LETTER 46 THE SACRISTAN1 FLORENCE, 28th August, 1874. 1. I INTENDED this letter to have been published on my mother's birthday, the second of next month. Fors, however, has entirely declared herself against that arrangement, having given me a most unexpected piece of work here, in drawing the Emperor, King, and Baron, who, throned by Simone Memmi2 beneath the Duomo of Florence, beside a Pope, Cardinal, and Bishop, represented, to the Florentine mind of the fourteenth century, the sacred powers of the State in their fixed relation to those of the Church. The Pope lifts his right hand to bless, and holds the crosier in his left; having no powers but of benediction and protection. The Emperor holds his sword upright in his right hand, and a skull in his left, having alone the power of death. Both have triple crowns; but the Emperor alone has a nimbus. The King has the diadem of fleur-de-lys, and the ball and globe; the Cardinal, a book. The Baron has his warrior's sword; the Bishop, a pastoral staff. And the whole scene is very beautifully expressive of what have been by learned authors supposed the Republican or Liberal opinions of Florence, in her day of pride. 2. The picture (fresco), in which this scene occurs, is the most complete piece of theological and political teaching given to us by the elder arts of Italy; and this particular portion of it is of especial interest to me, not only 1 [See below, $ 7. "The Sacristan's Cell" (see § 7) and "The Six Days" (see $9) were rejected titles for this letter.] 2 [More correctly, Simone Martini: see Vol. XXIII. p. 455.] [Ruskin here notes, "Needs correction": see the full account of the fresco by Mr. R. Caird in Vol. XXIII., where it is explained (p. 439) that the skull is 'the diabolical invention of the restorer-originally it was merely a globe."] as exponent of the truly liberal and communist principles which I am endeavouring to enforce in these letters for the future laws of the St. George's Company; but also because my maternal grandmother' was the landlady of the Old King's Head in Market Street, Croydon; and I wish she were alive again, and I could paint her Simone Memmi's King's head, for a sign. My maternal grandfather was, as I have said,2 a sailor, who used to embark, like Robinson Crusoe, at Yarmouth, and come back at rare intervals, making himself very delightful at home. I have an idea he had something to do with the herring business, but am not clear on that point; my mother never being much communicative concerning it. He spoiled her, and her (younger) sister, with all his heart, when he was at home; unless there appeared any tendency to equivocation, or imaginative statements, on the part of the children, which were always unforgiveable. My mother being once perceived by him to have distinctly told him a lie, he sent the servant out forthwith to buy an entire bundle of new broom twigs to whip her with. They did not hurt me so much as one would have done," said my mother, "but I thought a good deal of it." 66 3. My grandfather was killed at two-and-thirty, by trying to ride, instead of walk, into Croydon; he got his leg crushed by his horse against a wall; and died of the hurt's mortifying. My mother was then seven or eight years old, and, with her sister, was sent to quite a fashionable (for Croydon) day-school (Mrs. Rice's), where my mother was taught evangelical principles, and became the pattern girl and best sewer in the school; and where my aunt absolutely refused evangelical principles, and became the plague and pet of it. 4. My mother, being a girl of great power, with not a little pride, grew more and more exemplary in her entirely [SS 2-6 of this letter were used by Ruskin when writing Præterita, where they appear, slightly revised, as §§ 8-12 of vol. i. ch. i. His autobiographical notes are resumed in Letter 51, § 2 (p. 271).] 2 [See above, Letter 45, § 5 (p. 147).] conscientious career, much laughed at, though much beloved, by her sister; who had more wit, less pride, and no conscience. At last my mother, being a consummate housewife, was sent for to Scotland to take care of my paternal grandfather's house; who was gradually ruining himself; and who at last effectually ruined, and killed, himself. My father came up to London; was a clerk in a merchant's house for nine years, without a holiday; then began business on his own account; paid his father's debts; and married his exemplary Croydon cousin. 5. Meantime my aunt had remained in Croydon, and married a baker. By the time I was four years old, and beginning to recollect things,-my father rapidly taking higher commercial position in London,-there was traceable -though to me, as a child, wholly incomprehensible-just the least possible shade of shyness on the part of Hunter Street, Brunswick Square, towards Market Street, Croydon. But whenever my father was ill,-and hard work and sorrow had already set their mark on him,—we all went down to Croydon to be petted by my homely aunt; and walk on Duppas Hill, and on the heather of Addington. 6. My aunt lived in the little house still standing-or which was so four months ago-the fashionablest in Market Street, having actually two windows over the shop, in the second story; but I never troubled myself about that superior part of the mansion, unless my father happened to be making drawings in Indian ink, when I would sit reverently by and watch; my chosen domains being, at all other times, the shop, the bakehouse, and the stones round the spring of crystal water at the back door (long since let down into the modern sewer); and my chief companion, my aunt's dog, Towzer, whom she had taken pity on when he was a snappish starved vagrant; and made a brave and affectionate dog of: which was the kind of thing she did for every living creature that came in her way, all her life long. 7. (And now I go on with the piece of this letter written last month at Assisi.) I am sitting now in the Sacristan's cell at Assisi.1 Its roof is supported by three massive beams,-not squared beams, but tree trunks barked, with the grand knots left in them, answering all the purpose of sculpture. The walls are of rude white plaster, though there is a Crucifixion by Giottino on the back of one, outside the door; the floor, brick; the table, olive wood; the windows two, and only about four feet by two in the opening (but giving plenty of light in the sunny morning, aided by the white walls), looking out on the valley of the Tescio. Under one of them, a small arched stove for cooking; in a square niche beside the other, an iron wash-hand stand,-that is to say, a tripod of good fourteenth-century work, carrying a grand brown porringer, two feet across, and half a foot deep. Between the windows is the fireplace, the wall above it rich brown with the smoke. Hung against the wall behind me are a saucepan, gridiron, and toasting-fork; and in the wall a little door, closed only by a brown canvas curtain, opening to an inner cell nearly filled by the bedstead; and at the side of the room a dresser, with cupboard below, and two wine flasks, and three pots of Raphael ware on the top of it, together with the first volume of the " Maraviglie di Dio nell, anime del Purgatorio, del padre Carlo Gregorio Rosignoli, della Compagnia de Gesu" (Roma, 1841). There is a bird singing outside; a constant low hum of flies, making the ear sure it is summer; a dove cooing, very low; and absolutely nothing else to be heard, I find, after listening with great care. And I feel entirely at home, because the room-except in the one point of being extremely dirty-is just the kind of thing I used to see in my aunt's bakehouse; and the country and the sweet valley outside still rest in peace, such as used to be on the Surrey hills in the olden days. 3 [See the lower of the two sketches by Ruskin here reproduced (Plate II.) : "Sacristan's cell and my study." The upper sketch is of the Church of S. Francesco.] [Giotto di Stefano.] "Raphael ware"; that is, pictured majolica of Urbino, a namesake and relation of Raphael Sanzio being a skilful painter of such ware.] 4 [The first edition, 1839, is in one volume.] |