CHAPTER V

_Cimabue and his School at San Francesco_

"Il semble au premier coup d'oeil que le rève de François d'Assise a dû amener la fin de tout l'art et de toute noble vie. Chose étrange! ce sordide mendiant fut le père de l'art italien."--E. RENAN. _Nouvelles Études d'Histoire Religieuse._

THE LOWER CHURCH

So rarely in Italy is a church perfect both within and without that it is with amazement we find at Assisi not one but two churches, choir and nave piled above each other, and covered from roof to floor with frescoes, as perfect of their kind as the buildings which they decorate. Wars in every town, trouble, dissension and jealousies among men, raged like a storm over the land, but all this turmoil of a fevered age was unable to check the steady, rapid progress of at least this monument to a dead saint's memory; and we perceive yet another proof of the extraordinary influence of St. Francis, who was able by the devotion and admiration he excited, to inspire all with some of his own love of the beautiful, which has lasted in Italy, from the days of his ministry, through centuries of both faith and unbelief down to modern times. But from this arose a strange event; this lover of solitude, who during his life sought only for humiliation and obscurity and loved best the poor and deserted way-side sanctuaries, was laid to rest in one of the most beautiful Italian churches of that time.

While wandering through the Lower Church, marvelling at the delicate friezes of tiny heads, flowers and winged horses, which frame every fresco; at the great spreading arches--built for strength; the vaulted roof of deep azure blue with dull golden stars upon its surface, looming above the paintings and dimming their brilliancy by the shadows which lurk in its depth, we feel that within the shelter of its perpetual twilight this is a place to pray in. It is truly the home of St. Francis, and notwithstanding its richness and vast splendour his spirit is here, the certainty that he once had dwelt upon the earth is felt.

Few ever stop to look at the walls of the nave, and indeed, upon coming out of the sunlight, the darkness and gloom for some minutes is oppressive and but little can be distinguished in the gloom. It was almost by chance that we one day noticed some frescoes, ruined and faded, just outside the Chapel of St. Martin. They are of no beauty as works of art, indeed they are rather ugly, but their interest lies in showing us that from the very beginning artists had endeavoured, however feebly, to depict the legend of St. Francis.[68] On the left wall of the nave, outside the Chapel of St. Martin, is a fresco representing the Sermon to the Birds with the same idea of composition which was adopted later by Giotto; the saint slightly bends towards the birds upon the ground, his companion stands behind, while the single tree adds a certain solemnity to the scene. The figures are large and ungainly, with feet terrible to behold, the lines are hard, and there is little feeling of movement or life; yet we look at it with reverence and hope, for we know that, with all the ugliness and stiffness of workmanship, the artist was vehemently striving in this dark church to shake off the hampering chains of worn-out traditions, and find for himself something nearer to the truth. And as we look at this one and at the next, representing St. Francis receiving the Stigmata, our thoughts are carried to other renderings of these scenes, and we say with light hearts: "After this poor craftsman comes Giotto, King of Tuscan painters."

These are the only two frescoes illustrating the life of the saint, though there may have been others which were destroyed when the walls of the nave were broken down in order to form entrances to the chapels, added to the main building about 1300. But on the right side, beginning outside the Chapel of San Stefano, are parts of several scenes from the New Testament; a crowd of women and men standing round the cross, a group of women, the Descent from the Cross, a Pietà, a landscape with houses and a decoration of circular ornaments outside the Capella di Sta. Maria Maddalena, generally attributed to Giunta Pisano, thus giving them too early a date.[69]

To us their interest seems rather to lie in that they plainly show how the earliest masters, whilst endeavouring to illustrate the franciscan legend, failed so completely to satisfy their employers that they were bidden to stay their hand and continue to paint the well-worn theme of the history of the world's redemption, which required less invention than the legend of St. Francis, where a new out-look on life had to be acquired. So the franciscans, failing to find a painter who could illustrate their founder's life to their satisfaction, contented themselves with other things, perhaps hoping that in course of time one might arise who could do justice to the theme. Well it was that they waited.

Shortly after these frescoes had been completed in the Lower Church, art received a new impulse (one likes to think that the struggles of the first artist towards something better and more true to life had to do with this); others came, with Giotto at their head, and painted over some of these early efforts, leaving us only Cimabue's great Madonna, a few ruined frescoes, a Byzantine pattern, and stray touches of colour in dark corners of the church to remind us of these first decorators of San Francesco.

We get a melancholy picture from Vasari of the depths to which art had sunk, and of the degenerate artists still following a worn-out tradition until it became as a dead thing in their hands deprived of all inspiration, when "in the year 1240, by the will of God, Giovanni Cimabue ... was born in the city of Florence to give the first light to the art of painting."

Cimabue is rightly called the Father of Italian art, as he represented a new era among Italian masters who were awakening to their country's needs; when men, filled with strange restless energy, grew tired of the Byzantine Madonna with her court of stiff, lifeless saints, and looked for something in closer touch with their mood and aspirations.

Round the name of Cimabue are grouped many charming legends belonging to a time when the people, anxious to possess the new thing their hearts craved for, looked eagerly and critically at an artist's work. There is the story of how when he had finished the picture of the Virgin Mary, the Florentines came to his workshop, and, expecting much from him, yet were amazed at the wonderful beauty of the grand Madonna, and carried the picture with rejoicing, to the sound of music, to the Church of Sta. Maria Novella, where it still hangs in the dark chapel of the Ruccellai; a street in Florence down which the picture passed being called Borgo Allegri, because of the gladness of that day. It is only a legend, and one that has been oft repeated, and as often doubted. Now the existence of Cimabue is even questioned by some, but whoever invented the story understood the great change which had come among the people and into art. It was only right that in the church of the saint who personified the feeling of the age, caught its spirit, and sent the impulse of the people even further, should centre all the first efforts towards this awakening and revival, until, step by step, the masterpieces of Giotto were reached. When we remember this, the large fresco of Cimabue in the right transept of the Lower Church becomes more full of beauty and meaning.[70] The great spirit of her presence fills the church, her majesty and nobility is that of the ideal Madonna, grave to sadness, thinking, as her eyes look steadily out upon the world, what future years would bring to the Child seated on her lap, who stretches out a baby hand to clasp her veil. All the angels round the throne sway towards her; in their heavy plaits of hair shines a dull red light, and in their wings and on the Madonna's gown are mauve and russet shades like the colours of autumnal oaks.... "To this day," says Mr Ruskin, "among all the Mater Dolorosas of Christianity, Cimabue's at Assisi is the noblest; nor did any painter after him add one link to the chain of thought with which he summed the creation of the earth, and preached its redemption."

St. Francis has not been forgotten in this fresco, but Cimabue having given all his art to make the Virgin and her choir of angels beautiful, his figure is not quite one's idea of the ethereal Umbrian preacher, and his being there at all spoils the symmetry of the grouping. It is not improbable that the figure of St. Clare stood on the other side, and was erased when the Chapel of Sta. Maria Maddalena was built, and the ornamental border painted round this fresco, which cut off part of the wings of the two angels on the left of the Virgin.

Vasari vaguely tells us of some frescoes from the lives of Jesus Christ and of St. Francis, painted by Cimabue in the Lower Church, and later writers have thought these must have been destroyed to make room for Giotto's work. If paintings were there at all they were more likely to have been the work of inferior artists, for it seems improbable that Giotto, coming to Assisi for the first time when he was quite a youth, should destroy any work of his master, who was still alive, in order to substitute his own early efforts.

THE UPPER CHURCH

Not only was the Upper Church essentially fitted for fresco painting, but it required an elaborate scheme of decoration, just as a setting, however perfect, needs a gem to complete it; and it almost seems as though "Jacopo" had stayed his hand, with the intention that here, at least, architecture should be subservient to wall decoration, and had foreseen the need of large spaces to be covered with paintings, as brightly coloured, as clear, and as closely set together as are the colours upon a butterfly's wings.

"It was here, in the Upper Church of Assisi," says Mr Roger Fry, "that the Italian genius first attained to self-expression in the language of monumental painting, a language which no other European nation, except the Greeks, has ever mastered." But the question as to who were the predecessors of Giotto, and when exactly they came, can never, we think, be answered; for the time is not far off when these splendid ruins of early art will have totally faded away, or, what is infinitely worse, be covered with still thicker layers of paint than the "restorer" has already laid upon them.

Vasari finds no difficulty about the matter, declaring, to his own satisfaction and for the instruction of future generations, that every fresco in the apse and transepts, together with the series relating to the history of the Jews and the life of Christ, are by Cimabue. But then Cimabue was a Tuscan, and Vasari, the painter of Tuscan Arezzo, was determined to give as much glory to his fatherland as he could. We too would give all possible honour to Cimabue, but are bound to follow the opinion of later critics, who less prejudiced and hasty in their criticisms than Vasari, see the work of many hands in all these frescoes; so we have gathered together a few notes concerning them from various authorities to help the traveller to form his own ideas upon the subject. The theme is too endless to attempt in a small space to give more than a very brief summary of the chief facts.

_Frescoes of the Choir and Transepts._--These may be divided into two distinct classes, those of the north transept, which are older and inferior to those of the south transept and choir. Herr Thode attributes their difference to the fact that while all are the work of Cimabue, the frescoes in the north transept were painted when he was quite young, while the rest belong to a later period, when he had attained his full powers. The Crucifixion of the north transept, one of the most ruined, reminds us somewhat of works by Margaritone which may be studied, without much pleasure, in most Italian galleries. The figures standing round the Cross are short, with small heads and large hands, and not even in the fainting Madonna is there the slightest charm. In the Martyrdom of St. Peter, on the next wall, it is curious to note the similarity of treatment to Giotto's fresco at Rome of the same subject. The Saint, head downwards upon the Cross without any group of people would have made but a dull composition; so both artists added an obelisk on either side to relieve the monotony of line.

Then follows the scene of Simon Magus being borne upwards by demons with bat-like wings; and upon the next wall, beneath the triforium, is represented the death of Ananias and Sapphira, and St. Peter curing the lame before the Temple, where the figures are certainly more majestic and, according to Herr Thode, distinctly show the hand of Cimabue.

Behind the papal throne are medallions of the friend and patron of St. Francis, Gregory IX, and of Innocent IV, who consecrated the Basilica. The frescoes represent the life of the Virgin, but they are all too faded to be enjoyed, save that of the Coronation on the right wall, just above the choir stalls; the Virgin is seated upon a wooden throne with Christ by her side and a group of apostles and spectators beneath. There is a striking resemblance in the drawing and form of the standing figures to those in the Crucifixion of the south transept. This, though very ruined and blackened in parts, showing no other trace of colour than a faint film of golden yellow, has still the power to make us feel that once, long ago, it was a fine work, worthy of a great master. Weeping angels fly above the Cross, some with outstretched hands, while others veil their eyes from the sight of the suffering Saviour; the Magdalen, her arms thrown up above her head, is seen in strong relief against the sky, and contrasting with this dramatic gesture, is the figure of the Virgin, erect and still, her hand clasped in that of St. John. The whole conception is dignified, replete with dramatic feeling of the nobler kind, and has been thought worthy, by Herr Thode, to be put down as the finest of Cimabue's creations.

The remaining frescoes deal with scenes from the Apocalypse, but they are so ruined that it is a thankless task for any, except the student, to try and distinguish each separately. Indeed after a minute examination of so many ruined works of art, a certain sadness and weariness is felt, but if the pilgrim has time to rest awhile in a quiet corner of the stalls and look at choir and transepts solely for their colour, he will gain for himself many beautiful memories not easily forgotten. It is a vision of youthful saints, of men with lances hurrying down a rocky mountain side, of angels trumpeting to the four ends of the earth, and out of this medley of shadowy forms in fading frescoes, like sunlight breaking through a mist with golden light, loom the mighty angels of Cimabue. Their heads are crowned by a heavy mass of auburn hair, their wings slightly lifted, as though they were on earth but for a short space, and they seem as remote from mortals as the Sphynx herself in their dignity and calm repose. To Cimabue belongs the conception of such grave and strangely beautiful creations, winged messengers of strength, who come midway between the stiff Byzantine figures, and the swift-moving angels of Giotto and the cherub children forms of later Umbrian and Venetian schools.

_The Nave._--All writers upon the subject agree that here the frescoes show no trace of Cimabue's style, but are from the hand of his contemporaries and pupils, who worked together in unfolding the history of the Jews and the world's redemption. If it is impossible to hint even at the names of these artists, the most hurried traveller must notice the different character which marks the legend of the New Testament from that of the Old, where the work of talented copyists of classical works of art differ from that of others who kept nearer to the style of Cimabue, instilling into it more or less life, as their individual powers permitted. Herein lies much of the history of early Italian art, but the few remaining frescoes, especially on the left wall, have been so terribly over-painted that the work of the critic is rendered well-nigh hopeless.

Beginning at the right wall by the High Altar we have probably the work of a fine Byzantine master, or at least of one who must have copied a Greek masterpiece. In the Creation of the World, God, represented as a young man seated on a globe of fire, is, with a gesture of his hand, casting upon the earth his last creation--man--who, still suffused with celestial colour, is borne across the sea towards the land. A ram, a bull and a lion besport themselves upon the shore, enormous birds sit on the bushes, and the sea is already full of every kind of fish; slender pink clouds are in the sky, and the distant hills on the horizon have faded into shades of blue-green, like the landscape of an Umbrian picture.

The nude figures of Adam and Eve in the Expulsion from Paradise are wonderfully good for the time, and the manner in which the angels are kicking them out of the garden of Eden is somewhat unusual.

Beginning again at the first bay window but on the lower row of frescoes, in the Building of the Ark Noah is seated, an obelisk-shaped rock rising behind him, and gives his directions with a majestic air to his sons as to the sawing and placing of the great beams. A man, standing by his side, completes the composition, which has much dignity and finish.

The fresco of the Sacrifice of Isaac, with Abraham raising his sword above him his body slightly thrown back, is perhaps one of the most striking of the series. The wind has caught his yellow robe, which unfurls itself against a landscape of sandy hills.

All that remains of the next are three angels, whose grandeur can only be compared to those of Cimabue in the south transept. The remaining subjects on this side are by a different master, who followed closely the best classical traditions, and succeeds in giving extraordinary repose to his compositions as well as meaning to the various figures.

In Jacob before Isaac, Isaac is waiting for his dish of venison, and Jacob's attitude denotes uncertainty as to the reception he is likely to receive, while his mother, lifting the curtain of her husband's bed, seems to encourage her son.

The next fresco is similar in composition, but better preserved. Here we feel the blindness of Isaac, the perplexity of Esau, who cannot understand why his father refuses to bless him, and the fear of Rebecca, who has stepped back, knowing that her fraud must now be discovered. In this composition the artist has strictly kept to rules laid down by his predecessors, and the result, if a little stiff and wanting in originality, is yet pleasing and restful to look at, presenting a great contrast to the somewhat exaggerated movements expressed in the preceding ones.

The last of the series is the steward finding the cup in Benjamin's sack, though greatly ruined it still shows much beauty of composition.

Upon the opposite wall, by the altar, is depicted the life of Christ by followers of Cimabue, but the few frescoes that remain are so mutilated and repainted, that it is impossible to say much about them, or even to imagine what they may once have been.

"In the Capture," writes Messrs Crowe and Cavacaselle, "the Saviour is of a superior size to the rest of those around him, and of a stern but serene bearing. Trivial conception marks the scene of the Saviour carrying the Cross."

The Pietà, one of the last, is evidently by a finer scholar of Cimabue, and the woman coming round the rocks resembles slightly the figure of Rebecca in the two frescoes on the opposite side. "The composition," write the same authors, "is more like that which Giotto afterwards conceived than any other before or since"; but the colossal figure of Christ destroys the harmony of the scene.

The arch at the end of the nave is painted to represent a series of niches, in each of which stands the figure of a saint, all are much repainted, as are the medallions of St. Peter and St. Paul by the door. The Descent of the Holy Spirit is greatly ruined, and in the Ascension the _intonaco_ has peeled off, showing the bricks, so that the apostles have the appearance of looking over a wall.

The ceiling is frescoed in three different places by other masters, whose names have not come down to us. Between the transepts and nave the four Evangelists, seated outside the gates of towns, are so utterly ruined and blackened by time and damp that it is barely worth craning one's neck to look at them.[71] But the four medallions of Christ, the Madonna, St. John the Baptist and St. Francis, which ornament the centre of the nave, are among the most beautiful things in the church, and quite perfect as decoration. At each corner of the spandrels stands an angel upon a globe, with wings uplifted, delicate in outline and brilliantly coloured, while the whole is bordered by the most exquisite design of blossoms and green foliage rising out of slender vases, which mingle with cupids, angels, winged horses and rabbits on a dull red ground. It must have been painted by one who had learned his art from the same source whence the decorative painters of Pompeii drew their inspiration.

It is not an easy thing to fit entire figures seated on large marble thrones into triangular spaces, and so the artist found, who in the groined ceiling nearest the door had to paint the Doctors of the Church, Sts. Jerome, Gregory, Ambrose and Augustin, dictating their epistles to busy clerks. But there is much that is charming in them, though as decoration they partly fail, and a resemblance may be found to the frescoes of Isaac and his sons, which seem to have influenced Giotto in his paintings of old men.

Vasari's enthusiasm was roused when he looked upon these endless paintings, and he tells us that: "This work, truly grand and rich, and admirably well executed, must, I conceive, in those times have astonished the world, the more so that painting had for so long been sunk in such obscurity: and to me, who saw it once more in 1563, it appeared most beautiful, as I thought how Cimabue, in such darkness could have discovered so much light."

* * * * *

It would be well, before leaving, to look at the windows of the Upper Church, which are among the oldest in Italy, and, according to Herr Burckhardt, the most beautiful. As of most things connected with San Francesco, little is known about them; Vasari says they were designed by the painters of the frescoes; an opinion partly held by Herr Thode, who sees a great resemblance to the style of Cimabue in the right-hand window of the choir (the centre one is modern) with scenes from the lives of Abraham, David and Christ, of most beautiful colour and design. The left window, belonging to the same period, contains naïve scenes from the Old Testament, amongst which (the sixth from the top of the left half) is Jonah emerging from a blue-green whale the colour of the waves, and possessed of large white eyes.

Those of the transepts of the same date are even finer and more beautifully coloured. Medallions of geometrical patterns of exquisite design and hue ornament the left-hand window of the north transept, while that on the right contains scenes from the Old Testament and the life of Christ; in both of these, according to Herr Thode, the influence of Cimabue is apparent.

The left window of the south transept contains seven scenes from the Creation and seven from the lives of Adam and Eve, who (in the last two divisions of the right half) are being driven out of Eden, and, spade in hand, are working at the foot of a tree. The eight saints of the right window, seated majestically on gothic thrones ornamented with spires, and dressed in rose-coloured, red and green garments, have certainly the appearance of being, as Herr Thode suggests, of a style even anterior to Cimabue.

Half of the bay window on the left, looking towards the altar, is the work of the Umbrian school of the time of Fiorenzo di Lorenzo (there is a Madonna in a blue mantle, and St. Onofrio clothed in vine-leaves), while the left half, with medallions composed of very small pieces of glass representing scenes from the early life of Christ, are perhaps the most beautiful, and certainly the oldest, in the church, and can even be compared to the stained glass of French cathedrals. The third window (the second has suffered considerably, and what is left of the original belongs to the fifteenth century) has been a good deal restored, but the large angels with blue and purple wings standing in an arch, behind which a little town is seen, are very fine, and below them is a curious small figure of St. Francis floating in front of a colossal Christ, belonging also to the fifteenth century.

Very beautiful are the two saints beneath gothic arches in the last window, and the priests in their rose-coloured stoles, the bishops in crimson and gold, and the other figures of warriors and saints.

The right half of the bay window near the door upon the opposite side, belonging also to the Umbrian school, contains some charming scenes from the life of St. Anthony, while on the left are incidents of the life of St. Francis. The whole is remarkable for delicate rose colours, greens and pale blues, and a total absence of the strong deep tones of the older and finer windows; but they are very beautiful of their kind, like patches of pale sunshine in the church.

The next two windows betray a more ancient style in the fine figures of the apostles (their heads, alas, are modern), and in the scenes from their lives, which are of a deeper tone than the former one; but even more beautiful is the last window, which does not seem to have been restored within the last three centuries, and where the colours standing out from a creamy background are very lovely. The two large and grand figures of two apostles are believed by Herr Thode to be from drawings by Cimabue.

Both Francesco di Terranuova and Valentino da Udine were employed to repair all the windows about 1476, large sums being expended, principally by the Popes who never ceased to patronise the franciscan Basilica. A most comical appearance is given by the distressing additions made in our own time of modern heads upon bodies of the thirteenth or fourteenth century. Until very lately an exquisite rose window was to be seen over the eastern door, now replaced by white glass; one would like to know how it so mysteriously disappeared and where it now is.

No pains had been spared to make San Francesco as lovely in every detail as the brain of man could devise, and it is most remarkable how the frescoes belong to the general idea of the building as though every artist had thought as much of this unity as of the individual perfection of his work. The beautiful papal throne in the choir, of white marble encrusted in mosaic with its frieze of strange animals in low relief, its arms supported by red marble lions, is almost a replica of the Soldan's throne in Giotto's fresco, and was designed by Fuccio Fiorentino in 1347, when the architecture that Giotto delighted in was still the recognised style in Italy.[72] The marble and mosaic altar is of the same date, and the octagonal pulpit of sculptured stone, with saints in small tabernacles, spiral columns and designs of leaves slightly tinted, supposed also to be by Fuccio, is placed at the corner of the wall of the nave looking as if it had grown there. The columns supporting the arched gallery round the church have each been painted to represent mauve and rose-coloured marbles, and there is not a single space in all the building which has not been decorated to harmonise with the frescoes, giving a perfect sense of infinite completeness and beauty, to which time has added by mellowing everything into a pale orange colour--the colour of Assisi.

FOOTNOTES:

[68] It is difficult to say how free a hand the artists were allowed when called in to execute work for any church, but probably, in the case of San Francesco, they were obliged to illustrate precisely the scenes and events chosen by the friars, who in the case of the saint's legend would be very severe judges, requiring quite the best that the artist could produce.

[69] Later documents of the convent speak of a crucifix painted in 1236 by Giunta Pisano with a portrait of Brother Elias "taken from life" and the following inscription:

Frater Elias fieri fecit Jesu Christe pie Misere pecantis Helie Giunta Pisanus me pinxit. A.D.M. MCCXXXVI.

It hung from a beam in the Upper Church until 1624 when it suddenly disappeared, and it seems to have inspired Padre Angeli (author of the "Collis Paradisi") with the theory that Giunta Pisano was the first to paint in San Francesco, ascribing to him, as some have continued to do, the frescoes in the choir and transept of the Upper Church. Messrs Crowe and Cavacaselle say, on what authority it is impossible to discover, that the middle aisle of the Lower Church "seems to have been painted between 1225 and 1250," ignoring the fact that Pope Gregory only laid the foundation stone of the Basilica in 1228. Without trying to find such early dates for the history of art at Assisi, it appears to us quite wonderful enough that some fifty or sixty years after the ceremony of the consecration in 1253, Cimabue and his contemporaries--Giotto and his Tuscan followers--had completed their work in both churches.

[70] _Right_ transept is always synonymous with _South_ transept, but in this case, as San Francesco is built with the altar facing to the west because it was necessary to have the entrance away from the precipitous side of the hill, the _Right_ transept looks to the _North_, the _Left_ to the _South_, and we have thought it easier to keep to the actual position of the church in describing the different frescoes. Herr Thode in his book has done this, but it may be well to observe that Messrs Crowe and Cavacaselle refer to the transepts and chapels as if they faced the parts of the compass in the usual way.

[71] To facilitate seeing the paintings of the ceiling, both here and in the Lower Church, it would be well to use a hand-glass, a simple and most effectual addition to the comfort of the traveller.

[72] Mr Ruskin says that the gable of the bishop's throne is "of the exact period when the mosaic workers of the thirteenth century at Rome adopted rudely the masonry of the north. Briefly this is a Greek temple pediment, in which, doubtful of their power to carve figures beautiful enough, they cut a trefoiled hold for ornament, and bordered the edge with a harlequinade of mosaic. They then call to their aid the Greek sea waves, and let the surf of the Ægean climb along the slopes, and toss itself at the top into a fleur-de-lys."