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Page 49
Fra Lorenzo was officiating at the altar as they entered the large
church, before a small number of peasants, the women making a
picturesque group in their light flowered bodices and their red
petticoats visible from beneath their tucked-up gowns, and their gay
cotton handkerchiefs knotted about their heads, since no woman's head
may be uncovered in the Catholic Church.
The padre came soon to escort them about the church, and "to show them
what little had been left," he said, pointing to the empty chapels. They
found enough, however, to fill them with admiration in dear, good Fra
Giovanni of Verona's marqueterie-work in the backs of the stalls, which
extended the whole length of the long church, as is customary in
monasteries where the monks are the sole participants at the holy
offices. "While Fra Giovanni was here as one of our order," the padre
explained, "he finished the stalls which are now in the cathedral of
Siena. They were taken from us in 1813. After we were allowed to come
back, we asked to have our stalls replaced by those in a monastery in
Siena which was being torn down, and so these stalls were sent us: they
are by Fra Giovanni's own hand. He has never been equalled in this kind
of work, for which he invented the staining of the woods to produce
light and shade, and perfected the perspective which Brunelleschi
invented while resting from his labors on the Florentine dome. The
different Italian cities on the hill-sides, the vistas down the long
streets, with palaces and churches on either side, half-open missals,
Biblical musical instruments, rolls of manuscript music, birds in gay
plumage, all perfectly represented in minute pieces of wood, excite the
wonder of every one whose privilege it is to examine them at leisure."
As on their way to the cloister they passed through the sacristy, once
heaped with vessels of gold and silver, embroidered vestures, ivory and
ebony sculptures, and splendid illuminated missals, now bare and empty,
the padre said sorrowfully, "Only the walls are left to the guardianship
of these feeble hands, which must soon give up their trust." When,
however, they emerged into the cloister he brightened up, saying, "Here
you will have enough to occupy you the whole month;" and the two artists
of the party drew a breath of satisfaction at finding themselves at last
before the object of their pilgrimage,--the frescos of Signorelli and
Sodoma, representing scenes in the life of St. Benedict, which they were
going to copy. They walked slowly found the four sides, lingering where
Signorelli's deeper sentiment gave them cause for study. He was called
to Monte Oliveto first, and painted only one wall. It was only after
three years that the young unknown Bazzi was summoned, and in an
incredibly short time he completed the other three with his fanciful
creations, as graceful and airy as his character was light and
frivolous. His beautiful faces and figures came from his heart; his
brain had little to do with his work, as, without the evidence of sight
of it, the name given to him by the public--Sodoma, meaning
arch-fool--would indicate. Signorelli, on the contrary, had his ideal in
his brain, and labored to reproduce it; and his efforts are graver and
more elevated. It is to be lamented that his mineral paints have changed
their colors in many places from white to black, and that his green
trees have become blue.
The padre had studied these frescos so thoroughly as to discover that
Sodoma had sometimes spent only three days on a fresco, by tracing the
joinings where the fresh plaster had been applied, which had to be
finished before it dried. This gifted, careless painter had the habit of
scratching out his heads, if they did not please him, with the handle of
his brush; and thus some of them appear to us in the nineteenth century,
four hundred years after.
They spent the rest of the day here. Fra Lorenzo joined them at dinner,
and in the evening they walked with the padre beyond the tower to see
the spires of the Siena cathedral through the lovely poisonous blue
mist. On the way back they stopped in the tangled, overgrown garden at
the foot of the tower, which had once been filled with rare medicinal
plants, and peeped into the deserted pharmacy in the lower story, where
the shelves were still filled with rare old pottery jars with the three
mounts and cross and olive-branches upon them. "I am the only physician
now," said the padre, "and must have my medicines nearer home." In
walking over the rocks the visitors noticed, to their surprise, that,
instead of being barren, they were covered with the thick growth of a
short plant, which, like the chameleon, had made itself invisible by
turning gray like the rock. In answer to their inquiries they learned
that it was the absinthe plant, belonging to the same family as the
Swiss plant from which the liquor is made that is eating up the brains
of the French nation; but here it forms the harmless food of the sheep,
and from their milk the famous creta cheese is made,--"called creta from
the rock, which means in English chalk, I think," continued the padre.
"You have noticed its pungent taste at table, have you not?" The ladies
hastened to repair their omission, for it is so celebrated that they
ought to have said something about it. After age has hardened and
mellowed it, no cheese in Italy is so highly esteemed.
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