The figure of Justice on this tomb [Giugni]is meagre in outline, though refined in conception and workmanship. The best testimony to the virtues of the occupant of this tomb, who served Florence as ambassador on several important occasions, and was made Cavaliere and Gonfaloniere, is contained in these words of his biographer:¹Vespasiano Bisticci, Arch. St. It., iv. “Beato alla città di Firenze, se avesse avuto simili cittadini.” [Blessed the city of Florence if it had such citizens.]

Charles Perkins, Tuscan Sculptors, vol. 1, pp. 210–211.

The architectural features of Count Ugo’s monument are, like those of the finest Tuscan tombs, an arched recess, within which is placed the recumbent statue upon a sarcophagus; a charming Madonna and Child in relief in the lunette, below which is a figure of Charity, somewhat too long in its proportions; flying angels with a memorial tablet, two genii bearing shields, and an architrave sculptured with festoons and shells in low relief, compose its sculptured features.

Charles Perkins, Tuscan Sculptors, vol. 1, p. 210.

Filippino Lippi, Apparition of the Virgin to S. Bernard, 1480

Filippino was a naturalistic painter; but he was without scandal and by happily choosing his models, as can be seen in the charming painting of the Badia, which he painted at the age of twenty (1480) and of which all the figures are family portraits. Saint Bernard is the main character, and the Virgin who appears to him, and the angels with whom she is accompanied, are quite simply a mother surrounded by her children; but what a mother and what children!

Alexis-François Rio, L’ art chrétien, vol. 1, p. 392.

Tomb of Francesco Valori (photo via Wikimedia Commons)

Finding that scarcely a feeble resistance was made within S. Marco, whilst the enemy without were hourly increasing in number and force, Francesco Valori was desirous of getting to his own house, in order to collect his adherents, and make a more energetic defence from without. But his dwelling-place was suddenly surrounded by a great number of persons, and a mace-bearer arrived from the Signory requiring him to appear immediately before them. He showed every desire to obey, feeling sure that he should be able, by his presence and authority, to make them ashamed of their conduct; he therefore set out immediately with the mace-bearer for the Palazzo. He passed through the crowd with a lofty air and serene countenance, like a man confident in his innocence, and who had never flinched before any danger. But they had scarcely reached the Church of S. Proculo when they were met by some members of the Ridolfi and Tornabuoni families, relations of those of whose condemnation to death in the preceding August he had been the cause, and they at once attacked and killed him. In this way a public injury met reparation by private revenge; and thus a valiant and honest citizen, who had always been the most powerful friend of Savonarola, perished miserably. His wife, hearing the noise, ran to the window in terror, and in the midst of the confusion and frightful cries of her husband and his murderers, a shot from a cross-bow amongst the crowd sent her to be united to him in a better world. The maddened populace immediately entered, sacked, and set fire to the house; and while they were carrying off the furniture of a bed, a baby that was asleep in it, a grandson of Valori, was suffocated. The Signory neither then nor afterwards made any inquiry into these murders and outrages.

Pasquale Villari, History of Savonarola, vol. 2, pp. 296–297.

Many and many a last sigh has been heard unheeded here; many a gentle, as well as many a brutal, face has gazed its last look on Heaven into that pale square of Florentine sky, wondered a moment, and—died.

Unattributed

Bargello, courtyard and stairs

The Bargello, restored in 1865, now used as the Museo Nazionale, has undergone numerous changes since Florence was last published in 1925. Works have been reinstalled in different galleries or moved to storage. New acquisitions have added to the collection and old favourites have been demoted. Curatorial practice is ever evolving, never constant. The placement of works described below is a snapshot of the early 2020s and will likely become superannuated with the passage of time. Since the flood of 1966, the Bargello is entered from Volognana Tower. Previously one entered from the Via del Proconsolo, through two halls full of arms. The colonnaded court is intensely picturesque and most rich and effective in colour; its staircase was built by Agnolo Gaddi. Near the Well in the centre many noble Florentines have been beheaded, including (1530) Niccolò de’ Lapi, the hero of Massimo d’ Azeglio’s novel [Niccolò dei Lapi (1841)]. The scaffold, with all its tragic appurtenances, was burned in 1782 by the order of Duke Pietro Leopoldo. The arms of the Duke of Athens hang near the entrance, followed by those of the two hundred and four Podestàs who ruled afterwards in Florence. Ground Floor: The cortile (courtyard) is surrounded by vaulted arcades under which are:— North Side:

Michelangelo, David/Apollo, 1530 (photo via Web Gallery of Art)

Michelagnolo, to make a friend of Baccio Valori;, commenced a figure in marble of three braccia high; an Apollo namely, drawing an arrow from his quiver, but did not quite finish it; it is now in the apartments of the Prince of Florence, and although, as I have said, not entirely finished, is a work of extraordinary merit.

Giorgio Vasari, Lives, Trans. Blashfield, vol. 4, p. 128.

Who does not know the Mercury of Gian Bologna, that airy youth with winged feet and cap, who, with the caduceus in his hand, and borne aloft upon a head of Aeolus, seems bound upon some Jove-commissioned errand? Who has not admired its lightness and truth of momentary action which none but an artist skilful in modelling and well versed in anatomy could have attained, since, Mercury-like, it has winged its way to the museums and houses of every quarter of the globe?

Charles Perkins, Tuscan Sculptors, vol. 2, p. 173.

Its central portion is occupied by the graceful figure of Andromeda, whose long tresses stream in the wind, as, shielding her eyes with her hand, she looks upward for her deliverer, who is coming down from the clouds to attack the monster, who, with open jaws, bat-like wings, claws of iron strength, and scaly body, stands ready to receive him. Upon the shore are Andromeda’s mother, Cassiopeia, and her father Cepheus, who has a stern, sad face; while between them her disappointed lover Phineas, whose head reminds us of an antique gem, rises from the earth like an avenging spirit, followed by a troop of warriors on foot and on horseback, the last of whom gallop furiously through the clouds.

Charles Perkins, Tuscan Sculptors, vol. 2, p. 136.

No one thinks of the pedestal when he has once caught sight of the Perseus. It raises the demigod in air; and that suffices for the sculptor’s purpose. Afterwards, when our minds are satiated with the singular conception so intensely realised by the enduring art of bronze, we turn in leisure moments to the base on which the statue rests. Our fancy plays among those masks and cornucopias, those goats and female Satyrs, those little snuff-box deities, and the wayward bas-reliefs beneath them. There is much to amuse, if not to instruct and inspire us there.²The ornaments of the pedestal, perfectly safe, and much valued here, have recently been carried off to the Bargello and replaced by copies.

J. A. Symonds, Life of Cellini, vol. 1, p. lxxvi.

The bronze bust by Benvenuto Cellini shows what a potent and valiant man he was; but the world remembers him chiefly by a horrid crime—the murder of his son in the presence of the boy’s mother.

W. D. Howells, Tuscan Cities, pp. 90–91.

With the exception of Michelangelo, no Tuscan sculptor had so marked an influence as Donatello upon the art of his time. He may, indeed, be called the first and greatest of Christian sculptors, as, despite his great love and close study of classical art, all his works are Christian in subject and in feeling, unless positive imitations of the antique. It is not easy, therefore, to understand why many writers have called Ghiberti a Christian, and Donatello a Pagan, in art. Both loved the antique equally well, and each owed to the study of it his greatest excellence, but certainly no work of Ghiberti can be pointed out so Christian in spirit as the S. George, the S. John, the Magdalen, and many of Donatello’s bas-reliefs. As a man, as well as an artist, he approached far more closely to the ideal of the Christian character, being confessedly humble, charitable, and kind to all around him; a firm friend, and an honest, upright, simple-hearted man. whose fair fame is not marred by a single blot.

Charles Perkins, Tuscan Sculptors, vol. 1, pp. 159–60.

The hair is wonderfully treated, growing in the most natural way from the head, and falling about it in ringlets perfectly graceful in line, and almost silken in quality. The ancients were, indeed, unrivalled in their treatment of hair in the abstract, but no sculptor, ancient or modern, ever surpassed Donatello in giving it all its qualities of growth and waywardness.

Charles Perkins, Tuscan Sculptors, vol. 1, p. 149.

The youthful, undraped head, his face overshadowed by a shepherd’s hat wreathed with ivy, stands with one foot upon the head of his giant enemy, grasping a huge sword in his right hand, and resting his left against his hip. The care bestowed upon the whole work is visible even in the helmet of Goliath, which is adorned with a beautiful stiacciato relief of children dragging a triumphal car.

Charles Perkins, Tuscan Sculptors, vol. 1, p. 150.

Verocchio’s David, a lad of some seventeen years, has the lean, veined arms of a stone-hewer or gold-beater. As a faithful portrait of the first Florentine prentice who came to hand, this statue might have merit but for the awkward cuirass and kilt that partly drape the figure.

J. A. Symonds, Renaissance in Italy: Fine Arts, p. 142.

Though deficient in sentiment, it is full of life and animation. The face is very like those of Leonardo in type, the head is covered with clustering curls, and a light corselet protects the body. The left hand, which is very carefully studied, rests upon the hip, while the right grasps a sword, with which the young hero is about to cut off the head of his fallen enemy. Meagre in outline and poor in its forms, it is nevertheless a work of much merit.

Charles Perkins, Tuscan Sculptors, vol. 1, p. 177.

Donatello. Coloured terra-cotta bust of Niccolò da Uzzano, 1430s (photo via Web Gallery of Art)

Maso degli Albizzi, the ruling spirit of the commonwealth, died in 1417. He was succeeded in the government by his old friend, Niccolò da Uzzano, a man of great eloquence and wisdom, whose single word swayed the councils of the people as he listed.

J. A. Symonds, Sketches and Studies in Italy, p. 131.

As we look at the model of Ghiberti side by side with that of Brunelleschi, we cannot understand how the judges could have hesitated between them, for while Ghiberti’s is distinguished by clearness of narration, grace of line, and repose, Brunelleschi’s is melodramatically conceived and awkwardly composed. In Ghiberti’s Abraham we see a father who, while preparing to obey the Divine command, still hopes for a respite, and in his Isaac a submissive victim; the angel who points out the ram caught in a thicket, which Abraham could not otherwise and does not yet see, sets us at rest about the conclusion; while the servants, with the ass which brought the faggots for the sacrifice, are so skillfully placed as to enter into the composition without attracting our attention from the principal group. Brunelleschi’s Abraham is, on the contrary, a savage zealot, whose knife is already half-buried in the throat of his writhing victim, and who, in his hot haste, does not heed the ram which is placed directly before him, nor the angel, who seizes his wrist to avert his blow; while the ass and the two servants, each carrying on a separate action, fill up the foreground so obtrusively as to call off the eye from what should be the main point of interest.

Charles Perkins, Tuscan Sculptors, vol. 1, pp. 126–27.

Unknown artist, Paradiso, c. 1350

The enthusiasm of the Florentines, when this portrait was discovered, resembled that of their ancestors when Borgo Allegri received its name from their rejoicings in sympathy with Cimabue. “L’abbiamo il nostro poeta!” [We have our poet!] was the universal cry, and for days afterwards the Bargello was thronged with a continuous succession of pilgrim visitors. The portrait, though stiff, is amply satisfactory to the admirers of Dante. He stands there full of dignity, in the beauty of his manhood, a pomegranate in his hand, and wearing the graceful falling cap of the day—the upper part of his face smooth, lofty, and ideal, revealing the Paradiso, as the stern, compressed, under-jawed mouth does the Inferno. There can be little doubt, from the prominent position assigned him in the composition, as well as from his personal appearance, that this fresco was painted in, or immediately after, the year 1300, when he was one of the Priors of the Republic, and in the thirty-fifth year of his age—the very epoch, the “mezzo cammin della vita,” [Midway upon the journey of (our) life. Inferno 1:1] at which he dates his vision. In February 1302 he was exiled.

Alexander Lindsay, Christian Art, vol. 2, p. 11.

Arnolfo di Cambio, Three Acolytes, 1265–67 (photo via Wikimedia Commons)

One feels that there is something in common between us and the Middle Ages. Their names still exist in their descendants, who often inhabit the very palaces they dwelt in, and their very portraits by the great masters still hang in their halls; whereas we know nothing of the Greeks and Romans but their public deeds, their private life is blank to us.

Mrs. Mary Somerville, Personal Recollections, pp. 261–262.

Andrea Verocchio. Death of Selvaggia di Marco degli Alessandri, c. 1475 [Detail] (photo via Wikimedia Commons)

For some unknown reason it was removed from the Church of S. Maria sopra Minerva (at Rome) and destroyed, with the exception of one bas-relief, representing the death of Selvaggia, who died in child-bed. Around the couch upon which the dying woman sits, supported by her attendants, stand her relatives and friends, one of whom tears her hair in an agony of grief; while another, in striking contrast, crouches in silent despair upon the ground, her head enveloped in the folds of a thick mantle.

Charles Perkins, Tuscan Sculptors, vol. 1, p. 177.

Fabio Borbottoni, Ponte alle Grazie

The name Alle Grazie came from an image of the Virgin in a little chapel situated on the right bank. The quaint houses which stood on the piers were originally hermitages erected by nuns who, shocked at the immorality of their convents, lived here in retreat—Romite del Rubaconte—under the direction of one Madonna Apollonio. In one of these little houses was born the Beato Tommaso de’ Bellacci, and in another the poet Benedetto Menzini, in 1646. The little church of S. Maria delle Grazie, founded by the Alberti, has been removed to the Lung’ Arno Generale Diaz⁸Armando Diaz was a WWI Italian general. The Lung’Arno was renamed in November, 1818. (formerly Lung’ Arno della Borsa), and still contains an ancient Madonna, regarded in Florence as miraculous. On the Lung’ Arno delle Grazie, to the west of the bridge, an inscription on No. 20 records that it was the home of Niccolò Tommaseo (1802–68), an author of some celebrity in his time.

Cesare Bazzani. Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, 1911-35 (photo via Wikimedia Commons)

The Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale faces the little Piazza dei Cavalleggieri, named from the barracks of the Spanish Guard of the Grand Duke after 1543. Formerly located in the Uffizi, the library originated in 1714 with a bequest of approximately 30,000 volumes from Antonio Magliabechi a book collector who had served as Palatina and Laurenziana libraian. Cesare Bazzani designed the current building in a Neo-Renaissance style in 1911. The projecting center pavilion consists of a 3-bay loggia flanked by square towers.  The contents of the library were severely damaged in the November 1966 Arno flood.