Florence as Luther Saw It

We must count among the dozen or so peo­ple in the past half-millennium who have come to Flo­rence not for the art or cul­ture but only and expressly to see what Luther saw. Ah well, this is the life of the pil­grim, not the tourist.

After a bless­edly late start we mean­dered our way through the smog and traf­fic (boy, Flo­rence is so not the sleepy Renais­sance town I was expect­ing) across the river to the Piazza Santo Spir­ito, so named for the church of the Holy Spirit squat­ting over it. Its 18th-century façade of plain plas­ter didn’t offer much for the delight of the eyes, though the inside was one side chapel after another show­cas­ing the works of Quat­tro­cento mas­ters. The madonna and child rated high­est for pop­u­lar­ity, fol­lowed by St. Augus­tine and his mother St. Mon­ica. This is because Santo Spir­ito is the church of the Augus­tin­ian friars—and Luther him­self cel­e­brated the mass here on his way through, prob­a­bly right around Christ­mas. Andrew talked to the friar who was mon­i­tor­ing the tourist vis­its. He was quite delighted by our project, being a one-time pil­grim on the San­ti­ago de Com­postela him­self. He knew who Luther was and agreed that Luther was a “good Augustinian.”

Then we angled our way across the city, past the Palazzo Pitti, over the Ponte Vec­chio, along the Uffizi museum (no time for us to stop in, alas), through the Piazza della Sig­no­ria, up to the Duomo—far more mag­nif­i­cent in realiy than in pho­tographs, with a match­ing baptistery—and finally to the Spedale degli Inno­centi. As with Santo Spir­ito, the Spedale was designed by Brunelleschi, and in Luther’s day it was an orphan­age. It had a revolv­ing door so infants could be left with their par­ents’ iden­tity undetected—a good idea if the goal was to get those infants to safety. It’s one of the few things Luther men­tioned later about his stops en route to Rome, and just about the only thing he said about Flo­rence. This is a lit­tle aston­ish­ing to us today, who asso­ciate Flo­rence with the glo­ri­ous heights of Renais­sance art­work. But while Luther did have a cer­tain artis­tic taste—definitely in music, and to a lesser extent with the visual arts (he was good friends with the Wit­ten­berg painter Lucas Cranach)—he was of a prac­ti­cal turn of mind. He noticed use­ful inven­tions and insti­tu­tions that improved ordi­nary people’s lives. The orphan­age made such an impres­sion on him for exactly that reason.

That pretty much filled up our day. OK, we did stop for gelato at one point. And we dis­cov­ered that for all the irri­tat­ing motor scoot­ers and goofy sou­venirs, the tourist indus­try has fig­ured out how to tar­get eggheads like us too. I stum­bled across three shops spe­cial­iz­ing in hand-printed paper, includ­ing every­thing from diaries to wrap­ping paper to sta­tionery, and fought a mighty bat­tle with my cov­etous­ness; while Andrew was drawn to a Leonardo da Vinci museum with work­ing repro­duc­tions of inven­tions based on the great man’s drawings—but not time for that either. Next time, I guess.

We met up with Paul and Melissa again, then took the train back to Castelfiorentino where we’ll all spend the night before tak­ing off again tomor­row morn­ing from Caiano.

Jed Wilson says:
October 15, 2010 at 9:25 pm
I only made it to the train sta­tion in Flo­rence on Wednes­day, so I am enjoy­ing your expe­ri­ence vicariously.
I have a ques­tion about the revolv­ing door. I can imag­ine at least one rea­son myself (e.g., mem­bers of fam­ily X have been tar­geted by some group or author­ity fig­ure); how­ever, from your per­spec­tive what are some rea­sons an infant might have not been safe if the par­ents’ iden­tity were known — espe­cially around Luther’s era?
Much grace to you, and peace,
Jed
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Angela Nickerson says:
October 26, 2010 at 2:28 am
Too bad you didn’t stop in to the Uffizi! There you would find Cranach’s por­traits of Luther and Katie. One of the only signs of Luther in Florence!
Bless­ings!
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Sarah Wilson says:
October 26, 2010 at 9:09 pm
Actu­ally, our friends Paul and Melissa went there and told us that those pic­tures were away on loan… so just as well!
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franz posset says:
November 6, 2010 at 3:51 pm
I was just won­der­ing: How do we know for sure that Luther was in Flo­rence? What source mate­r­ial is there? Is the assump­tion based exclu­sively on Table Talk?
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Andrew Wilson says:
November 6, 2010 at 6:58 pm
Luther men­tions in his table talk hav­ing said mass at Spir­ito Santo, and being impressed with the newly com­pleted (Brunelleschi designed) Ope­dale degli inno­centi, a large orphan­age. The route men­tioned in the “Map for Pil­grims from Ger­many To Rome” men­tioned pre­vi­ously lists Flo­rence as a stop. The Roman impe­r­ial road crossed the Apen­nines far­ther south; polit­i­cal strug­gles dur­ing the mid­dle ages forced the road inland from Bologna, con­tribut­ing to the rise of Flo­rence and Siena as major pow­ers. Luther’s going through Flo­rence would have put him on the main road of his day.
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