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Updated: June 22, 2025
How on a certain day, about 1270, Charles of Anjou was passing through Florence; how he honored the studio of Cimabue by a visit; how the Madonna was then first uncovered; how the people shouted so joyously that the street was thereafter named the Borgo dei Allegri; and how the great picture was finally borne in triumphal procession to the church of Santa Maria Novella, all these are the scenes in the pretty drama.
Cimabue was then living in the Borgo Allegri, one of the suburbs of Florence, and there in his studio this great painting slowly came into existence. As soon as it assumed some definite shape its fame was noised abroad, and many were the curious ones who came to watch the master at his task.
He died, so far as there is any certainty in dates, in 1300, during the brief period of Dante's power in Florence, when the poet was one of the priors and much engaged in public business; and the same eventful year concluded the existence of Cimabue, the first of the great school of Florentine painters he whose picture was carried home to the church in which it was to dwell for all the intervening centuries with such pride and acclamation that the Borgo Allegri is said to have taken its name from this wonderful rejoicing....
Jerome, by Antoine Allegri Correge, is considered to be a picture of great beauty and value. There are also some glorious paintings by Reubens.
It is to another Benedictine convent you come down Via Pietrapiana, past Borgo Allegri, whence the Florentines say they bore Cimabue's Madonna in triumph to S. Maria Novella. It is a pity, truly, that it is not his picture that is in the Rucellai Chapel to-day, and that the name of the Borgo does not come from that rejoicing, but from the Allegri family, who here had their towers.
The first lamentation both of the first and second day is by the celebrated Pierluigi da Palestrina: that of the third day by Allegri.
They soon joined the throngs that filled the vast temple of St. Peter's, to which all turn during this solemn season. After attending a service and viewing the treasures of the Cathedral, they turned their steps to the Sistine Chapel, which contains the wonderful painting of the Last Judgment by Michael Angelo. It was here that the celebrated Miserere by Allegri was performed.
Various authors, whom Baini enumerates, afterwards composed Miserere ; but the celebrated composition of Gregorio Allegri a Roman, who entered the Papal college of singers in 1629, was the most successful, and was for some time sung on all the three days of Tenebræ.
There was scarcely an example of their having betrayed the secrets of the king. This was, it is true, for their interest; and if the king had lost confidence in them, they would have been in great danger. They were thus of use in a political point of view. Moreover these artists furnished singers for the Holy Father. The Comprachicos were useful for the Miserere of Allegri.
If Vasari is to be trusted, this visit of Charles of Anjou to Cimabue's studio took place in 1267; but neither the Malespini nor Villani mention it, and the old belief that the Borgo Allegri owed its name to the popular rejoicing at that time is now somewhat discredited. See Vasari, Le Monnier, 1846, vol. i. p. 225, note 4.
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