There is knowledge of these things to be had in the streets below, on the beloved marmi in front of the churches, and under the sheltering Loggie, where surely our citizens have still their gossip and debates, their bitter and merry jests as of old. For are not the well-remembered buildings all there? The changes have not been so great in those uncounted years. I will go down and hearI will tread the familiar pavement, and hear once again the speech of Florentines.
Go not down, good Spirit! for the changes are great and the speech of Florentines would sound as a riddle in your ears. Or, if you go, mingle with no politicians on the marmi, or elsewhere; ask no questions about trade in the Calimara; confuse yourself with no inquiries into scholarship, official or monastic. Only look at the sunlight and shadows on the grand walls that were built solidly, and have endured in their grandeur; look at the faces of the little children, making another sunlight amid the shadows of age; look, if you will, into the churches, and hear the same chants, see the same images as of oldthe images of willing anguish for a great end, of beneficent love and ascending glory; see upturned living faces, and lips moving to the old prayers for help. These things have not changed. The sunlight and shadows bring their old beauty and waken the old heart-strains at morning, noon, and eventide; the little children are still the symbol of the eternal marriage between love and duty; and men still yearn for the reign of peace and righteousnessstill own that life to be the highest which is a conscious voluntary sacrifice. For the Pope Angelico is not come yet.
Chapter One.
The Shipwrecked Stranger
The Loggia de Cerchi stood in the heart of old Florence, within a labyrinth of narrow streets behind the Badia, now rarely threaded by the stranger, unless in a dubious search for a certain severely simple doorplace, bearing this inscription:
Qui Nacque Il Divino Poeta.
To the ear of Dante, the same streets rang with the shout and clash of fierce battle between rival families; but in the fifteenth century, they were only noisy with the unhistorical quarrels and broad jests of woolcarders in the cloth-producing quarters of San Martino and Garbo.
Under this loggia, in the early morning of the 9th of April 1492, two men had their eyes fixed on each other: one was stooping slightly, and looking downward with the scrutiny of curiosity; the other, lying on the pavement, was looking upward with the startled gaze of a suddenly-awakened dreamer.
The standing figure was the first to speak. He was a grey-haired, broad-shouldered man, of the type which, in Tuscan phrase, is moulded with the fist and polished with the pickaxe; but the self-important gravity which had written itself out in the deep lines about his brow and mouth seemed intended to correct any contemptuous inferences from the hasty workmanship which Nature had bestowed on his exterior. He had deposited a large well-filled bag, made of skins, on the pavement, and before him hung a pedlars basket, garnished partly with small womans-ware, such as thread and pins, and partly with fragments of glass, which had probably been taken in exchange for those commodities.
Young man, he said, pointing to a ring on the finger of the reclining figure, when your chin has got a stiffer crop on it, youll know better than to take your nap in street-corners with a ring like that on your forefinger. By the holy vangels! if it had been anybody but me standing over you two minutes agobut Bratti Ferravecchi is not the man to steal. The cat couldnt eat her mouse if she didnt catch it alive, and Bratti couldnt relish gain if it had no taste of a bargain. Why, young man, one San Giovanni, three years ago, the Saint sent a dead body in my waya blind beggar, with his cap well-lined with piecesbut, if youll believe me, my stomach turned against the money Id never bargained for, till it came into my head that San Giovanni owed me the pieces for what I spend yearly at the Festa; besides, I buried the body and paid for a massand so I saw it was a fair bargain. But how comes a young man like you, with the face of Messer San Michele, to be sleeping on a stone bed with the wind for a curtain?
The deep guttural sounds of the speaker were scarcely intelligible to the newly-waked, bewildered listener, but he understood the action of pointing to his ring: he looked down at it, and, with a half-automatic obedience to the warning, took it off and thrust it within his doublet, rising at the same time and stretching himself.
Your tunic and hose match ill with that jewel, young man, said Bratti, deliberately. Anybody might say the saints had sent you a dead body; but if you took the jewels, I hope you buried himand you can afford a mass or two for him into the bargain.
Something like a painful thrill appeared to dart through the frame of the listener, and arrest the careless stretching of his arms and chest. For an instant he turned on Bratti with a sharp frown; but he immediately recovered an air of indifference, took off the red Levantine cap which hung like a great purse over his left ear, pushed back his long dark-brown curls, and glancing at his dress, said, smilingly
You speak truth, friend: my garments are as weather-stained as an old sail, and they are not old either, only, like an old sail, they have had a sprinkling of the sea as well as the rain. The fact is, Im a stranger in Florence, and when I came in footsore last night I preferred flinging myself in a corner of this hospitable porch to hunting any longer for a chance hostelry, which might turn out to be a nest of blood-suckers of more sorts than one.
A stranger, in good sooth, said Bratti, for the words come all melting out of your throat, so that a Christian and a Florentine cant tell a hook from a hanger. But youre not from Genoa? More likely from Venice, by the cut of your clothes?
At this present moment, said the stranger, smiling, it is of less importance where I come from than where I can go to for a mouthful of breakfast. This city of yours turns a grim look on me just here: can you show me the way to a more lively quarter, where I can get a meal and a lodging?
That I can, said Bratti, and it is your good fortune, young man, that I have happened to be walking in from Rovezzano this morning, and turned out of my way to Mercato Vecchio to say an Ave at the Badia. That, I say, is your good fortune. But it remains to be seen what is my profit in the matter. Nothing for nothing, young man. If I show you the way to Mercato Vecchio, youll swear by your patron saint to let me have the bidding for that stained suit of yours, when you set up a betteras doubtless you will.
Agreed, by San Niccolò, said the other, laughing. But now let us set off to this said Mercato, for I feel the want of a better lining to this doublet of mine which you are coveting.
Coveting? Nay, said Bratti, heaving his bag on his back and setting out. But he broke off in his reply, and burst out in loud, harsh tones, not unlike the creaking and grating of a cart-wheel: Chi abbarattabarattabrattachi abbaratta cenci e vetribratta ferri vecchi? (Who wants to exchange rags, broken glass, or old iron?)
Its worth but little, he said presently, relapsing into his conversational tone. Hose and altogether, your clothes are worth but little. Still, if youve a mind to set yourself up with a lute worth more than any new one, or with a sword thats been worn by a Ridolfi, or with a paternoster of the best mode, I could let you have a great bargain, by making an allowance for the clothes; for, simple as I stand here, Ive got the best-furnished shop in the Ferravecchi, and its close by the Mercato. The Virgin be praised! its not a pumpkin I carry on my shoulders. But I dont stay caged in my shop all day: Ive got a wife and a raven to stay at home and mind the stock. Chi abbarattabarattabratta? And now, young man, where do you come from, and whats your business in Florence?