Fort Worth weekly gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-08-07
TEXAS GIRL ABROAD
Rome Of To-Day the Home OF
Popes and Deceased Martyrs
Florence, the Home of a Once Free
Spirited People, Developing the
Grandest Genius, Highest Ideals.
The Italian Army Like the Company Com
manded by Artemus Ward, 1t Consists
Exclusively of Colonels.
Special Correspondence.


FLORENCE, May 20.-What comfort
it is to get into a comprehensive place
once morel We feel a joyful sense of
freedom, and positively dare to play with
our time, to loiter around the streets
little before involving ourselves IN the
serious business of sight seeing. 1t
would take years to get any comprehen-
sive idea of Rome, and to be able to
grasp and sympathize with its many
fibred history. To tell the truth, feel
very little interest with that great por-
ton of its history, the ecclesiastical por-
ton. Great men did not seem to thrive
in the papal atmosphere, 1t was rather
sitting. No great artists, or poets, or
scintists were developed in Rome during
the middle ages. Rome's artistic great
ness always consisted in her treasures of
Greek art, and as the central power, she
drew all artists and architects to paint
and build for her. That blunt old war
rior, Pope Julius II. kept Michel Angelo
and Raphael working in the vatican for
wears, as everybody knows, and funny
time the naughty old pope had with the
naughty Michel But Rome, except as
GENERAL FIELD FOR COMPETITION,
added nothing to the development of art.
feel about Rome, though perhaps with
insufficient basis of knowledge, that she
has no charact eristic art such as is born
of a free and high minded people. She
was too much overshadowed by martyr
bones and ruled by papal revelations. -
Rome contains all kinds and mixtures of
architecture, none, except the Chris tian
basilica, her own; she contains all
schools of art, none her own. II was
the Florentines who first began to dig
around the old Roman ruins and learned
secrets of dome construction; II was
foreigner, TOO, who called attention to
the treasures of Greek art in Rome. 1t
was Tuscany and Umbria who painted
and sculptured and built for Rome. The
Romans themselves were too busy In
searching the catacombs for more bones
to pay any attention to art and nature.
The Rome we see to-day is the home
of nothing but popes and deceased
martyrs.
But here il Florence one is in the home
of a once free-spirted and individual
people, full of fight and fire, and de-
veloping the grandest genius, the high
est ideals, not only of art but of general
intellectual development, the world has
ever seen. The first walk on the street
couvinces you that you are in unique
place. These old palaces are FlOrentine
and built by Florentines. You might
mistake them for prisons, they are so
PLAIN AND HEAVY AND wARLIKE,
yet they are grand in their own naughty
fashion, like knights in armor. They
tell of warliKe city, of fights and sud-
den attacks, and internal discussions,
vet, though the GueIphs and Ghibbelines
were very idlotic and pigheaded, that
very spirit of fight and their persistence
in 1t showed the fire and the perseverance
of the Florentine character. The medi-
seval Romans would not have had enough
energy to be so absurdly pugnacious.
The real value Of the Guelph and Ghib-
beline business, however, was that the
mobiles managed to make way with each
other; and then that grand old body of
FloTentine merchants marched forward,
and suddenly turning on the patrician
party, all worn out with dissention, dis
franchised themI Is there another act
in history which quite equals that? So
The mobiles, in order TO take any part in
government, were obliged TO lower their
pride by entering their names in the role
of some trade guild. Those liberty
loving merchants were of no common
stock; they sprung from some families of
the old Roman empire which took shelter
here from the attacks of the barbarians;
so il was from some remnant of the same
warlike stuff that first made Rome so
great, which, stirred and stimulated by
persecution, developed into the strength
and genius of Florence.
We are more apt TO think of Florence
as she was under the Medici, submitting
tamely TO tyranny and finally deservedly
losing her freedom altogether; but it was
during those many prosperous years of
democratic rule, when every man that
walked those narrow streets felt himself
q free citizen and
AN INDEPENDENT THINKER
that Florenoe's greatness was born. It
was not strange that one wealthy trades
mans family should gradually gain the
ascendanoy, and by oleverness, and tact,
and a genius for control, it should keep
the lead So the Medici gained power,
and laid their hands on the public reve-
nues. But the blessed thing about those
old frauds, Cosmo and Lorenzo, WAS
that they did love the beautiful in art.
BY the time that burgher freedom had
developed a spirit of independence of
thought, aud Florence was striking out
IN great new search for the beautiful,
there was the accumulated wealth and
power IN the Medlci family 80 encourage
and protect the young genius. There is
one thing about those Mcclellan palaces
which is very peculiar and significant.
All around their bases a wide stone
ledge is built out, some three feet from
the ground This was for the common peo-
pie to sit on when there were shows and
festas in the streets. They are now used
for flower and fruit stands. Above the
stone seats are rings for horses to be
hitched; and between all the windows
are more iron rings held out on bracelets,
through which lighted torches were
passed. This shows that the people
were of
SUCH IMPORTANCE
in Florence that the wealthiest and most
influential families considered Them in
the building of their houses. In no
other Italian palaces have we seen like
provision. They tell us more than any
written record by what clever concilia-
tons the Medici obtained their hold over
Z Florence Who would not be fond OF a
family who built seat for you on their
houses, put ring there for your horse
and covered their outside walls with
blazing lights for your pleasure!
One of the Medici palaces, the Ric-
card. is right opposite our pension on
IN To hoa oil inf