I’LL BE THE FIRST TO BRING FROM GREECE THE MUSE OF SONG
TO MY BIRTHPLACE, AND WEAR THE POET’S PALM FOR MANTUA;
AND THERE IN THE GREEN MEADOWS I’LL BUILD A SHRINE OF MARBLE
CLOSE TO THE WATERSIDE, WHERE THE RIVER MINCIUS WANDERS
WITH LAZY LOOPS, AND FRINGES THE BANKS WITH DELICATE REED.
*
“CAESAR’S IMAGE.” Florence, 7:00 pm. “SHALL STAND THERE IN THE MIDST.” A flock of Pigeons roosting on ledge of the Baptistery. “COMMANDING MY TEMPLE.” The nineteenth-century reconstructed marble face of the Duomo gleaming in red, green and white. A motorbike has stopped at a crosswalk, its yellow lights flashing to indicate its self-arrested state, as a policeman, patrolling nearby, looks on. “WHILE, LIKE A VICTOR.” We begin our approach. “CONSPICUOUS IN CRIMSON ROBES.” As we wait across the street from Piazza San Giovanni, an orange bus # 11 heads in our direction. “I SHALL DRIVE / A HUNDRED FOUR-HORSE CHARIOTS UP AND DOWN BY THE RIVER.” We pause before the zebra stripes to regard, in blue neon, “Versailles Hotel.” The traffic signal casts a red glow on black asphalt and white paint. “ALL GREECE WILL LEAVE ALPHEUS AND THE PELOPONNESIAN GROVES.” As a white streetlight rakes the Cathedral’s surface. “TO TAKE PART IN THE RACES.” “Green Hotel,” reads a green sign up the Via de’ Calzaivoli. “AND THE BOXING-BOUTS THAT I MYSELF ARRANGED.” The ancient Roman street connects Piazza del Duomo with Piazza della Signoria.
The light has turned green. As we cross into the joint square another face of the Baptistery presents itself. Brunelleschi’s dome shimmers above the Duomo, whose northern flank recedes in chalky gray-streaked marble. Before the Cathedral two men sit on a rainy stoop conversing, one in white, one in black. A woman in yellow strides by. As we skirt the portal, Christ, appearing above in the tympanum, the world in his lap, gazes across at Ghiberti’s golden Gates of Paradise. At the Piazza’s far end a sign for “OMEGA” reads backwards, its “E” and “G” reversed, its other letters reading forwards “A,” “M,” “O.”
“Two kinds of Neoplatonic love, destructive and creative, insania and amore umano, are quite deliberately balanced against one another in Ariosto’s overall design.” Proceeding up Via de’ Calzaivoli, we glance back at the buttressed dome, Giotto’s campanile rising high above. Ahead of us a sign in a large expensive shop reads “Prossima Apertura.” As we continue, teenies, out en masse, are congregating in this pedestrian way. A sharp-nosed girl with long blond hair flashes her bright white teeth. Two soldiers, one gripping a metal briefcase, amble by; in the opposite direction, two invalids in wheelchairs are pushed by attendants. “Shine”, reads the ad for L’Amore Vince su Tutto.”
In a jewelry store’s alcove fabulous strands of pearls are on display alongside sapphire necklaces. Across the street, beneath “Coin,” more teenies have gathered. A girl in freshly-applied lipstick looks nervously at the guys surrounding her. As we negotiate the paving stones, a large illuminated Gothic structure looms above; in one of its niches, Christ is showing his wound to a doubting Thomas. Our attention is caught by the brightly lit Caffè Fiorenza Gelateria. Visible within, a pregnant waitperson squirts Windex on the glass of its ice cream counter. We enter to take a closer look, then decide to stay. MM orders a pistachio and yoghurt cone, Qian-hui a single scoop of raspberry sherbet.
“In the Timaeus the creating God bestows the essential of the Soul, but only the divine stars moving across the Cosmos infuse the powerful affections holding from Necessity – our desire, our sense of pleasure and pain – and that lower phase of the Soul in which experience originates” –Plotinus. Above us in the ice cream parlor – we have taken seats – rises a double-vaulted Gothic ceiling. “No:” On its counterfacade. “The Divine Mind.” An inset mural of early-Renaissance Florence. “In its mentation thinks itself.” Foreground and background are rendered in uniform detail. “The object of the thought is nothing external.” Hills on this side resemble those in the distance. “Thought and Thinker being one.” In the Universal, a rouge tile tells us, All rules. “Therefore, in its thinking and knowing, it possesses itself.” Behind the counter. “It observes itself.” In black jacket and shirt. “It sees itself.” A waitperson, his black cap at a jaunty angle. “As something not unconscious but knowing.” Toys with another waitperson, she in a red and white uniform. “In this Primal Knowing it must include, as one and the same Act, the knowledge of the knowing.” A contretemps develops, for she is no youngling. “Even the logical distinction mentioned above cannot be made the case of the Divine.” Warm and lively, the parlor’s Florentine patrons are stylish. “For the very eternity of its self-thinking.” Behind the counter, in a casual assemblage, stand bottles of colorful liquor. “Precludes any such separation.” In the lowest shelf of the pastry case. “Between that intellective act.” On paper doilies, sit five torte. “And the consciousness of the act.” One, in chocolate on chocolate, identifies itself as “Sacher.” “As the All-Soul contains the Universal Love, so must the single Soul be allowed its singular Love.” In white on brown a second reads “Simone,” a sun and its rays depicted. “And as closely as the single Soul holds to the All-Soul, never cut off but embraced within it.” A third reads “Limone,” a lemon and its leaves represented in icing. “The two together constituting one principle of life.” On the serving counter a salver. “Thus the single separate Love holds to the All-Love.” Is filled with golden oranges; above it another salver filled with golden lemons; above it, on a golden plate, three bananas. “Likewise, the individual Love keeps with the individual Soul as that other, the great Love, goes with the All-Soul.” A diamond-shaped, numberless clock indicates 7:32. “The Love within the All permeates it throughout, so that one Love becomes many, showing itself where it chooses at any moment of the Universe.” In a mural behind the counter, against a cloud in an otherwise blue sky. “Taking definite shape in these its partial phases.” A golden banner, lettered in black, reads “Fiorenze.” “Thereby revealing itself at its will.”
“It was true that I had caught the disease, but I think it must have been from that pretty young servant girl I was keeping at the time I was robbed. The French pox stayed in abeyance for more than four months, then suddenly broke out all over. It did not show itself in the usual way. Instead I was covered with small blisters, red ones, about the size of farthings. The doctors refused to christen it the pox, though I told them what it was. Anyhow I carried on with their treatment, without the least result. In the end, against the advice of the best doctors in Rome, I took lignum vitae. I did so with the greatest imaginable care and abstinence, and within a few days began to feel very much better; to such an extent, in fact, that at the end of 50 days I was completely healed and as sound as a roach.” –Benvenuto Cellini
Exiting the restaurant we encounter three pretty but giggly Japanese girls. “At this point a sudden explosion occurred, along with a tremendous flash of fire.” Within a few paces we arrive at Piazza della Signoria to confront a dramatically-lit Palazzo Vecchio. “As if a thunderbolt had been hurled in our midst.” Its rank of battlements is covered with shields, on which crosses, trefoils, T’s, an emblem half red, half white. “Everyone, not least myself, was struck with unexpected terror.” Above a repair trench rises the “Perseus.” “When the glare and the noise had died away, we stared at each other, then realized that the cover of the furnace had cracked open and that bronze was pouring out.” A white truck with white mini-scoop has pulled up, its red light signaling work in progress. “Hastily I opened the mouths of the mould and drove in the two plugs.” On one side, in the Loggia, swirls Giambologna’s “Rape of the Sabine”; on the other side glowers Ammannati’s Neptune. By comparison Michelangelo’s “David” seems modestly proportioned, as it casts its shadow against the brown stone wall. “When they saw how beautifully the bronze was melting and the mould filling up, everyone grew excited. They all ran up smiling to help me, while I – now in one place, now another – issued instructions, gave a hand with the work, and cried out loud:” Across the Piazza an electric trolley is towing a white-covered cart. “‘O God, who by infinite power raised Yourself from the dead and ascended into heaven!’” The great public space echoes with its own fullness and hollowness. “Then in an instant my mould was filled.” It is lined with banks. “So I knelt down and thanked God with all my heart.” Against the sandy surface of the Palazzo a maroon banner advertises “Betlemme 2000: Luogo di Memorie e di Speranze.” Two twenty-year-old Japanese girls sit on steps talking with their mothers, who have taken seats to either side of them. An Italian girl stands to be photographed beside the statue of a male nude, his genitals covered with a black fig leaf.
We have entered into the Galleria degli Uffizi’s arcade, the narrow way again crowded with lively teenies: French tourists, out-of-town Italians, Florentines. On the wall opposite a graffito reads “10, 100, 1000 Volanti Rosse.” We stroll on through gauntly-lit arches. In the “U” formed by the Gallery’s two wings the pavement is filled with random puddles of rainwater recently fallen. We have almost reached the Arno.
“Then I turned to a plate of salad and with a good appetite ate and drank with all my band of helpers. Afterwards I went to bed, healthy and happy, since it was two hours off dawn, and so sweetly did I sleep that it was as if I hadn’t a thing wrong with me.” We emerge into Lungarno de’ Medici, which curves S-like to meet us. Two motorcycles approach, their head lamps gleaming against the background of the Ponte Vecchio. A spotlight artfully illuminates the full, muddy river. “K. Mohammed & K. Ogzul,” reads a graffito atop the walkway’s bordering wall. “Takko e Miki,” another in white. Downriver, on this the near bank, a patch of green grass shimmers before a white building. By an open door at Società Canottieri Firenze a graffito reads “Salv e,” the “e” separated off from the rest of the word by a semicircle. Within a large hand-drawn heart, the motto “Roberto e Katia,” another little heart inscribed inside the big one. Opposite the elegant Trattoria Ponte Vecchio a graffito reads “Maria Ti Amo.” “By Davide 75,” another beneath it. A bright spotlight across the bank shines at author, as he passes a column, on which have been pressed two palm prints, one red, one white. “Fiorentina Olè,” says another inscription. “S. Valentino by night” reads a final black-lettered signature.
At the corner of Via Porta Santa Maria three black Africans, one in Detroit Tiger’s cap, on pillars have hung their posters for sale: “I found that all the bronze in my furnace had been used up in completing the head of the Perseus.” Einstein, his tongue sticking out; Jim Morrison, ”Wanted” beneath him in Old West letters; a six-year-old kid giving the finger, its inscription reading “Fuck Off.” “It was astonishing to find that there was not the slightest trace of metal left in the channels.” Two long-haired blond girls promenade with their boyfriends, one of whom in skinhead-short haircut, both in black leather jackets. “Nor on the other hand was the statue incomplete.” On an Italian calendar titled “The World of Love,” all the positions thereof have been illustrated. “This was so amazing that it seemed a certain miracle.” Before a pizzeria’s glass case two Japanese girls, one in black basketball sneakers, the other in purple running shoes, examine the variety of offerings, as a waitperson patiently waits. Within, an imitation plaster bust in plastic reads “Victoria,” the English Queen with haughty mien looking down over the scene. “With everything controlled and arranged by God.” Around the corner a fancy shop shows embroidered underwear.
Across from it, all in neon: a coffee cup in white, a single stream of steam wafting above it; an ice cream cone in green and pink; a blue-outlined martini glass, a yellow, L-shaped straw draped over its rim; between red lips, a white cigarette, blue smoke rising from its tip. At Bancomat Cash Advance Machine a white light shines down onto a shelf hidden behind a blue screen. “Jacquouart du Monde,” reads the sign of a sweater shop, the “o” in Jacquouart rendered as a blue elliptical globe, its continents in black. We pass Petronio Boutique, Bar La Borsa, United Colors of Benneton, whose window displays red, blue, green and orange suitcases, each suitcase in all four colors. At the ancient marketplace, in a niche, a stone statue of Giovanni Vigliani looks down at author, his pen poised, in his left hand an open book. A gorgeous Japanese girl of 23 strolls by in a chic mocha coat. Micheli di Lando stands with the fingers of his right hand pressed to his heart, his left hand clasping a white stone flag. We have reached the final corner of the Loggia del Mercato Nuovo.
“The completion of the circle guarantees that the education in and through metaphors at the literary antipodes finally leads back into historical reality, where its efficacy can be tested, its precepts put into practice.” As we turn into the Via Porta Rossa the pavement has begun to dry. “Thus the journey allegorizes the translation of historical experience by textual reference.” “La Gatta Cenerentola,” a fancy clothing shop, shows two female torsos painted gold from pubis to neck. “And the corresponding motion from textual insight back into readerly experience.” “Lewis Carroll,” read the black letters on its door. We detour into another stage-lit piazza, a plaque identifying “Università Popolare Biblioteca Palagio di Parte Guelfa.” Trash has been piled at the foot of a glassed-in medieval staircase blocked by an iron gate. Exiting we pass “The Old Stove,” an Irish pub. At the corner of Piazza de’ Davanzati an awning over the window of the medieval palazzo reads “Blue Home.” We pause before Filatelica Fiorentina, in whose window a green stamp is displayed against a red tracery trefoil. We peer unsuccessfully into Caffè La Mirage. Within a red neon heart Lalique is showing two green hearts cut from emerald, two from ruby, one from sapphire. On the bottom ledge are one in black and one in white, on the top ledge, two in gold. “Bok,” says a stylish graffito.
“As far as Ruggiero is concerned, the defeat of the monstrous Orca and the rescue of Angelica are convincing illustrations not only of heroic impegno, but also of a new willingness to employ the resources of magical imagination, notably the shield, to accomplish worthy goals.” We enter into Piazza di Santa Trinità, dominated by a golden Justizia, her shoulders covered with a cowl in corroded bronze, her scales and pedestal likewise encrusted. She towers against a gray-mottled, black sky. Two minutes to 8:00 says a clock within a battlemented castle curved to fit the square. “Globus” reads the white sign of a travel service. A white taxi, red trefoil on its side, has stopped on the zebra stripes. Across the Piazza, on the front of a Baroque cathedral the dead body of Christ lies extended in God the father’s lap. ”De Angelis” reads a sign opposite, in the first floor of a stylish Quattrocento palazzo. Before an orange phone an orange-coated woman searches her wallet for a coin. Two orange motorbikes whiz by, continuing on up the Via Parione. As the street narrows, a smart boutique, above a cross-hatched window grate, advertises itself with a single bright orange word: “Dinastie.”
“The description of Angelica tied to the nudo sasso suggests a veritable inversion of Alcinian ‘un-nature.’” We are passing a large sign on white: “In such passages as the following.” “Gli Ingegneri del Rinascimento:” “Angelica is linked directly by textual echoes to Alcina.” “Da Brunelleschi a Leonardo da Vinci.” “While at the same time replacing the fairy’s mere seeming with real, natural being:” Above it rises the tightly designed Palazzo Strozzi. “‘La belissima donna, così ignuda / Come Natura prima la compose.’”We continue along the Via de’ Tornabuoni, beside a highly colored, vastly enlarged, transparent photograph of a slinky model, her V-neck maillot, knee-length jacket, pants and shoes all in white. On another gray-beige Baroque building all the sculpture is white. “Deo et Angelorum Principi” reads its white scroll. Centered above white column and architrave, beneath its Renaissance roundel, Hermès shows an orange-epauletted go-everywhere coat, green gloves, a white-gold-orange-and-green scarf. An orange # 6 bus pauses to take on passengers, its own registration 3313, the numbers in white. “She seems at this point to be a composition of Nature itself.”
Prosperous Florentine couples, having dined in restaurants, stroll along the avenue across from “L’Union Assicurazioni.” “Her ‘meaning’ is unveiled, present on the gorgeous surface, without the allegorical depths of Alcina.” A clock erroneously reads fourteen minutes to 11:00. “She brings together an Edenic landscape exempt from seasonal change with the perfection of human form.” We pause before the Nectar Beauty Shop, its display in green, orange and gold. A man and his wife amble by, he in a green trench coat, she in orange hair. In a hotel lobby, behind the desk, the attendant, in high white turtleneck, talks on a white phone. “Grand Hotel,” say its white letters, “Minerva” only now emerging into view to complete its name. “Even as she recalls Alcina and her landscape, she also achieves the timeless perfection of Logistilla.” As we exit the Via dei Banchi, we pass Hotel le Vigne, a group of brightly clad Africans out front, the women in red and black turbans. At last we reach Piazza Santa Maria Novella. “The link between antipodal allegory and historical reality made clear.”
At its far end an orange bus # 12, its registration 3300, has stopped behind a squat white marble obelisk, behind which reads a high arcade. Before us stands “the most important Gothic church in Tuscany.” Above a ledge ornamented with fifteen squares, each centered with a circle, sits Alberti’s Roman temple front, supported by two elegant volutes, they embracing highly evolved circles; at the center, within two pilasters, a large roundel; all in turn surmounted by an entablature, within which another smaller circle, at its center the face of the sun, rays streaming from his animated head. “Ariosto has located his poem in the triple venues of classical epic: earth, underworld and heaven.” A whole flock of pigeons departs from beneath the roundel. From within the courtyard of the Church’s adjoining building a blue sedan also departs. Across the square sits “Ristorante Cinese: Città Imperiale.” “Ruggiero has learned from allegory how to act in and on reality.” Within the Piazza’s hexagonal central plot, five jets, at their center a sixth, much higher, spout. Behind them, across the way, in white letters, its sign underlit, the Hotel Roma. “Yet only in reality does the allegory have its fulfillment.” On a trash can, white lettered on a blue ground, reads the single word “Fiorentinambiente.” “Does it take on its significance.”
“Crucially, Ariosto is the learned student of history, a prophet who, in his ability to recollect the classical and medieval periods, reveals a memory that governs time in all its phases and thereby joins present to past and future.” Piazza del Duomo, second day outing, two orange buses, their paths crossing. Fresh rinsed by rain, the Cathedral gleams in green, pink and white, all against the light-fringed clouds of a pale Cinquecento sky. “As a Neoplatonist, he exists in a timeless world.” Its portico is being swept. The Campanile today is heavenly, more white than pink or green.” “And thus collapses past, present and future into one eternal instant.” Three ambulances have parked in the Piazza itself, a blue “AZNALUBMA” on each of their orange and white hoods. The “Z,” “N,” “L” and “B” read backwards, the other letters, in both directions: “A A U MA.” “IN SPRING THE SWELLING EARTH ACHES FOR THE SEED OF NEW LIFE.” Author, out alone. “THE OMNIPOTENT FATHER OF AIR.” Awaits opening of Duomo’s doors. “IN FRUITFUL SHOWERS / COMES DOWN TO HIS HAPPY CONSORT.” He steps to the southern portal in admiration. “BREEDING UPON HER GREAT BODY MANIFOLD FRUIT.” Brunelleschi’s dome rises against an increasingly blue sky, lighter and lighter clouds scudding by.
Returning to the front porch for entrance. “IT IS THEN THAT THE TRACKLESS COPSES.” He is told by the sweeper. “ALIVE WITH THE TRILLING OF BIRDS.” That he must use the side door. “AND THE BEASTS.” Returned to the southern portal. “LOOK FOR LOVE.” He confronts a sign: “ENTRY FOR CONFESSION ONLY.” “THEIR HOUR COME ROUND AGAIN:” Having none to make, he nonetheless enters to study the Duomo’s cool void.
As we exit, sun shining brightly, the Campanile begins to toll the hour. “LOVELY UNDER A TREMULOUS WET WIND.” We turn left to tour the Duomo’s apse. “THE EARTH LABORING.” In the Piazzetta di Pallottole a white neon, red-capped, black trimmed Dante sits above a shop. “THE FIELDS UNBOSOM.” “Il Sasso di Dante,” reads its unlit name. “MILD MOISTURE EVERYWHERE.” In wonderment at the vacancy of the Square, author recalls that this is Sunday. We circumambulate the buttresses, past a pizzeria dedicated to Donatello. In a niche on the northern flank, the angel makes his announcement to Mary, as across the street, in a shop for religious paraphernalia, a white-clad first communicant stands in cummerbund with gold cross.
“After looking downwards once again, that he may know how far he has circled the stellar heaven, Dante is raised aloft to the Primum Mobile. We have reached the ninth circle, which bears no stars but directs the daily revolutions about the earth of the other eight heavens. From its invisible motion, communicated throughout the Cosmos, time is measured. Beyond it, there is neither space nor time. Allegorically, the perfect ordering of the movements of the spheres represents the operation of Divine Power which, through the angelic orders, influences the lives of men. Thus time is seen to be infinitely more than a mere succession of corporeal movements. It is instead a procession of the Light and Love of Eternity into the temporal life of man.” –Dorothy Sayers
We return to the eastern front of the Duomo, where a mild Japanese mother stoops to photograph her daughters, one in black mid-calf parka, the other in chartreuse. Behind her, the husband videotapes the Cathedral. Author turns the corner for a glimpse of the Loggia de’ Medici, its cornice catching the sun, then continues on to the intersection of Via de’ Pucci and Via Cavour to study its full magnificence. A red traffic light burns in the shadows. In beige topcoat a gentleman steps to the door of the Loggia and pushes it open. Next we move upstreet toward Basilica San Lorenzo, its facade still in the shade, its dome gleaming above in sunlight. To one side of its steps a red sign announces “Bimillenario di Cristo.” Author purchases a new guidebook. Ahead, in light-struck beige stucco, stands a baby store called “La Medicea.” In its third story toys have been arranged against a backdrop of silver foil and deeply saturated red cloth. Cautiously a Japanese girl steps past recording author.
“From the Moon and the serenity of the Limbo of Lunar Vanities, Astolfo looks down delightedly on the landscape of desire and fury. Ariosto has arranged for him to achieve the final overthrow of Agramante, destroying the would-be destroyer and thereby removing the great obstacle to the union of dynasts.”
“A masterpiece of early Renaissance religious architecture, the Basilica was built by Brunelleschi on the site of a pre-existing church (393).” “By such a magisterial gesture Ariosto gives notice that he has the entire chivalric tradition by heart.” “Consecrated by St. Ambrose.” “Constantly on the move.” “Commissioned in 1419 by Cosimo I the Elder.” “Astolfo makes a highly patterned voyage.” “The interior is shaped like a Latin cross with a nave and side aisles.” “It is composed of two parts.” “Divided by columns, the latter has a coffered ceiling.” “The first is a circumambulation of the earth on foot, on horseback and by ship.” “At the end of the nave stand two bronze pulpits, the last works of Donatello.” “The second is a vertical ascent to heights that remove him from the turmoil and appetitiveness of the world.” “The internal facade is by Michelangelo.” “He voyages to the Terrestrial Paradise, thence to the moon.” “At the back of the left arm of the transept is the Old Sacristy.” “Which, as the emblem of changefulness and the source of lunacy.” “Designed as a square surmounted by a small hemispherical dome.” “Is appropriate as a boundary mark for a comic poem aware of the limitations of its genre.” “Whose perfect geometric forms express the Renaissance concept of space.” “Ariosto refrains from following seriously where Dante has already soared.” “Also to be found here is the sarcophagus of Piero and Giovanni de’ Medici in porphyry and bronze, a work by Verrochio.” “His journey has nothing whatever to do with the contemplation of the divine.” “From the church, through the splendid fifteenth-century cloister.” “As Ariosto’s later sixteenth-century critics thought.” “One reaches the Laurentian Library, instituted by Cosimo the Elder and enlarged by Lorenzo.” “When they turned his character into a solemn pilgrim.” “From whom it took its name.” “A competitor of Dante.”
“From here, passing through a corridor.” “Nothing links Astolfo with Ruggiero more than the hippogryph.” “One arrives at the New Sacristy, by Michelangelo .” “Whereas that unbridled animal bears Ruggiero to his downfall, in the sensual Heaven and disillusioned Hell of Alcina’s kingdom, Astolfo rides it.” “Commissioned by Leo X and Clement VII to house the tombs of Lorenzo the Magnificent and Giuliano de’ Medici.” “Bridled and obedient.” “(The latter murdered during the Pazzi conspiracy).” “As low as the depths of Hell and as high as the Terrestrial Paradise.” “Begun in 1520 by Michelangelo, who worked on it intermittently until 1537, and continued by Vasari.” “Where it is humorously stabled and fed by the Apostles.” “It was, however, never finished.” “Traditionally identified as millers who separate the wheat from the chaff.”
“As we enter on the left we encounter the Tomb of Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, with the allegorical statues of ‘Dawn’ and ‘Dusk,’ in front of which is the Tomb of Giuliano, Duke of Nemours, with the figures of ‘Day’ and ‘Night.’” “In contrast to these two warriors.” “The two Medici dukes dominate the sarcophagi, where the figures of Time lie like scrolls.” “The earthly Orlando demonstrates no upward movement.” “The whole, designed as a harmonic synthesis of architecture and sculpture, was probably intended to denote the fate of the soul after death.” “Instead, at the height of his madness.” “A destiny of resurrection.” “He hobbles himself by tying Angelica’s dead mare to his foot.” “Which here takes the Christian shape of Madonna and Child.” “Dragging it brutally along.” “Contemplated by the two Dukes, representing Action (Giuliano) and Thought (Lorenzo).”
“If Punk is Death.” “And deliverance from the ravages of Time.” “We are Zombie,” reads a graffito on the apse of the Basilica. “Symbolized here by the four allegorical figures.” The streets are nearly empty. It is cold and clear. Author turns to head back toward the Duomo, past a display of sneakers, in different pairs of colors: red and black; red and green; red with white laces. A souvenir shop offers porcelain busts of Giovanni XXII, M.L. King and Mao Zedong. Brunelleschi’s dome reemerging into view, we reenter the Via de’ Cerretani. “Romano Zenith,” “Roxy,” “Tango,” read signs above three stores, a white-haired man in the last of the three banging with a hammer, as another, only half visible, is masked by a piece of yellow plastic taped to the window. We turn and face “Pensione Perseo.” On the opposite sidewalk a group of early-rising back-packed oriental tourists strides by.
Second Sunday morning outing, 9:30 am, to Palazzo Pitti via Via di Roma, the road under construction, its bed filled with dirt. “Ruggiero is constantly modeled upon Aeneas.” Fashionable battens have been attached to the temporary railing: “Via di Roma,” they read, a hundred times. At the Savoy Hotel the construction comes to an end. “Orlando suggests Hercules furens .” We pass through the modern urban Piazza della Repubblica, originally the Roman market. “Astolfo, the laboring Hercules.” At its center, surrounding a column, a pile of gravel; paving stones, stacked atop one another. “Rinaldo is remodeled from Boiardo’s headstrong youth in a chivalric version of Turnus.” A pastel artist, out early this chilly day, is already at work on a sentimental reproduction of a Bougereau angel. We continue on across the Piazza del Pesce and begin a gentle climb to the Ponte Vecchio.
Its elegant stalls on Sunday are all boarded up. As we reach its midpoint, we pause before a portrait of Benvenuto Cellini, his bronze eyes weeping white coruscation. From above we receive a glorious view of the slow-purling waters of the Arno. Two bridges downstream a bright light glares on the surface of the flood. Across Borgo San Jacopo we encounter Dionysus, also in bronze, as he empties his cup. “In one phase Ariosto is Ovidian lover.” As a lion below spurts water from its mouth. “In another, Vergilian celebrator of dynasty.” We enter into the Via de’ Guicciardini and head on up the hill. “In yet another, Dantean castigator of Christian scandal.” The Piazza Santa Felicità is quiet and undistinguished. We have passed the house, in faded modern stucco, where Niccolò Machiavelli once lived.
All at once we burst into the Piazza de’ Pitti, a wing of the palace under construction swathed in white, the sun bleaching it. Under brilliant skies we cross a smooth patchwork of concrete to the entrance of this monumental rusticated structure, “Florence’s largest palace.” Its central portal too is swathed in plastic, silvered by the sun. Before it stands a woman in fur coat, red beret and white hair, an expensive brown purse slung behind her. We enter the central courtyard and head toward Giardini di Boboli. But we must wait in line for entrance to the Gardens. It is forbidden, says a sign, to mark in any way the statues, benches, walls. In a mauve jacket and blue-starred silk scarf a young Italian woman studies the list of prohibitions. As she moves to once side she reveals even more. It is forbidden to picnic anywhere in the Garden or to listen to audio equipment at high volume. Behind the counter, in red hair and a blue velveteen chemise, sits the ticket issuer, beside her, the man who actually takes the money. About her neck, against a black sweater, she wears a diamond heart.
Passing up Herculean statuary at its far end, we exit the courtyard to enter the Garden itself. We continue on up a slanted staircase, a sign reading “Natura Viva.” At the height of the stair we glance back at a white angel standing within a fountain. From our new vantage point Brunelleschi’s dome reemerges into view, then Giotto’s campanile, then the hills beyond. The wind flaps a bamboo fence. The sun shines brightly on a golden sphere atop an obelisk set in a pool. Steps curve about a theater, it, like the niches provided for statues, empty. We trudge on up a gravelly pathway, one green sward giving way to another. Cool breezes ripple through the trees. An orange-beaked blackbird skips across our path. Embedded among the roots of trees are fragments of brick.
As we are emerging from behind a low hedge we gain our first comprehensive view of Florence. A helicopter stutters overhead, disappearing momentarily behind a towering cypress, its branches spread, the sun blanching them to pale blue-green. Before us, streaked in black, stands a broken marble column, behind it mortuary hedges in archaic topiary forms. We reenter the central course of cultivated vegetation and descend to the fountain of Neptune. “THUS SPAKE PROTEUS, DIVING INTO THE SEA’S DEPTHS, / AND WHERE HE DIVED THE WATER, FOAMING, SPUN IN A FUNNEL.” Blowing from the sun’s direction, the wind sprays Neptune with a morning shower, rivulets running off the three tines of his trident. Over his head arise consecutive stages of brilliant emerald forestation, the grass beneath them almost black with shadow.
“Morgante was named after the legendary giant in Luigi Pulci’s epic poem, Il Morgante Maggiore, since Cosimo’s Morgante was a giant of a dwarf. The physique of the tubby figure also resembles that of Bacchus, as it is now commonly identified; but instead of sitting on a barrel, he straddles a giant tortoise who spits water into the basin below: ‘a Bacchic travesty of Neptune calming the waters,’ as a modern scholar describes him. Vasari had juxtaposed images of Morgante, Neptune, and Cosimo in his schematic decorations for the Palazzo Vecchio.” –Claudio Lazarro on the Boboli Gardens. Atop the next set of escaliers stands Juno, beneath her an Italian tourist in maroon coat, black hiking hat and alpine pack. The trees are bare, the grass mown, the hedges trimmed. “In Ammannati’s Juno Fountain, the artist borrowed ancient Flora, goddess of flowers, to symbolize Florence.” –Claudio Lazarro on the gardens at Costello
“When the hillside behind the palace lost the fountain on the prato and acquired its new function as a theater, it also gained a statue that extended the central axis to the top of the hill. In 1636 the colossal figure of Dovizia (Abundance) was placed high above the fishpond of Neptune, near the upper wall of the garden.” In the absence of any horticultural display, Juno holds in her hand a bouquet of pomegranates, grapes and flowers. She looks down dejectedly. “The Fountain of Hercules stood out starkly from its setting – white marble against dark cypresses, bronze figures against a light sky; but the fountain directly behind it was enclosed and hidden from view within the labyrinth. . . .”
We have reached the final wall and look back for another overview. “On his return from fetching the golden apples from the Garden of Hesperides, Hercules encountered the giant Antaeus, invincible as long as he remained in contact with his mother, Tellus or the Earth.” We follow the wall in the direction of the city. “Hercules, however, discovered the source of his strength and by lifting Antaeus off the ground squeezed the life out of him.” The wall, 40 feet high, has been scarred with tar. “Tribolo, followed by Ammannati, modeled the group on a type invented in the fifteenth century, with the adversaries facing each other, which he translated into a form appropriate to a fountain ornament.” It lies in the shade, infinitely dappled. “Hercules stands firmly, pressing Antaeus to him; Antaeus, with legs flying, pushes down on Hercules’ head.” Nature presents only its various verdures. “As Vasari observed, in place of Antaeus’ spirit, water came rushing out of his mouth.” In monotonous versions of green.
We have passed by the site of Cosimo’s grotto. “Inside, a ram’s head crowns a symmetrical composition of goats and a she-goat standing in profile against the far wall. Water flows from the mouths of the central animals, and an epigram above the goats invites visitors to drink as Cosimo did.” “In April 1585, after the stucco work was completed, Michelangelo’s unfinished ‘slaves’ were brought to the grotto and placed in the four corners.” “In their new context they seemed to flee the ruin above them and thus brought to mind the mythological story of Deucalion, who with his wife restored the human population after the flood by throwing stones over their shoulders, which slowly turned into human beings. The decoration of the grotto tells of the generation of water, the creation of art out of nature, the force of untamed nature, and its parallel, the power of love, as well as representing a natural realm where shepherds and animals roam freely and peacefully.”
At the end of an allée two young umbrella pines sway in the sun. Two black cats, one with a white bib, sit together, one in the light, one in the shade. As we begin our descent, the city again opens up before us. “WHEN THE NINTH DAY HAS DAWNED, / THEY SEND FUNERAL GIFTS TO ORPHEUS AND GO TO THE THICKET AGAIN.” “Ficino assigned to Orpheus the third position after Zoroaster and Hermes Trismegistus in his chain of six sages.” “HERE, TO BE SURE, A MIRACLE SUDDEN AND STRANGE TO TELL OF / THEY BEHOLD:” “This chain culminated with Plato himself, and constituted the prisci theologi, the line of non-Hebrew seers that had prepared the gentile world for Christianity as the Prophets had prepared the Jews.” “FROM THE OXEN’S BELLIES ALL OVER THEIR ROTTING FLESH / CREATURES ARE HUMMING, SWARMING THROUGH THE WRECKAGE OF THEIR RIBS.” “Ficino’s reticence is also strange in the light of his deliberate and successful attempt to model himself on Orpheus, particularly at the outset of his Platonic career.” “HUGE AND TRAILING CLOUDS OF BEES.” “This attempt was centered, predictably, on his activities as a musician, and particularly on his hymn-singing to an Orphic lyre, an instrument he played with considerable skill by all accounts and often in a state or pose of rapture, of divine frenzy.” “THAT NOW IN THE TREETOPS / UNITE AND HANG LIKE A BUNCH OF GRAPES FROM THE PLIANT BRANCHES.” “The lyre bore a picture of Orpheus taming the beasts.”
At last the Dome, the Campanile, the Piazza de’ Signori, all emerge into view. We descend through a narrow allée to the central esplanade. “In 1789 Pietro Leopoldo brought to the center of the amphitheater an Egyptian obelisk, an ancient Roman spoil of war, which in the sixteenth century had been displayed in Cardinal Ferdinando de’ Medici’s garden in Rome.” As we turn toward the obelisk, on our right a goddess holds a torch, its flame no longer extant. “The granite basin placed in front of it in 1841 came from the Baths of Caracalla.” At the top of the obelisk a bird looks up toward Heaven. “All the classical recollections in the garden affirm the relationship between modern rulers and their Imperial Roman predecessors.” Beneath it, on its pedestal, are two cartouches, one containing another bird. “And the surviving garden is still witness to the long-standing dream of reviving the greatness of antiquity.” The obelisk itself is supported by four tortoises.
There remains much of the Garden that we have not explored, The Isolotto, “a huge oval pond with an oval island at its center, where the Oceanus Fountain was set up in 1637. Inspired by the Maritime Theater in the villa of Hadrian at Tivoli and the circular island of the Villa Lante at Bagnaia, it is much larger than either of these models.” Nor have we visited Costello, where, as Claudio Lazarro, citing Vasari, tells us, the Fountain of Florence stood in “the center of the labyrinth, specifically at Cosimo’s wish. Both the labyrinth form,” he continues, “and the plant materials, all evergreen” alluded to the city which she personified, to Venus whose form she borrowed, to springtime, over which the goddess presided: “Cypresses were appropriate for a labyrinth,” he says, since they originated in Crete, the site of the famous labyrinth built by Daedalus. The trees in circles enclosed the fountain like an architectural structure. “As we have seen,” he continues,
the labyrinth in the Renaissance was identified with the city, as it had been in antiquity. On Crete cypresses are produced by spontaneous generation, Pliny explains, so they make apt symbols of fertility. Also included in its symbolic structure were the arbutus (an emblem of the Golden Age), the laurel of Parnassus, and the myrtle, sacred to Venus. The combination of myrtle and cypress were found in another famous garden – on the island of Cythera, the goddess’ birthplace. The whole of that fictive garden, like the arrangement of trees at Castello, is a series of concentric circles. Contemporaries might have seen in both a labyrinth of love.
As we leave the Pitti Palace, the Arnolfo Tower again comes into view. Intermittently obscured by foliage, it rises above our heads, shifting across the urban horizon.
Around the labyrinth at Costello, Cosimo planted rose bushes. Originally the fountain stood on a level platform of earth surrounded by marble benches, where those who rested to admire the work of art were greeted by hidden water jets shooting up all around them. The labyrinth, like Florence itself, was well supplied with water, as visitors were emphatically reminded.
Before re-crossing the Ponte Vecchio we pause in front of a house where Dostoevskii wrote one of his novels. Across the way an ice cream shop displays five flavors: Limone, Crema, Fragola, Cioccolato, Amarena. Their hair slicked back in ponytails, a violinist and a guitarist are performing in the street. In failing to visit Costello we have missed the Garden’s “culminating nude female figure”: Venus, who, as she wrings out her hair, “creates an unending stream of water.” As Vasari had explained, she stood for the city of Florence, the waters of her local rivers and mountains. How appropriate, Lazarro adds, for the Goddess of Love had long been associated with the generative power of water. “The gesture of wringing out her own hair,” he continues,
derives from the ancient Venus Anadyomene type, which was known in the Renaissance only through the description of a lost painting by Apelles. She was also associated with Capricorn. In Tribolo’s adaptation of the gesture to a fountain, her action became a naturalistic source of water, but his choice of this image may have been guided as well by its association with Cosimo’s zodiac sign. The sensual image of the goddess, with her spiral pose and round limbs, along with the aquatic and rustic imagery on the shaft, implies that Florence is fertile because of the rivers that flow past her.
In the Vicolo di San Stefano, as we stand before the Church, we are blinded by the light. Up another vicolo we consider Caffè Caruso, only to return instead to the Uffizi’s courtyard, past works of Donatello and Giotto, to perambulate once more the Piazza de’ Signori.
From here we enter the Via Ghibellina, the wind whipping up in this ominous neighborhood. “LUCKY IS HE WHO CAN LEARN THE ROOTS OF THE UNIVERSE, / HAS MASTERED ALL HIS FEARS AND FATE’S INTRANSIGENCE.” We enter into the Via di Justizia. “AND THE HUNGRY CLAMOR OF HELL.” The eponymous figure stands before us without a veil. From here we pass on into the Via della Vigna Vecchia. “FORTUNATE TOO THE MAN WHO IS FRIENDS WITH THE COUNTRY GODS.” We enter the courtyard of the Palazzo della Signoria. “PAN AND OLD SILVANUS AND THE SISTERHOOD OF NYMPHS.” Its interior encompassed with delicately sculpted columns and round Roman arches. “THE FASCES HAVE NO POWER TO DISTURB HIM, NOR THE PURPLE / OF MONARCHS, NOR CIVIL WAR THAT SETS BROTHER AT BROTHER’S THROAT.” “Both Orlando and Ruggiero are propelled by their manly wills and appetites, and the comparison and contrast between them is pursued to the poem’s end.” Images of the cities of the world enliven its walls. “This contrast is dramatized in a structural pattern.” “NOR YET THE SCHEMING DACIAN AS HE MARCHES DOWN FROM THE DANUBE.” “When Angelica elopes with Medoro, a common foot-soldier, and vanishes into a never-never land of romance, the disappointed Orlando succumbs to terrifying insanity, in Canto 23, the poem’s midpoint.” “NOR THE ROMAN EMPIRE ITSELF AND KINGDOMS FALLING TO RUIN.” “In Canto 46 the nuptials of Ruggiero and Bradamante, after many vicissitudes, are finally celebrated, and in their marriage the whole future of the dynasty is assured.”
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At 2:00 pm, the sun having warmed the chilly scene, author leans on the ledge of our hotel window to regard the Piazza del Duomo. What before had read as colorful and dark now reads as white and pure. In gray pants and white jacket a young black woman sits on the railing that circles the Baptistery, whose roof is almost white. A white taxi pauses for pedestrians, as a black horse clatters across the paving stones, pulling behind him a carriage, two lovers within it. “Florence is a white rose, whose petals unfold for a moment before the silver pool of Time.” An orange bus, its roof in silver, pulls up to a white line, pausing at the red light. A man in white pants strolls by with his little boy, as a blond girl, her tresses tied behind her head, passes them. In black uniform and white cap a sailor strides eastward past two Japanese ladies returning westward, white shopping bags held by black handles. In long black hair and a pure white coat, an Italian girl talks with two friends. Outside a candy store, its vitrine full of multicolored offerings, a dazzling beauty stands on a white marble pedestal to wash its window.
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