Irma in Italy Part 28

"Oh, you will see," and Irma looked at her watch. "We are in good time.

It is only quarter of twelve."

"In good time for what?" persisted Ellen, as they entered the cloistered enclosure at one side of San Lorenzo, and walked along the arcades to read the many memorial tablets on wall and pavement.

"I will tell you," said Irma. "This is a kind of Animal Rescue League, a refuge for stray cats. Persons anxious to get rid of their cats bring them here, and those who wish to adopt cats come here for them. They say that the stray cats of Florence hide here in corners and on roofs."

"Well, if I needed a cat I shouldn't know how to find it here. There certainly isn't one in sight."

"Well, that's why twelve o'clock is the important hour. Exactly on the stroke of twelve the cats are fed with meat. They seem to know the time, and come rus.h.i.+ng down from roofs and chimneys, and after they are fed people choose the cats they want."

"Hark! Isn't twelve striking now?" asked Ellen, as the bells of many churches began to peal loudly. "It is certainly striking twelve; but I see no cats."

"I don't understand it," said Irma. "I read a long account the other day, in a book that described Florence."

"Here is the custodian; I will ask him."

After talking for several minutes with the custodian, Ellen turned with a smile to Irma. "This is the place where the cats used to be fed, and it was a very ancient custom to let stray cats have refuge here. But many of them refused to be adopted and became so wild that now they are all given over to a society, I suppose like the prevention of cruelty.

Your book was not up to date, though it is not very long since the feeding of the cats was given up."

"Well, I am glad that we have seen the place where they used to feed them. I can at least describe it to Tessie. I am always trying to see things that will entertain her when I go home."

At _dejeuner_ Katie was in great spirits; she had bought a number of pretty things, and had kept the two boys with her all the morning, on the pretext that she was in great need of their advice. Among her purchases a long double necklace of large amber beads was especially beautiful, and Irma praised it generously.

"I would rather have them than anything I have seen in Florence; any piece of jewelry," she added quickly.

Uncle Jim and Aunt Caroline exchanged significant glances.

After _dejeuner_ Richard and Ellen invited Irma to go with them to San Marco.

"Mother and Katie say they wish simply to drive, and Marion, I believe, is going with them to San Miniato, and your aunt thinks you might not care for the Accademia to-day," said Ellen, as she gave Irma her own invitation. "But Richard is sure you would enjoy San Marco and Savonarola."

[Ill.u.s.tration: SPIRES OF FLORENCE.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: SAN MARCO, FLORENCE.]

So in the early afternoon the three friends found themselves wandering in the beautiful cloisters of the old monastery, with its little flower garden in the centre, and its great pine, whose trunk was wreathed with ivy. They walked around a second cloistered garden whose rosebeds were fenced in by a row of pointed bricks. Seated on a bench, they looked up at the tiny windows of the second story, and wondered if the garden that Savonarola had looked on was much like this.

"We must not sit here long," and, as he spoke, Richard walked over to one of the frescoes painted on the brick walls under the arches. He called Irma's attention to those by Fra Angelico, representing scenes in the life of Christ.

"The monastery," he explained, "was suppressed forty years ago, and the whole building is now a museum. There are some beautiful paintings in the chapter house and the refectory, but I am most anxious to see the cells upstairs, nearly all of which are decorated with paintings by Fra Angelico and his pupils."

"Richard," said Ellen, "I see that this is to be one of the occasions when you are going to appear terribly wise and talk like a book.

Sometimes, when you are particularly pleased with things in general, you are so frivolous that I feel that I ought to explain you to some one, but to-day I believe that you are going to the opposite extreme."

"No matter," interposed Irma. "You know all about San Marco, but I am less wise."

"Well spoken, young lady," said Richard, in the tone which Irma already had learned to a.s.sociate with his fun-making mood. "But I cannot pretend to have any knowledge about San Marco, or Savonarola or Fra Angelico that you and my sister might not already possess, if you have read your books carefully. First, as to Savonarola; he became Prior of San Marco in 1490, and when he preached in the church here, the whole piazza in front was crowded hours before the doors opened, and shopkeepers did not think it worth while to open their shops until the great preacher's sermon was over. He made religion seem a simple thing, within the reach of all who tried to live pure lives. He addressed himself to the poor and to the young; and he especially blamed the love of luxury that was spreading in Florence, though he encouraged artists to use their talents on religious pictures."

"Well, we all know that," said Ellen, mildly.

"Then you remember how on the last day of Carnival, 1497, his followers went from house to house collecting books and pictures and musical instruments and other things that they thought had an evil influence, and burned them all in a great fire in front of the Palazzo Vecchio. I will point out the place later."

"I should like to see it," responded Irma, to whom Richard had turned.

"Savonarola had made many enemies by his plain speaking, and though for a time Florence seemed to have had a change of heart, when the Pope Alexander VI excommunicated him, the supporters of the de Medici power went against him, and at last San Marco was stormed, and Savonarola was carried away to death."

"Yes--yes--it is a very sad story. It is pleasanter to go into these cells and remember how Savonarola encouraged art. Let us look at these frescoes carefully," and the three walked on slowly, stopping a moment at the entrance to each cell, where, on the whitewashed walls, were exquisite paintings by Fra Angelico, his brother Fra Benedetto, and Fra Bartolommeo. At last, after a turn or two at the end of the corridor, they came to the Prior's Cell, with Fra Bartolommeo's frescoes on the wall.

"Of course you recognize Savonarola," said Richard, "and that other is his friend Benievieni, and look at these smaller cells inside; here is his hair s.h.i.+rt and his rosary and this bit of old wood, as the inscription says, is from the pile on which he was burnt."

"Ugh!" cried Irma, "I don't like it"; and she turned to look at Savonarola's sermons and his crucifix.

The three were silent as they left the dormitories of the good brothers of San Marco, especially when they remembered the great prior, whose terrible death the fickle Florentines in time repented.

"Time is so precious to-day," said Richard, as they left San Marco.

"And why, pray?" asked Ellen.

"Because you have me with you, dear sister. You cannot be sure when I shall be ready to go with you again."

"Indeed!" responded Ellen. "We are not sure that we shall need you again."

"Well, then, since time is precious, we will drive for a moment to S.

Annunziata to see something fine and something funny."

Soon they were in the little courtyard of the church, and after leaving them for a moment Richard returned with a sacristan, carrying keys. He unlocked the doors of the corridor surrounding the court, in which were some fine frescoes by Andrea del Sarto and two or three other great painters. After they had admired these paintings, while their guide moved off toward some other visitors, Richard said, "Here is the 'something funny,'" and he pointed to a number of small, crude paintings at the end of the corridor.

"They _are_ funny; what in the world are they?" asked Irma.

"You mustn't laugh, even though they seem funny. Come here, and I will explain," and Richard pointed to one that showed a man falling headlong down a steep flight of stairs. "This man, you see, escaped death from a broken neck, on the date put above the picture, and this one, on the deck of the s.h.i.+p tossing about so wildly on the ocean, was saved from s.h.i.+pwreck, and this other in the carriage with two wildly prancing horses was evidently not fatally injured, and this woman in bed, surrounded by her weeping family, was apparently at the point of death, when her patron saint saved her."

"Oh," exclaimed Ellen. "Then these are pious offerings, and I won't laugh at them. It is rather a pretty idea to show thankfulness in this way, and we oughtn't to laugh, even if they could not have Del Sartos or Botticellis for their artists."

On their way home, they looked at the spot in front of the Palazzo Vecchio, now marked by a stone, where Savonarola was burned, and his two chief followers, Fra Domenico and Fra Silvestro.

"When I leave Florence," said Irma, "I shall remember the Palazzo Vecchio more because it was the prison of Savonarola than for anything else."

"But you haven't forgotten the wonderful great halls, and the gildings and paintings. There are no halls more splendid in Florence."

"No, I haven't forgotten them, and I remember Uncle Jim told us the Hall of the Five Hundred was built from the plans of Savonarola for his great Council, and Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci. But the return of the de Medici changed all this, and instead, every inch of s.p.a.ce records the greatness of the de Medici and their victories over the enemies of Florence. But the great statue of Savonarola is there, and I believe his memory will last the longest."

"You are right," responded Richard absentmindedly. He had just seen a flower girl with a basket of exquisite roses.

"Oh, Richard, you are extravagant," cried Ellen, as the girl emptied her basket.

"One can't be extravagant with flowers in Florence," he replied.

Katie and Marion were standing at the door when they reached the hotel.