Guido Carocci

Guido Carocci (C.E.1851 – 1916), Italian historian.

Incipit:
Among the large group of artists who lived in Florence in the first half of the 15th century, Donatello was the one who rose the most from the common mass, who more than any other was able to create his own distinct type, different from the others and who more than any other contributed to giving first to Florentine art, then to Italian art, a new direction, new aspirations. After long centuries of abjection, obscurity and rudeness, Italian art had begun to rise, to abandon awkward forms, hard contours, monotonous mannerism and already revealed his new direction towards the imitation of reality, the expression of feelings, the movement of life. Giotto had already raised it to sublime heights painting; Donatello placed himself at the head of that current which slowly and slowly set out on the right path, he gave it a new vigor, a dizzying motion and the sublime truth, the truth animated by feeling, by affections/by faith, triumphed and the art of sculpture reached its greatest height with Donatello.

Quotes:

 * Donatello was the genius of the resurrected art, Donatello was the master, the guide who inspired many other artists strong in intellect, rich in aptitude who lacked nothing but the inspiration that came to them from him, so one can to say that in Donatello the Italian art of that fortunate century is embodied, that in Donatello the art of the fifteenth century is admired and celebrated, the art which through his work was so admirably able to detach itself and emancipate itself from the narrow-mindedness of the past. (p. 2)
 * Donato was a very simple and modest man of manners, with that modesty that was common to the majority of artists of those times and under which were hidden a powerful intellect, an admirable intelligence, a soul full of enthusiasm for art. Good, courteous, affectionate with everyone, it can be said that he had no enemies and, remaining completely alien to the terrible struggles that in those times held our city upside down, he managed to have sincere and affectionate friends in every class of citizen, in every political faction, so much so that his death was a mourning in which all of Florence participated, finding in the admiration and mourning of its supreme fellow citizen a harmony of feeling that perhaps had never been demonstrated on other occasions. (p. 12)
 * The work succeeded in justifying the fame of the great artist  among the Paduans and universally seemed worthy of rivaling the most illustrious masterpieces of Greco-Roman art. The horse especially is of surprising beauty, full of vigor and pride; even the bronze casting was of extraordinary precision and beauty. (p. 45)
 * Sculptor of the highest quality; but with a more antiquated manner than Donatello. (p. 87)
 * [...] the great taste he had in combining architecture and ornamental decorations with sculpture also greatly influenced Donatello who acquired a great deal in his company. Various mausoleums in which the two artists worked together demonstrate how much benefit the tribute of respective [sic] talents brought to the execution of these works was for art. (p. 90)

The surroundings of Florence
The Barrier, erected to replace the old gate of S. Niccolò, which remained closed within the toll ring during the expansion of Florence beyond the Arno, is located next to the Iron Bridge in the middle of a square where numerous and important roads lead. These are the streets that in various directions cross the vast plains and run through the hills and mountains of the municipality of Bagno a Ripoli, one of the most important and populous among those surrounding the limited municipal territory of Florence.

The ghetto of Florence
In the heart of old Florence, in the oldest part in terms of construction and most famous for its infinite historical memories, stand the buildings that made up the Florence Ghetto. They roughly form a large rectangle that corresponds with one of its smaller sides on the Mercato Vecchio square, the ancient Forum of the King from the time of the Lombards. Via dell'Arcivescovado to the east, Via de' Boni to the north, Via de' Naccaioli to the west, isolate the very tall and generally grandiose houses that make up the external part of the building.

The Valdarno from Florence to the sea:
Having crossed and divided Florence into two parts, freed from the grip of the strong walls that contain and tame its furious impulses, the «fiumicel which originates in Falterona» it flows gently between the flowering ravines of the wonderful Cascine park and the embankments that defend the fertile plains of Legnaja, and with capricious and wide meanderings it heads towards the narrow Golfolina gorge, where the Florentine Valdarno gives way and name to the Lower Valdarno. And from here, continuing its slow course, it wanders among the wide plains, caresses the extreme slopes of the hills that flank and close the wide valley, to descend into the Tyrrhenian Sea, not far from Pisa, among the quiet of the woods and prairies of Gombo and the joy of the sandy beach, on which a new seaside resort now extends its vast and elegant building.