Rambles in Germany and Italy in 1840, 1842, and 1843/Part 3/Letter 13

LETTER XIII.

The Gallery.—Palazzo Pitti.—Le Belle Arti.—Portrait of Dante.—The Churches.

With slow steps my feet almost unwillingly first moved to the collection in the Reali Uffizi. As I entered the Tribune I felt a crowd of associations rise up around me, gifted with painful vitality. I was long lost in tears. But novelty seems all in all to us weak mortals; and when I revisited these rooms, these saddest ghosts were laid; the affliction calmed, and my mind was free to receive new impressions.

The Tribune is adorned with the selected chefs-d’œuvre of the best artists of every school, in addition to some of the finest ancient sculpture in the world. The matchless statue of the Queen of Beauty reigns over the whole—Venus, majestic in her bending softness, which once to see does not reveal its perfection. There is here one of the most beautiful of Raphael’s Madonnas—one of the eight which M. Rio mentions as among the chefs-d’œuvre that Raphael executed in the short interval of two years, during which he especially dedicated himself to multiplying representations of the Virgin, for whom from childhood he had felt an especial devotion.^[1]

Here is the master-piece of Andrea del Sarto, a painter of very high, though not the highest, merit. He wants warmth of colouring, fire of expression, and variety of invention; while he has been named Andrea senza Errori, from the purity of his outlines, the graceful decorum of his personages, and the faultless completeness of every portion of his pictures.

Perfection in drawing, of which Michael Angelo was the great master, is the leading merit of the subsequent Florentine school. It has not the glowing colouring of the Venetian, nor possesses artists to compare with Raphael, Correggio, or Leonardo da Vinci. Michael Angelo was its most glorious example—a man whom I do not dare criticize; whom I will wait to mention till I have seen the Sistine Chapel, at Rome; to whose majestic powers of conception every connoisseur bears testimony, while still there is something of extravagant—something which is not absolute beauty—in most of his works at Florence. The glorious Medicean monuments,—

 

“Where the gigantic shapes of Night and Day,
Turned into stone, rest everlastingly;
Yet still are breathing.”^[2]

 

—in spite of the magic art which makes them for ever sit and sleep, yet jar with the sense of harmony in form. His love of the naked was carried to a curious excess. In the Tribune, is a Holy Family, into which he has introduced a variety of naked figures in different attitudes, that have not the smallest connection with the subject of the picture, but intrude impertinently to mar its effect.

A charming Madonna of Correggio, kneeling beside the divine infant, adorns the Tribune; there is also the portrait termed the Fornarina of Raphael; certainly it is not the Fornarina, for it does not at all resemble her undoubted portraits, and it has been doubted whether the picture be by Raphael. From the Tribune, which, as a focus, collects the rarest and brightest rays of art, branch off several rooms, divided into schools. One of the most interesting is that containing the portraits of painters, by themselves. There is a stately chamber, dedicated to the Niobe and her children, whose maternal, remediless grief sheds a solemn sadness around. The Florentine school possesses specimens of its worst style, the inane, expressionless nudities of Vasari and his imitators. In the room of bronzes is the model of the Perseus of Benvenuto Cellini, and there is something more spirited and graceful in his attitude than in the larger bronze in the Piazza. There is the model of the glorious statue of John of Bologna, which Shakspeare we might think had seen when he spoke of the “herald Mercury;” and a David of Donatello, neither imitated from ancient sculpture, nor conceived under their inspiration. There is all the verve of an original idea; the youthful hero is neither Mars nor Hercules; he is the inspired Hebrew shepherd boy, who derived his victory from his faith. The galleries which run round three sides of the square, from which open the various rooms, are hung with many pictures, and adorned by a series of the busts of the Roman Emperors, and by a number of statues. Just below the cornice is a range of highly interesting portraits. Paul Jovius had made a vast collection of original portraits of all the illustrious personages of his time, and placed them in the palace of the Conte Giovio at Como. Cosimo I. sent a painter, celebrated for his portraits, Cristofaro dell’ Altissimo, to make copies, and these are here hung up.

With the exception of the Tribune, the collection in the Pitti Palace exceeds that of the gallery. There are here pictures from every school; and by going often, and selecting beforehand the master whose works I wished to see, I have spent many a morning with delight. Once or twice I have gone merely to refresh my eyes with a marine view—a sunset by Salvator Rosa; it is a picture all calm, all softness, all glowing beauty; and, during the misty and darker days of this unsouthern winter, I have gone—as I would in England—to warm my heart and imagination by the golden hues of a sunnier and purer atmosphere.

The gallery of the Belle Arti is rich in paintings of the olden times, when the soul worked more than the hand; when the artist sought, in the first place, to conceive the sublime, and the glorious endeavour bore him aloft among the angels and saints, whose blissful ecstasies he was enabled to represent. Why did not some among these great artists portray the other passions that ennoble our nature? We have portraits of great men, worthy of them, it is true; but the ideal of the warrior who would die for his country—nay, I may say, of the lover who loves unto the death—the representation of such men and women as Milton and Shakspeare have embodied in verse, is not to be found in the works of these painters; or only found, because among their groups of worshippers at some miracle, we see the power of great actions sit upon the brow, and add majesty to the gesture of some among them. When they portrayed earthly love, they betook themselves to mythology, and depicted passion, without the touch of tender fear which must ever mingle with, and chasten the affection we feel one for another. As far as I remember, there is no picture such as would idealise Ferruccio Ferruccini or Bayard—nor can I recollect the representation of mutual and tender love in any picture by a great artist, with one exception—that called the Three Ages of Man, by Titian—the original of which is in the Bridgwater collection; and there is a fine copy in Palazzo Manfrin, at Venice. The expression of the lover’s face seems to say, “I love a creature who is mortal, and for whose safety I fear; yet in her life I live—without her I die;” and she catches the light of tenderness from his eyes, and the two souls seem fused in one commingling glance; but there is nothing to shock the most bashful mind—love is evidently hallowed by that enduring affection which is proof against adversity, and looks beyond the grave.

One of the most interesting paintings in the world has been lately discovered at Florence; the portrait of Dante, by his friend Giotto. Vasari mentions that Giotto was employed to paint the walls of the chapel of the Palace of the Podesta at Florence, and that he introduced into his picture a portrait of his contemporary and dear friend, Dante Alighieri, in addition to other renowned citizens of the time. This palace has been turned to the unworthy use of a public prison, and the desecrated chapel was whitewashed, and divided into cells. These have now been demolished, and the whitewash is in process of being removed. Almost at the first the portrait of Dante was discovered: he makes one in a solemn procession, and holds a flower in his hand. Before it vanishes all the preconceived notions of the crabbed severity of his physiognomy, which have originated in portraits taken later in his life. We see here the lover of Beatrice. His lip is proud—for proud, every contemporary asserts that he was—and he himself confesses it in the Purgatorio; but there is sensibility, gentleness and love; the countenance breathes the spirit of the Vita Nuova.^[3]

I often visit the various churches of Florence. The old paintings to be found in them attract me; but you must not imagine that the interior of these Florentine cathedrals and churches is to be compared to our Gothic edifices. The space within a large building of this sort often defies the talent of the architect: the Greek temples had but small interior shrines. Their rows of columns may be said to bear resemblance to the trunks of trees; while the capital, and architrave, and roof, does not imitate the shadowy boughs, though their purpose is the same. Gothic architecture, on the contrary, resembles the overarching branches, and imparts the same solemn tranquillity as the aspect of a venerable avenue or darksome glade. The Italian architects seem not to have known well what to do with the vast space enclosed by the majestic walls of their edifices. They afforded glorious room for the painter; but where not adorned by him, they are bare, presenting no image of beauty, and inspiring no solemn feeling. The pictures and sculpture we find are, however, sources of ever new delight; it is here that we may study the infancy and progress of the art—here also, alas! we may perceive its degeneracy—till, last and worst of all, we see raising to the walls, on which inimitable frescoes are fading away, daubs that—I am not fond of ill-natured criticism, so will say no more.

Let us turn, rather, to the gates of the Batistero, worthy of Paradise. Here we view all that man can achieve of beautiful in sculpture, when his conceptions rise to the height of grace, majesty, and simplicity. Look at these, and a certain feeling of exalted delight will enter at your eyes and penetrate your heart, which is the praise to which a painter or a sculptor aspires. Nor forget when you visit the church of Santa Croce, to look at some fast-fading frescoes, on the loggie of a palace, on the right hand of the piazza. The perfect taste exhibited in the ease and dignity of attitude and gesture of the figures will well reward you for careful examination.

1. The eight which M. Rio mentions as having seen himself, and as forming the glory of Raphael, as a painter of ideal and pure beauty, are—the Virgin, of the Duke of Alba—purchased afterwards by Mr. Coswelt, and brought to London.—The Virgin, known under the name of La Belle Jardinière, now in the Louvre.—The Virgin of Palazzo Tempi, now at Munich.—The Virgin of Canigiani, at Munich.—The two in the gallery of Florence, which, for the lovers of this style, dim the glory of every other picture—especially that named the Madonna of the Goldfinch.—Of this M. Rio says, “It may be boldly affirmed that Christian art never rose to a greater height.”—The Virgin of the Colonna Palace, now at Berlin; that of the Palazzo Gregori; and the Madonna of Pescia, known as the Madonna del Baldachino.
2. Rogers's “Italy.”
3. The common prints taken from this picture are very unworthy of it; they seem to substitute sensuality for sensibility, in the lines of the countenance. Mr. Kirkup’s drawing, made for Lord Vernon, is excellent. Unfortunately, in removing the whitewash or plaster, a slight injury was done to the eye in the picture. The painter employed by the Grand Duke has restored this; but Mr. Kirkup is indignant with the restoration; and the print, taken from his drawing, exhibits the blemish. I confess, that to me the restoration seems judicious. The ball of the eye alone was injured; and as the colour of Dante’s eyes was known from other pictures, the portrait has gained in expression, and not lost in authenticity by its being repainted.