Porta Rossa. In this street in front of a vegetable market, there’s an artful and well cast metal pig. The fresh clear water trickles out of the animal’s mouth. It is quite dark green from age, only the snout is shiny as if it were polished, and so it is by the many hundreds of children and poor people who take hold of it and set their mouths to the fountain to drink. It is quite a picture to see the well-formed animal caressed by a lovely, half-naked boy who sets his cheerful mouth to its snout.
Anyone who comes to Florence can find the place. He only has to ask the first beggar he sees about the bronze pig, and he’ll find it.
It was late one winter evening. There was snow on the mountains, but there was moonlight, and moonlight in Italy gives a light that is just as good as a dark winter day in the North. Well, actually even better because the air has a shine to it; it lifts you up, while in the North the cold lead-grey sky presses us to the ground—the cold wet ground that one day will press on our coffins.
Over in the Duke’s Palace garden under a roof of pines, where thousands of roses bloom in the wintertime, a little ragged boy had been sitting all day, a boy who might be the picture of Italy, so lovely and smiling, but yet so full of suffering. He was hungry and thirsty. No one had given him a penny, and when it became dark and the garden was to be locked up for the night, the porter chased him away. For a long time he stood dreaming on the bridge over the Arno River and looked at the stars that twinkled in the water between him and the magnificent marble bridge.
He took the road to the bronze pig, knelt half down, threw his arms around its neck, and set his little mouth to the shining snout and drank deep draughts of the fresh water. Close by lay some lettuce leaves and a couple of chestnuts that became his evening meal. There wasn’t a soul on the street—he was quite alone. He sat down on the bronze pig’s back and leaned forward so his little curly head rested on the pig’s, and before he was aware of it, he fell asleep.
It was midnight. The bronze pig moved, and he heard it say quite distinctly, “Little boy, hold on tight. I’m going to run!” and away it ran with him. It was an odd ride—First they came to the Piazza del Granduca, and the bronze horse who bore the Duke’s statue neighed loudly. The colored coat-of-arms on the old court house shone like transparent pictures, and Michelangelo’s David swung his sling. There was a strange life everywhere. The bronze group with Perseus and the Rape of the Sabines was a bit too life-like: a deathly scream flew from them across the magnificent empty plaza.
At the Uffizi Palace, in the arcade where the aristocracy gathers for Carnival, the bronze pig stopped.
“Hold on tight!” the animal said. “Hold on tight because now we’re going up the steps!” The little boy didn’t say anything. He was half trembling, half happy.
They entered a long gallery that he knew well. He’d been there before. The walls were covered with paintings. There were statues and busts, all seen in the most beautiful light as though it were daytime. But the most magnificent was when the door to a side gallery was opened. The little boy remembered this splendid sight, although in this night everything looked its most beautiful.
Here stood a lovely, naked woman, as beautiful as only nature and marble’s greatest master could form her. She moved her lovely limbs while dolphins leaped at her feet, and immortality shone from her eyes. The world calls her the Venus de Medici. On each side of her were resplendent marble statues, handsome men; one of them was sharpening a sword. He is called the Knife Grinder. The Wrestlers composed the other group. The sword was sharpened, and the warriors fought for the Goddess of Beauty.
The boy was as if blinded by the magnificence. The walls were shining with colors, and everything was alive and moving there. The earthly Venus appeared as Titian had seen her, so buxom and ardent, but as if doubled. There were two paintings of lovely women. The beautiful bare arms stretched out on the soft cushions, the breasts heaved and the heads moved so that the rich locks fell down on the round shoulders while the dark eyes expressed fiery thoughts, but none of the pictures dared to step completely out of their frames. The Goddess of Beauty herself, the Wrestlers, and the Knife Grinder remained in their places because the glory that streamed from the Madonna, Jesus, and John bound them. The holy pictures were no longer just pictures; they were the holy ones themselves.
What brilliance and what beauty from gallery to gallery! And the little boy saw it all. The bronze pig went step by step through all the splendor and magnificence. One sight superseded the next, but just one picture engraved itself in his thoughts, and that was because of the happy, joyful children in it. He had once nodded to them in daylight.
Many pass quickly by this picture, and yet it holds a treasure of poetry. It shows Christ descending to the underworld, but it isn’t the damned you see around him, but rather the heathen. Angolo Bronzino1 from Florence painted this picture. The most splendid thing is the expression of the children’s certainty that they are going to heaven. Two little ones are caressing each other. One reaches his hand to another below and points to himself as if he is saying, “I am going to heaven!” All the adults stand doubtfully, hopefully, or bowed humbly before the Lord Jesus.
The little boy looked at this picture longer than at any of the others. The bronze pig rested quietly in front of it, and a slow sigh was heard. Did it come from the painting or from the animal’s breast? The boy lifted his hand towards the smiling children, and then the animal tore away with him again, away through the open vestibule.
“Thanks and blessings, you wonderful animal!” the little boy said, and patted the bronze pig, who thump! thump!—ran down the steps with him.
“Thanks and blessings yourself,” said the bronze pig. “I’ve helped you, and you’ve helped me because only with an innocent child on my back do I have enough energy to run. You see, I even dare go into the light of the lamp in front of the Madonna. I can carry you anywhere except into the church, but when you are with me, I can see through the open door. Don’t climb off my back because if you do that, I will lie dead like you see me during the day on Porta Rossa street.”
“I’ll stay with you, my dear animal,” said the little boy, and they flew with great speed through Florence’s streets to the plaza in front of the Church of Santa Croce. The great double doors flew open, and light streamed from the altar through the church and out onto the empty plaza.
A strange beam of light shone from a sarcophagus in the left aisle, and thousands of moving stars seemed to form a halo around it. There was a coat-of-arms on the grave, a red ladder on a blue field, and it seemed to glow like fire. This was the grave of Galileo. It is a simple monument, but the red ladder on the blue field is a meaningful symbol. It could be Art’s own because its road always goes up a glowing ladder, but to heaven. All the prophets of the spirit go to heaven like the prophet Elijah.
All the statues on the rich tombs in the right aisle of the church seemed to be alive. Here stood Michelangelo; there Dante with a laural wreath on his head. Alfieri,2 Machiavelli, side by side these great men rest, the pride of Italy.3 It is a magnificent church and much more beautiful, if not as large as Florence’s marble Cathedral.
