DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61902#0225
THE MAKERS OF FLORENCE.
205
THE MONKS OF SAN MARCO,
CHAPTER VII.
w
I.—THE ANGELICAL PAINTER.
Among all t’he many historical places, sacred by right
of the feet that have trodden them, and the thoughts
that have taken origin within them, which attract the
spectator in the storied city of Florence, there is not one
perhaps, more interesting or attractive than the convent
of St. Mark, now, by a necessity of state which some ap-
prove and some condemn, emptied of its traditionary in-
habitants. No black and white monk now bars smilingly
to profane feminine feet the entrance to the sunny cloister:
no brethren of Saint Dominic inhabit the hushed and
empty "cells. Chapter-house, refectory, library, all lie
vacant and open, a museum for the state, a blank piece of
public property, open to any chance comer. It would be
churlish to complain of a freedom which makes so interest-
ing a place known to the many ; but it is almost impossible
not to regret the entire disappearance of the old possessors,
the preachers of many a fervent age, the eloquent order
which in this very cloister produced so great an example
of the orator’s undying power. Savonarola’s convent, we
cannot but feel, might have been one. of the few spared
by the exigencies of public poverty, that most strenuous
of all reformers. On this point, however, whatever may
be the stranger’s regrets,! Italy of course must be the final
judge, as we have all been in our day ; and Italy has at
205
THE MONKS OF SAN MARCO,
CHAPTER VII.
w
I.—THE ANGELICAL PAINTER.
Among all t’he many historical places, sacred by right
of the feet that have trodden them, and the thoughts
that have taken origin within them, which attract the
spectator in the storied city of Florence, there is not one
perhaps, more interesting or attractive than the convent
of St. Mark, now, by a necessity of state which some ap-
prove and some condemn, emptied of its traditionary in-
habitants. No black and white monk now bars smilingly
to profane feminine feet the entrance to the sunny cloister:
no brethren of Saint Dominic inhabit the hushed and
empty "cells. Chapter-house, refectory, library, all lie
vacant and open, a museum for the state, a blank piece of
public property, open to any chance comer. It would be
churlish to complain of a freedom which makes so interest-
ing a place known to the many ; but it is almost impossible
not to regret the entire disappearance of the old possessors,
the preachers of many a fervent age, the eloquent order
which in this very cloister produced so great an example
of the orator’s undying power. Savonarola’s convent, we
cannot but feel, might have been one. of the few spared
by the exigencies of public poverty, that most strenuous
of all reformers. On this point, however, whatever may
be the stranger’s regrets,! Italy of course must be the final
judge, as we have all been in our day ; and Italy has at