Grand Tour

When it came to judging the artistic quality of masterpieces of architecture (as opposed to those of painting and sculpture), travelers allowed themselves somewhat more freedom. Hence that so common attitude of hostility to the Gothic tradition (often dismissed as “German,” or simply “barbarous”) presents discontinuities and surprises in this area. Even for the Grand Tourists of past centuries the Piazza del Duomo in Florence was the center of attention and of more or less verbose speculations on the part of its admiring visitors: Santa Maria del Fiore, its dome, the gnomon, the campanile designed by Giotto; the baptistery with Ghiberti’s famous bronze doors, especially the middle one, which Michelangelo was said to have called the Gates of Paradise. The cathedral in particular, while old-fashioned, did not seem contaminated by that Gothic style which represented artistic barbarism in the eyes of many observers. Montesquieu (1728), for example, described it as: «one of the most beautiful works that Gothic architecture has been able to produce [...], of a majestic beauty [...], the exterior, in white, red and black marble, creates a fine effect [...]». For him the whole of the square seemed to run counter to the negative opinion which he usually voiced (on his visit to Santa Croce and Santa Maria del Carmine for example). Even the campanile had, «like the church, a great air of beauty in addition to its grandeur». After describing the tower, Montesquieu defined it as perhaps the best example of the Gothic in Europe, commenting (and revealing an underlying prejudice): «the Florentine craftsmen must have been great geniuses for those times since they were already superior to their art and (if I may be allowed to put it in this way) did things in poor taste with taste».
In general religious architecture was at the top of the agenda for visitors to the city, with San Lorenzo and the Medici Chapel, Orsanmichele (described by Valéry in 1828, in yet another departure from the common aversion to the art of the “primitives,” as a «Gothic building [and] one of the noblest and most characteristic in Florence, which unites the masterpieces of its early artists»), the Annunziata and, of course, Santa Croce, the «pantheon of Florence» housing the mausoleums of Michelangelo and Galileo, the tomb of Machiavelli, the cenotaph of Dante and other sepulchral monuments. Also held in high regard were Santa Maria Novella (to which Richard, in 1761, attributed the role of an exception to the rule of contempt for Gothic art that was assigned by others to the cathedral: «great church of the Dominicans, one of the finest in Italy, although work on it had begun in the 13th century and was concluded at the beginning of the 14th. In this construction one sees that good taste was then starting to revive in Florence [...] »), Santo Spirito, the Annunziata and the Carmine. In fact the range of religious architecture was so vast that Rogissart (1701) was prompted to exclaim: «we will never reach the end if we set out to visit all the churches in this city. There are so many that we could as easily call Florence the Religious as we call her Florence the Beautiful».
No less esteem was reserved for the Florentine palaces and townhouses, although they were appreciated more for their solidity than for their grace. In this connection Valéry (1828) declared that «the architecture of Florence’s palaces looks particularly grand, solid and austere: the masses of rock in which Tuscany abounds and from which the ancient and colossal constructions of the Etruscans were built were also used by the early Florentine architects» responsible for the creation of «these fortress-like structures». Among them were Palazzo Riccardi, Capponi, Gherardesca, Peruzzi, Rucellai, Corsini, Strozzi... Saint-Non 's Journal (1761) turns this customary order of precedence on its head, declaring that the palaces were able to «make up for the scarcity of interest of Florence’s churches». Above all he admired Palazzo Riccardi which, «in addition to a first-rate collection of pictures, houses a gallery whose ceiling is frescoed in its entirety by Luca Giordano [...]». He went on to say that «as far as I am concerned, it is one of the things that pleased me most in the whole of Italy».
Palazzo Pitti deserved separate consideration, although comments on its architecture often served as no more than a perfunctory introduction to the description of its gallery and the wonders of the Boboli Gardens.

With religious architecture still in the foreground, it was Pisa that again attracted most attention with the overwhelming complex of the Piazza dei Miracoli, not only unique in itself but also considered, “piece by piece,” to be of extraordinary richness. Travelers dwelled at length on the description of the cathedral, only belatedly identifying Buscheto as its architect, thought for a long time to be an “anonymous Greek,” and explaining that it housed many of the treasures acquired in trade with the Levant and during the Crusades (the reason, it was said, for its many Greek and Oriental columns). They mentioned statues and pictures of various origins (including Andrea del Sarto’s Saint Agnes and the Lamb), the altars (that of St. Ranieri, patron of Pisa), Giovanni Pisano’s pulpit of the Preacher and the bronze door of the right transept, decorated by Bonanno Pisano with scenes from the Old and New Testament. Certainly even the cathedral could not escape the prevailing attitude of disdain at a time of artistic crusades against the Gothic, diminishing its importance in the eyes of many critics of ancient art and leading de la Roque to declare (1777): «the Cathedral is a huge vessel of Gothic construction, admirable solely for the beauty of the marble and the richness of the ornaments that have been lavished on it to excess». And yet, reflecting what we have seen was a common tendency for some “pieces” to be excluded from censure and included instead, “despite” being Gothic, in the category of commendable objects, de la Roque’s opinion was not shared by all. To take just one example, Labat (1706) expressed almost unreserved admiration for the building: «the Cathedral known as the Duomo is of great beauty, even though it is built in the Gothic style, which they call “German” in Italy. It has such excellent proportions, [...] the ornaments are so well distributed and it is so clean and well looked after that I have always derived infinite pleasure from spending a long time there on each occasion I have passed through Pisa». Siena Cathedral met with a similar fate, its beauty always seen as marred by the Gothic style that had inspired it. In 1701 Addison, after a tirade on these themes (« When a Man fees the prodigious Pains and Expence, that our Fore-fathers have been at in these barbarous Buildings [...]»), concluded his description by recapitulating his views in his verdict on the fa çade: «... the Front cover’d with such a Variety of Figures, and over run with so many little Mazes and Labyrinths of Sculpture, that nothing in the World can make a prettier Show to those that prefer false Beauties, and affected Ornaments, to a Noble and Majestick Simplicity»; Lalande (1765) offered a different version of the same attitude, declaring that people might like the cathedral, but it would be better if they were to «get into the habit of admiring the noble and majestic simplicity of ancient architecture rather than this frenzy of ornamentation».
Returning to Pisa, two more buildings that could under no circumstances be neglected were the baptistery (whose characteristic and impressive echo, still observed by visitors today, was described by Misson in 1688), with Nicola Pisano’s pulpit; and, it goes without saying, the campanile, better known as the Leaning Tower, which gave rise to endless conjectures, calculations and predictions about how long it was going to remain upright.