In a valley to the south, not far distant from the town, is the elegant Santa Maria delle Grazie, called del Calcinajo | (of the Lime), from an antique picture painted on the corner of an exterior wall of a tan-yard, a venerated image, ere now the witness of divers miracles, and particularly of that of the oxen, which while ploughing kneeled every time they passed before it. The architecture is not by Antonio San Gallo, as supposed, but by Francesco di Giorgio, of Siena. A Conception, an Annunciation, and an Adoration of the Magi, works unknown to Lanzi, are by Papacello, a clever artist of Cortona and a pupil of Giulio Romano. Chiusi, pleasantly situated on a hill, deserves a visit from the archeological traveller for its rich museum and various Etruscan ruins, although no vestige is left of the famous labyrinth and mausoleum of Porsenna in his ancient capital. This monument, with its three piles of buildings superposed, as given by Pliny and Varro, would be absolutely impossible, and is now regarded by men of science as fabulous, symbolical, and imaginary. Some curious collections have been formed by certain learned inhabitants of Chiusi, chiefly by SS. Casuccini and Paolozzi, antiquarian landowners, who seem less to cultivate than ransack their fields and gardens. The Casuccini museum has more than forty sepulchral monuments of marble much injured, and about a hundred in burnt earth, which comprise some elegant figures of men and women that attest the plastic skill of the Etruscans; forty tombs of travertine, interesting for their forms and figures, and, above all, some large elegant black vases, independently of bronzes, gold ornaments, etc. The greater part of these monuments have inscriptions which may promote the study of the Etruscan tongue, and are indisputable proofs of civilisation. On one of the fine black vases may be remarked an assortment of children's playthings, which in all ages and countries seem nearly the same. The collection of S. Paolozzi, rich in vases ornamented with paintings, with Etruscan urns, bronze medals, and graven stones, has a stone basso-relievo of a remarkable style. * See the fistorical hydraulic Memoirs on the vale Chians, published in 1789 by the Cav Fus The old cathedral of the modern Chiusi may be looked on as another Etruscan museum; and the first christians of that town, now unhealthy and tradeless, with only two thousand two hundred and twenty-six inhabitants, like the christians of Rome, despoiled their ancient temples and edifices to rear their churches. The tomb containing the relics of Saint Mustiola is made of an antique column of Numidian marble. The eighteen unequal columns of different marble which support the arches of the three naves, are doubtless part of some ancient monument. The bishop's chamber has a fine head of Augustus with the sacerdotal veil, supposed of Adrian's time, and in his garden are a number of tombs and capitals, of various orders, in bad condition. The cippus of the church of Saint Francis indicates the existence of a temple of Diana. The lofty column of Ethiopian marble, exquisitely wrought, of the Confraternity of Death, must have been procured from a basilic. In the promemade of the circus, the trees and stone benches are placed alternately with pedestals supporting Etruscan or Roman fragments, taken from the grottos of Chiusi, the necropolis of Tuscany. CHAPTER IX. Vale of Chlana.-Castiglione. - Olmo.-Santa Maria degli Grazie.-Arezzo.-Air.- Illustrious men.Amphitheatre. The vale of Chiana is one of the most splendid monuments of cultivated nature, one of those conquests that display the benevolent empire of man and make his true glory. The wonderful fecundity of its fields is chiefly due to the works of Leopold. It appears, however, according to accurate research, that from the tenth to the fourteenth century the course of the Chiana had been skilfully directed, and that Italy, which preceded the other nations of Europe in most of the arts, was also their mistress in hydraulic science. Castiglione, a little ancient town, pleasant and well situated, counts five thousand three hundred and seventeen inhabitants, enriched by husbandry. The fine parish church (Pieve), of the sombroni. now counsellor and prime minister of the grand-duke of Tuscany. Botoll trova poi venendo giuso Ringhiosi più che non chiede lor possa. close of the fourteenth century, has not | Dante reproaches the inhabitants of lost its character, though it has undergone Arezzo: several restorations. A Nostra Signora and St. Julian, patron of the church, and a St. Michael, by Bartolommeo della Gatta, a Camaldulite monk of the fifteenth century, an excellent painter of miniatures, musician, and architect, are works highly extolled by Vasari, but the figures in them are too long. At Saint Francis, the Virgin, St. Anne, St. Silvester, and the Saint, by Vasari, is remarkable in design but feeble in colouring. Half a mile from Arezzo, is Olmo, so called from an antique gigantic elm. Popular tradition makes it as old as Annibal's time; its vigorous roots injured some houses near, and it was, on that account, mutilated and destroyed by the French administration. At present it is only a black shapeless post, about ten feet high, very different from the ancient majesty of that proud tree, which ten men could hardly embrace, and which filled a hundred carts with its huge boughs and fragments. The delightful semi-gothic portico of Santa Maria degli Grazie is something like, though of another character, the admirable Loggia of the Lanzi at Flo rence. Arezzo, an ancient and historical city, one of the three principal Etruscan cities, according to Livy, rises in form of an amphitheatre on lovely hills. The population is ten thousand four hundred souls. When we consider the great number of illustrious or famous men that Arezzo has produced, from Petrarch to Redi, the historian Giovanni Villani's remark on the influence of its climate appears just, and one might be tempted to take for truth the jest of Michael Angelo, a native of Caprese, a village of two hundred inhabitants near Arezzo, when he told Vasari that he (Michael Angelo) was indebted to the air of his country for whatever was good in his mind: Giorgio, se io ho nulla di buono nell' ingegno, egli è venuto dal nascere nella | sottilità dell' aria del vostro paese di Arezzo. Perhaps also this vivacity of the air which inspired the genius of superior men excited in the common people that crabbed party spirit with which Il sito e l'aria di Arezzo genera sottilissimi somini, Ist. lib. 1. cap. xlvii. * Purgat. XIV. 46. | Divers inscriptions mark the abodes of some of the illustrious Aretines, and make the streets of this little town an absolute Pantheon. Besides Petrarch, Redi, and Vasari, we may further distinguish among the historical Aretine: the infa mous Pietro, the scourge of princes: Bruni, chancellor of Florence; 3 Fra Guittone of Arezzo, a Benedictine mock of the eleventh century, abbot of the monastery of Fonte Avellana.a proficient. for his time, in Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Chaldaic, Latin, and, above all, inventor of the solfege and restorer of music in Italy; the poet of the thirteenth century, Guittone of Arezzo, sometimes confounded with the monk, who brought the sonnet to perfection, put in Purgatory by Dante, doubtless for having composed verses without inspiration, and sung rather coldly by Petrarch in his Triond: Ecco Cin da Pistoja, Guitton d'Arezzo; Guglielmo degli Ubertini, a martial bishop and head of the Ghibeline party in Tuscany; Margaritone, a painter, sculp tor, architect, and machinist, of the thirteenth century, an able imitator of Nicolao Pisano and Arnolfo di Lape: Spinello, an expressive painter of the fourteenth century; Albergotti, a great jurisconsult of the same epoch; the lord and bishop of Arezzo, Guido Tariati, ef whom we shall speak here after; the jurisconsult and professor Marsuppin the enemy of Filelfo; 4 the family of the Accolti, who seem a tribe of literati, two of whom, Bernardo, surnamed the unique from his marvellous facility as an improvisatore, and his nephew the Carding. Benedetto, were celebrated by Arioste; Cardinal Bibiena, author of the Calandria; Giovanni Tortelli, cameriere & honour to the great pope Nicholas V.. librarian of the infant Vatican; Antoni Roselli, an orator and jurisconsult of the fifteenth century, called the monarch of science; Andrea Cesalpin, the creator of botany, who had a glimpse of the cir culation of the blood before Harvey; Vezzosi, his pupil, the ladies' physician, a poet and philosopher, Tasso's friend; Colonel Ottaviani, a good soldier, deceased in 1609, who had fought all over Europe, and bore the name of Mecænas, whose descendant he pretended to be. for the friend of Augustus and Horace was also of Arezzo; Marshal d'Ancre, who was killed on the bridge of the Louvre, disinterred, torn to pieces, and his heart cooked and eaten by the populace of Paris; Francesco Rossi, prætor at Cortona, Prato, and Volterra, auditor del Magistrato supremo under Leopold, and a great antiquarian; Francesco de' Giudici, a critic and scholar of the last century; Geronimo Perelli, of the same family, the annalist of the literati of Arezzo, of whom he enumerates above five hundred and fifty, from Fra Guittone to the end of the eighteenth century, and the ingenious Pignotti. In the garden of the monastery occupied by the monks of Saint Bernard, the ruins supposed to be an amphitheatre, though when built and for what purpose appear doubtful, are an antique wreck of Roman construction, admirable for its extent and solidity. The church della Pieve, the most ancient of the town, rebuilt in 1216, according to the inscription on the principal door, presents some wrecks of an ancient temple supposed to have been consecrated to Bacchus. The fantastic capitals, columns, and caryatides, by Marchione, an artist of Arezzo in the thirteenth century, exhibit great facility, and might belong to a more advanced epoch. Vasari says that he was charged to repair the interior, to which he applied himself con amore, as this church was associated with his boyish recollections and was the sepulture of his fathers; he wished to be interred there, in the chapel opposite the high altar, belonging to his family, which has recently become extinct. He boasted of having brought the church to life, but it must ever be regretted that the paintings of the old masters of Giotto's school perished in these repairs; the paintings by Vasari, and even his St. George, behind the high altar, though very good, are no compensation for such a loss. The institute of the Fraternità, ap 1 See ante, book x1. ch. xi. proved by bishop Guillemin degli Ubertini in the year 1262, which undertakes to relieve the poor, to protect widows and wards, to rear and provide for orphans, and even to propagate scientific and literary knowledge, is one of those charitable institutions arising from the spirit of association which has long existed in Italy, and is usually combined with intellectual progress. Vasari was one of the benefactors of this institute. In this venerable palace of the Fraternità, built in the fourteenth century by Nicolao of Arezzo and remarkable for the majesty of its old front, is the museum of antiquities and natural history, contiguous to the public library of above ten thousand volumes. In the grand Piazza, probably the ancient forum of Arezzo, the porticos of the merchants (Loggie), by Vasari, are a very elegant architectural work and the artist's chef-d'œuvre. The marble statue of the grand-duke Ferdinand III. is by S. Ricci. CHAPTER X.. Petrarch's house.-Well of Tofano, in Boccaccio's novel. Among the illustrious houses of Arezzo, the first is that where Petrarch was born, on Monday, July 20, 1304, in the Borgo dell' Orto, a small street near the cathedral, as we are informed by a lengthy inscription put on the outside of the house in 1810. The poet's father, Ser Petracco, Pietro (for it appears that he had not yet a name, which was not uncommon among plebeians), notary of the reformations of Florence, or archivist of the deliberations of the Signiory, had been banished in 1302 with Dante, as belonging to the White party; and his mother Electa de' Canigiani, a courageous woman, shared the exile and troubles of her husband's life. On the very night of Petrarch's birth, Ser Petracco, assisted by other Whites, had attempted a nocturnal attack, which was unsuccessful, in order to regain his country; and on returning he found his wife just delivered of a son at the imminent peril of her life. But Ser Petracco did not suffer the long exile of Dante, for he was recalled five years after. Petrarch, * See ante, book v. ch. vii, on his road from Rome, was so well received at Arezzo, that he asserted that town had done more for him, a stranger, than Florence for his fellow-citizen. One of the marks of attention that flattered him most was his being unexpectedly conducted by the magistrates to this house, where he was informed that the proprietor having wished to make several alterations, the town had always been opposed thereto, and had ordained that the place consecrated by his birth should be always kept in the same state. The room on the ground floor that was shown to me as the scene of Petrarch's birth was an ordinary apartment, without any vestige of antiquity. Opposite this house is the well near which Boccaccio has placed the scene of the poor Tofano and Monna Ghita his wife, who being shut out at night, like the Angelica of George Dandin, feigned to jump in, but merely threw down a large stone, which stratagem was equally successful in both cases; an admirable comic scene, in which Tofano seems inferior to George Dandin, confounded by the Sotenvilles; but Monna Ghita crying from the window Alla croce di Dio, etc., is very superior to Angelica, who is always speaking like a fine lady. CHAPTER XI. Cathedral.-Painted glass-Altar, by Glovanni Pi sano.-Mausoleums of Guido Zarlatt, by Agostino and Angelo of Siena;-of Gregory X., by Marga ritone.-Chapel of the Virgin-Redi.-Arcbives. -Statue of Ferdinand 1. The majestic Gothic cathedral, of the thirteenth century, is singularly venerable. It seems as if its sombre vaults still resound with the words of the archdeacon Hildebrand, afterwards Gregory VII., when he pronounced from the pulpit the chastisement of the spoilers of the church, and perhaps gave Dante the idea, the inspiration of some of the torments of his Inferno. Over one of the lateral doors are suspended some enormous elephant's tusks, probably fossile, which the local patriotism of the Aretines will have proceed from the elephants of Annibal, that glorious captain, whose traces are found at every step on this road. Four of the compartments of the nave ceiling, ornamented with stars of gold on an azure ground, date from | the year 1341, and are by the painters Andrea and Balduccio. The compartments of the middle nave were executed in 1500 and 1520 by the Florentine Nofelli and Guillaume de Marseilles, a French painter and Dominican, afterwards a secular priest and prior of Arezzo, a clever imitator of the great figures of the Sixtine; he also did the brilliant painted windows, one of which, the Calling of St. Matthew, excited Vasari's unbounded enthusiasm. We there find, says he, i tempj di prospettiva, le scale e le figure talmente composte, e i paesi si propri fatti, che mai non si pensera che siano vetri, ma cosa piovuta dal cielo a consolazione degli uomini. The Crucifix of the old painter of Arezzo, Spinello, is an expressive composition, despite the singularity of the little angels holding cups to catch the blood trickling from the Saviour's wounds. In the chapel of Saint Matthew, marvellously painted by Franciabiagio, a German seems living. A skilful St. Mary Magdalen is by Pietro della Francesca, a great Florentine artist of the fifteenth century, who lost his sight at the age of thirtyfour; the St. Ignatius, the Madonna welcoming the people of Arezzo, recommended by their protectors, are by two good painters of the country: the first an abbot; the second a gentleman. his pupil. The basso-relievos and small statues of the altar, by Giovanni Pisano, notwithstanding the ordinary monotony and the unhappy choice of his forms, may be regarded as one of the best works of the time and of the artist. The middle compartment represents the Madonna with St. Gregory, the portrait of Pope Honorius IV., on one side, and St. Donatus, the protector of Arezzo, on the other. The basso-relievo of the Death of the Virgin is very touching; but the St. John blowing into a censer appears, in so sorrowful a scene, engaged in a very vulgar occupation, which also swells his cheeks and deprives his countenance of the expression of grief which it ought to have. The mausoleum of Guido Tarlati, lord and bishop of Arezzo, erected, from 1320 to 1330, by Angelo and Agostino of Siena, was perhaps the most remarkable that had then been erected since the first days of the revival, and many a year elapsed before there was anything to approach it. Giotto, the friend and admirer of these two artists, who probably aided them with his advice, though he does not seem to have made the design, as some have supposed, since the age and reputation of Angelo and Agostino would hardly allow them to execute the plan of another, had recommended them to Pietro Saccone di Pietra Mala, Guido's brother. It must be confessed, too, that the history of the ambitious and warlike prelate, a prince and chief of the Ghibelines, interdicted and excommunicated by the pope, one of the great men of Italy, was singularly diversified and dramatic. The different subjects of this history, such as the Crowning of the emperor Louis of Bavaria at Milan, the taking of towns and castles, are seen in sixteen compartments; their little figures, distinct, natural, and elegant, are worthy of the best times, and several, those for instance in the compartment entitled Morte di Messere, are noble and very pathetic. merly at the church of the Conventual Minorites, was, when that was suppressed, removed to the cathedral. Redi, a natural philosopher of acute observation, a reforming physician, and a good poet, is, with the Arabians, Fracastor and Haller, an additional example of the singular relations existing between the art of poetry and the science of medicine.' The archives of the cathedral, which Mabillon was refused a sight of, on the pretext of the Holy Week, but really because they were not then presentable, have been since put in order and arranged according to date. They contain about two thousand documents, among which are diplomas from almost all the emperors, from Charlemagne to Frederick II., in favour of the church and bishop of Arezzo, valuable monuments of diplomacy. In the piazza of the Duomo, the marble statue of the grand duke Ferdinand I. is by Giovanni Bologna, and one of his best pupils, the Frenchman Francheville or Francavilla. CHAPTER XII. Public palace.-Vasari's house.-Badia.—Bacci museum. The tomb of Gregory X., executed about 1277 by Margaritone, is remarkable for the simplicity of the ensemble and the taste of the draperies. This pope Gregory, though not formally canonized, is honoured as a saint at Arezzo. He died there, after being obliged by the overflowing of the Arno to pass over a The public palace, built in 1332, oribridge at Florence; and as he had some ginally Gothic, but barbarously modertime before laid that city under an in-nised during the last century, was anterdict, he thought proper to give it a provisional blessing, lest it should be said that a pope had gone through an accursed city, but he interdicted it again when he got out of it. The old baptistry presents, on the wall, a fresco of St. Jerome in the desert, expressive but dry, attributed either to Giotto or Spinello, and in good preservation. At an altar near, is the Martyrdom of St. Donatus, an energetic composition, with a well rendered triple effect of light; it is in Guido's manner, and began the reputation of S. Benvenuti, a native of Arezzo. A new chapel, consecrated to the miraculous image of the Virgin, constructed by the Florentine architect del Rosso, is decorated with recent paintings, among which are a great Judith, by S. Benvenati, and opposite, Abigail going to meet David, by S. Sabatelli, a rival performance, which is not inferior in design, and excels in colouring. The elegant mausoleum of Redi, for terior to the Palazzo Vecchio of Florence, where public meetings were still held in the churches. It presents some paintings by artists of Arezzo, the best of which is the Gonfalone of St. Rock banner of that confraternity), representing divers incidents of that saint's life. The house of Vasari (Strada S. Vito), now belonging to the counts of Montauti, has undergone little change, and presents several of his best ornamental paintings. The elegant church of the Badia of Santa Flora offers one of those cupolas of architectural painting, extraordinary for perspective, by the famous P. Pozzi. In the ancient refectory of the cloister, the Banquet of Ahasuerus, a vast composition by Vasari, given by him to his natal town, and containing his own portrait under the guise of an old man with a long beard, is one of the few works that would have immortalised the artist's 1 See ante, book v. ch. xviii. |
