Margotlog: Two Statues (Interrupted) in Florence's Bargello
Usually I've thought of myself as a lover of paintings, but when I visited Florence's Bargello Museum this past May, I changed my mind. Once a prison, the Bargello now is Florence's "municipal" sculpture gallery, full of extraordinary sculptures that fill a huge upper gallery. There are so many it's hard to take them all in. I didn't try. Almost immediately I was riveted by two, small, free-standing sculptures of young men. The first--Donatello's "David," is very family. This tart" of a boy, with round stomach and flaring backside, hides his expression under his shepherd's hat, decked with flowers and pulled low over his curls. But his pose is unmistakably that of triumph: Standing with one leg cocked, he balances one hand on the sword he used to slay the giant, Goliath.
It is a very sexy statue. The giant's winged helmet slides its wing up the boy's leg, giving us a shiver so enticing, it's hard to believe--that soft wing against the boy's naked inner thigh. Yet David doesn't seem to notice. He pouts, and withdraws into himself. He does not lift his head. In fact, he seems bemused by what he has done.
Across the huge chamber stands another young male figure--very slender, almost emaciated, holding a staff against his body. He is "St. John the Baptist" by Desiderio da Settingnano.
............................
To visit the Bargello I was using the last few hours of my "Firenze" three-day pass. Initially I had activated the pass when I arrived with my two friends from Minnesota, Mary and Drew. An hour or so after we checked into our "Monestary Stay" convent, Drew became ill. The vivid red swath on his neck shouted distress: infection was creeping down his throat from his ear.
Immediately we took a taxi to a British doctor whom Mary located on the internet. This kind man gave Drew an antibiotic injection, but also suggested we visit Careggie, the hospital/clinic complex high in the hills around Florence.
I remember nothing of the drive to the hospital, but the nightmare of arrival is clear: we flitted from door to door, doctor to doctor in this huge complex and finally ended taking seats in a huge clinic full of other sufferers. Despite my Italian, despite waiting four hours, we eventually gave up.
Sitting beside the taxi driver as we left the hospital and drove back to town, I was struck by the beautiful green of the umbrella pines and darker spears of cypress. It was a beautiful May afternoon. For a few moments, the land enchanted me it has so often before.
Mary and Drew located a flight home that left just after midnight. This gave us time to enjoy a "last supper" at Accadi near the hotel. Next morning, they were gone, and I had two days to use my Firenze pass.
Sampling gelato, which was especially delicious, I walked along the Arno with its frothy jets and visited the Church of the Carmine. Then retracing my steps toward the Ponte Vecchio, and my room, I changed clothes to something cooler and headed for the Bargello.
..........................
Desiderio da Settignano is a less well-known than is Donatello, in part, I think, because he did not live as long, and in part because his scrulptures are more direct than Donatello's. Yet I was determined to give St. John the Baptist as much attention as I could muster.
Slowly, studying first the front of the sculpture, noticing the pelts that clothe the shepherd's emaciated form, I remembered bits of the Baptist's story. As Christ's precurser, John the Baptist lived in the wilderness, searching for spiritual insight. He ate nuts and fruit and made friends of wolves and even lions. Settingano's Baptist is so thin as to be anoxsic, but that is the point: he has renounced the fruits of the worldly life, and become an ascetic.
Keeping my eyes on the face with its somewhat stern expression, I slowly walked about the scupture. Do I remember whether Settignanon put his John the Baptist firmly on both feet? Now that I think of it, I believe that like Donatello's David, Settingnano has John the Baptist bend one knee. One heel is off the ground. This seems to suggest that all human effort is tentative. Just as with myself and my dear friends, Mary and Drew, we become caught in a flow of experience, not knowing what would happen next.
Now my eyes fill with tears. I am so sorry that Mary and Drew lost the experiences we had hoped to share. Their return home was harrowing--they missed the first transAtlantic flight out of Amsterdam and had to wait hours and hours before boarding another. Once home, Drew spent two days in the hospital. But modern medicine can work miracles. Drew is well, and Mary is her joyful self again.
Like Settignano's beautiful, emaciated figure of John the Baptist, we can pause only for a moment before life sends us on our way. Yet, as I studied this astere figure, so slender and alone, I discovered on the far side of his face, the beginning of a joyful smile. In the midst of uncertainty and torment, he broke free into ecstatic hope.
