A Wanderer in Florence | Page 9

effect this, managed his interview so clumsily that Petrucci
suspected something, those being suspicious times, and, instead of
submitting to capture, himself turned the key on his visitors. The Pazzi
faction in the city, meanwhile, hoping that all had gone well in the
Palazzo Vecchio, as well as in the cathedral (as they thought), were
running through the streets calling "Viva la Libertà!" to be met with
counter cries of "Palle! palle!"--the palle being the balls on the Medici
escutcheon, still to be seen all over Florence and its vicinity and on
every curtain in the Uffizi.
The truth gradually spreading, the city then rose for the Medici and
justice began to be done. The Archbishop was handed at once, just as
he was, from a window of the Palazzo Vecchio. Francesco de' Pazzi,
who had got home to bed, was dragged to the Palazzo and hanged too.
The mob meanwhile were not idle, and most of the Pazzi were
accounted for, together with many followers--although Lorenzo
publicly implored them to be merciful. Poliziano, the scholar-poet and
friend of Lorenzo, has left a vivid account of the day. With his own
eyes he saw the hanging Salviati, in his last throes, bite the hanging
Francesco de Pazzi. Old Jacopo succeeded in escaping, but not for long,
and a day or so later he too was hanged. Bandini got as far as

Constantinople, but was brought back in chains and hanged. The two
priests hid in the Benedictine abbey in the city and for a while evaded
search, but being found they were torn to pieces by the crowd.
Montesecco, having confessed, was beheaded in the courtyard of the
Bargello.
The hanging of the chief conspirators was kept in the minds of the
short-memoried Florentines by a representation outside the Palazzo
Vecchio, by none other than the wistful, spiritual Botticelli; while three
effigies, life size, of Lorenzo--one of them with his bandaged
neck--were made by Verrocchio in coloured wax and set up in places
where prayers might be offered. Commemorative medals which may be
seen in the Bargello, were also struck, and the family of Pazzi was
banished and its name removed by decree from the city's archives. Poor
Giuliano, who was generally beloved for his charm and youthful spirits,
was buried at S. Lorenzo in great state.
I have often attended High Mass in this Duomo choir--the theatre of the
Pazzi tragedy--but never without thinking of that scene.
Luca della Robbia's doors to the new sacristy, which gave the young
cardinal his safety, had been finished only eleven years. Donatello was
to have designed them, but his work at Padua was too pressing. The
commission was then given to Michelozzo, Donatello's partner, and to
Luca della Robbia, but it seems likely that Luca did nearly all. The
doors are in very high relief, thus differing absolutely from Donatello's
at S. Lorenzo, which are in very low. Luca's work here is sweet and
mild rather than strong, and the panels derive their principal charm
from the angels, who, in pairs, attend the saints. Above the door was
placed, at the time of Lorenzo's escape, the beautiful cantoria, also by
Luca, which is now in the museum of the cathedral, while above the
door of the old sacristy was Donatello's cantoria. Commonplace new
ones now take their place. In the semicircle over each door is a
coloured relief by Luca: that over the bronze doors being the
"Resurrection," and the other the "Ascension"; and they are interesting
not only for their beauty but as being the earliest-known examples in
Luca's newly-discovered glazed terra-cotta medium, which was to do

so much in the hands of himself, his nephew Andrea, and his followers,
to make Florence still lovelier and the legend of the Virgin Mary still
sweeter. But of the della Robbias and their exquisite genius I shall say
more later, when we come to the Bargello.
As different as would be possible to imagine is the genius of that
younger sculptor, the author of the Pietà at the back of the altar, near
where we now stand, who, when Luca finished these bronze doors, in
1467, was not yet born--Michelangelo Buonarroti. This group, which is
unfinished, is the last the old and weary Titan ever worked at, and it
was meant to be part of his own tomb. Vasari, to whose "Lives of the
Painters" we shall be indebted, as this book proceeds, for so much good
human nature, and who speaks of Michelangelo with peculiar authority,
since he was his friend, pupil, and correspondent, tells us that once
when he went to see the sculptor in Rome, near the end, he found him
at work upon this Pietà, but the sculptor was so dissatisfied with one
portion that he let his lantern fall in