A Wanderer in Florence

The real name of the Duomo is the Cathedral of S. Maria del Fiore, or St. Mary of theFlowers, the flower being the Florentine lily. Florence herself is called the City of Flowers,and that, in the spring and summer, is a happy enough description. But in the winter it fails.A name appropriate to all the seasons would be the City of the Miracle, the miracle beingthe Renaissance. For though all over Italy traces of the miracle are apparent, Florence wasits very home and still can point to...
More Description

The real name of the Duomo is the Cathedral of S. Maria del Fiore, or St. Mary of theFlowers, the flower being the Florentine lily. Florence herself is called the City of Flowers,and that, in the spring and summer, is a happy enough description. But in the winter it fails.A name appropriate to all the seasons would be the City of the Miracle, the miracle beingthe Renaissance. For though all over Italy traces of the miracle are apparent, Florence wasits very home and still can point to the greatest number of its achievements. Giotto (at thebeginning of this quickening movement) may at Assisi have been more inspired as apainter; but here is his campanile and here are his S. Maria Novella and S. Croce frescoes.Fra Angelico and Donatello (in the midst of it) were never more inspired than here, wherethey worked and died. Michelangelo (at the end of it) may be more surprising in theVatican; but here are his wonderful Medici tombs. How it came about that between theyears 1300 and 1500 Italian soil--and chiefly Tuscan soil--threw up such masters, notonly with the will and spirit to do what they did but with the power too, no one will ever beable to explain. But there it is. In the history of the world two centuries were suddenlygiven mysteriously to the activities of Italian men of humane genius and as suddenly theDivine gift was withdrawn. And to see the very flower of these two centuries it is toFlorence we must go.It is best to enter the Piazza del Duomo from the Via de' Martelli, the Via de' Cerretani, theVia Calzaioli, or the Via Pecori, because then one comes instantly upon the campanile too.The upper windows--so very lovely--may have been visible at the end of the streets, withBrunelleschi's warm dome high in the sky beside them, but that was not to diminish theeffect of the first sight of the whole. Duomo and campanile make as fair a couple as everbuilders brought together: the immense comfortable church so solidly set upon the earth,and at its side this delicate, slender marble creature, all gaiety and lightness, which assurely springs from roots within the earth. For one cannot be long in Florence, looking atthis tower every day and many times a day, both from near and far, without being perfectlycertain that it grows--and from a bulb, I think--and was never really built at all, whateverthe records may aver.