Great Cities Through Travelers' Eyes Read online

  FLORENCE

  The Tuscan city of Florence rose to eminence through its domination of long-distance trade and banking in the Middle Ages, and in the 14th and 15th centuries saw a remarkable artistic and intellectual Golden Age. Although it was in relative decline in the 16th century, it remained irresistibly attractive to cultural visitors, as it has been ever since. From the mid-17th century, Florence became an essential stop on the ‘Grand Tour’, undertaken by many young British aristocrats to visit Italy, acquire some education and enjoy themselves in equal measure.

  In the 20th century, Florence became almost overwhelmed by mass tourism in search of its wealth of art and architecture, yet it still managed to retain the atmosphere of a provincial Italian town.

  1580 MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

  The French philosopher Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) is renowned for his thoughtful, self-examining and highly personal essays written in 1580. Later that year he visited Italy, including Florence, seeking a cure for his kidney stones. His dyspeptic impressions were recorded in a journal by his valet.

  This is a smaller town than Ferrara, placed in a plain and surrounded by a vast number of well-cultivated hills. The Arno, which is crossed by divers bridges, runs through it and the walls of the town have no ditches. This day M. de Montaigne passed two stones and a large amount of gravel without perceiving anything more than a slight pain in the lower part of the stomach. On the same day we visited the stables of the Grand Duke, which are large and arched in the roofs, but no valuable horses were therein. The Grand Duke is not at present in residence. We saw there a strange kind of sheep, a camel, some lions and bears, and an animal as big as a large mastiff, the shape of a cat, and spotted black and white, which they called a tiger.

  We went to the church of San Lorenzo where those banners of ours which Marshal Strozzi lost in his Tuscan defeat are still hanging. In this same church are several specimens of painting on the flat, and some beautiful statues of excellent workmanship, the work of Michael Angelo. We next saw the Dome, a very large church, and the bell tower, covered with black and white marble and one of the fairest and richest works in the world.

  M. de Montaigne affirmed that he never saw a nation so lacking in fair women as the Italian, and the lodgment he found far less well arranged than in France or Germany; the food, indeed, was not half so abundant or well served as in Germany. In neither country is the meat larded, but in Germany it is far better seasoned, and there is greater variety in sauces and soups. The rooms themselves in Italy are vastly inferior, no saloons, the windows large, and all uncovered save by a huge wooden shutter, which would exclude all daylight if it should be necessary to keep off the sun or the wind, an inconvenience which M. de Montaigne found still more intolerable than the lack of curtains in Germany.…

  I cannot tell why this city should be termed ‘beautiful’, as it were by privilege. Beautiful it is, but no more so than Bologna, and little more than Ferrara, while it falls far short of Venice.… The city is paved with flat stones without pattern or regularity. After the dinner the four gentlemen and a guide took the post to go to visit a place belonging to the duke which is called Castello. There is nothing of merit in the house, but around it are divers gardens, the entire place being set on the slope of a hill, so that the main walks are on the slope, and the cross alleys straight and level; also many arbours, thickly covered with interwoven twigs of sweet-smelling shrubs, such as cedar, cypress, orange, citron and olive, the branches being enlaced so closely that the sun at his fiercest could not pierce thereinside.…

  In a part of the garden they encountered a very humorous experience, for, as they were walking about therein and marking its curiosities, the gardener for a certain purpose withdrew, and while they stood gazing at some marble statues, there sprang up under their feet and between their legs an infinite number of tiny jets of water, so minute that they resembled exactly drops of rain, and with this they were sprinkled all over. It was produced by the working of subterranean machinery which the gardener, being two hundred paces distant, set in motion. So delicately was it constructed that he was able from where he was stationed to raise and depress the outflow as he willed. The same device is to be found in divers other places. They saw also the great fountain which finds a channel through two vast bronze figures, one of which, clasped by the other in a violent embrace, seems half-fainting, and, with head thrown back, belches forth the stream from his mouth. So great is the force that the column of water rises some thirty-seven fathoms above the top of these figures, which are themselves twenty feet high.

  c.1660 RICHARD LASSELS

  Richard Lassels (1603–1668) was an English Catholic priest who lived much of his life in Paris, but travelled in Italy in the 1650s and 1660s accompanying young Catholic aristocrats. He described the important cultural sights in his posthumous book The Voyage of Italy, which remained popular into the 18th century and introduced the term ‘Grand Tour’. Not all his information was correct, such as his misattribution of the Baptistery doors, actually done by Ghiberti and Pisano.

  The Domo, I believe, was the finest church in Italy when it was built.… The foundations and architecture of it were contrived by Arnolfo di Lapo, a Dutchman, and a la maniera rustica, saith Vasari of it, in his Lives of the Painters. It’s one of the neatest churches without that I have ever beheld, being clad in white, red and black marble, but it’s only white plastered within, with pillars of a dark coloured freestone. What if the architect of this church were somewhat of Diogenes’ mind? And as Diogenes thought the world would be turned upside down one day, so this architect thought that the world would be turned inside out one day, and that then his church would be the fairest in the world and all lined with marble. As it is, it looks a little hypocritically; though the structure within be of noble contrivance. On the top of it stands mounted a fair cupola made by Brunelleschi, a Florentine. This was the first cupola in Europe, and therefore the more admirable for having no idea after which it was framed; and for being the idea of that of St Peter’s in Rome, after which so many young cupolas in Rome and elsewhere have been made since. Hence it is said that Michael Angelo, coming now and then to Florence (his native country) while he was make the cupola in Rome of St Peter’s church, and viewing attentively this cupola of Florence, used to say to it ‘Come te non voglio; meglio di te non posso’ [I have no wish to do it as you do; yet I cannot do it better than you do]. It’s said also that Brunelleschi, making this cupola, caused taverns, cookshops and lodgings to be set in it, that the workmen which find all things necessary there and not spend time going up and down; and he had reason for this cupola from the ground below to the top of the lantern, is two hundred and two braccie, or yards high….

  Near to the Domo stands the Campanile or high steeple of Florence made by Giotto. It’s a hundred and fifty braccie, or little yards, high, and half as deep in the ground. It’s flat at top and crusted all over with curious little polished marble stones, marble pillars and statues, so that (as Charles V said of it) if it had a case to cover it withal and hinder it from being seen too frequently, men would flock thither at the taking off of this cover, as to see a wonder. Indeed it’s a kind of wonder to see that in three hundred years space, not the least part of that steeple (all crusted over with marble) is perished….

  Near to the Domo also stands the Baptistery or round church of St John where all the children of the town are baptized. The brazen doors of it (three in all) are admirable, especially that which looks towards the great church, of which Michael Angelo, being asked his opinion, answered that it was so well made it might stand at the entrance of Paradise. These doors are all of brass historied into figures, containing the remarkable history of both the Testaments. They were the work of Laurentius Cion who spent fifty years making them: a long time I confess but this is it which Apelles called aeternitati pingere, to work things which will outlast brass and be famous for ever.

  1770 ANNA MILLER

  Poet Anna Miller (1741–1781), from Bath
, England, toured Italy in 1770 with her husband; her collected letters were published anonymously.

  28 December I hope you have had no alarm from any newspaper article relating to the shock of an earthquake felt here yesterday morning at five o’clock. I happened to be awake and heard a confused noise which at first seemed to be at a considerable distance but came rolling on and was immediately followed by a shock which seeming to proceed from the foundation of the house, ascended to the very top.

  I do not know anything it resembled so much (but in a far greater degree) as that of a horse shaking himself when you are on his back, with this difference that this being the shuddering of a house instead of a horse, the various moveables in the room balanced to one side and the other, and some light furniture fell down. The bedstead was lifted up a little way from the ground and came down again with a great shock. M–– awaked and persuading me there was no danger, added to there not being any uncommon noise in the hotel, and Mrs Vanini’s keeping quiet, I was not alarmed though an almost insupportable closeness of air continued for more than a minute, as well as I could judge.

  All the bells in the churches were rung out to warn the people to quit their houses. Many of the poorer sort fled from their habitations and repaired to the churches. After sitting up about a quarter of an hour and perceiving all to be still, I went to sleep and did not wake till nine o’clock. The earthquake had done no mischief to any of the houses of the town. This morning a violent clap of thunder fell on the Duomo and split some of the pinnacles and other ornaments on the top, without further damage. Several risible stories have circulated in regard to the disturbances and discoveries the earthquake occasioned, among some polite societies here.

  1853 T.Q. (SAMUEL YOUNG)

  Samuel Young (1812–1855) was an American banker whose letters from a trip to Europe in 1853 were published in a Saratoga newspaper and collected under the title A Wall-street bear in Europe, with his familiar foreign journal of a tour through portions of England, Scotland, France and Italy (1855). He was less than impressed with Florence.

  Florence is the favorite city in Italy of the Americans and English. If I can content myself here, I shall remain some months, making an excursion to Rome, &c. If not, I shall first visit Rome, and then return to England, where I will endeavour to be satisfied for the winter. If I fail in that, I shall go back to the United States ‘per first steamer’, thoroughly, entirely and conclusively satisfied and disgusted with all traveling; and firmly resolved never again to take my feet away from the shores of my native land; one town of which – with all its faults – containing more honesty and sincerity than the whole continent of Europe. Right or wrong, there is my opinion.

  26 November Several of us who came up together from Leghorn, have compared notes, and all are disappointed in the external appearance of Florence.

  The town is old and yellow. The streets are narrow and nearly all without sidewalks. The carriages, however, keep to the middle, and do not drive over fast. Where there are sidewalks, they are only about two feet wide, and consequently almost useless. Florence is not as cheerful a city outwardly, as Leghorn; but it is the residence of a great many Americans and English, because it is cheaper, and they can here husband their resources. At night Florence is badly lighted; and pedestrians, who are not keen-sighted, had better keep to the house.…

  Yellow is the prevailing colour of the buildings in Florence. The lower windows are protected by a framework of iron bars, set about four inches apart. Many of the houses along the Arno are let for lodgings. These lodgings are now pretty full. A single man can live cheaper here than at many other European towns, but not so cheaply as I had been told; that is, if he live comfortably. He can get his meals at the Cafe Doney at a very fair price. The cafes here are few and not equal to the French. I am staying at the Grand Hotel de New York kept by a man who cannot speak English. The ‘master of the hotel’, as he is called, is, like some of the keepers of the public houses in New York, perfectly competent in his own estimation. He is of a good figure, portly, requires much space to revolve in, and of course wears hair under his nose. All the men here, except a very few Americans and English, look as if some giant had taken them by the legs and forced their heads into coal-scuttle.…

  27 November In America we hear exaggerated accounts of the licentiousness of the French and Italians. I speak of the visible sinfulness. What takes place within doors, I profess to know nothing of. All I do know, is this; that in Paris and in the Italian cities I have seen, licentiousness does not meet the eye. No inducements are held out to you in the streets at night, to stray from the straight and narrow path. The presence of a watchful police has doubtless some influence. Yet, in London there is a good police, but you are often annoyed by abandoned females. London is worse that way than New York. I am told, also, by those that ought to know, that French and Italian women in general, are quite as virtuous as the women of England and America. Their manners are more free and easy; hence, their reputations suffer.

  1956 MARY MCCARTHY

  An American writer and campaigner for radical causes, Mary McCarthy (1912–1989) summed up the characteristic pleasures of the city in her 1956 book The Stones of Florence.

  A ‘characteristic’ Florentine street – that is, a street which contains points of touristic interest (old palaces, a Michelozzo portal, the room where Dostoievski finished The Idiot, etc.) – is not only extremely narrow, poor and heavily populated, lined with florists and greengrocers who display their wares on the strip of sidewalk, but is also likely to be one of the principal traffic arteries. The main route today from Siena and Rome, for example, is still the old Roman ‘way’, the Via Romana, which starts at an old arched gate, the Porta Romana (1326; Franciabigio fresco in the archway), bends north-east, passing the gardens of the Annalena (suppressed convent) on the left and the second gate of the Boboli on the right, the church of San Felice (Michelozzo facade) on the left again, to the Pitti Palace, after which it changes its name to the Via Guicciardini, passes Palazzo Guicciardini (birthplace of the historian), the ancient church of Santa Felicita (‘Deposition’ by Pontormo inside, in a Brunelleschi chapel), and one continues to Ponte Vecchio, which it crosses, changing its name again to Por Santa Maria and again to Calimala before reaching the city centre. The traffic on the Via Romana is highly ‘characteristic’. Along the narrow sidewalk, single file, walks a party of Swiss or German tourists, barelegged, with cameras and other equipment hanging bandoleer-style from various leather straps on their persons; clinging to the buildings, in their cleated shoes, they give the effect of a scaling party in the Alps. They are the only walkers, however, who are not in danger of death. Past them, in both directions (Via Romana is a two-way street), flows a confused stream of human beings and vehicles: baby carriages wheeling in and out of the Boboli Garden, old women hobbling in and out of church, grocery carts, bicycles, Vespas, Lambrettas, motorcycles, topolinos, Fiat seicentos, a trailer, a donkey cart from the country delivering sacks of laundry that has been washed with ashes, in the old-fashioned way, Cadillacs, Alfa-Romeos, millecentos, Chevrolets, a Jaguar, a Rolls-Royce with a chauffeur and a Florence licence plate, bands of brawny workmen carrying bureaus, mirrors and credenzas (for this is the neighbourhood of the artisans), plumbers tearing up the sidewalk, pairs of American tourists with guidebooks and maps, children, artists from the Pensione Annalena, clerks, priests, housemaids with shopping baskets stopping to finger the furred rabbits hanging upside down outside the poultry shops, the sanitation brigade (a line of blue-uniformed men riding bicycles that propel wheeled platforms holding two or three garbage cans and a broom made of twigs each), a pair of boys transporting a funeral wreath in the shape of a giant horseshoe, big tourist buses from abroad with guides talking into microphones, trucks full of wine flasks from the Chianti, trucks of crated lettuces, trucks of live chickens, trucks of olive oil, the mail truck, the telegraph boy on a bicycle, which he parks in the street, a tripe-vendor with a glassed-in cart full of smoking-hot
entrails, outsize Volkswagen station wagons marked ‘US Forces in Germany’, a man on a motorcycle with an overstuffed armchair strapped to the front of it, an organ-grinder, horse-drawn fiacres from the Pitti Palace. It is as though the whole history of human locomotion were being recapitulated on a single street; an airplane hums above; missing only is the Roman litter.