The road from Pisa to Florence, out of the Porta Fiorentina, to-day the greatest gate of the city, passes at first across the Pisan plain, beside Arno though not following it in its wayward and winding course, to Cascina at the foot of those hills behind which Lucca is hidden away: Monti Pisani
“Perche i Pisani veder Lucca non ponno.”
And unlike the way through the Pineta to the sea, the road, so often trodden by the victorious armies of Florence, is desolate and sombre, while beside the way to-day a disused tramway leads to Calci in the hills. On either side of this road, so deep in dust, are meadows lined with bulrushes, while there lies a village, here a lonely church. It is indeed a rather sombre world of half-reclaimed marshland that Pisa thus broods over, in which the only landmarks are the far-away hills, the smoke of a village not so far away, or the tower of a church rising among these fields so strangely green. For Pisa herself is soon lost in the vagueness of a world thus delicately touched by sun and cloud, and seemingly so full of ruinous or deserted things like the beautiful great Church of Settimo, whose tower you may see far away in the golden summer weather standing quite alone in a curve of the river; so that you leave the highway and following a little by-road come upon Pieve di S. Cassiano, a basilica in the ancient Pisan manner set among the trees in a shady place, and over the three doors of the façade you find the beautiful work of Biduino da Pisa, as it is said, sculptures in relief of the resurrection of Lazarus, the entry of Christ into Jerusalem, a fight of dragons, and certain subjects from the Bestiaries.
Another lonely church, set, not at the end of a byway by the river, but on the highroad itself, greets you as you enter Cascina. It is the Chiesa della Madonna dell’ Acqua, rebuilt in the eighteenth century. In this wide plain there are many churches, some of them of a great antiquity, as S. Jacopo at Zambra and S. Lorenzo alle Corti, and in the hills you may find a place so wonderful as the Certosa di Calci, a monastery founded in 1366, but altered and spoiled in the seventeenth century, and the marvellous Church of S. Giovanni there. Cascina itself is as it were the image of this wide flat country between the hills and the Maremma, where the sun has so much influence and the shadows of the clouds drift over the fields all day long, and the mist shrouds the evening in blue and silver. Desolate and sober enough on a day of rain, when the sun shines this gaunt outpost of Pisa, for it is little more, is as gay as a flower by the wayside. The road runs through it, giving it its one long and almost straight street, while behind the poor houses that have so little to boast of, lies a beautiful old Piazza, with a great palace seemingly deserted on one side and an old tower and a church with a beautiful façade on another. Always a prize of the enemy, Cascina in the Pisan wars fell to Lucca, to the Guelph League, and to Florence. Its old walls, battered long ago, still remain to it, so that from afar, from the Pisan hills, for instance, it looks more picturesque than in fact it proves to be.
The high road, Via Pisana, as it is still called, though, indeed, it was more often the way of the Florentines, sometimes almost deserted, sometimes noisy with peasants returning from market, finds the river again at Cascina only to lose it, however, till after a walk of some five miles you come to Pontedera, a wild and miserable place, full of poor and rebellious people, who eye you with suspicion and a sort of envy. Yet in spite of the proclamation of their wretchedness, I think of them now in London, as fortunate. At least upon them the sun will surely shine in the morning, the unsullied infinite night will fall; while for us there is no sun, and in the night the many are too unhappy to remember even that. There in Pontedera they preach their socialism, and none is too miserable to listen; these poor folk have been told they are unhappy, and, indeed, Pontedera is not beautiful. Yet on a market day you may see the whole place transformed. It has an aspect of joy that lights up the dreary street. All day on Friday you may watch them at their little stalls, which litter Via Pisana and make it impassable. You might think you were at a fair, but that a fair in England, at any rate, is not so gay. All along the highway that runs through the town in front of the shops and the inn you see the stalls of the crockery merchants, of the dealers in lace and stuffs, of those who sell macaroni and pasti, and of those who sell mighty umbrellas. And it is then, I think, that Pontedera is at her best; life which ever contrives in Italy to keep something of a gay sanity, disposing for that day at least of the surliness of this people, who are very poor, and far from any great city.
As for me, I left Pontedera with all speed, being intent on Vico Pisano, a fortress built by Filippo Brunellesco for the Republic of Florence, after the fall of the old Pisan Rocca of Verruca, on the hilltop. There, too, if we may believe Villani, [83] the Marchese Ugo founded a monastery. To-day on Monte della Verruca there is nothing remaining of the Rocca, and the monastery is a heap of stones; but in Vico Pisano the fortifications and towers of Brunellesco still stand, battered though they be,—gaunt and bitter towers, their battlements broken, the walls that the engines of old time have battered, hung now with ivy, over which, all silver in the wind, the ancient olive leans.
Here, where the creeping ivy has hidden the old wounds, and the oleanders speak of the living, and the lilies remind us of the dead, let us, too, make peace in our hearts and suffer no more bitterness for the fallen, nor think hardly of the victor. Florence, too, in her turn suffered slavery and oblivion; and from the same cause as her own victims, because she would not be at peace. If Pisa fell, it was just and right; for that she was Ghibelline, and would not make one with her sisters. For this Siena was lopped like a lily on her hills, and Lucca pruned like her own olive trees, and Pistoia gathered in the plain. This Florence stood for the Guelph cause and for the future, yet she too in her turn failed in love, and great though she was, she too was not great enough. One of her sons, seeing her power, dreamed of the unity of Italy, and for this cause followed Cesare Borgia; but she could not compass it, and so fell at last as Pisa fell, as Siena fell, as all must fall who will not be at one. How beautiful these old towers of Vico Pisano look now among the flowers, yet once they were cruel enough: men defended them and thought nothing of their beauty, and time has spoiled them of defence and left only their beauty to be remembered. For the ancients of Pisa have met for the last time; the signory of Florence plots no more; no more will any Emperor with the pride of a barbarian, the mien of a beggar or a thief, cross the Alps, or such an one as Hawkwood was sell his prowess for a bag of silver; and if the ships of war shall ever put out from Genoa, they will be the ships of Italy. For she who slept so long has awakened at last, and around her as she stands on the Capitol, there cluster full of the ancient Latin beauty that can never die, the beautiful cities of the sea, the plain, and the mountain, who have lost life for her sake, to find it in her.
It is a long road of some fifteen miles from Pontedera to S. Miniato al Tedesco: a hot road not without beauty passing through Rotta, own sister to Pontedera, through Castel del Bosco, only a dusty village now, for the castello is gone which guarded the confines of the Republic of Pisa, divided from the Republic of Florence by the Chiecinella, a torrent bed almost without water in the summer heat, while not far away on the southern hills Montopoli thrusts its tower into the sky, keeping yet its ancient Rocca, once in the power of the Bishops of Lucca, but later in the hands of Florence, an answer, as it were, to Castel del Bosco of Pisa in the land where both Pisa and Florence were on guard. There is but little to see at Montopoli, just two old churches and a picture by Cigoli; indeed the place looks its best from afar; and then, since the day is hot, you may spend a pleasanter hour in S. Romano in the old Franciscan church there, which is worth a visit in spite of its modern decorations, and is full of coolness and quiet. It was afternoon when I left S. Romano and caught sight of Castelfranco far away to the north, and presently crossed Evola at Pontevola, and already sunset when I saw the beautiful cypresses of Villa Sonnino and the tower of S. Miniato came in sight. Slowly in front of me as I left Pinocchio a great ox wagon toiled up the hill winding at last under a splendid Piazza fronted with flowers; and it was with surprise and joy that, just as the angelus rang from the Duomo, I came into a beautiful city that, like some forgotten citadel of the Middle Age, lay on the hills curved like the letter S, smiling in the silence while the sun set to the sound of her bells.
And indeed you may go far in Tuscany, covered as it is to-day by the trail of the tourist, before you will find anything so fair as S. Miniato. Some distance from the railway, five miles from Empoli, half-way between Pisa and Florence, it alone seems to have escaped altogether the curiosity of the traveller, for even the few who so wisely rest at Empoli come not so far into the country places.
Lying on the hills under the old tower of the Rocca, of which nothing else remains, S. Miniato is itself, as it were, a weather-beaten fortress, that was, perhaps, never so beautiful as now, when no one keeps watch or ward. You may wander into the Duomo and out again into the cloistered, narrow streets, and climbing uphill, pass down into the great gaunt church like a fortress, S. Domenico, with its scrupulous frescoes, and though you will see many wonderful and some delightful things, it will be always with new joy you will return to S. Miniato herself, who seems to await you like some virgin of the centuries of faith, that age has not been able to wither, fresh and rosy as when she first stood on her beautiful hills. Yet unspoiled as she is, Otto I has dwelt with her, she was a stronghold of the Emperors, the fortress of the Germans; Federigo Barbarossa knew her well, and Federigo II has loved her and hated her, for here he spoke with poets and made a few songs, and here he blinded and imprisoned Messer Piero della Vigna, that famous poet and wise man, accusing him of treason. [84] Was it that he envied him his verses or feared his wisdom, or did he indeed think he plotted with the Pope? Piero della Vigna was from Capua, in the Kingdom; very eloquent, full of the knowledge of law, the Emperor made him his chancellor, and indeed gave him all his confidence, so that his influence was very great with a man who must have been easily influenced by his friends. Seeing his power, others about the Emperor, remembering Piero’s low condition, no doubt sought to ruin him; and, as it seems, at last in this they were successful, forging letters to prove that the chancellor trafficked with the Pope. It was a time of danger for Frederick; he was easily persuaded of Piero’s guilt, and having put out his eyes, he imprisoned him. Driven to despair at the loss of that fair world, Piero dashed his head against the walls of his prison, and so died. Dante meets him among the suicides in the seventh circle of the Inferno.
But the Rocca of S. Miniato, as it is said, having brought death to a poet and housed many Emperors, gave birth at last to the greatest soldier of the fifteenth century, Francesco Sforza himself, he who made himself Duke of Milan and whose statue Leonardo set himself to make, on which the poets carved Ecce Deus. A mere fort, perhaps, in its origin, in the days of Federigo II the Rocca must have been of considerable strength, size, and luxury, dominating as it did the road to Florence and the way to Rome: and then even in its early days it was a stronghold of the German foreigner from which he dominated the Latins round about, and not least the people of S. Miniato. Like all the Tuscans, they could not bear the yoke, and they fled into the valley to S. Genesio: soon to return, however, for the people of the plain liked them as little as he of the tower. This exodus is, as it were, commemorated in the dedication of the Duomo to S. Maria e a S. Genesio. The church is not very interesting; some fragments of the old pulpit or ambone, where you may see in relief the Annunciation and a coat of arms with a boar and an inscription, are of the thirteenth century. It is, however, in S. Domenico, not far away, that what remains to S. Miniato of her art treasures will be found. Everyone seems to call the church S. Domenico, but in truth it belongs to S. Jacopo and S. Lucia. As in many another Tuscan city, it guards one side of S. Miniato, while S. Francesco watches on the other, as though to befriend all who may pass by. S. Domenico was founded in 1330, but it has suffered much since then. The chapels, built by the greatest families of the place, in part remain beautiful with the fourteenth-century work of the school of Gaddi and of some pupil of Angelico; but it is a work of the fifteenth century by some master of the Florentine school that chiefly delights us. For there you may see Madonna, her sweet, ambiguous face neither happy nor sad, with the Prince of Life in her lap, while on the one side stand S. Sebastian and St. John Baptist, and on the other perhaps S. Jacopo and S. Roch. Below the donors kneel a man and his wife and little daughter, while in the predella you see our Lord’s birth, baptism, and condemnation. Altogether lovely, in that eager yet dry manner, a little uncertain of its own dainty humanism, this picture alone is worth the journey to S. Miniato. Yet how much else remains—a tomb attributed to Donatello in this very chapel, a lovely terracotta of the Annunciation given to Giovanni della Robbia, and indeed, not to speak of S. Francesco with its spaciousness and delicate light, and the Palazzo Comunale, with its frescoed Sala del Consiglio, there is S. Miniato itself, full of flowers and the wind. Like a city of a dream, at dawn she rises out of the mists of the valley pure and beautiful upon her winding hills that look both north and south; cool at midday and very still, hushed from all sounds, she sleeps in the sun, while her old tower tells the slow, languorous hours; golden at evening, the sunset ebbs through her streets to the far-away sea, till she sinks like some rosy lily into the night that for her is full of familiar silences peopled by splendid dreams. Then there come to her shadows innumerable—Otto I, Federigo Barbarossa, Federigo II, poor blinded Piero della Vigna, singing his songs, and those that we have forgotten. The ruined dream of Germany, the Holy Roman Empire, the resurrection of the Latin race—she has seen them all rise, and two of them she helped to shatter for ever. It is not only in her golden book that she may read of splendour and victory, but in the sleeping valley and the whisper of her olives, the simple song of the husbandman among the corn, the Italian voices in the vineyard at dawn: let her sleep after the old hatred, hushed by this homely music.
FOOTNOTES:
[83] See p. 107.
“Io son colui che tenni ambo le chiavi
Del cuor di Federigo e che le volsi
Serrando e disserando sì soavi
Che dal segreto suo quasi ogni uom tolsi.”