INTRODUCTION.

ITALY in the thirteenth century carried on and brought to its crowning point the work of civilization which France in the twelfth century had started by means of the crusades, the establishment of communal franchises, and the foundation of the University of Paris. The symbol created by the genius of Lucretius, where the successive labor of generations is represented by rimming-men passing their torches from hand to hand, had never been realized with so much grandeur the sacred torches had fallen from French hands, and had been picked up by Italy, in whose grasp they emitted a light which dazzled the whole world.

Rome, notwithstanding the Barbarian invasion, the schism, and the exile of the Papacy, still retained the recollection of her glorious past, brought even more vividly before her by the superb monuments which had withstood the ravages of time and of man. But even Rome, like the rest of Italy, acknowledged the superiority of Florence comparable to Athens itself, and all the cities of Italy did homage to her genius, for she, together with Siena, had been the first to make the onward move. In the course of a century, from Dante and Giotto to the first of the Medici, from the two Pisani to Brunelleschi, Donatello, and Alberti, Florence reached the summit of human thought and the zenith of plastic beauty. While at the very moment when it seemed as if she must exhausted by the efforts which resulted in the birth of the Renaissance, she was about to produce the two human beings, Leonardo da Vinci and Michael Angelo, who in the domain of Art bring most nearly rly home to us the divine origin of our poor humanity. We must go back to Greek Art and to the age of Pericles for another such epoch in the world's history; and to form some idea of the revolution which was then brought about, we must revert to the advent of Christianity, which founded modern society upon the ruins of the old world.

It will be my endeavor to trace, as I proceed, the causes, direct and indirect, of this unquestioned superiority of Florence over the other cities of the Peninsula. To the sum of human knowledge which constitutes the trading capital of humanity, Florence contributed the largest share, and she further and above all possessed that gift and privilege of plastic beauty, just as some of God's creatures have the privilege of gracefulness. There was a period in her history when everything that her artists touched turned to gold. Their works were instinct with the profound faith that inspired them, and their consummate strength and skill were masked by the gracefulness of their finish. Even to this day the marbles, frescoes, and manuscripts produced during this brilliant epoch in Florence, or by Florentines, retain a rare and unique individuality, an undefinable something made up of nobility, grandeur, calm strength, and sober elegance. Our eyes are attracted at a street corner, under a porch, in a gallery, or on the walls of a convent, as the case may be, by some object which stands out in such relief that the surrounding objects are, so to speak, obliterated. This is because the soul of Florence has passed into the inspired work : we recognize the sign by which all the works of the fifteenth century in Italy are marked, as we breathe the soft and subtle perfume which they exhale.

This superiority of Florentine Art has been everywhere felt, and all Italy was subject to its peaceful yoke as we are to-day. From Papal Rome, where the illustrious pontiffs of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries gathered about them the artists of Florence and the humanists of Tuscany, to the condottieri who wore the purple at Milan, Urbino, Ferrara, Mantua, Rimini, and Bologna, all the rulers of Italy sought to assemble a court composed in the main of illustrious Florentines. If they wanted to erect a cathedral or church, to cast an equestrian statue of some famous soldier, to write the history of some great city, or to train the heir to a principality, it was to Florence that they turned their attention. Florence was the focus, the school, and the laboratory of human genius, and though there were other centres of intelligence—each northern town being in the fifteenth century a miniature Athens—Florence predominated over them all.

There are three distinct periods in the history of Florence. From the second half of the thirteenth to the end of the fourteenth century she was struggling for existence, and torn by the conflicting passions of her own citizens divided by hereditary feuds. She attempted to establish liberty, but only succeeded in paving the way for an Athenian form of tyranny which had genius for its excuse and the majority of the citizens for its accomplices. Yet amid these incessant struggles of Guelphs and Ghibellines, and in spite of continual disturbances, the work of elaboration was ever going on, and has been a cause of astonishment to all the historians of that period. In France the English invasion and intestine struggles had extinguished civil life, and had put back the progress of humanity ; but in Tuscany the flower of the Renaissance grew and bloomed in blood, unfolding itself in all its beauty at the dawn of the fifteenth century. This was the second and most brilliant of the three periods : that which was adorned by Cosimo, Father of his Country, and by Lorenzo the Magnificent ; by savants, such as Marcilio Ficino, Politian, Pico Bella Mirandola, Cristofero Landino 'Baccio Ugolini, Rinuccini, and the two Acciajuoli by artists, like Brunelleschi, Michelozzo Michelozzi, Donatello, Leo Battista Alberti ; and by men of political genius, such as Leonardo Bruni Aretino, Machiavelli, and Carlo Marsuppini.

At the time of the siege of Florence (1530), the splendor of this period was at its apogee, but. with the exception of Galileo, who was destined to discover fresh truths, all the great innovators were in their graves. Michael Angelo upon his bastion, fortifying Florence and defending San Miniato, is symbolic of the genius of Florence struggling for independence and freedom against Charles V. When the city opened her gates the Republic was doomed, and the days of her greatness were numbered with the past.

The sixteenth century was not a barren one. Tumultuous, full of life, and with a tendency to extremes, it was more turbulent than the fifteenth ; and ever eager to learn, it gave birth to a vast number of works, devoid, however, of the ardent faith, the conscientiousness, and the infinite depth which marked the preceding era. John of Bologna, with his martial air, Benvenuto himself, who may be looked upon as a condottiere who had by some accident found his way into the career of Art, and who, for all his fine ways, was an artist to the core, with all the qualities and defects of his age, cannot make us forget the gentle Desiderio, the tender Mino, and Donatello, about whose works there is always something novel, distinctive, and grandiose.

No one will feel surprised when I say that it is the second period, from the thirteenth century to the fall of the Republic, which has been the subject of my predilection. It seems to have come to be understood within the last twenty years that, with the exception of two or three great figures which are the synthesis of human genius, and which shed their lustre over the early part of the sixteenth century in Italy, humanity disclosed nearly all its secrets from the time of Dante to the death of Michael Angelo and of Leonardo da Vinci. While if contemporary chroniclers have exhausted all that there is to say concerning the great literary and philosophical characters, the history of Art is only just dawning. Benozzo Gozzoli, Lippi, Memmi, Pollaiolo, Piero della Francesca, Botticelli, Baccio Baldini, Pisanello, Finiguerra, Benedetto da Maiano, Michelozzo, Desiderio, and their contemporaries have been but little known in modern times, and their works not familiar even in their native places.

The period which begins with the first Grand Duke of Tuscany, Cosimo I., and finishes with John Gaston, was not devoid of glory for Florence. If the individuals are less famous, and if a sovereign like Lorenzo the Magnificent is replaced by one plunged in crime like Cosimo, there was an impetus acquired, a traditional greatness, a flow of sap which continued to produce flowers and fruit. The last prince of this race had a glimmer of intellectual genius, a desire to learn, a spark of sacred fire, and a certain sense of what was due to posterity which induced him to bequeath to his country Art treasures testifying clearly to his magnificence, his judgment, and his taste. Now and again, even during its decline, may be seen some sudden flicker of the Florentine genius abort to be extinguished; and the period of the decadence of Florence with the Academy of the Cimento would pass muster for the Renaissance of some benighted peoples.

The genius of Florence was incarnate in the Medici; it has therefore been necessary to write the history of these merchant princes, who had the honor of twice giving their name to the century in which they lived : with Cosimo and Lorenzo at Florence, and with Leo X. at Rome. After having related the history of the Medici, I have sketched the movement known as the Renaissance, endeavoring to explain why Italy was the country of its birth, and have comprised in this essay biographies, summary in their character but derived from the most trustworthy sources, of the leading personages in philosophy and literature.

The principal monuments of Florence give us an insight into her civil life, for at that period the characters of men were reflected with great distinctness in their works. In this remarkable city, where were born all the great ideas upon which are based the glory, the prosperity, and the experience of modern society, the Palazzo Vecchio—to take only this one building, of which D'Azeglio has said that it is a magnificent preface to the annals of Florence—fittingly symbolizes, by its rugged exterior and splendid ornamentation within, the dual character of an epoch in which the body was hardy while the mind was refined and eager for knowledge. The history and art of Florence are in her streets ; and to walk about her squares, and to visit her churches and palaces, is equivalent to reading the chronicles of the city from the twelfth to the sixteenth century.

Art necessarily occupied a large place at Florence, for the city was at once a museum and a temple. I have, therefore, treated the arts from their very beginning, that is the Etruscan period, to their decadence, in chronological order, describing the genius of each artist and the position which lie held, rather than attempting to give his biography.

I do not retract what I said in my book on Venice, when I described the Frari, and the San Giovanni and Paolo monuments as the most splendid which bad ever been erected to the memory of man, not even excepting those of the Vatican, of St. John Lateran, and of Santa Maria del Popolo : but while those at Florence, erected in the middle of the fifteenth century, are plainer and less pompous, they are more human and more touching, and Leopardi himself, with the instincts of an artist, bent the knee to Desiderio and Donatello. Michael Angelo is more grandiose and inscrutable, stirring the imagination and inspiring a sort of religious terror with those enigmatic figures which seem to be carrying on in the obscurity on the tomb "the inward dream never to be completed;" but with all his genius lie lacked the infinite candor, the angelic softness, and the exquisite chasteness of these sculptors of the fifteenth century. They remind us of Greece, where flowers were scattered over the graves, giving an impress of gentle repose and peace to death, and stripping it of its sinister characteristics. The philosopher and the cardinal whom Rosellino and Desiderio respectively have chiselled upon the marble sarcophagus seem to be sleeping peacefully, and their faces only reflect the calm and the beatitude of the blessed who know eternal truth.

I need not say that it is impossible to describe within the limits of this book the whole history of Florence, I can only endeavor to give the essence of it. Those who do not know the city may perhaps be tempted to visit her, while those who have been so fortunate as to dwell within her walls will, I venture to hope, be carried back in memory to her, and evolve from the darkness of recollection the living and bright reality.

As it was necessary to make a choice from a vast mass of matter, which would have filled ten volumes, I have divided the work into several sections, beginning with the History of Florence and the Renaissance Movement, and going on to the Notable Personages and to Art itself. This is not the whole of Florence, but it gives, so to speak, the soul of the great city which has been the victim of one of the greatest historical movements of our day—the Unity of Italy.

Florence has a strong claim upon our affections, for she is the mother of all those to whom the intellect is more than the body ; and her streets and palaces are a fruitful source of study and instruction. Rome is grander, and appeals more strongly to the imagination; Venice is more strange, more unique, more picturesque ; but Florence is more indispensable than either of them to humanity. She has given birth to Dante, the divine poet ; to Michael Angelo, the "man with four souls;" and to Galileo, the blind man who could read in the darkness the secrets of the universe. If Florence disappeared from off the surface of the globe the archives of human thought would lose their most famous documents, and the modern Latin race would go into mourning for its ancestors.