_
THE FOURTH MORNING. THE VAULTED BOOK.
As early as may be this morning, let us look for a minute or two into the
cathedral:--I was going to say, entering by one of the side doors of the
aisles;--but we can't do anything else, which perhaps might not strike you
unless you were thinking specially of it. There are no transept doors; and
one never wanders round to the desolate front. From either of the side
doors, a few paces will bring you to the middle of the nave, and to the
point opposite the middle of the third arch from the west end; where you
will find yourself--if well in the mid-wave--standing on a circular slab
of green porphyry, which marks the former place of the grave of the bishop
Zenobius. The larger inscription, on the wide circle of the floor outside
of you, records the translation of his body; the smaller one round the
stone at your feet--"quiescimus, domum hanc quum adimus ultimam"--is a
painful truth, I suppose, to travellers like us, who never rest anywhere
now, if we can help it.
Resting here, at any rate, for a few minutes, look up to the whitewashed
vaulting of the compartment of the roof next the west end.
You will see nothing whatever in it worth looking at. Nevertheless,
look a little longer.
But the longer you look, the less you will understand why I tell you to
look. It is nothing but a whitewashed ceiling: vaulted indeed,--but so
is many a tailor's garret window, for that matter. Indeed, now that you
have looked steadily for a minute or so, and are used to the form of
the arch, it seems to become so small that you can almost fancy it the
ceiling of a good-sized lumber-room in an attic.
Having attained to this modest conception of it, carry your eyes back
to the similar vault of the second compartment, nearer you. Very little
further contemplation will reduce that also to the similitude of a
moderately-sized attic. And then, resolving to bear, if possible--for
it is worth while,--the cramp in your neck for another quarter of a
minute, look right up to the third vault, over your head; which, if
not, in the said quarter of a minute, reducible in imagination to a
tailor's garret, will at least sink, like the two others, into the
semblance of a common arched ceiling, of no serious magnitude or
majesty.
Then, glance quickly down from it to the floor, and round at the space,
(included between the four pillars), which that vault covers. It is
sixty feet square,[Footnote: Approximately. Thinking I could find the
dimensions of the duomo anywhere, I only paced it myself,--and cannot,
at this moment, lay my hand on English measurements of it.]--four
hundred square yards of pavement,--and I believe you will have to look
up again more than once or twice, before you can convince yourself that
the mean-looking roof is swept indeed over all that twelfth part of an
acre. And still less, if I mistake not, will you, without slow proof,
believe, when you turn yourself round towards the east end, that the
narrow niche (it really looks scarcely more than a niche) which
occupies, beyond the dome, the position of our northern choirs, is
indeed the unnarrowed elongation of the nave, whose breadth extends
round you like a frozen lake. From which experiments and comparisons,
your conclusion, I think, will be, and I am sure it ought to be, that
the most studious ingenuity could not produce a design for the interior
of a building which should more completely hide its extent, and throw
away every common advantage of its magnitude, than this of the Duomo of
Florence.
Having arrived at this, I assure you, quite securely tenable
conclusion, we will quit the cathedral by the western door, for once,
and as quickly as we can walk, return to the Green cloister of Sta.
Maria Novella; and place ourselves on the south side of it, so as to
see as much as we can of the entrance, on the opposite side, to the
so-called 'Spanish Chapel.'
There is, indeed, within the opposite cloister, an arch of entrance,
plain enough. But no chapel, whatever, externally manifesting itself as
worth entering. No walls, or gable, or dome, raised above the rest of
the outbuildings--only two windows with traceries opening into the
cloister; and one story of inconspicuous building above. You can't
conceive there should be any effect of _magnitude_ produced in the
interior, however it has been vaulted or decorated. It may be pretty,
but it cannot possibly look large.
Entering it, nevertheless, you will be surprised at the effect of
height, and disposed to fancy that the circular window cannot surely be
the same you saw outside, looking so low, I had to go out again,
myself, to make sure that it was.
And gradually, as you let the eye follow the sweep of the vaulting arches,
from the small central keystone-boss, with the Lamp carved on it, to the
broad capitals of the hexagonal pillars at the angles,--there will form
itself in your mind, I think, some impression not only of vastness in the
building, but of great daring in the builder; and at last, after closely
following out the lines of a fresco or two, and looking up and up again
to the coloured vaults, it will become to you literally one of the grandest
places you ever entered, roofed without a central pillar. You will begin
to wonder that human daring ever achieved anything so magnificent.
But just go out again into the cloister, and recover knowledge of the
facts. It is nothing like so large as the blank arch which at home we
filled with brickbats or leased for a gin-shop under the last railway
we made to carry coals to Newcastle. And if you pace the floor it
covers, you will find it is three feet less one way, and thirty feet
less the other, than that single square of the Cathedral which was
roofed like a tailor's loft,--accurately, for I did measure here, myself,
the floor of the Spanish chapel is fifty-seven feet by thirty-two.
I hope, after this experience, that you will need no farther conviction
of the first law of noble building, that grandeur depends on proportion
and design--not, except in a quite secondary degree, on magnitude. Mere
size has, indeed, under all disadvantage, some definite value; and so
has mere splendour. Disappointed as you may be, or at least ought to
be, at first, by St. Peter's, in the end you will feel its size,--and
its brightness. These are all you _can_ feel in it--it is nothing
more than the pump-room at Leamington built bigger;--but the bigness
tells at last: and Corinthian pillars whose capitals alone are ten feet
high, and their acanthus leaves, three feet six long, give you a
serious conviction of the infallibility of the Pope, and the
fallibility of the wretched Corinthians, who invented the style indeed,
but built with capitals no bigger than hand-baskets.
Vastness _has_ thus its value. But the glory of architecture is to
be--whatever you wish it to be,--lovely, or grand, or comfortable,--on
such terms as it can easily obtain. Grand, by proportion--lovely, by
imagination--comfortable, by ingenuity--secure, by honesty: with such
materials and in such space as you have got to give it.
Grand--by proportion, I said; but ought to have said by
_dis_proportion. Beauty is given by the relation of parts--size,
by their comparison. The first secret in getting the impression of size
in this chapel is the _dis_proportion between pillar and arch. You
take the pillar for granted,--it is thick, strong, and fairly high
above your head. You look to the vault springing from it--and it soars
away, nobody knows where.
Another great, but more subtle secret is in the _in_equality and
immeasurability of the curved lines; and the hiding of the form by the
colour.
To begin, the room, I said, is fifty-seven feet wide, and only thirty-two
deep. It is thus nearly one-third larger in the direction across the line
of entrance, which gives to every arch, pointed and round, throughout the
roof, a different spring from its neighbours.
The vaulting ribs have the simplest of all profiles--that of a
chamfered beam. I call it simpler than even that of a square beam; for
in barking a log you cheaply get your chamfer, and nobody cares whether
the level is alike on each side: but you must take a larger tree, and
use much more work to get a square. And it is the same with stone.
And this profile is--fix the conditions of it, therefore, in your
mind,--venerable in the history of mankind as the origin of all Gothic
tracery-mouldings; venerable in the history of the Christian Church as
that of the roof ribs, both of the lower church of Assisi, bearing the
scroll of the precepts of St. Francis, and here at Florence, bearing
the scroll of the faith of St. Dominic. If you cut it out in paper, and
cut the corners off farther and farther, at every cut, you will produce
a sharper profile of rib, connected in architectural use with
differently treated styles. But the entirely venerable form is the
massive one in which the angle of the beam is merely, as it were,
secured and completed in stability by removing its too sharp edge.
Well, the vaulting ribs, as in Giotto's vault, then, have here, under
their painting, this rude profile: but do not suppose the vaults are
simply the shells cast over them. Look how the ornamental borders fall
on the capitals! The plaster receives all sorts of indescribably
accommodating shapes--the painter contracting and stopping his design
upon it as it happens to be convenient. You can't measure anything; you
can't exhaust; you can't grasp,--except one simple ruling idea, which a
child can grasp, if it is interested and intelligent: namely, that the
room has four sides with four tales told upon them; and the roof four
quarters, with another four tales told on those. And each history in
the sides has its correspondent history in the roof. Generally, in good
Italian decoration, the roof represents constant, or essential facts;
the walls, consecutive histories arising out of them, or leading up to
them. Thus here, the roof represents in front of you, in its main
quarter, the Resurrection--the cardinal fact of Christianity; opposite
(above, behind you), the Ascension; on your left hand, the descent of
the Holy Spirit; on your right, Christ's perpetual presence with His
Church, symbolized by His appearance on the Sea of Galilee to the
disciples in the storm.
The correspondent walls represent: under the first quarter, (the
Resurrection), the story of the Crucifixion; under the second quarter,
(the Ascension), the preaching after that departure, that Christ will
return--symbolized here in the Dominican church by the consecration of
St. Dominic; under the third quarter, (the descent of the Holy Spirit),
the disciplining power of human virtue and wisdom; under the fourth
quarter, (St. Peter's Ship), the authority and government of the State
and Church.
The order of these subjects, chosen by the Dominican monks themselves,
was sufficiently comprehensive to leave boundless room for the
invention of the painter. The execution of it was first intrusted to
Taddeo Gaddi, the best architectural master of Giotto's school, who
painted the four quarters of the roof entirely, but with no great
brilliancy of invention, and was beginning to go down one of the sides,
when, luckily, a man of stronger brain, his friend, came from Siena.
Taddeo thankfully yielded the room to him; he joined his own work to
that of his less able friend in an exquisitely pretty and complimentary
way; throwing his own greater strength into it, not competitively, but
gradually and helpfully. When, however, he had once got himself well
joined, and softly, to the more simple work, he put his own force on
with a will and produced the most noble piece of pictorial philosophy
[Footnote: There is no philosophy _taught_ either by the school of
Athens or Michael Angelo's 'Last Judgment,' and the 'Disputa' is merely
a graceful assemblage of authorities, the effects of such authority not
being shown.] and divinity existing in Italy.
This pretty, and, according to all evidence by me attainable, entirely
true, tradition has been all but lost, among the ruins of fair old
Florence, by the industry of modern mason-critics--who, without
exception, labouring under the primal (and necessarily unconscious)
disadvantage of not knowing good work from bad, and never, therefore,
knowing a man by his hand or his thoughts, would be in any case
sorrowfully at the mercy of mistakes in a document; but are tenfold
more deceived by their own vanity, and delight in overthrowing a
received idea, if they can.
Farther: as every fresco of this early date has been retouched again
and again, and often painted half over,--and as, if there has been the
least care or respect for the old work in the restorer, he will now and
then follow the old lines and match the old colours carefully in some
places, while he puts in clearly recognizable work of his own in
others,--two critics, of whom one knows the first man's work well, and
the other the last's, will contradict each other to almost any extent
on the securest grounds. And there is then no safe refuge for an
uninitiated person but in the old tradition, which, if not literally
true, is founded assuredly on some root of fact which you are likely to
get at, if ever, through it only. So that my general directions to all
young people going to Florence or Rome would be very short: "Know your
first volume of Vasari, and your two first books of Livy; look about
you, and don't talk, nor listen to talking."
On those terms, you may know, entering this chapel, that in Michael
Angelo's time, all Florence attributed these frescos to Taddeo Gaddi
and Simon Memmi.
I have studied neither of these artists myself with any speciality of
care, and cannot tell you positively, anything about them or their
works. But I know good work from bad, as a cobbler knows leather, and I
can tell you positively the quality of these frescos, and their
relation to contemporary panel pictures; whether authentically ascribed
to Gaddi, Memmi, or any one else, it is for the Florentine Academy to
decide.
The roof, and the north side, down to the feet of the horizontal line
of sitting figures, were originally third-rate work of the school of
Giotto; the rest of the chapel was originally, and most of it is still,
magnificent work of the school of Siena. The roof and north side have
been heavily repainted in, many places; the rest is faded and injured,
but not destroyed in its most essential qualities. And now, farther,
you must bear with just a little bit of tormenting history of painters.
There were two Gaddis, father and son,--Taddeo and Angelo. And there
were two Memmis, brothers,--Simon and Philip.
I daresay you will find, in the modern books, that Simon's real name
was Peter, and Philip's real name was Bartholomew; and Angelo's real
name was Taddeo, and Taddeo's real name was Angelo; and Memmi's real
name was Gaddi, and Gaddi's real name was Memmi. You may find out all
that at your leisure, afterwards, if you like. What it is important for
you to know here, in the Spanish Chapel, is only this much that
follows:--There were certainly two persons once called Gaddi, both
rather stupid in religious matters and high art; but one of them, I
don't know or care which, a true decorative painter of the most
exquisite skill, a perfect architect, an amiable person, and a great
lover of pretty domestic life. Vasari says this was the father, Taddeo.
He built the Ponte Vecchio; and the old stones of it--which if you ever
look at anything on the Ponte Vecchio but the shops, you may still see
(above those wooden pent-houses) with the Florentine shield--were so
laid by him that they are unshaken to this day.
He painted an exquisite series of frescos at Assisi from the Life of
Christ; in which,--just to show you what the man's nature is,--when the
Madonna has given Christ into Simeon's arms, she can't help holding out
her own arms to him, and saying, (visibly,) "Won't you come back to
mamma?" The child laughs his answer--"I love _you_, mamma; but I'm
quite happy just now."
Well; he, or he and his son together, painted these four quarters of
the roof of the Spanish Chapel. They were very probably much retouched
afterwards by Antonio Veneziano, or whomsoever Messrs. Crowe and
Cavalcasella please; but that architecture in the descent of the Holy
Ghost is by the man who painted the north transept of Assisi, and there
need be no more talk about the matter,--for you never catch a restorer
doing his old architecture right again. And farther, the ornamentation
of the vaulting ribs _is_ by the man who painted the Entombment,
No. 31 in the Galerie des Grands Tableaux, in the catalogue of the
Academy for 1874. Whether that picture is Taddeo Gaddi's or not, as
stated in the catalogue, I do not know; but I know the vaulting ribs of
the Spanish Chapel are painted by the same hand.
Again: of the two brothers Memmi, one or other, I don't know or care
which, had an ugly way of turning the eyes of his figures up and their
mouths down; of which you may see an entirely disgusting example in the
four saints attributed to Filippo Memmi on the cross wall of the north
(called always in Murray's guide the south, because he didn't notice
the way the church was built) transept of Assisi. You may, however,
also see the way the mouth goes down in the much repainted, but still
characteristic No. 9 in the Uffizii. [Footnote: This picture bears the
inscription (I quote from the French catalogue, not having verified it
myself), "Simon Martini, et Lippus Memmi de Senis me pinxerunt." I have
no doubt whatever, myself, that the two brothers worked together on
these frescoes of the Spanish Chapel: but that most of the Limbo is
Philip's, and the Paradise, scarcely with his interference, Simon's.]
Now I catch the wring and verjuice of this brother again and again,
among the minor heads of the lower frescoes in this Spanish Chapel. The
head of the Queen beneath Noah, in the Limbo,--(see below) is
unmistakable.
Farther: one of the two brothers, I don't care which, had a way of
painting leaves; of which you may see a notable example in the rod in
the hand of Gabriel in that same picture of the Annunciation in the
Uffizii. No Florentine painter, or any other, ever painted leaves as
well as that, till you get down to Sandro Botticelli, who did them much
better. But the man who painted that rod in the hand of Gabriel,
painted the rod in the right hand of Logic in the Spanish Chapel,--and
nobody else in Florence, or the world, _could_.
Farther (and this is the last of the antiquarian business); you see
that the frescoes on the roof are, on the whole, dark with much blue
and red in them, the white spaces coming out strongly. This is the
characteristic colouring of the partially defunct school of Giotto,
becoming merely decorative, and passing into a colourist school which
connected itself afterwards with the Venetians. There is an exquisite
example of all its specialities in the little Annunciation in the
Uffizii, No. 14, attributed to Angelo Gaddi, in which you see the
Madonna is stupid, and the angel stupid, but the colour of the whole,
as a piece of painted glass, lovely; and the execution exquisite,--at
once a painter's and jeweller's; with subtle sense of chiaroscuro
underneath; (note the delicate shadow of the Madonna's arm across her
breast).
The head of this school was (according to Vasari) Taddeo Gaddi; and
henceforward, without further discussion, I shall speak of him as the
painter of the roof of the Spanish Chapel,--not without suspicion,
however, that his son Angelo may hereafter turn out to have been the
better decorator, and the painter of the frescoes from the life of
Christ in the north transept of Assisi,--with such assistance as his
son or scholars might give--and such change or destruction as time,
Antonio Veneziano, or the last operations of the Tuscan railroad
company, may have effected on them.
On the other hand, you see that the frescos on the walls are of paler
colours, the blacks coming out of these clearly, rather than the
whites; but the pale colours, especially, for instance, the whole of
the Duomo of Florence in that on your right, very tender and lovely.
Also, you may feel a tendency to express much with outline, and draw,
more than paint, in the most interesting parts; while in the duller
ones, nasty green and yellow tones come out, which prevent the effect
of the whole from being very pleasant. These characteristics belong, on
the whole, to the school of Siena; and they indicate here the work
_assuredly_ of a man of vast power and most refined education,
whom I shall call without further discussion, during the rest of this
and the following morning's study, Simon Memmi.
And of the grace and subtlety with which he joined his work to that of
the Gaddis, you may judge at once by comparing the Christ standing on
the fallen gate of the Limbo, with the Christ in the Resurrection
above. Memmi has retained the dress and imitated the general effect of
the figure in the roof so faithfully that you suspect no difference of
mastership--nay, he has even raised the foot in the same awkward way:
but you will find Memmi's foot delicately drawn-Taddeo's, hard and
rude: and all the folds of Memmi's drapery cast with unbroken grace and
complete gradations of shade, while Taddeo's are rigid and meagre; also
in the heads, generally Taddeo's type of face is square in feature,
with massive and inelegant clusters or volutes of hair and beard; but
Memmi's delicate and long in feature, with much divided and flowing
hair, often arranged with exquisite precision, as in the finest Greek
coins. Examine successively in this respect only the heads of Adam,
Abel, Methuselah, and Abraham, in the Limbo, and you will not confuse
the two designers any more. I have not had time to make out more than
the principal figures in the Limbo, of which indeed the entire dramatic
power is centred in the Adam and Eve. The latter dressed as a nun, in her
fixed gaze on Christ, with her hands clasped, is of extreme beauty: and
however feeble the work of any early painter may be, in its decent and
grave inoffensiveness it guides the imagination unerringly to a certain
point. How far you are yourself capable of filling up what is left untold
and conceiving, as a reality, Eve's first look on this her child, depends
on no painter's skill, but on your own understanding. Just above Eve is
Abel, bearing the lamb: and behind him, Noah, between his wife and Shem:
behind them, Abraham, between Isaac and Ishmael; (turning from Ishmael to
Isaac), behind these, Moses, between Aaron and David. I have not identified
the others, though I find the white-bearded figure behind Eve called
Methuselah in my notes: I know not on what authority. Looking up from these
groups, however, to the roof painting, you will at once feel the imperfect
grouping and ruder features of all the figures; and the greater depth of
colour. We will dismiss these comparatively inferior paintings at once.
The roof and walls must be read together, each segment of the roof
forming an introduction to, or portion of, the subject on the wall
below. But the roof must first be looked at alone, as the work of
Taddeo Gaddi, for the artistic qualities and failures of it.
I. In front, as you enter, is the compartment with the subject of the
Resurrection. It is the traditional Byzantine composition: the guards
sleeping, and the two angels in white saying to the women, "He is not
here," while Christ is seen rising with the flag of the Cross.
But it would be difficult to find another example of the subject, so
coldly treated--so entirely without passion or action. The faces are
expressionless; the gestures powerless. Evidently the painter is not
making the slightest effort to conceive what really happened, but
merely repeating and spoiling what he could remember of old design, or
himself supply of commonplace for immediate need. The "Noli me
tangere," on the right, is spoiled from Giotto, and others before him;
a peacock, woefully plumeless and colourless, a fountain, an ill drawn
toy-horse, and two toy-children gathering flowers, are emaciate remains
of Greek symbols. He has taken pains with the vegetation, but in vain.
Yet Taddeo Gaddi was a true painter, a very beautiful designer, and a
very amiable person. How comes he to do that Resurrection so badly?
In the first place, he was probably tired of a subject which was a
great strain to his feeble imagination; and gave it up as impossible:
doing simply the required figures in the required positions. In the
second, he was probably at the time despondent and feeble because of
his master's death. See Lord Lindsay, II. 273, where also it is pointed
out that in the effect of the light proceeding from the figure of
Christ, Taddeo Gaddi indeed was the first of the Giottisti who showed
true sense of light and shade. But until Lionardo's time the innovation
did not materially affect Florentine art.
II. The Ascension (opposite the Resurrection, and not worth looking at,
except for the sake of making more sure our conclusions from the first
fresco). The Madonna is fixed in Byzantine stiffness, without Byzantine
dignity.
III. The Descent of the Holy Ghost, on the left hand. The Madonna and
disciples are gathered in an upper chamber: underneath are the
Parthians, Medes, Elamites, etc., who hear them speak in their own
tongues.
Three dogs are in the foreground--their mythic purpose the same as that
of the two verses which affirm the fellowship of the dog in the journey
and return of Tobias: namely, to mark the share of the lower animals in
the gentleness given by the outpouring of the Spirit of Christ.
IV. The Church sailing on the Sea of the World. St. Peter coming to
Christ on the water.
I was too little interested in the vague symbolism of this fresco to
examine it with care--the rather that the subject beneath, the literal
contest of the Church with the world, needed more time for study in
itself alone than I had for all Florence.
On this, and the opposite side of the chapel, are represented, by Simon
Memmi's hand, the teaching power of the Spirit of God, and the saving
power of the Christ of God, in the world, according to the
understanding of Florence in his time.
We will take the side of Intellect first, beneath the pouring forth of
the Holy Spirit.
In the point of the arch beneath, are the three Evangelical Virtues.
Without these, says Florence, you can have no science. Without Love,
Faith, and Hope--no intelligence.
Under these are the four Cardinal Virtues, the entire group being thus
arranged:--
________________A
_____________B_____C
__________D___E___F___G
A, Charity; flames issuing from her head and hands.
B, Faith; holds cross and shield, quenching fiery darts.
This symbol, so frequent in modern adaptation from St. Paul's address to
personal faith, is rare in older art.
C, Hope, with a branch of lilies.
D, Temperance; bridles a black fish, on which she stands.
E, Prudence, with a book.
F, Justice, with crown and baton.
G, Fortitude, with tower and sword.
Under these are the great prophets and apostles; on the left,[Footnote:
I can't find my note of the first one on the left; answering to
Solomon, opposite.] David, St. Paul, St. Mark, St. John; on the right,
St. Matthew, St. Luke, Moses, Isaiah, Solomon. In the midst of the
Evangelists, St. Thomas Aquinas, seated on a Gothic throne.
Now observe, this throne, with all the canopies below it, and the
complete representation of the Duomo of Florence opposite, are of
finished Gothic of Orecagna's school--later than Giotto's Gothic. But
the building in which the apostles are gathered at the Pentecost is of
the early Romanesque mosaic school, with a wheel window from the duomo
of Assisi, and square windows from the Baptistery of Florence. And this
is always the type of architecture used by Taddeo Gaddi: while the
finished Gothic could not possibly have been drawn by him, but is
absolute evidence of the later hand.
Under the line of prophets, as powers summoned by their voices, are the
mythic figures of the seven theological or spiritual, and the seven
_ge_ological or natural sciences: and under the feet of each of
them, the figure of its Captain-teacher to the world.
I had better perhaps give you the names of this entire series of
figures from left to right at once. You will see presently why they are
numbered in a reverse order.
_______________________________Beneath_whom
8._Civil_Law._______________The_Emperor_Justinian.
9._Canon_Law._______________Pope_Clement_V.
10._Practical_Theology._____Peter_Lombard.
11._Contemplative_Theology._Dionysius_the_Areopagite.
12._Dogmatic_Theology.______Boethius.
13._Mystic_Theology.________St._John_Damascene.
14._Polemic_Theology._______St._Augustine.
7._Arithmetic.______________Pythagoras.
6._Geometry.________________Euclid.
5._Astronomy._______________Zoroaster.
4._Music.___________________Tubalcain.
3._Logic.___________________Aristotle.
2._Rhetoric.________________Cicero.
1._Grammar._________________Priscian.
Here, then, you have pictorially represented, the system of manly
education, supposed in old Florence to be that necessarily instituted
in great earthly kingdoms or republics, animated by the Spirit shed
down upon the world at Pentecost. How long do you think it will take
you, or ought to take, to see such a picture? We were to get to work
this morning, as early as might be: you have probably allowed half an
hour for Santa Maria Novella; half an hour for San Lorenzo; an hour for
the museum of sculpture at the Bargello; an hour for shopping; and then
it will be lunch time, and you mustn't be late, because you are to
leave by the afternoon train, and must positively be in Rome to-morrow
morning. Well, of your half-hour for Santa Maria Novella,--after
Ghirlandajo's choir, Orcagna's transept, and Cimabue's Madonna, and the
painted windows, have been seen properly, there will remain, suppose,
at the utmost, a quarter of an hour for the Spanish Chapel. That will
give you two minutes and a half for each side, two for the ceiling, and
three for studying Murray's explanations or mine. Two minutes and a
half you have got, then--(and I observed, during my five weeks' work in
the chapel, that English visitors seldom gave so much)--to read this
scheme given you by Simon Memmi of human spiritual education. In order
to understand the purport of it, in any the smallest degree, you must
summon to your memory, in the course of these two minutes and a half,
what you happen to be acquainted with of the doctrines and characters
of Pythagoras, Zoroaster, Aristotle, Dionysius the Areopagite, St.
Augustine, and the emperor Justinian, and having further observed the
expressions and actions attributed by the painter to these personages,
judge how far he has succeeded in reaching a true and worthy ideal of
them, and how large or how subordinate a part in his general scheme of
human learning he supposes their peculiar doctrines properly to occupy.
For myself, being, to my much sorrow, now an old person; and, to my
much pride, an old-fashioned one, I have not found my powers either of
reading or memory in the least increased by any of Mr. Stephenson's or
Mr. Wheatstone's inventions; and though indeed I came here from Lucca
in three hours instead of a day, which it used to take, I do not think
myself able, on that account, to see any picture in Florence in less
time than it took formerly, or even obliged to hurry myself in any
investigations connected with it.
Accordingly, I have myself taken five weeks to see the quarter of this
picture of Simon Memmi's: and can give you a fairly good account of
that quarter, and some partial account of a fragment or two of those on
the other walls: but, alas! only of their pictorial qualities in either
case; for I don't myself know anything whatever, worth trusting to,
about Pythagoras, or Dionysius the Areopagite; and have not had, and
never shall have, probably, any time to learn much of them; while in
the very feeblest light only,--in what the French would express by
their excellent word 'lueur,'--I am able to understand something of the
characters of Zoroaster, Aristotle, and Justinian. But this only
increases in me the reverence with which I ought to stand before the
work of a painter, who was not only a master of his own craft, but so
profound a scholar and theologian as to be able to conceive this scheme
of picture, and write the divine law by which Florence was to live.
Which Law, written in the northern page of this Vaulted Book, we will
begin quiet interpretation of, if you care to return hither, to-morrow
morning.
Content of THE FOURTH MORNING. THE VAULTED BOOK. [John Ruskin's book: Mornings in Florence]
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