Lorenzo Ghiberti

the new colonists speedily gave to florence the character of a roman town laying it out in miniature on the model of rome it was believed to be under the special protection of marta or mars the god of war and a statue of this god was erected on the north bank of the river near the end of the old bridge a hundred and sixty years later christianity was introduced as early as a d three hundred and thirteen we find a bishop established here who had for his cathedral a little church dedicated it is supposed to san salvador which stood where the magnificent duomo now stands thus at a very early date we find the nucleus of the present city the bridge which was her raison d'tre the church and the market which was held in what had been the roman forum and which existed as the mercato vecchio until not so many years ago with the market-place and the bridge in our minds we can trace for ourselves the gradual growth of the city's prosperity a prosperity which had brought it by the end of the twelfth century to the proud position of a small commonwealth which was governed by its own magistrates and owned no allegiance to any outside power with a high road which connected them on the one hand with all parts of the great continent which lay on the other side of the alps and which on the other led direct to rome and with easy access to the seaports both of the mediterranean and the adriatic the merchants of florence were not content with merely carrying on their business at home but pushed their way farther and farther afield until they were known especially as traders in silk and wool in every part of the known world from syria to great britain and luckily for themselves they were not ashamed of their trades even when they grew so rich and powerful that they lived in palaces and founded families who ranked with those of the nobles of the land but banded themselves together in arti or in guilds and were as proud of belonging to the guild of the hosiers or the silk merchants or the armourers or the goldsmiths as some one at the present time might be of belonging to a family which came over with the conqueror it shows us something of the manly pride and satisfaction which these old italian burghers took in their honest handicrafts when we read that no one not even a noble might become one of the eight priori or governing magistrates of the city unless he belonged to one or other of the trades guilds but although these merchant princes were proud of their city and of the means by which she had risen to the position of influence and power which she held they were terribly jealous of one another and no sooner did the head of one family show signs of becoming of more importance than the heads of other families than the latter forgetting for the moment their own petty quarrels banded themselves together to overthrow their upstart neighbour so there were constant frays and fights going on in the narrow streets just as bickers and tulses used to go on between the members of the various scottish clans in the streets of the scottish capital so in order that they might have strongly guarded places of refuge these rich florentine merchants built for themselves enormous mansions which bore and still bear the proud name of palazzi or palaces but which were in reality fortresses and when the doors were bolted and barred could quite well stand a siege if need be these palaces still remain in the streets to-day massive and impregnable as ever and as we walk through their lofty rooms and examine the vaulted ceilings and frescoed walls the wrought metal and quaint woodwork that adorn them we realise what strange contrast the lives of these city fathers presented they took their full share in the rude and barbarous strife and bloodshed that went on in the streets while at the same time they lived in stately dignity and did all that in them lay to encourage art and culture for awakening in the year twelve hundred and ninety four to the fact that the cathedrals were being built in pisa and siena and not wishing to be outdone in municipal zeal by the signoria of these neighbouring and rival cities they bestirred themselves and securing the services of a skilled architect arnolfo de cambio set to work to build in haste not only a cathedral but a palace for themselves as well in which they could transact municipal business also a palace for the bargello or head of the police and another great church that of sante Of course, Arnolfo did not live to see these buildings completed.

Other men had to be found, Giotto, Brunelleschi and Ghiberti, to finish them, but it seemed almost as if the need arose in order to call out the latent genius, derived perhaps from their Etruscan ancestors, which lay hidden in many a Tuscan schoolboy of that day.

not only had the buildings to be completed it was also necessary that they should be embellished so we find the various guilds in their corporate capacities offering large sums of money for an altar-piece or fresco or a bit of statuary to be placed in church or hall or market and youths who had hitherto been content to be apprentices in the workshop of some goldsmith or sculptor vied with each other to obtain the prizes and in so doing succeeded in producing such magnificent works of art that they sprang at once into the notice not only of the inhabitants of florence but of the whole of italy it was when the bargello and the palazzo della signoria were a building that the old bridge on which we stand was reared the earlier roman structure having been destroyed by a flood in thirteen hundred and thirty three nearly six centuries have passed since then and most of the old manners and customs of mediaeval florence have disappeared swallowed up in the cosmopolitanism of the twentieth century standing on the ponte vecchio however and watching the ordinary everyday life of the people we have two links that bind us to the past one is as we saw before the jewellers and goldsmiths shops with their busy workmen for although the old guilds are now disbanded the craft of the artificer in precious metals seems to have been handed down from father to son and we cannot forget as we look at the tiny cage-like houses that they were specially built for the guild of goldsmiths by cosmo de medici first grand duke of florence it was the same cosmo who caused the covered gallery that runs along the bridge to be built in order that he might have a private means of communication between his two ducal residences the pitti palace which stands on the south of the river and the palace of the uffizi which stands near the end of the bridge on the north the other link is to be found in the renaioli or sand collectors who at all times of the day are to be seen at work either in their boats on the surface of the broad river which flows under the bridge or on the bare stretches of sand and pebbles which border its banks Sometimes we would take these men for fishermen, sometimes for casual labourers, and it comes rather as a surprise when we are told that they are a distinct clan by themselves, whose occupation has been handed down from father to son for centuries, and who are deeply resentful if any outsider tries to push himself into their ranks.

It was probably the building of the great palaces which called the Renaoli as a class into existence.

The interior of the church is somewhat dark, owing to the fact that altars have been erected against most of the windows, and in the gloom it is difficult to make an adequate study of Orcagna's masterpiece, which took him ten years to complete, and is said to have cost eighty-six golden florins.

It has been spoken of as the most perfect example of Gothic art in existence.

a little way farther on the via calzeoli merges into the piazza del duomo that world-famed square in which when we visit it for the first time we would be almost inclined to imagine ourselves in fairyland were it not for the tramcars which radiate from this centre to all parts of the city and to the surrounding suburbs as well for before us rise three buildings all of which are coated with different coloured marbles white dark green and pink making a picture which is almost startling in its brilliancy these are the ancient octagonal church of s giovanni battista once the cathedral at all times the baptistery of florence the larger and more modern cathedral of s maria del fiore st mary of the flower which besides being coated with the three varieties of marble which i have mentioned glitters with mosaics and is crowned by a dome of rosy red and loveliest of all the tall slender campanile or bell-tower built by giotto which is so delicate in its beauty so calm and fair and stately that it has been compared to the lily of the annunciation the baptistery is the oldest building in florence and as it was built on the site of the roman temple of mars it is probable that the stones of its walls hidden under their coating of marble are identical with those which were employed in the erection of the earlier building this custom of covering stone walls with slabs of marble is peculiar to italy where this costly material is so easily obtained and has probably been handed down from the days of the etruscans as the term used for this special kind of mosaic is geroni from an etruscan word which means small pieces compared with the radiant freshness of the duomo and campanile this curiously shaped church with its worn metal dome seems old and weather-beaten but in its three double gates which stand on the north south and east it possesses treasures which are reckoned among the greatest trophies of art for one of these gates was fashioned by the hands of Andrea Pisano, and the other two by Lorenzo Ghiberti, almost sixty years being spent by the two sculptors on their production.

It was of the gates on the east, which face the Duomo, and are the work of Ghiberti, that Michelangelo said that they were worthy to be the gates of Paradise.