The Story of Assisi Part 11

[78] This fact alone would disprove the idea that Giottino, who was born in 1324, could have been the author of these frescoes. Everything that cannot be attributed to other painters is put down as his work, so that we have many pictures and frescoes of totally different styles a.s.signed to Giottino.

[79] Some say this fresco represents the three youths begging St.

Nicholas to pardon the consul who had condemned them to death, in which case it would come after the scene of the execution on the opposite wall.

[80] The tabernacle on the altar is the work of Giulio Danti, after a design by Galeazzo Alessi, both Perugians, in 1570.

[81] How right Elias was to hide the body of St. Francis in so secure a place is shown by the various endeavours made by the Perugians to secure the holy relics for their town. In the fifteenth century they attempted, while at war with a.s.sisi, to carry off the body by force, and failing, had recourse to diplomacy. They represented to Eugenius IV, that it would be far safer at Perugia, and begged him to entrust them with it. He denied his "dear sons'" request on the plea that the a.s.sisans would be brought to the verge of despair and their city to ruin.

CHAPTER VII

_The Sienese Masters in the Lower Church. The Convent_

... "Je donnerais pour ce caveau toutes les eglises de Rome."--H.

TAINE. _Voyages en Italie. Perouse et a.s.sisi._

THE CHAPEL OF ST. MARTIN[82]

The best masters of Tuscany having, by the beginning of the thirteenth century, covered most of the walls of San Francesco with choice work, it now remained for Siena to send artists to complete their loveliness by effigies of calmly sweet Madonnas and saints whose gentle beauty seemed rightly fitted for their Umbrian surroundings.

The first to come, probably very few years after Giotto had left, was Simone Martini, "the most lovable," Mr Berenson calls him, "of all the artists before the Renaissance."[83] He married Giovanna Memmi, a Sienese, whose brother Lippo Memmi often helped him in minor works; this may account for the confusion between the two, and why he is so often called by his brother-in-law's surname. One of the artist's claims to immortality, the highest, according to Vasari who was not partial to the Sienese, was the praise he won from Petrarch for the portraits he painted on more than one occasion of Madonna Laura.

Simone's talents were sung by the "love-devoted" Tuscan poet who calls him "mio Simon," and in one perfect sonnet tells how he must surely have been in paradise and seen the loveliness of Madonna Laura, as he has drawn her features with such fidelity that all on earth must perforce acknowledge her beauty.

The Chapel of St. Martin at a.s.sisi is filled with such faces as Petrarch describes. It possesses, too, all the varied colour of a garden, only a garden not inhabited by earthly mortals, but by gentle knights and fairy kings wearing wonderful crowns of beaten gold, with cherubs' heads, flowers and moons upon their surface, and women who hold their lilies with caressing fingers. All gives way before his sense of the beautiful, the ornate and the charming, so that he creates a world apart of saints and angels with a feeling of remoteness about them which is one of the most striking features of his art. He loved all that was joyous; he depicted no tragic scenes; his saints have already won their crowns in heaven, his kings are conquerors, and around a death-bed the angels sing. He may sometimes fail as a story-teller, and his compositions do not always give the same sense of perfection as those of other stronger artists, but his very faults are lovable, and all can be forgiven for the exquisite finish of his paintings, which, in their brilliant colouring, are like a piece of old embroidery where design and hues have been woven in by patient fingers. "To convey his feeling for beauty and grace and splendour," says Mr Berenson, "Simone possessed means more than sufficient. He was a master of colour as few have been before him or after him. He had a feeling for line always remarkable, and once, at least, attaining to a degree of perfection not to be surpa.s.sed. He understood decorative effects as a great musician understands his instruments."[84]

It is a little difficult to find out where Simone begins his legend of St. Martin, as he seems to have fitted in the different scenes just where he could, thinking, as was only right, more of the effect of decoration than of the sequence of the story. The two frescoes on the left wall refer to the well-known act of charity, when St. Martin, a young Lombard soldier serving in the army of the Emperor Constantine in Gaul, met, on a bitter winter's day, a beggar outside the gates of Amiens, and having nothing but the clothes he wore divided his cloak with the poor man. It is not one of Simone's pleasing compositions; far better is the next where Christ appears to the saint in a dream, wearing the cloak he had given in charity and saying to the angels who surround him: "Know ye who hath thus arrayed me? My servant Martin, though yet unbaptised, hath done this." The face of the young saint is very calm and palely outlined against his golden aureole as he lies asleep, clasping his throat gently with one hand. With what patience has Simone drawn the open-work of the sheets, the pattern on the counterpane, the curtain about the bed; no detail has been pa.s.sed over. And who can forget his angels, the profile of one, the thick waving hair of another, and the grand pose of the standing figure, a little behind Christ, whose head is poised so stately upon a well-moulded neck.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE KNIGHTHOOD OF ST. MARTIN BY SIMONE MARTINI (D. ANDERSON--_photo_)]

Exactly opposite are two scenes belonging to the early times of the saint's life when he was yet a soldier. In one the Emperor Constantine is giving him his sword, while an attendant buckles on the spurs of knighthood; here also, as in most of the frescoes, we pick out single figures to dwell on, such as the youth with a falcon on his wrist, whose profile is clearly outlined yet tender, with that pale red-golden tinge over the face by which Simone always charms us.

Remarkable for grace and motion is the man playing on the mandoline, with a sad dreamy face, who seems to sway to the sounds of his own music; whilst almost comic is the player on the double pipes, with his curious headgear and tartan cloak.

The next scene is divided by a rocky ridge, behind which is seen the army of the Gauls, who, by the way, have a.s.sisan lions on their s.h.i.+elds. St. Martin, after refusing to accept his share of the donations to the soldiers, declares his intention of leaving the army to become a priest, and when accused of cowardice by the Emperor, he offers to go forth and meet the enemy without sword or s.h.i.+eld. Simone pictures him as he steps forth upon the perilous enterprise, holding the cross and pointing to the sky, as he refuses the helmet held out to him by the Emperor. Next day, says the legend, the Gauls laid down their arms, having submitted to the word of St. Martin who was then allowed to quit the world for the religious life.

On the opposite wall, above the apparition of Christ with the cloak, we see St. Martin no longer in soldier's garb, but as the holy Bishop of Tours. The saint has fallen into a reverie whilst saying ma.s.s, and in vain a priest tries to rouse him by laying a hand upon his shoulder for his eyes remain closed, and the kneeling priest waits patiently with the book of the Gospels upon his knee. Simone never surpa.s.sed the dignity, the religious feeling, the quiet repose and ease expressed in the figure of St. Martin; while he has kept the scene as simple as one of Giotto's frescoes, thus making it the most perfect among these compositions. To the left is a much ruined picture of the restoration of a child to life through the prayers of the saint, who was preaching at Chartres. Among a crowd of people one figure, with a Florentine headgear such as Andrea del Castagno paints, stands clearly out; below a small child can be discerned stretching out little hands towards the kneeling bishop.

Above this again, almost too high to be clearly seen, is the death of St. Hilary of Poitiers, at which St. Martin a.s.sisted. One of the mourners has a mantle of turquoise blue, a beautiful piece of colour like the sky seen through the arches of the Gothic windows.

On the other wall, over the fresco where St. Martin receives knighthood, is recorded the legend of how "as he went to the church on a certain day, meeting a poor man naked, he gave him his inner robe, and covered himself as he best might with his cope. And the archdeacon, indignant, offering him a short and narrow vestment, he received it humbly, and went up to celebrate ma.s.s. And a globe of fire appeared above his head, and when he elevated the host, his arms being exposed by the shortness of the sleeves, they were miraculously covered with chains of gold and silver, suspended on them by angels."[85]

The next picture, which is very ruined, represents the visit of St.

Martin to the Emperor Valentinian, who, because he had rudely kept his seat in his presence, suddenly found it to be on fire, and, as the legend says, "he burnt that part of his body upon which he sat, whereupon, being compelled to rise, contrite and ashamed, he embraced Martin, and granted all that he required of him."

Above this is the death of St. Martin, with a graceful flight of angels hovering over the bier singing as they prepare to carry his soul to heaven. Very fine is the fresco in the lunette of the entrance, where Cardinal Gentile, in his franciscan habit, is kneeling before the saint who bends forward to raise him from so humble a position. But in the single figures of saints, in the arch of this chapel, standing like guardian deities within their Gothic niches, Simone rivals greater artists in grace and strange beauty. In honour of the franciscan donor the chief franciscan saints are depicted beside two others of universal fame. St. Francis and St. Anthony of Padua, and below them St. Catherine of Alexandria and St. Mary Magdalen; on the other side, St. Louis, King of France and St. Louis, Bishop of Toulouse, and below them St. Clare and St. Elisabeth of Hungary. Nowhere has St. Clare received so true an interpretation of her gentle saintliness as in this painting by Simone, and he has surpa.s.sed his other works in the exquisite drawing of the hand which holds her habit to one side. It would seem as though in these saints he had attained the limits of his power of expressing types of pure beauty, were it not for the half figures in the embrasures of the window of such finish and subtle charm as to haunt us like some strain of long remembered music. There is a bishop in a cope of creamy white with gold embroidery, a hermit with a long brown beard, and saints who calmly pray with clasped hands. The broad white band of pale shadowed fur is low enough to show the graceful line of the neck of the young saint in the left hand window, his hair tinged with pale red and his face so fair as to seem a shadow upon the wall, coming and going in the play of light.

So enthralling is the study of the frescoes that it is possible to leave the chapel without noticing the stained-gla.s.s windows, perhaps the loveliest in the church where all are lovely. They seem to belong to the same epoch as the paintings, and in one or two instances a figure may have been inspired by them, such as the angels with sword and s.h.i.+eld who resemble Simone's angels in the upper part of the fresco of St. Martin's death. Cardinal Gentile was in all probability the donor of these as well as of the chapel, for he is represented in the central window kneeling before St. Martin, who is in full episcopals. These windows are dazzling; there are warriors in red and green, saints standing against circles of cream-tinted leaves, St.

Jerome in magenta-coloured vestments harmonising strangely with the crimson of his cardinal's hat; and St. Anthony of Padua in violet shaded with paler lights as on the petals of a Florentine iris. A saint in white is placed against a scarlet background, another in pale china blue against a sky of deep Madonna blue, and all these colours lie side by side like ma.s.ses of jewels of every shade.

On leaving we find to the left of the papal throne a small chapel ornamented only by a window which has an apostle standing in a plain Gothic niche, the ruby red and tawny yellow of his mantle making a brilliant patch of colour in this dark corner of the church. The head is modern, but the figure, the circular pattern beneath, and the right half of the window with five medallions, are, according to Herr Thode, the oldest pieces of coloured gla.s.s in the lower church.

Just above the papal throne is a handsomely worked ambo in red marble and mosaic, forming a kind of pulpit from which many ill.u.s.trious people have preached, among them St. Bonaventure and St. Bernardine of Siena. In the recess a Florentine artist of the fourteenth century has painted the Coronation of the Virgin, a fresco worthy of its beautiful setting; and there is a crucifixion and scenes from the martyrdom of St. Stanislaus of Poland by a follower of Pietro Lorenzetti, pupil of Simone Martini. St. Stanislaus was canonised in 1253 when Innocent IV, came to consecrate the Basilica, and upon this occasion a miracle took place which redounds to the honour of the saint. While Cardinal de Conti (afterwards Alexander IV,) was preaching, one of the capitals of a pillar above the pulpit fell upon the head of a woman in the congregation, and thinking she was dead, as she had sunk down without a groan, her neighbours covered her over with a cloak "so as not to disturb the solemnity of the occasion." But to their amazement when the sermon ended the woman rose up and gave thanks to St. Stanislaus, for the blow, far from doing her harm, had cured her of headaches to which she had been subject. The legend would long since have been forgotten, were it not that the capital which fell on that memorable day is still suspended by chains in the opposite corner of the nave, and often puzzles the visitor who does not know its history.

Below the pulpit is a slab of red marble let into the wall with these simple words inscribed: "Hic jacet Jacoba sancta n.o.bilisque romana,"

by which the a.s.sisans commemorated the burial place of Madonna Giacoma da Settesoli the friend of St. Francis, who after his death lived at a.s.sisi and followed the rule of the Third order until she died in 1239 (see p. 114).

_Left Transept._--To Pietro Lorenzetti was given the work of decorating these walls with scenes from the Pa.s.sion, and so far as completing the rich colour of the church be succeeded. But when studied as separate compositions they betray the weakness of an artist who, as Mr. Berenson remarks, "carries Duccio's themes to the utmost pitch of frantic feeling." Great prominence is given to the subject of the crucifixion where the vehement actions of the figures rather than the n.o.bility of the types are pre-eminent. It may be of interest to some that the man on the white horse is said to be Gualtieri, Duke of Athens, the tyrant of Florence, whose arms Vasari says he discovered in the fresco which he describes as the work of Pietro Cavallini.

A curious composition is that on the opposite wall where the disciples sit in awkward att.i.tudes and the servants in the kitchen are seen cleaning the dishes while a dog hastily licks up the sc.r.a.ps. It would be difficult to know this represented a religious scene were it not for the large aureoles of the apostles. Nor has Pietro succeeded in giving solemnity to the scene of the Stigmata, where the strained position of St. Francis and the agitated movement of the Seraph partake of the general characteristics of these frescoes. But in his Madonna, St. Francis and St. John the Evangelist, below the crucifixion, Pietro Lorenzetti gives his very best and their faces we remember together with the saints of Simone Martini. Referring to this fresco M. Berenson says: "At a.s.sisi, in a fres...o...b.. Pietro, of such relief and such enamel as to seem contrived of ivory and gold rather than painted, the Madonna holds back heart-broken tears as she looks fixedly at her child, who, Babe though he is, addresses her earnestly; but she remains unconsoled."[86]

_Chapel of S. Giovanni Battista._[87]--Another lovely work by Pietro Lorenzetti is the triptych over the altar, the Madonna, St. Francis and St. John the Baptist, but here the action of the child leaning towards the Virgin and holding the end of her veil, is more caressing and suggestive of babyhood. Above are small heads of angels like those Pietro places in medallions round the frescoes in the south transept.

This, and the panel picture over the altar in the opposite chapel, complete the works of the Sienese school in a.s.sisi. The Umbrian school is represented by a large and unsympathetic picture by Lo Spagna (dated 1526), which is however considered by local admirers of the painter to be his masterpiece. It is a relief to turn from his yellow-eyed saints and hard colouring to the windows of this chapel which are remarkable for their harmony and depth of tone.[88] The figures of the central window date from the second half of the thirteenth century, those of the left window are at least two centuries later.

_The Sacristies._--These open out of St. Giovanni's Chapel. Both are ornamented with handsomely carved cupboards of the sixteenth century where the friars store their vestments and costly lace, and which once were full of gold and silver vessels ama.s.sed during many centuries.

But often during mediaeval times of warfare the friars had to stand aside and see the sacristies sacked by the Perugians, or even the a.s.sisans, when they must have envied the peace of mind of the first franciscans who, possessing nothing, could have no fear of robbers.[89]

Devoted as the citizens were to the memory of St. Francis they do not seem to have hesitated, when in want of money, to help themselves liberally to the things in his church. At one time when the Baglioni were besieging a.s.sisi, her despot Jacopo Fiumi gathered the citizens about him, and in an eloquent harangue called upon them to rob the church at once before the enemy had entered the gates, lest the treasure should fall into the hands of the Perugians. So the sacristies were rifled, and with the proceeds Jacopo Fiumi rebuilt the walls and the palaces which had fallen to ruin during the incessant fighting of past years. The next plunderers were the soldiers of Napoleon, and it is a marvel that so many things still remain. A cupboard in the inner sacristy contains a beautiful cross of rock-crystal ornamented with miniatures in blue enamel brought by St.

Bonaventure as a gift from St. Louis of France; there is also the second rule of St. Francis which was sanctioned by Honorius III. Even more precious is a small and crumpled piece of parchment, with a blessing written in the big child-like writing of St. Francis, which he gave to Brother Leo at La Vernia after he had received the Stigmata. On one side he wrote part of the Laudes Creatoris, upon the other the biblical blessing:

"_Benedicat tibi Dominus et custodiat te_: _Ostendat faciem suam tibi et misereatur tui_: _Convertat vultum suam ad te et de tibi pacem_":

and then below:

"_Dominus benedicat te, Frate Leo._"

Instead of the Latin, the saint signs with the Thau cross, which is of the shape of the mediaeval gallows, and may have been yet another way of showing his humility by humbling himself even to the level of malefactors. Many pages have been written about this relic; the line by Brother Leo in explanation below the signature of St. Francis:

"_Simili modo fecit istud signum Thau c.u.m capite manu sua,_"

has puzzled many people, but in a pamphlet by Mr Montgomery Carmichael[90] it has received a plausible translation. He thinks that _c.u.m capite_ refers to the small k.n.o.b at the top of the Thau, by which St. Francis meant to represent a malefactor's head; the line would read thus: "in like manner with his own hand he made a cross with a head," and not "with his own head," as some believe. Mr Carmichael thinks the curious mound out of which the cross rises is a rough drawing of La Vernia. Above the benediction, in neatly formed letters, Brother Leo has written a short account of the sojourn at the Sacred Mount and of the Vision of the Seraph. This relic has been mentioned in the archives of the convent since 1348, and is always carried in procession at the commencement of the feast of the "Perdono" on July 31st.

Almost more honoured by the faithful is the "Sacred Veil of the most Holy Virgin," which can only be exposed to the public in the presence of the Bishop of a.s.sisi, and is shown in times of pilgrimage when the sacristy and church are full of men and women waiting for their turn to kiss the holy relic.

The picture over the door, painted by Giunta Pisano (?) is always pointed out as a portrait of St. Francis, but as the painter's first visit to a.s.sisi was in 1230 he can only have seen the body of the saint borne to its last resting-place in the Basilica, and even that is doubtful when we remember with what secrecy the burial was performed. Here the face is pointed and emaciated, with a curious look in the eyes as though Giunta had desired to record his blindness. The figure is surrounded by small scenes from the miracles of St. Francis, performed during his lifetime and at his tomb in San Giorgio. But though in the so-called portraits of the saint, the artists think more of representing him as the symbol of asceticism and sanct.i.ty than of aiming at giving a true likeness, both this picture and a fresco painted in 1216 at Subiaco when the saint stayed there on his way to Spain, are not very dissimilar from the graphic description left us by Celano. He tells us that St. Francis "was rather below the middle stature with a small round head and a long pinched face, a full but narrow forehead and candid black eyes of medium size, his hair likewise was black; the brows were straight, the nose well-proportioned, thin and straight, the ears erect but small, and the temples flat; his speech was kindly, yet ardent and incisive; his voice powerful, sweet, clear and sonorous; his teeth were regular, white and set close; his lips thin and mobile, his beard was black and scant, his neck thin, his shoulders square; the arms were short, the hands small with long fingers and almond-shaped nails, his legs were thin, his feet small, his skin delicate, and he was very thin...."

[Ill.u.s.tration: BIRD'S EYE VIEW OF THE BASILICA AND CONVENT OF SAN FRANCESCO, FROM A DRAWING MADE IN 1820]

_Right Transept._[91]--On the walls between the Chapels of the Sacramento and of St. Maria Maddalena, Simone Martini has left some of his loveliest work in the half figures of franciscan saints he places near the Madonna. These are St. Francis, St. Louis of Toulouse, St.

Elizabeth of Hungary, St. Clare clothed in the habit of her order, always to be recognised when painted by Simone by her heavy plaits of hair, St. Anthony of Padua with the lily, St. Louis of France with a crown of _fleur-de-lis_, and upon the right of the Virgin, a n.o.ble saint who may be Helen the mother of King Louis, as she too holds a sceptre with the lily of France on the top. Never had saints so majestic a queen as Simone's Madonna. The subdued greens and tawny reds of their mantles and their auburn hair look most beautiful against the gold ground which s.h.i.+nes with dull light about them. Each of their aureoles bears a different pattern in raised _gesso_; a garland of flowers, a circle of human heads, suns, a tracery of roses and ivy, or yet again another of oak leaves. After Giotto's Allegories and the frescoes in San Martino, these saints are by far the loveliest things in San Francesco, and as they look towards us, ethereal, like a faint moon on a misty night, they seem the very incarnation of mediaeval faith. Dante created women such as Matilda, who sings to him in Purgatory as she is picking flowers on a woodland river's edge, and Simone paints them and conveys their spirit in the faces of St. Clare and St. Elizabeth.

_The Convent_

It is natural to think that the Basilica and Convent built under the guidance of Elias was as we see it now in its full magnificence of chapels, porch, colonnades and cloisters. Certainly the essential form of the building has not been altered, but in the early days it stood isolated from the town, surrounded by such rocks as jut out among the gra.s.s in the ravine outside Porta S. Pietro, and approached by a drawbridge which made it resemble, even more than it does now, a feudal stronghold guarding the Umbrian valley. Later on, as the life of the place centred ever more round the church of the saint, the citizens no longer built their houses near San Rufino or below the castle, but close to San Francesco, until a second town sprang up where once were only rough mountain pastures. It is still possible to form an idea of how it looked by following round the base of the hill by the Tescio, whence a wonderful and unique view of the northern side of church and convent is obtained (see Appendix). a.s.sisi lies hidden, and standing high above us, shutting out the view of the valley, is San Francesco; not the building with great arches we are familiar with, rising high above the vineyards, but a castle, seen clearly defined and strong against the sky, whose bastions clasp the hill top as powerfully as a good rider bestrides his horse. Oak copses cover the slopes from the convent wall straight down to the banks of the Tescio, where little mills are set above deep pools of emerald green water and narrow ca.n.a.ls fringed by poplar trees. The minute detail of the landscape in this deep ravine gives a curious feeling that we are walking in the background of one of Pier della Francesca's pictures--even to the distant view of low-lying hills where the torrent makes the sudden bend round the mountain edge; and the contrast is strange between it and the fortress-church upon the dark hill, where deep shadows lie across it and lurk within the crannies of its traceries in the bay windows of the chapels and in the depths of jutting stones. Such was the ma.s.sive building "Jacopo" planned to stand upon the mountain ridge, as much a part of the rocks and the red earth as the cypresses which crown the summit. And in the midst, but on the southern side, he placed, as if to balance the rest, a square and boldly conceived bell-tower rising high above the church.[92]

At the time it was the wonder of the a.s.sisans, who boasted that for beauty as well as for solidity it could be counted among the first, not in Italy only, but in Europe. Bartolomeo of Pisa, came to cast one of the big bells, and together with his own name he inscribed those of Elias, Gregory IX, and Frederick II. On another bell, which has been recast, was graven a delightful couplet informing the faithful of the many services which consecrated bronze could render to the country round.