by Josep Pla
The waiter had thought profoundly about tourism, and the conclusions he’d drawn had led him to admire artists boundlessly. Ferrucchio was a man of statistics and down-to-earth realities. According to him, the painter who brought most profit to Florence and the state was Sandro Botticelli.
“Does Ghirlandaio bring it in?” I asked him.
“The Ghirlandaio in the Hospital of the Innocents brought in four hundred thousand lire to the nation in entrance money last year. We can know that for sure, because there’s nothing else to see at the Innocents.”
“What about Masaccio?”
“Masaccio is a painter who generates seasonal income. When the French come in spring and the autumn, he flourishes. At other times, he dips. Botticelli doesn’t oscillate so much because the English come by all the time.”
“Signor Ferruccio, be straight with me: who do you think brings more to the state coffers: the Renaissance or the Montecatini Company?”
“The Renaissance, s’immagini!” the waiter replied, astonishingly quickly.
At twelve the quintet stopped scraping. The Mexican seemed saddened and deflated, once their outpourings were at an end. He ordered his last coffee and shot of grappa.
We said goodbye to Ferruccio till the next day and started walking. By that time, the streets were deserted and ill-lit. Some dark, severe façades, their windows fronted by huge iron-barred grilles, lent our footsteps a funereal echo. The oppressive air lightened under the lively impact of the stone. The hoofs of a horse pulling a carriage rang out as it moved over the cobblestones into the distance. We walked along the Via dei Calzaiuoli, a commercial street, which, for that reason, appeared less severe than others; we reached the Piazza de la Signoria, where we went our different ways by the Loggia dei Lanzi in front of Donatello’s Judith. I walked through a labyrinth of narrow streets to reach the bedroom I was renting in a big house in Borgo degli Apostoli.
In Florence I tended to link the city with the slenderest forms in life and art. That’s why in my own private mythology I consider Donatello to be the quintessence of the Florentine spirit; in the terrain of writing, of style, I find Niccolò Machiavelli to be a fine representative of someone with the airiest, lightest language.
In that cool, ill-lit ramshackle house in Borgo degli Apostoli I read Machiavelli a lot. The more I read, the more he fascinated me as a writer and the less I felt drawn to the man who grasped that magnificent goose quill.
I found the following among my jottings from the year. It schematically outlines my reading and thoughts that lean towards childish naïveté rather than wisdom.
“It can help to place Machiavelli,” I comment, “if one always bears in mind that he was neither Ghibelline, Petrarch Guelph, or Boccaccio, and that all Leonardo is summed up in that declaration that rings so true: Io servo chi mi paga. The words “Guelph” and “Ghibelline” shouldn’t be interpreted in a simplistic, primary way, because they are hugely complex words when projected onto the politics of the time. On the Ghibelline side there is respect for Empire, the aristocracy in their castles, and the plebs – the populino. On the Guelph side stands the bourgeoisie, submission to the Church, and a longing for peace and quiet. When one scrutinizes this struggle, one acknowledges yet again how even the greatest of men are mere puppets driven by political passions that are always tied to individual self-interest. When glossing, for example, Dante’s line about “l’avara povertà dei catalani,” one shouldn’t forget that the poet supported the most fanatical wing of the Ghibellines and that the Catalan rulers in Sicily were stalwart self-confessed Guelphs. It is also extremely helpful to place Machiavelli against the background of contemporary politics and see him against the horizon of the savage internecine struggles that constituted Italian life in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries: wars between factions of the citizenry and wars between cities, wars between cities and castles, Ghibellines and Guelphs, wars between tyrants, wars between the chiefs of different cities, of the condottieri … When Machiavelli appears, a contemporary of Signor Ludovico (in Ariosto), in the fifteenth century, passions seemed to have calmed down slightly. The formula of the principalities had been agreed. Violence, for the most part, had waned. Brute strength was no longer worthwhile. The courtier puts in an appearance, the nauseating courtier described by Castiglione.
“Macchiavelli is fully a courtier. However, there are different kinds of courtiers. The rich courtier knows when to bow, rides on horseback, is discreet, self-effacing, and simply aspires to occupy a place in society. The poor courtier, if he wants to advance himself, must have ideas, that is: he must be able to find suggestions to furnish the imagination, intellect, and feelings of the prince. Macchiavelli puts himself forward. Passionate by temperament, in amoral times – three centuries without morality in public life – he thinks of himself as a politician. He offers his services. He is no jester. He is a serious fellow – a man who worries away. It is completely wrong to minimize the role of jesters in politics. Jesters have been highly influential in the history of Europe. Jesting is one of the most practical instruments for wielding influence, the flattery of the man who entertains the man in power. Machiavelli wasn’t in their ranks. He was a poor, sharp-witted courtier, a powerful, elegant writer, ready to furnish the mind of his prince. He hired out his services to their Lordships, like a second-rate secretary.
“In order to furnish the mind of his prince, Machiavelli does what poor courtiers have always done, since the wealthy have no need ever to go beyond allegory: he describes with cold incisiveness, passionately, as if writing detective fiction, what his eyes see in the life of his times. A superficial summing up of Machiavelli: life and history are stripped of any transcendent meaning; they are but a struggle between forms, a struggle that is always, necessarily, won by the strongest. The world has no purpose or endpoint. Men have been the same in every era. The march of humanity through history is mainly expressed in the ebbs and eddies around the struggle for power, that many desire and few attain – the wiliest and the strongest. Man is simply a combination of passions and self-interest and the government of State is government over individual passions and interests. Family, Municipality, Principality, and State are forms emptied of content within which individuals give rein to their aggressive drives. Ancient history (the Discourses on Livy) is exactly the same as modern history, and one only has to recreate its victories and eliminate its failures to be right about everything and wield might and right over everyone. The Prince, the coda to his political science, is a selection of maxims to enable one to control all eventualities and fulfill all one’s aims, by manipulating, duping, subjecting, and killing individuals. He examines the facts by isolating them in a vacuum and as the product of man’s wiles or ineptitude. Morality doesn’t exist. It is a fantasy dreamed up by sensitive souls. The people do not believe, the prince thinks for everyone when he thinks on his own behalf. Government is the relationship between one lucid, egotistical consciousness and a universal lack of consciousness.
“What does Machiavelli’s conception of the world mean? It is a very complex issue. Is it a description of the world as it is, forged by the diktat of a steely observer’s eye, incisive and genuine for the same reasons that we now consider Dostoyevsky’s psychological observation to be infinitely more real and genuine than anything produced in this respect by previous literature? If that’s how things are, as they seem to be, something that is hardly in dispute in terms of the Italy of his time, what was he trying to do when he wrote his books? Did he do it to rid history and psychology of all the falsehoods, infantile nonsense, and conventional thinking scribes had poured into them over so many centuries? To replace the previous weight of paper fictions with a description of the free play of human passions, thus earning fame and glory time could never erase? Or perhaps in the name of patriotic duty was he trying to eliminate all futile, dangerous and impractical fantasies from the minds of princes? These questions have been answered, though very diversely. According to Burckhardt, apart from
being a great writer, something nobody denies, Machiavelli was a discreet, sharp-witted adviser, and his conception of history is plausible. Conversely, Alfredo Oriani, in the first volume of his Political Struggle in Italy, reckons he is a complete idiot.
“Because it is a curious fact that Machiavelli, who established himself as the maestro of the cynic in politics, was one of the most gullible men of his age. He never understood, foresaw, or achieved any positive outcomes. His public life was a succession of disappointments and disasters. He always wanted to give the orders, and rarely managed to be obeyed by anyone. He always backed the wrong horse – I mean prince. He supported Soderini’s Republic, just before the Medicis were restored to power. He put himself forward as a strategist, worked out a battle plan and an army built along his lines was decisively destroyed in Prato. He advised the legate of Leo X to establish the Republic in Florence while simultaneously dedicating The Prince to Julian of Medicis in order to equip him as a despot. He joined Boscoli’s conspiracy and then abandoned him, thus losing all dignity and decency. Depressed by this catastrophe he crawled before the Medicis like the lowest of servants. He put all his hatred into his sardonic struggle against religion and the clergy. He never understood the spirit of religion or its latent or real strength. He appreciated Savonarola’s lunacy but not his reforms. Sent to Germany he didn’t see the reformation – the Reformation! – that was being born before his eyes. He didn’t see the beginning of Italy’s decline in the huge error made by Ludovico il Moro with the subsequent crossing of the Alps by Charles VIII and Louis XII of France. His ideas about Julius II, Venice, the League of Cambray make no sense. He died a lonely man, cursed by everyone and a mystery to himself.
“His Letters are total confirmation of his hopelessness as a man of government. Machiavelli’s politics consisted purely and simply in being anti-Machiavellian. Unless one interprets Machiavelli as a poor, ambitious courtier, his figure is a complete mystery.
“Oh! Even so, the secretary’s goose quill ought to figure on Florence’s coat-of-arms!”
One day Llimona and I were roaming in the vicinity of Santa Maria Novella, very near the central station, when we saw a an old man we thought was Auguste Renoir sitting on the terrace of a small bar in the area. Strangely enough, it was really him. Many years have passed since – so many that when I try to recall the day precisely I see only a blur in a murky haze. Nevertheless it’s a fact that this slight, rather tired, little old man with a yellowing beard, exhausted, bloodshot eyes, and a straw boater was Renoir, the great Impressionist painter.
He’d arrived in Florence only a few days before. He’d fetched up in a cheap inn. He could have afforded something much better because his life of poverty was long past, but the painter maintained his modest habits from those lean times. He’s now come to Italy but he’s no ordinary tourist. A tourist inevitably likes whatever the guidebook recommends. That is: he must like everything. He must be so curious that finally he feels curious about nothing. It’s a path that leads nowhere. When one is lucky enough to have been born with a degree of passion, one must play a card, one must choose a path. Select! That’s the lesson of Florence.
Renoir is staying in Florence. I give him the occasional glance. He looks totally insignificant. He is the typical vine-grower from Languedoc: a rather short, thin, fairish, gray-haired, blue-eyed, pink-skinned fellow with the tired, lethargic ways of an old countryman. He wears a thick shirt and pale blue tie that’s carelessly knotted. He arrived in Florence late that evening at the end of the long summer twilight. He eats a snack and can’t resist the temptation. Who can resist the temptation of Florence?
Years ago, in the era of gas lamps and leg-of-mutton sleeves, an acquaintance of ours arrived in Florence from Paris: Don Santiago Russinyol. A friend of his walked by his side: Zuloaga. Like Renoir, these two painters arrived in Florence at dusk. But they too were unable to resist the temptation; after dinner, they penetrated the totally unknown labyrinth of the city. It was a dark, murky night, and lighting must have been deficient. What could they see? As soon as Russinyol returned to his tavern in the early hours, he nevertheless wrote a long, lyrical hymn of praise to Florence. He described a Florence by night you can read in one of his first books. Which Florence does Russinyol refer to in this piece? The one he couldn’t see because it was submerged in the shadows of night or the one that had been floating in his mind for some time? It doesn’t matter. Illusion is all in life. We could say it is almost everything. A dream is as objective a reality as the movement of a pendulum.
Renoir also penetrates the labyrinth of Florence’s streets. He wanders along the pavements, breathes in the air, and peers at the blotches of light the gas lamps project on the walls. He walks at random, with nowhere in particular in mind. Suddenly he is in front of Santa Maria Novella. From the pavement opposite – the famous church is situated in one of the most central areas – he gazes at the vaguely visible façade of that slender building. The façade is covered in black and white marble dice that crisscross geometrically. Renoir feels a strange sensation, as if he isn’t breathing enough air. Initially he feels he is choking. He continues walking along the streets. The black and white marble blocks of Santa Maria become a kind of obsession. He doesn’t dare formulate an opinion. He feels that first choking sensation intensify. But tomorrow is another day. He goes back to his hotel and, worn out, goes to bed.
Early the next morning he is in front of the Galleria degli Uffizi, on the Piazza della Signoria. The museum opens after a while. Renoir is a morning man, a lover of morning light and fresh air. He is the first tourist to go into the museum that day. He doesn’t seem to be carrying any book or paper. But he’s ready to take long, leisurely looks. He scrutinizes the paintings hanging on the wall with the calm gaze of a vine-grower. He scrutinizes them one by one: he looks at them from close-up, from afar, from the right and the left. And walks through several rooms like that. With unexpected physical staying power – museums are tiring, create an unpleasant emptiness in the stomach and intolerable exhaustion – he scrutinizes the canvasses, the tables, the afreschi, as if he’d lost all notion of time. A guard informs him that they must shut for the colazione. It’s time for lunch. Everyone else has left the museum. Renoir is the last out, seems edgy and thoughtful. In the afternoon, he’s the first to go into the Uffizi. He’s eaten a quick plate of spaghetti in a nearby trattoria, drunk a coffee standing up and appeared opposite the entrance before opening time. He does exactly the same the following day, morning and afternoon. However, on that genuinely tragic day you notice he doesn’t linger long looking microscopically at the paintings, as on the previous day. He stops in front of a few paintings and looks more attentively. With others he takes a quick glance and walks on. Some produce a sense of revulsion and he turns his back with a flourish he tries to conceal, though it is obvious enough. By late afternoon on that second day, he’s had enough. He seems weary and on edge. Back in his hotel, he consults the train timetable, and asks for the bill. And starts packing his case.
That was when we bumped into him staring at a cup of coffee in that small bar in the vicinity of the Central Station. What ever happened? He himself will tell us later.
“My patience had run out,” he said. “My head kept colliding everywhere, even my elbows clashed with the style. What cold, icy, premeditated painting …! Those crisscross blocks of black and white marble made me dizzy. I was short of air, was choking. While I was in Florence, I felt I was walking over a chessboard, that I was living in a cage, that they’d shut me inside a prison cell. I can’t find the words to describe how I suffered in the Uffizi … I simply fled from Florence.”
Well, it seems a perfectly understandable position: it is a clear, honest position. One must choose in life. Renoir had chosen a path. As I see it, his choice is highly valuable. Degas would say: “They shoot us down and then turn our pockets out to see if they can find anything else.” Renoir felt choked by all the stasis and fled immediately. Others say they feel ch
oked in a similar way but stay on and turn out their pockets. Renoir follows in the tradition of the great realist painters: Vermeer, Velázquez, and Titian. It is a difficult tradition precisely because it seems so free and energetic – in any case, it is the greatest freedom to which an artist can aspire.
That Business at the Pensione Florentina, in Rome
When I arrived in Rome, I went to live in the Pensione Fiorentina, on the recommendation of my friend Spadafora the journalist. The pensione was on the Via del Tritone and had an international clientele.
In any other major European city the place would have been a dreadful mistake from the point of view of comfort. It was located in one of the noisiest and most central areas in Rome. You couldn’t possibly imagine enjoying the slightest rest or tranquility there. However, appearances can be deceptive, even in Rome. The boarding house occupied part of the structure of an old palace with enormous rooms and the thickest of walls. The outer forms of that old bulwark had been removed when it was converted into a modern house, but the old walls survived and isolated the house from the urban hue and cry. It wasn’t the peace you find in provincial cities. A vague and distant singsong hum drifted through the house from nine A.M. to eleven P.M. But it wasn’t a strident, insoluble noise that attacked the nervous system. The bother was minimal.
A restaurant was on the ground floor and the boarding house occupied the first and fourth floors. A small, narrow cul-de-sac separated it from the house next door. When I arrived, I was allotted bedroom twelve on the first floor. It didn’t look over the street, but over the end of a passageway that led to the back of the building. Full of cheap furniture from the days of Cavour worn threadbare by constant use, it was a dark, gloomy spot. A disjointed gallery – the old palace loggia – meant the bedroom window had no access to the open space at the rear; if a sunbeam ever shone in, it looked like a stray sunbeam that had come from nowhere, of its own volition. The window’s location blocked my view of the bottom of the open area, though I could see the picturesque, very Italian upper reaches. I could see clotheslines strung from one balcony to the next, various chicken coops, huge amounts of old junk, and the branches of a vine the roots of which I never did track down. Decrepit and precariously balanced, everything seemed to hang by a thread, but kept up perfectly. In addition, there was a constant din that sometimes turned into a fierce war of words. An unhappy couple lived in the area – always open to the world – opposite my bedroom window and they engaged in shouting matches that followed on in quick succession. When they started shrieking, other neighbors leaned out of their windows to try to shut them up by bawling wildly. Once the contest had begun, all the children in the vicinity began to cry their hearts out, as if on cue; the dishwashers in the ground-floor restaurant, encouraged by the verbal jousting, clattered their buckets of dirty crockery, and a Latin teacher, a man with a long beard, wound up by the relentless screaming, and unable to work on his papers, leaned out of his window with a clarinet to his lips and blew at full blast for as long as was necessary. His method usually worked: when that crazy din peaked, the general din began to fade. It was the application of the similia similibus curantur of quack medicine to rowdy conjugal tiffs. When the teacher had achieved his aim, he smiled smugly and withdrew, placing his clarinet vertically on the most visible part of his window ledge, both to prompt a general sense of shame and indicate he was ready to repeat the method the moment the row recommenced.