CHAPTER XVII.

FAENZA AND FORLI.

1 hr. by rail (7 frs. 25 c.; 5 frs. 10 c.) from Bologna brings travellers through the ugly, marshy Emilia to Forli, 20 min. before reaching which we pass

F

AENZA (Inn, Corona), which by tradition derives its name from Phaëton.

'Ecco l'eccelsa

Città che prese nome da colui

Che si mal careggiò la via del sole,

E cadde in Val di Po.'-Carlo Pepoli, L'Eremo,' c. ii.

Faenza occupies the site of the ancient Faventia, where Carbo and Norbanus were defeated by Metellus, the general of Sulla, B.C. 82. In 1376 the medieval town was pillaged with a horrible massacre of 4,000 inhabitants by the Papal troops under the English condottiere Sir John Hawkwood. Dante alludes to the signory of the Pagani at Faenza, who bore as their arms a lion on a silver field.

'La città di Lamone e di Santerno

Conduce il leoncel dal nido bianco,

Che muta parte dalla state al verno.'-'Inf.' xxvii. 49.

From the station a straight street leads into the heart of the town, passing (left) the Piazza S. Francesco, containing a modern statue of Evangelista Torricelli, a native of Faenza, by whom the barometer was invented.

The once picturesque Piazza Grande was completely modernised in 1873. It has a pretty fountain with bronze ornaments. There is little in front to mark (right) the old Palace of the Manfredi, sovereign lords of Faenza, but a

curious window may be seen in the court behind. This palace was the scene of the famous tragedy of Vincenzo Monti-Galeotto Manfredi '-but the facts were not as he recounts them. A monk, who was an astrologer, had told Galeotto that he would be supplanted by his brother, and one day his wife, who was Francesca Bentivoglio, daughter of the Lord of Bologna, taunted him with this. In his irritation he gave her a blow, which she never forgave. Some time after, she feigned to be ill, and sent for her husband, and an assassin concealed in the curtains fell upon him. Being a strong man, Galeotto was getting the better of his murderer and throttling him, when Francesca, springing from the bed, stabbed him in the stomach and he fell. Francesca was afterwards imprisoned by the people of Faenza, but was released at the instance of Lorenzo de' Medici.

Left of the piazza rises the rugged brick front of the Cathedral, dedicated to S. Constantius, 1st bishop of Faenza, 313. It contains :-

Right, 4th Chapel. Innocenzo da Imola, 1526. Holy Family and saints--one of the best pictures of the master.

Left of High Altar. reliefs relating to the Left 3rd Chapel.

died at Faenza.

Tomb of S. Sabinus, Bishop of Faenza, with story of his life by Benedetto da Majano.

Tomb of S. Pietro Damiano of Ravenna, who

A street leads (left) to the Archiginasio, containing the Pinacoteca, a small gallery, but interesting as illustrating the once numerous and remarkable school of Faenza.

The best pictures are :—

1st Hall:

C. 1. Gianbattista Bertucci, 1516. Virgin and Child, with S. John and angels.

C. 6. Id.

C.

4. Id.

C.

5. Id.

God the Father.

S. Lorenzo and S. Romualdo.

S. Ippolito and S. Benedetto (1506).

These pictures are most beautiful works of a very rare master, on no account to be confused with another and very inferior Gianbattista Bertucci, his grandson.

D. 2. Marco Palmezzano. The Bearing of the Cross.

D. 10. S. Bernardino da Feltre with the little Astorgio III. Manfredi, last sovereign of Faenza. A very interesting picture. Astorgio, son of the murdered Galeotto by Francesca Bentivoglio, was taken to Rome by Caesar Borgia, and drowned by him in the Tiber at the age of 16.

2nd Hall:

E. 32. Innocenzo da Imola. Holy Family.

E. 34. Id. Holy Family, with SS. John and Catherine.

F.

F.

I. Giacomo Bertucci, son of Gianbattista, signed 1565. Coronation of the Virgin, with saints beneath.

2. Guido Reni (from the Cappuccini). Virgin and Child, with SS. Francis and Christina-a very fine picture. F. 3. Giacomo Bertucci, 1552. The Deposition.

G. 13. Antonio di Mazzone, 1500. Virgin and Child, with SS. Peter, Paul, Domenic, Mark, and Luke.

G. 24. Michele Manzoni, 1066. The Martyrdom of S. Eutropius. H. 3. Marco Manchetti. Christ in the Pharisee's House.

In a street some distance on the other side of the piazza, is the Church of S. Maglorio (a bishop of Faenza), which contains :—

*Left, 2nd Altar. Girolamo da Treviso (sometimes attributed to Giorgione). A most lovely Holy Family, with SS. Severo and Gregorio. The Holy Child holds a bird.

At the further end of the town, in the Church of the Commenda in Borgo, is another fresco by the same master, 1533. In the adjoining priest's house a bust of the Baptist by Donatello, 1420-'singularly refined, as well as simple, true, and natural in expression.'

A quarter of an hour more of railway brings us to Forli (Inn, Posta, on the Corso).

Forli occupies the site of the ancient Forum Livii founded by the Consul Livius Salinator after the defeat of Hasdrubal on the Metaurus. Here Galla Placidia married Ataulpus, King of the Visigoths, in 410. Forli was an independent Guelfic city till 1315, when the sovereignty was usurped by the Ordelaffi.

In 1438 Forli was the birthplace of the great painter Melozzo; in 1682 of Morgagni, the founder of Pathologic Anatomy.

The town is prosperous and busy, and the Corso a very handsome street. It ends in the Piazza. Here stood the palace in which Girolamo Riario, nephew of Sixtus IV., was murdered.

'On the evening of April 14, 1488, Checco d' Orsi (to whom he had long refused to pay his debts, presented himself at the prince's usual hour of granting audiences. It was after supper, and the Duchess Caterina Sforza had retired to her secret bower, a point of much importance to Checco and his friends. Entering the palace they made quite sure that the business in hand should not be interrupted by any interference of hers, by placing a couple of their number at the foot of the stair which led to her private apartments. The others passing on to the great hall-Sala dei Ninfi-found Girolamo leaning with one elbow on the sill of the great window looking on to the Piazza Grande, and talking with his Chancellor. There was one servant also in the

further part of the hall.

"How goes it, Checco mio?" said he, putting out his hand kindly.

“That way goes it !” replied his murderer, stabbing him mortally as he uttered the words.

'So Catherine became a widow with six children at twenty-six years of age.'-T. A. Trollope.

In the Piazza itself, a month afterwards, the minor conspirators were publicly torn to pieces, and Count Orsi, in his 85th year, after being forced to witness the total destruction of his family palace-the greatest indignity an Italian noble could suffer—was dragged to death at a horse's tail, after which his side was opened and his heart torn out before the people. Some arches and a Gothic colonnade are probably remains of the palace of Riario Sforza.

Facing upon the Piazza, stands the Church of S. Mercuriale, with a grand brick campanile. Over the entrance is a curious group of the Adoration of the Magi. First, the Three Kings are seen in bed and the angel appears to them; afterwards they are portrayed again, taking off their crowns before the Virgin. In the interior are :—

Right, 5th Chapel. Marco Palmezzano. Virgin and Child, with SS. John and Catherine. Signed.

Left, 4th Chapel (Cappella de' Ferri). Id. A group of saints kneeling, to whom God the Father appears with a multitude of angels.

A very grand picture (signed). In the lunette is the Resurrection. The execution recalls Cima and the Bellini.

From S. Mercuriale a street leads direct to

The Cathedral of Santa Croce, which has a good brick campanile. In the left transept is the famous chapel of La Madonna del Fuoco, of which the cupola is the masterpiece of Carlo Cignani.

'He spent the closing years of a long life at Forli, where he established his family, and left the proudest monument of his genius in that grand cupola, perhaps the most remarkable of all the pictorial productions of the eighteenth century. The subject is the Assumption of our Lady, the same as in the cathedral at Parma ; and here, too, as there, it exhibits such a real paradise, that the more we contemplate it, the more it delights us. Near twenty years were devoted to its production, from time to time; the artist, occasionally, during that period, visiting Ravenna, to consult the cupola by Guido, from whom he took his fine figure of S. Michael, and some other ideas. It is reported that the scaffolds were, against his wish, removed, as he appeared never to be satisfied with retouching and bringing the work to his usual degree of finish. Lanzi.

Cignani and Torricelli are buried in this church. It contains a ciborium from a design of Michelangelo, an altarpiece (last chapel right) by Marco Palmezzano, 1506, and (under glass) 'La Madonna delle Grazie,' by Guglielmo degli Organi, a disciple of Giotto.

The street which faces the west end of the Duomo will lead, right, to the Church of S. Girolamo, which contains:

Right, 1st Chapel, covered with much injured but beautiful frescoes by Melozzo da Forli, who painted 1472-1475, and his pupil Marco Falmezzano. The kneeling figures of pilgrims in the lunette are portraits of Girolamo Riario and Caterina Sforza.

*2nd Chapel. The exquisitely beautiful tomb of Barbara Ordelaffi, wife of Piero, lord of Faenza, ob. 1466.

'The history of this ambitious and wicked woman is singularly at variance with the lovely and beautiful image upon the sarcophagus in which she is buried; and with the epithet 'ottima,' which is applied to her in the epitaph upon it.

'The daughter of Astorgio Manfredi, she was betrothed when seven years old to Piero Ordelaffi, and became his wife in 1462. Thirsting for power, she, with her father's connivance, persuaded her husband to