution, are unsolved, and perhaps insoluble, questions. What is known is that on April 12, 1334 (two years before his death) he was appointed by public decree Capo-Maestro of Sta. Reparata (as the cathedral then in course of construction was still called). Vasari’s statement is that “on the 9th of July 1334, Giotto commenced the campanile of Santa Maria del Fiore . . . all lxiv the historical representations which were to be the ornaments being designed with infinite care and diligence by Giotto himself, who marked out on the model all the compartments where the friezes and sculptures were to be placed, in colours of white, black, and red. . . . And if that which Lorenzo di Cione Ghiberti has written be true, as I fully believe it is, Giotto not only made the model of the campanile, but even executed a part of the sculptures and reliefs—those representations in marble, namely, which exhibit the origin of all the arts. Lorenzo also affirms that he saw models in relief from the hand of Giotto, and more particularly those used in these works: an assertion that we can well believe, for design and invention are the parents of all the arts and not of one only. This campanile, according to the design of Giotto, was to have been crowned by a spire or pyramid, of the height of fifty braccia; but as this was in the old Gothic manner, the modern architects have always advised its omission: the building appearing to them better than it is.”1 In the Opera del Duomo at Siena there is an old drawing which is believed to represent Giotto’s design and shows the tower.2 The passage in Ghiberti’s Commentary on Art is this: “Giotto was most excellent in every branch of the art, and in the art of sculpture also. The first stories in the building which was built by him, of the bell-tower of Santa Reparata, were chiselled and designed by his hand. In my time I have seen models by his hand of the stories mentioned, most excellently designed.” Giotto died in 1336, when the Campanile, it is supposed, had not advanced far beyond the stage containing the first story with the bas-reliefs. Andrea Pisano, and afterwards Francesco Talenti, were commissioned to finish the tower. It will thus be seen that there is excellent evidence for the traditional belief which connects the design of the tower, and the execution of some of the sculpture, with Giotto, for Ghiberti was born hardly fifty years after Giotto’s death. The amount of his handiwork is a question to be decided, if at all, by internal evidence of style. Ruskin’s opinion on such points is expressed in Mornings in Florence (see pp. 423, 424, 425, 430–433); compare also Ariadne Florentina, § 58 (Vol. XXII. pp. 336–337). It is entitled to the more weight from the close study which he had given to the bas-reliefs. He had photographed them, drawn some of them, and repeatedly made 1 Vol. i. p. 114 (Bohn’s edition). 2 A reproduction of the drawing is given in F. Mason Perkins’s Giotto, p. 132. lxv careful notes of their characteristics. In these later studies of “The Shepherd’s Tower” he was returning to a building under which he had lived thirty years before,1 and which he had selected in The Seven Lamps of Architecture as the most perfect in the world.
PISTOIA
LUCCA,
From Praeterita, vol II, § 115. “Another influence, no less forcible, and more instantly effective, was brought to bear on me by my first quiet walk through Lucca.
Hitherto, all architecture, except fairy-finished Milan, had depended with me for its delight on being partly in decay. I revered the sentiment of its age, and I was accustomed to look for the signs of age in the mouldering of its traceries, and in the interstices deepening between the stones of its masonry. This looking for cranny and joint was mixed with the love of rough stones themselves, and of country churches built like Westmoreland cottages.
Here in Lucca I found myself suddenly in the presence of twelfth-century buildings, originally set in such balance of masonry that they could all stand without mortar; and in material so incorruptible, that after six hundred years of sunshine and rain, a lancet could not now be put between their joints.
Absolutely for the first time I now saw what mediæval builders were, and what they meant. I took the simplest of all façades for analysis, that of Santa Maria Foris-Portam, and thereon literally began the study of architecture.”
PISE
SIENNA
ASSISI
