Firenze la bella, the pride of its natives, the dream of poet and painter and the delight of a multitude of travellers, lies amid graceful hills, clothed with olive gardens and dotted with white villas. In the clear distance are the splendid Apennines. Climb to the terrace of San Miniato, and you will gain a wide general view of this great and beautiful city of culture and the arts. The wonderful campanile of Giotto rises above the surrounding buildings, rivalling the height of the cathedral; the sunlight glows on dome and tower, and the valleys and glens lie in deep shadow, stretching away to the slopes of the mountains.

Very lovely, too, is the prospect from the Boboli Gardens, and finer still the outlook from Fiesole, whence the eye surveys the Cathedral, the Baptistery, the Campanile, the noble churches of Bruneschi, the Pitti Palace, and many fair buildings of the Middle Ages.

Gazing over Florence from one of the elevations of the environs, a vast pageant of history seems revealed, and men of illustrious name pass in long procession in the vision of the mind. How numerous are the great thinkers and artists associated with the city from Savonarola to the Brownings! We recall Dante, Giotto, Boccaccio, Michael Angelo—the roll seems inexhaustible. Almost all the famous men of Italy are connected with the culture-history and the political annals of Florence. The city inspires and holds us with a spell; we are impelled to wander day after day in the narrow streets, to linger in the fragrant gardens, to roam in the luxuriant valleys of the surrounding country, and to climb the hill of classic Fiesole.

Rich and beautiful is the scenery between Florence and Bologna, with its glimpses of the savage Apennines. The glen of Vallombrosa is one of the loveliest spots in the vicinity, where the old monastery broods amid beech and chestnut-trees. It was this scene that Milton recalled when he wrote the lines:

FLORENCE. PONTE SANTA TRINITA, 1832.
FLORENCE.
PONTE SANTA TRINITA, 1832.

The history of the city is of abundant interest. Florence was probably an important station in the days of the Roman Triumviri. Totila the Goth besieged and destroyed the town, and Charlemagne restored it two hundred and fifty years later. Machiavelli states that from 1215 Florence was the seat of the ruling power in Italy, the descendants of Charles the Great governing here until the time of the German emperors. In the struggle between the Church and the State, the city took sides with the popular party for the time being. There were, however, constant factions within Florence, due to the quarrels of the Buondelmonti and Uberti families. Frederick II. favoured the Uberti cause, and with his help, the Buondelmontis were expelled. Then came the remarkable period of the Guelfs and the Ghibellines, the former standing for the Pope, and the latter siding with the Emperor. Florence favoured the Guelfs, and the Ghibellines resolved to destroy the city; but the Guelf party again won ascendancy in Florence. The trouble was, however, not at an end. For years Florence was disturbed by the conflicting aims of these intriguing parties.

Grandees and commoners warred in Florence in the fourteenth century, and efforts were made by the aristocratic rulers to curtail the liberties of the people. This was frustrated by the commoners, and the government was reformed on a more democratic basis. Peace followed during a period of about ten years, but calamity befell Florence in the form of the pestilence described by Boccaccio. Ninety-six thousand persons are said to have died from the ravages of this plague.

As early as the twelfth century there were many signs in Florence of intellectual liberty. The doctrine of the eternity of matter was openly discussed, and on to the days of Savonarola civilising forces were at work in this centre of culture.

Girolamo Savonarola arose at the end of the fifteenth century, and his reforming influence soon spread through Italy. “The church is shaken to its foundations,” he cries. “No more are the prophets remembered, the apostles are no longer reverenced, the columns of the church strew the ground because the foundations are destroyed—in other words because the evangelists are rejected.” Such heresy as this brought Savonarola to the stake.

Greater among the mighty of Florence was Dante, born in a memorable age of art and invention. “The Vita Nuova,” inspired by the gentle damsel, Beatrice, was written when Dante had met his divinity at a May feast given by her father, Folco Portinari, one of the chief citizens of Florence. Beatrice died in 1290 at the age of twenty-four. Boccaccio states that the poet married Gemma Donati about a year after the death of Beatrice. Dante died in 1321, and was buried in Ravenna.

For me the chief appeal in Seville, Antwerp, or any old Continental town is in the human associations. In Florence, roaming in the ancient quarters, the figure of Dante, made so familiar by many paintings, arises with but little effort of the imagination, for the streets have not greatly changed in aspect since his day. The atmosphere remains mediÆval.

Can we not see the moody poet, driven from his high estate by the quarrels of the ruling houses, pacing the alleys, repeating to himself: “How hard is the path!” Can we not picture him in company with Petrarch, who, after the merry-making in the palace, remarked that the wise poet was quite eclipsed by the mountebanks who capered before the guests? And do we not hear Dante’s muttered “Like to like!”

Two great English poets, Chaucer and Milton, made journeys to Florence.

Giovanni Boccaccio was born in 1313, in Certaldo, a small town some leagues from Florence. He spent a few years in France and in the south of Italy, returning to Florence at the age of twenty-eight. Boccaccio was the close friend and the biographer of Dante, and a contemporary of Petrarch.

In the time of Lorenzo de Medici, Florence was a prosperous city and a seat of learning. Machiavelli writes of Lorenzo: “The chief aim of his policy was to maintain the city in ease, the people united, and the nobles honoured. He had a marvellous liking for every man who excelled in any branch of art. He favoured the learned, as Messer Agnola da Montepulciano, Messer Cristofano Landini, and Messer Demetrio; the Greek can bear sure testimony whence it came that the Count Giovanni della Mirandola, a man almost divine, withdrew himself from all the other countries of Europe through which he had travelled, and attracted by the munificence of Lorenzo, took up his abode in Florence. In architecture, music, and poetry, he took extraordinary delight.... Never was there any man, not in Florence merely, but in all Italy, who died with such a name for prudence, or whose loss was so much mourned by his country.”

Machiavelli, the Florentine historian, lived for a while in retirement in the outskirts of Florence. We may gain a little insight into his character and tastes from a passage in one of his letters in which he mentions that it was his custom to repair to the tavern every afternoon, clad in rustic garments, where he played cards with a miller, a butcher and a lime-maker. In the evening he dressed himself in the clothes that he wore in town and at court, and communed with the spirits of the “illustrious dead” in the volumes of his library.

Over the entrance to the Casa Guidi is the inscription: “Here wrote and died Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who, in the heart of a woman, combined the learning of a scholar and the genius of a poet. By her verse she wrought a golden ring connecting Italy and England. Grateful Florence erected this memorial in 1861.”

Mrs Browning passed away in the Casa Guidi just before dawn, in June 1861. Her remains lie in the beautiful grounds of the Protestant cemetery.

Fierce old Walter Savage Landor lived for a time in Florence, and for a longer period in Fiesole, where the Brownings often visited him. Swinburne came just before Landor’s death to see the poet.

Shelley was in Florence in 1819. A son was born to him here, and he records the event in a letter to Leigh Hunt. The poet writes of the Cascine Gardens, where he loved to walk and to gaze upon the Arno. Florence seems to have impressed Shelley almost as powerfully as Rome. “Florence itself,” he writes upon a first visit, “that is the Lung Arno (for I have seen no more) I think is the most beautiful city I have yet seen.” With this tribute from the poet, we will begin our survey of Florence.

In a magnificent square stands the cathedral, the baptistery, and the belfry. The oldest of the edifices is the baptistery, reared on the ground whereon stood a temple of Mars. Parts of the building are said to date from the seventh century. The glories of the baptistery are many, but perhaps the most appealing of the external decorations are the reliefs of the bronze door, which Michael Angelo so greatly admired. They illustrate scenes from the life of John the Baptist. The exterior of the Duomo or cathedral is the work of several great artists, including Giotto and Andrea Pisano. A modern faÇade was added in 1875-1887.

The Porta della Mandoria, one of the most beautiful doorways in existence, is surmounted by a mosaic of Ghirlandaio, “The Annunciation.” There is not much to claim attention within the cathedral, except Michael Angelo’s incomplete and last work, the “Pieta,” behind the chief altar, a statue of Boniface VIII., and a painting of Dante reading his “Divina Commedia,” by Michelino. Savonarola preached in this church.

The triumph of Giotto, the famed Campanile, adjoins the duomo. The work was begun in 1335, and the structure and its decorations are a superb achievement of Giotto’s genius. Ruskin has written a glowing passage upon this wonderful example of “Power and Beauty” in decorative architecture. The edifice is of variously coloured marbles, adorned with splendid bas-reliefs, depicting the growth of industry and art in many ages. Another set of bas-reliefs represent Scriptural scenes. The statues are the work of Rosso and Donatello.

Giotto was born in the neighbourhood of Florence, and died in the city. He was the friend of Dante, who wrote an eulogy upon his supremacy as a painter. The bell-tower of Florence is his finest work in architecture and the most treasured of all the monuments in the city.

Fra Angelico is intimately associated with Florence, and many of his pictures are preserved in the city. He was born in the vicinity of Florence, near the birthplace of Giotto. Vasari says: “Fra Giovanni was a man of simple and blameless life. He shunned the world, with all its temptations, and during his pure and simple life was such a friend to the poor that I think his soul must now be in heaven. He painted incessantly, but would never represent any other than a sacred subject. He might have been rich, but he scorned it, saying that true riches consisted in being content to be poor.”

The Academy of Arts in Florence contains many of Fra Angelico’s masterpieces. There are six of his paintings in the Uffizi Palace, and several in the Convent of San Marco. In this collection of pictures are numerous works of the fourteenth and fifteenth century painters, all claiming diligent study.

The Uffizi Palace and the Pitti Palace are rich storehouses of some of the most famous of the world’s pictures, and of several great statues. The chief pictures cannot even be enumerated. Let me only mention Raphael’s “Madonna and Child,” Michael Angelo’s “Holy Family,” Titian’s “Venus,” Durer’s “Adoration of the Magi,” Andrea del Sarto’s “Assumption,” Ruben’s “Terrors of Wars,” and Velazquez’s “Philip IV.” These are but few indeed of the treasures of these two noble palaces of art.

The wonderful Venus de Medici, one of the greatest of classic works of art, is in this collection. In the seventeenth century the statue was unearthed in the villa of Hadrian, near Tivoli. It was in eleven pieces, and it was repaired and set up in the Medici Palace at Rome. In 1680 Cosmo III. had the treasure removed to the Imperial Palace at Florence.

In the north-eastern part of the city there are three buildings of historical interest. One is the Church of Santissima Annunziata, founded in the thirteenth century, but restored in modern times. Here will be seen sacred pictures by Andrea del Sarto, in the court, while in the cloisters is the “Madonna del Sacco.” The tomb of Benvenuto Cellini is here.

San Marco is now a repository of works of art. It was the monastery of Savonarola, and the edifice is haunted with the spirit of the zealous reformer. The fine frescoes by Fra Angelico adorn the cloisters, and in the chapter house is his “Crucifixion,” one of the largest of the friar’s pictures.

Three of the cells were inhabited at different times by Savonarola, and contain memorials of the pious ascetic, a coat of penance, a crucifix, and religious volumes.

Sir Martin Conway writes, in “Early Tuscan Art”: “In Savonarola’s cell there hangs a relic of no small interest—the handiwork of Fra Angelico himself. It is stowed away in so dark a corner that one can hardly see it. Eyes accustomed to the gloom discover a small picture of the crucified Christ, painted on a simple piece of white stuff. When the great preacher mounted the pulpit, this banner was borne before him. In those impassioned appeals of his, that electrified for a time the people of Florence, collected in crowded silence within the vast area of the newly finished cathedral, it was to this very symbol of his faith that he was wont to point, whereon are written the now faded words, Nos predicamus Christum crucifixum.”

In the church of San Marco are the tombs of Sant Antonino and the learned Pico della Mirandola.

Among the other churches of note is Santa Trinita, originally an example of the art of Niccolo Pisano, but it has been modernised. It contains a monument by Luca della Robbia, and some splendid mural paintings, depicting the career of St Francis, by Ghirlando. There are more paintings by this master in the Franciscan church of Ognissanti.

Santa Croce is a great burial-place, rich in monuments of illustrious Florentines. Michael Angelo’s tomb is here, and near to it is the resting-place of Galileo. A monument to Dante, the tomb of Alfieri, by Canova, the memorials of Machiavelli, Aretino, Cherubino, and many others are in this building. My necessarily scanty description of the splendours of this church are offered with an apology for want of fuller space to describe them.

Donatello’s “Crucifixion” is in the north transept, and the Capella Peruzzi and the Capella Bardi are decorated with frescoes by Giotto. Agnolo Gaddi’s paintings are in the choir. Reluctantly, one leaves this great treasure-house. A mere catalogue of its works of art would fill pages.

We have glanced at two of the palaces. Let us now visit the stern Palazzo Vecchio, once the Senate House of the city. The building dates from the thirteenth century, and was the home of the Medici. Verrochio’s fountain beautifies one of the courts. Inside the palazzo are mural paintings by Ghirlando.

Another of the interesting buildings is the Bargello, an important museum. Michael Angelo’s “Dying Adonis” and “Victory” are in the court, and there are more works of the great artist within. Dante lectured in one of the halls of the Bargello. Benvenuto Cellini’s design for “Perseus” is in one of the rooms, and there are reliefs by Della Robbia.

The Riccardi Palace is redolent with memories of Lorenzo. It stands in the Piazza San Lorenzo, and in the same square is the church named after him, containing some very beautiful monuments. Donatello was buried here, and a stone marks the grave of Cosimo de Medici. Lippo Lippi’s “Annunciation,” and Michael Angelo’s works are the glories of this church. The New Sacristy contains Angelo’s “Day and Night” over the tomb of Giuliano Medici, and that of Lorenzo de Medici adorned with statues of “Dawn and Twilight.” These are among the most magnificent examples of Michael Angelo’s statuary.

Near to the railway station is the Church of Santa Maria Novella, a glorious specimen of Gothic architecture, with a fine faÇade. In this church are paintings by Orcagna, Lippi, Cimabue Ghirlando, and other artists. The frescoes in the Strozzi Chapel, and the Spanish Chapel of this Dominican church are of great interest. Orcagna’s paintings in the Strozzi Chapel are of the fourteenth century. The chapel was dedicated to St Thomas Aquinas, who was greatly honoured by the Dominican order.

Modern Florence is a bright populous city, with wide main streets, squares, and pleasant gardens.