DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61902#0234
214
TEE MAKERS OF FLORENCE.
and white through the streets of their regained home, was
at that time, amid all its other tumults and agitations (and
these were neither few nor light), in the full possession of
that art-culture which lasted as long as there was genius
to keep it up, and which has made the city now one of the
treasuries of the world. The advent of a new painter was
still something to stir the minds of the people. There is
little evidence, however, that Florence knew much of the
monk’s work, who, as yet, was chiefly distinguished, it
would seem, as a miniaturist and painter of beautiful
manuscripts. But Cosimo, the father of his country, could
have done few things more popular and likely to enhance
his reputation, than his liberality in thus encouraging and
developing another genius for the delight and credit of the
city. Almost before the cloister was finished, historians
suppose, Fra Giovanni had got his hands on the smooth
white wall, so delightful to a painter’s imagination. We
do not pretend to determine the succession of his work,
and say where he began; but it is to be supposed that the
cloister and chapter-house, as first completed, would afford
him his first opportunity. No doubt there were many
mingled motives in that noble and fine eagerness to
decorate and make beautiful their homes which possessed
the minds of the men of that gorgeous age, whether in the
world or the church. For the glory of God, for the glory
of the convent and order, for the glory of Florence, which
every Florentine sought with almost more than patriotic
ardor—the passion of patriotism gaining, as it were, in
intensity when circumscribed in the extent of its object-
the monks of San Marco must have felt a glow of generous
pride in their growing gallery of unique and original
pictures. The artist himself, however, worked with a
simple unity of motive little known either in that or any
other age. He painted his pictures as he said his prayers,
out of pure devotion. So far as we are informed, Fra
TEE MAKERS OF FLORENCE.
and white through the streets of their regained home, was
at that time, amid all its other tumults and agitations (and
these were neither few nor light), in the full possession of
that art-culture which lasted as long as there was genius
to keep it up, and which has made the city now one of the
treasuries of the world. The advent of a new painter was
still something to stir the minds of the people. There is
little evidence, however, that Florence knew much of the
monk’s work, who, as yet, was chiefly distinguished, it
would seem, as a miniaturist and painter of beautiful
manuscripts. But Cosimo, the father of his country, could
have done few things more popular and likely to enhance
his reputation, than his liberality in thus encouraging and
developing another genius for the delight and credit of the
city. Almost before the cloister was finished, historians
suppose, Fra Giovanni had got his hands on the smooth
white wall, so delightful to a painter’s imagination. We
do not pretend to determine the succession of his work,
and say where he began; but it is to be supposed that the
cloister and chapter-house, as first completed, would afford
him his first opportunity. No doubt there were many
mingled motives in that noble and fine eagerness to
decorate and make beautiful their homes which possessed
the minds of the men of that gorgeous age, whether in the
world or the church. For the glory of God, for the glory
of the convent and order, for the glory of Florence, which
every Florentine sought with almost more than patriotic
ardor—the passion of patriotism gaining, as it were, in
intensity when circumscribed in the extent of its object-
the monks of San Marco must have felt a glow of generous
pride in their growing gallery of unique and original
pictures. The artist himself, however, worked with a
simple unity of motive little known either in that or any
other age. He painted his pictures as he said his prayers,
out of pure devotion. So far as we are informed, Fra