Ex Libris 
 C. K. OGDEN 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 II 


 
 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE: 
 
 BEINQ 
 
 SIMPLE STUDIES 
 
 OF 
 
 CHEISTIAN AET, 
 
 FOR ENGLISH TRAVELLERS. 
 
 BV 
 
 JOHN RUSKIN, LL.D., 
 
 HONORARY STUDENT OF CHRIST CHURCH, 
 AM> SLADK PROFESSOR OF FIXE ART, OXFORD. 
 
 I. 
 
 8 A XT A CROCE 
 
 GEORGE ALLEN 
 
 srNNYSIDE. ORPIXGTON KENT 
 1875.
 
 Watson and Hazell, Printers, London and Aylesbury
 
 Stack 
 Annex 
 
 M&X 
 PEEPACE. 
 
 IT seems to me that the real duty involved in 
 my Oxford professorship cannot be completely 
 done by giving lectures in Oxford only, but 
 that I ought also to give what guidance I may 
 to travellers in Italy. 
 
 The following letters are written as I would 
 write to any of my friends who asked me what 
 they ought preferably to study in limited time ; 
 and I hope they may be found of use if read in 
 the places which they describe, or before the 
 pictures to which they refer. But in the outset 
 let me give my readers one piece of practical 
 advice. If you can afford it, .pay your custode 
 or sacristan well. You may think it an injustice 
 to the next comer ; but your paying him ill is 
 an injustice to all comers, for the necessary 
 result of your doing so is that he will lock up 
 or cover whatever he can, that he may get his 
 penny fee for showing it ; and that, thus exacting 
 a small tax from everybody, he is thankful to 
 none, and gets into a sullen passion if you stay 
 more than a quarter of a minute to look at the 
 object after it is uncovered. And you will not
 
 2 PREFACE, 
 
 find it possible to examine anything properly 
 under these circumstances. Pay your sacristan 
 well, and make friends with him : in nine cases 
 out of ten an Italian is really grateful for the 
 money, and more than grateful for human 
 courtesy ; and will give you some true zeal and 
 kindly feeling in return for a franc and a 
 pleasant look. How very horrid of him to be 
 grateful for money, you think ! Well, I can 
 only tell you that I know fifty people who will 
 write me letters full of tender sentiment, for 
 one who will give me tenpence ; and I shall 
 be very much obliged to you if you will give 
 me tenpence for 'each of these letters of mine, 
 though I have done more work than you know 
 of, to make them good, ten-pennyworths to you.
 
 MOENINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 THE FIRST MORNING. 
 
 SANTA CROCE. 
 
 IF there is one artist, more than another, whose 
 work it is desirable that you should examine 
 in Florence, supposing that you care for old art at 
 all, it is Giotto. You can, indeed, also see work 
 of his at Assisi ; but it is not likely you will stop 
 there, to any purpose. At Padua there is much ; 
 but only of one period. At Florence, which is his 
 birthplace, you can see pictures by him of every 
 date, and every kind. But you had surely better 
 see, first, what is of his best time and of the 
 best kind. He painted very small pictures and 
 very large painted from the age of twelve to 
 sixty painted some subjects carelessly which he 
 had little interest in some carefully with all his 
 heart You would surely like, and it would cer- 
 tainly be wise, to see him first in his strong 
 
 1
 
 2 MORNINGS IN FLOKENCE. 
 
 and earnest work, to see a painting by him, if 
 possible, of large size, and wrought with his full 
 strength, and of a subject pleasing to him. And 
 if it were, also, a subject interesting to you 
 yourself, better still. 
 
 Now, if indeed you are interested in old art, 
 you cannot but know the power of the thirteenth 
 century. You know that the character of it was 
 concentrated in, and to the full expressed by, its 
 best king, St. Louis. You know St. Louis was a 
 Franciscan, and that the Franciscans, for whom 
 Giotto was continually painting under Dante's 
 advice, were prouder of him than of any other of 
 their royal brethren or sisters. If Giotto ever 
 would imagine anybody with care and delight, it 
 would be St. Louis, if it chanced that anywhere 
 he had St. Louis to paint. 
 
 Also, you know that he was appointed to 
 build the Campanile of the Duomo, because he 
 was then the best master of sculpture, painting, 
 and architecture in Florence, and supposed to 
 be without superior in the world.* And that 
 this commission was given him late in life, (of 
 course he could not have designed the Campanile 
 when he was a boy;) so therefore, if you find 
 
 h " Cum in universe orbe non reperiri dicatur quenquam qui 
 sufficientior sit in his et aliis multis artibus magistro Giotto 
 Bondonis de Florentia pictore, et accipiendus sit in patria, 
 velut magnus magister." (Decree of his appointment, quoted 
 by Lord Lindsay, vol. ii., p. 247.)
 
 SANTA CROCE. 3 
 
 any of his figures painted under pure campanile 
 architecture, and the architecture by his hand, 
 you know, without other evidence, that the 
 painting, must be of his strongest time. 
 
 So if one wanted to find anything of his to 
 begin with, specially, and could choose what it 
 should be, one would say, "A fresco, life size, 
 with campanile architecture behind it, painted 
 in an important place ; and if one might choose 
 one's subject, perhaps the most interesting saint 
 of all saints for him to do for us would be 
 St. Louis." 
 
 Wait then for an entirely bright morning ; 
 rise with the sun, and go to Santa Croce, 
 with a good opera-glass in your pocket, with 
 which you shall for once, at any rate, see an 
 opus; and, if you have time, several opera. 
 Walk straight to the chapel on the right of the 
 choir ('k' in your Murray's guide). When you 
 first get into it, you will see nothing but a 
 modern window of glaring glass, with a red-hot 
 cardinal in one pane which piece of modern 
 manufacture takes away at least seven-eighths 
 of the light (little enough before) by which 
 you might have seen what is worth sight. 
 Wait patiently till you get used to the gloom. 
 Then, guarding your eyes from the accursed 
 modern window as best you may, take your 
 opera-glass and look to the right, at the 
 uppermost of the two figures beside it. It
 
 4 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 is St. Louis, under campanile architecture, 
 painted by Giotto ? or the last Florentine 
 painter who wanted a job over Giotto? That 
 is the first question you have to determine; as 
 you will have henceforward, in every case in 
 which you look at a fresco. 
 
 Sometimes there will be no question at all. 
 These two grey frescos at the bottom of the 
 walls on your right and left, for instance, have 
 been entirely got up for your better satisfaction, 
 in the last year or two over Giotto's half-effaced 
 lines. But that St. Louis? Re-painted or not, 
 it is a lovely thing, there can be no question 
 about that; and -we must look at it, after some 
 preliminary knowledge gained, not inattentively. 
 
 Your Murray's Guide tells you that this 
 chapel of the Bardi della Liberia, in which you 
 stand, is covered with frescos by Giotto; that 
 they were whitewashed, and only laid bare in 
 1853; that they were painted between 1296 
 and 1304 ; that they represent scenes in the 
 life of St. Francis ; and that on each side of 
 the window are paintings of St. Louis of 
 Toulouse, St. Louis, king of France, St. 
 Elizabeth of Hungary, and St. Claire, "all 
 much restored and repainted." Under such 
 recommendation, the frescos are not likely to be 
 much sought after ; and accordingly, as I was 
 at work in the chapel this morning, Sunday, 
 6th September, 1874, two nice-looking English-
 
 SANTA CROCK. 5 
 
 men, under guard of their valet de place, passed 
 the chapel without so much as looking in. 
 
 You will perhaps stay a little longer in it 
 with me, good reader, and find out gradually 
 where you are. Namely, in the most inter- 
 esting and perfect little Gothic chapel in all 
 Italy so far as I know or can hear. There is 
 no other of the great time which has all its 
 frescos in their place. The Arena, though far 
 larger, is of earlier date not pure Gothic, nor 
 showing Giotto's full force. The lower chapel at 
 Assisi is not Gothic at all, and is still only of 
 Giotto's middle time. You have here, developed 
 Gothic, with Giotto in his consummate strength, 
 and nothing lost, in form, of the complete design. 
 
 By restoration judicious restoration, -as Mr. 
 Murray usually calls it there is no saying 
 how much you have lost. Putting the ques- 
 tion of restoration out of your mind, however, 
 for a while, think where you are, and what 
 you have got to look at. 
 
 You are in the chapel next the high altar 
 of the great Franciscan church of Florence. 
 A few hundred yards west of you, within ten 
 minutes' walk, is the Baptistery of Florence. 
 And five minutes' walk west of that is the 
 great Dominican church of Florence, Santa Maria 
 Novella. 
 
 Get this little bit of geography, and architec- 
 tural fact, well into your mind. There is the little
 
 6 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 octagon Baptistery in the middle; here, ten 
 minutes' walk east of it, the Franciscan church 
 of Holy Cross ; there, five minutes' walk west 
 of it, the Dominican church of St. Mary. 
 
 Now, that little octagon Baptistery stood where 
 it now stands (and was finished, though the roof 
 has been altered since) in the eighth century. It 
 is the central building of Etrurian Christianity, 
 ---of European Christianity. 
 
 From the day it was finished, Christianity went 
 on doing her best, in Etruria and elsewhere, for 
 four hundred years, and her best seemed to have 
 come to very little, when there rose up two men 
 who vowed to God it should come to more. And 
 they made it come to more, forthwith ; of which 
 the immediate sign in Florence was that she re- 
 solved to have a fine new cross-shaped cathedral 
 instead of her quaint old little octagon one ; and 
 a tower beside it that should beat Babel : which 
 two buildings you have also within sight. 
 
 But your business is not at present with them ; 
 but with these two earlier churches of Holy Cross 
 and St. Mary. The two men who were the effec- 
 tual builders of these were the two great religious 
 Powers and Reformers of the thirteenth century ; 
 St. Francis, who taught Christian men how they 
 should behave, and St. Dominic, who taught Chris- 
 tian men what they should think. In brief, one 
 the Apostle of Works ; the other of Faith. Each 
 sent his little company of disciples to teach and
 
 SANTA CROCK. 7 
 
 preach in Florence : St. Francis in 1212 ; St. 
 Dominic in 1220. 
 
 The little companies were settled one, ten 
 minutes' walk east of the old Baptistery ; the 
 other five minutes' walk west of it. And after 
 they had stayed quietly in such lodgings as were 
 given them, preaching and teaching through 
 most of the century ; and had got Florence, as 
 it were, heated through, she burst out into 
 Christian poetry and architecture, of which you 
 have heard much talk : burst into bloom of 
 Arnolfo, Giotto, Dante, Orcagna, and the like 
 persons, whose works you profess to have come 
 to Florence that you may see and understand. 
 
 Florence then, thus heated through, first helped 
 her teachers to build finer churches. The 
 Dominicans, or White Friars, the Teachers of 
 Faith, began their church of St. Mary's in 1279. 
 The Franciscans, or Black Friars, the Teachers 
 of Works, laid the first stone of this church of 
 the Holy Cross in 1294. And the whole city 
 laid the foundations of its new cathedral in 1298. 
 The Dominicans designed their own building ; 
 but for the Franciscans and the town worked the 
 first great master of Gothic art, Arnolfo ; with 
 Giotto at his side, and Dante looking on, and 
 whispering sometimes a word to both. 
 
 And here you stand beside the high altar of the 
 Franciscans' church, under a vault of Arnolfo's 
 building, with at least some of Giotto's colour on
 
 8 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 it still fresh ; and in front of you, over the little 
 altar, is the only reportedly authentic portrait of 
 St. Francis, taken from life by Giotto's master. 
 Yet I can hardly blame my two English friends 
 for never looking in. Except in the early morn- 
 ing light, not one touch of all this art can be 
 seen. And in any light, unless you understand 
 the relations of Giotto to St. Francis, and of St. 
 Francis to humanity, it will be of little interest. 
 
 Observe, then, the special character of Giotto 
 among the great painters of Italy is his being a 
 practical person. Whatever other men dreamed 
 of, he did. He could work in mosaic ; he could 
 work in marble ; he could paint ; and he could 
 build ; and all thoroughly : a man of supreme 
 faculty, supreme common sense. Accordingly, he 
 ranges himself at once among the disciples of the 
 Apostle of Works, and spends most of his time in 
 the same apostleship 
 
 Now the gospel of Works, according to St. 
 Frands, lay in three things. You must work 
 without money, and be poor. You must work 
 without pleasure, and be chaste. You must \vork 
 according to orders, and be obedient. 
 
 Those are St. Francis's three Articles of Italian 
 opera. By which grew the many pretty things 
 you have come to see here. 
 
 And' now if you will take your opera-glass and 
 look up to the roof above Arnolfo's building, you 
 will see it is a pretty Gothic cross vault, in four
 
 SANTA CKOCE. 9 
 
 quarters, each with a circular medallion, painted 
 by Giotto. That over the altar has the picture 
 of St. Francis himself. The three others, of his 
 Commanding Angels. In front of him, over the 
 entrance arch, Poverty. On his right hand, 
 Obedience. On his left, Chastity. 
 
 Poverty, in a red patched dress, with grey 
 wings, and a square nimbus of glory above her 
 head, is flying from a black hound, whose head 
 is seen at the corner of the medallion. 
 
 Chastity, veiled, is imprisoned in a tower, while 
 angels watch her. 
 
 Obedience bears a yoke on her shoulders, and 
 lays her hand on a book. 
 
 Now, this same quatrefoil, of St. Francis and 
 his three Commanding Angels, was also painted, 
 but much more elaborately, by Giotto, on the cross 
 vault of the lower church of Assisi, and it is a 
 question of interest which of the two roofs was 
 painted first. 
 
 Your Murray's Guide tells you the frescos in 
 this chapel were painted between 1296 and 1304. 
 But as they represent, among other personages, 
 St. Louis of Toulouse, who was not canonized till 
 1317, that statement is not altogether tenable. 
 Also, as the first stone of the church was only laid 
 in 1294, when Giotto was a youth of eighteen, it 
 is little likely that either it would have been ready 
 to be painted, or he ready with his scheme of 
 practical divinity, two years later.
 
 10 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 Farther, Arnolfo, the builder of the main body 
 of the church, died in 1310. And as St. Louis 
 of Toulouse was not a saint till seven years 
 afterwards, and the frescos therefore beside the 
 window not painted in Arnolfo' s day, it becomes 
 another question whether Arnolfo left the chapels 
 or the church at all, in their present form. 
 
 On which point now that I have shown you 
 where Giotto's St. Louis is I will ask you to 
 think a while, until you are interested ; and 
 then I will try to satisfy your curiosity. There- 
 fore, please leave the little chapel for the moment, 
 and walk down the nave, till you come to two 
 sepulchral slabs near the west end, and then look 
 about you and see what sort of a church Santa 
 Croce is. 
 
 Without looking about you at all, you may 
 find, in your Murray, the useful information that 
 it is a church which " consists of a very wide nave 
 and lateral aisles, separated by seven fine pointed 
 arches." And as you will be under ordinary 
 conditions of tourist hurry glad to learn so 
 much, without looking, it is little likely to occur 
 to you that this nave and two rich aisles required 
 also, for your complete present comfort, walls at 
 both ends, and a roof on the top. It is just 
 possible, indeed, you may have been struck, on 
 entering, by the curious disposition of painted 
 glass at the east end ; more remotely possible 
 that, in returning down the nave, you may this
 
 SANTA CROCE. 11 
 
 moment have noticed the extremely small circular 
 window at the west end ; but the chances are a 
 thousand to one that, after being pulled from tomb 
 to tomb round the aisles and chapels, you should 
 take so extraordinary an additional amount of 
 pains as to look up at the roof, unless you do 
 it now, quietly. It will have had its effect upon 
 you, even if you don't, without your knowledge. 
 You will return home with a general impres- 
 sion that Santa Croce is, somehow, the ugliest 
 Gothic church you ever were in. Well that is 
 really so ; and now, will you take the pains to 
 see why? 
 
 There are two features, on which, more than on 
 any others, the grace and delight of a fine Gothic 
 building depends ; one is the springing of its 
 vaultings, the other the proportion and fantasy of 
 its traceries. This church of Santa Croce has no 
 vaultings at all, but the roof of a farm-house barn. 
 And its windows are all of the same pattern, the 
 exceedingly prosaic one of two pointed arches, with 
 a round hole above, between them. 
 
 And to make the simplicity of the roof more 
 conspicuous, the aisles are successive sheds, built at 
 every arch. In the aisles of the Campo Santo of 
 Pisa, the unbroken flat roof leaves the eye free 
 to look to the traceries ; but here, a succession of 
 up-and-down sloping beam and lath gives the 
 impression of a line of stabling rather than a 
 church aisle. And lastly, while, in fine Gothic
 
 12 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 buildings, the entire perspective concludes itself' 
 gloriously in the high and distant apse, here 
 the nave is cut across sharply by a line of ten 
 chapels, the apse being only a tall recess in the 
 midst of them, so that, strictly speaking, the 
 church is not of the form of a cross, but of a 
 letter T. 
 
 Can this clumsy and ungraceful arrangement 
 be indeed the design of the renowned Arnolfo ? 
 
 Yes, this is purest Arnolfo-Gothic ; not beau- 
 tiful by any means ; but deserving, nevertheless, 
 our thoughtfullest examination. We will trace its 
 complete character another day : just now we are 
 only concerned with this pre-Christian form of the 
 etter T, insisted upon in the lines of chapels. 
 
 Respecting which you. are to observe, that 
 the first Christian churches in the catacombs took 
 the form of a blunt cross naturally ; a square 
 chamber having a vaulted recess on each side ; 
 then the Byzantine churches were structurally 
 built in the form of an equal cross ; while the 
 heraldic and other ornamental equal- armed 
 crosses are partly signs of glory and victory, 
 partly of light, and divine spiritual presence.* 
 
 But the Franciscans and Dominicans saw in 
 the cross no sign of triumph, but of trial. f The 
 
 * See, on this subject generally, Mr. R. St. J. Tyrwhitt's 
 " Art- Teaching of the Primitive Church. " S. P. C. K. , 1874. 
 
 f I have never obtained time for any right study of early 
 Christian church-discipline, nor am I sure to how many other
 
 SANTA CROCE. 13 
 
 wounds of their Master were to be their in- 
 heritance. So their first aim was to make what 
 image to the cross their church might present, 
 distinctly that of the actual instrument of death. 
 
 causes, the choice of the form of the basilica may be occa- 
 sionally attributed, or by what other communities it may be 
 made. Symbolism, for instance, has most power with the 
 Franciscans, and convenience for preaching with the Domini- 
 cans ; but in all cases, and in all places, the transition from 
 the close tribune to the brightly-lighted apse, indicates the 
 change in Christian feeling between regarding a church as a 
 place for public judgment or teaching, or a place for private 
 prayer and congregational praise. The following passage 
 from the Dean of Westminster's perfect history of his Abbey 
 ought to be read also in the Florentine church : "-The nearest 
 approach to Westminster Abbey in this aspect is the church 
 of Santa Croce at Florence. There, as here, the present 
 destination of the building was no part of the original design, 
 but was the result of various converging causes. As the 
 church of one of the two great preaching orders, it had a nave 
 large beyond all proportion to its choir. That order being 
 the Franciscan, bound by vows of poverty, the simplicity of 
 the worship preserved the whole space clear from any ad- 
 ventitious ornaments. The popularity of the Franciscans, 
 especially in a convent hallowed by a visit from St. Francis 
 himself, drew to it not only the chief civic festivals, but also 
 the numerous families who gave alms to the friars, and whose 
 connexion with their church was, for this reason, in turn 
 encouraged by them. In those graves, piled with standards 
 and achievements of the noble families of Florence, were 
 successively interred not because of their eminence, but as 
 members or friends of those families some of the most illus- 
 trious personages of the fifteenth century. Thus it came to 
 pass, as if by accident, that in the vault of the Bnonarotti was 
 laid Michael Angelo ; in the vault of the Viviani the preceptor 
 of one of their house, Galileo. From those two burials the 
 church gradually became the recognised shrine of Italian 
 genius."
 
 14 MOKNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 And they did this most effectually by using the 
 form of the letter T, that of the Furca or Gibbet, 
 not the sign of peace. 
 
 Also, their churches were meant for use ; not 
 show, nor self-glorification, nor town-glorification. 
 They wanted places for preaching, prayer, sacri- 
 fice, burial ; and had no intention of showing how 
 high they could build towers, or how widely they 
 could arch vaults. Strong walls, and the roof of a 
 barn, these your Franciscan asks of his Arnolfo. 
 These Arnolfo gives, thoroughly and wisely built ; 
 the successions of gable roof being a new device 
 for strength, much praised in its day. 
 
 This stern humour did not last long. Arnolfo 
 himself had other notions ; much more Cimabue 
 and Giotto; most of all, Nature and Heaven. 
 Something else had to tie taught about Christ 
 than that He was wounded to death. Never- 
 theless, look how grand this stern form would be, 
 restored to its simplicity. It is not the old church 
 which is in itself unimpressive. It is the old 
 church defaced by Vasari, by Michael Angelo, and 
 by modern Florence. See those huge tombs on 
 your right hand and left, at the sides of the aisles, 
 with their alternate gable and round tops, and 
 their paltriest of all possible sculpture, trying to 
 be grand by bigness, and pathetic by expense. 
 Tear them all down in your imagination ; fancy 
 the vast hall with its massive pillars, not painted 
 calomel-pill colour, as now, but of their native
 
 SANTA CROCK. 15 
 
 stone, with the rough, true wood for roof, and a 
 people praying beneath them, strong in abiding, 
 and pure in life, as their rocks and olive forests. 
 That was Arnolfo's Santa Croce. Nor did his 
 work remain long without grace. 
 
 That very line of chapels in which we found 
 our St. Louis shows signs of change in temper. 
 They have no pent-house roofs, but true Gothic 
 vaults : we found our four-square type of Fran- 
 ciscan Law on one of them. 
 
 It is probable, then, that these chapels may be 
 later than the rest even in their stonework. In 
 their decoration, they are so, assuredly ; belonging 
 already to the time when the story of St. Francis 
 was becoming a passionate tradition, told and 
 painted everywhere with delight. 
 
 And that high recess, taking the place of apse, 
 in the centre, see how noble it is in the coloured 
 shade surrounding and joining the glow of its 
 windows, though their form be so simple. You 
 are not to be amused here by mere patterns 
 in balanced stone, as a French or English archi- 
 tect would amuse you, says Arnolfo. " You are 
 to read and think, under these severe walls of 
 mine ; immortal hands will write upon them." 
 We will go back, therefore, into this line of 
 manuscript chapels presently ; but first, look at 
 the two sepulchral slabs by which you are stand- 
 ing. That farther of the two from the west end 
 is one of the most beautiful pieces of fourteenth-
 
 16 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 century sculpture in this world ; and it contains 
 simple elements of excellence, by your under- 
 standing of which you may test your power of 
 understanding the more difficult ones you will 
 have to deal with presently. 
 
 It represents an old* man, in the high deeply- 
 folded cap worn by scholars and gentlemen in 
 Florence from 13001500, lying dead, with a 
 book on his breast, over which his hands are 
 folded. At his feet is this inscription : " Tem- 
 poribus hie suis phylosophye atq. medicine culmen 
 fuit Gralileus de Gralileis olim Bonajutis qui etiam 
 summo in magistrate miro quodam modo rem- 
 publicam dilexit, cujus sancte memorie bene acte 
 vite pie benedictus filiiis hunc tumulum patri sibi 
 suisq. posteris edidit." 
 
 Mr. Murray tells you that the effigies " in low 
 relief" (alas, yes, low enough now worn mostly 
 into flat stones, with a trace only of the deeper 
 lines left, but originally in very bold relief,) with 
 which the floor of Santa Croce is inlaid, of which 
 this by which you stand is characteristic, are 
 "interesting from the costume," but that, " except 
 in the case of John Ketterick, Bishop of St. 
 David's, few of the other names have any interest 
 beyond the walls of Florence." As, however, 
 you are at present within the walls of Florence, 
 you may perhaps condescend to take some in- 
 terest in this ancestor or relation of the Galileo 
 whom Florence indeed left to be externally
 
 SANTA CROCE. 17 
 
 interesting, and would not allow to enter in her 
 walls.* 
 
 I am not sure if I rightly place or construe 
 the phrase in the above inscription, " cujus sancte 
 memorie bene acte" ; but, in main purport, the 
 legend runs thus : " This Galileo of the Galilei 
 was, in his times, the head of philosophy and medi- 
 cine ; who also in the highest magistracy loved 
 the republic marvellously ; whose son, blessed in 
 inheritance of his holy memory and well-passed 
 and pious life, appointed this tomb for his father, 
 for himself, and for his posterity." 
 
 There is no date ; but the slab immediately 
 behind it, nearer the western door, is of the same 
 style, but of later and inferior work, and bears 
 date I forget now of what early year in the 
 fifteenth century. 
 
 But Florence was still in her pride ; and you 
 may observe, in this epitaph, on what it was based. 
 That her philosophy was studied together with 
 useful arts, and as a part of them ; that the 
 masters in these became naturally the masters 
 in public affairs ; that in such magistracy, they 
 loved the State, and neither cringed to it nor 
 robbed it ; that the sons honoured their fathers, 
 and received their fathers' honour as the most 
 blessed inheritance. Remember the phrase " vite 
 
 * " Seven years a prisoner at the city gate, 
 Let in but his grave-clothes." 
 
 Itmji'i-s' " Italy." 
 
 2
 
 18 ' MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 pie benedictus filius," to be compared with the 
 "nos nequiores" of the declining days of all 
 states, chiefl}- now in Florence, France, and 
 England. 
 
 Thus much for the local interest of name. 
 Next for the universal interest of the art of this 
 tomb. 
 
 It is the crowning virtue of all great art that, 
 however little is left of it by the injuries of 
 time, that little will be lovely. As long as you 
 can see anything, you can see almost all ; so 
 much the hand of the master will suggest of his 
 soul. 
 
 And here you are well quit, for once, of re- 
 storation. No one cares for this sculpture; and 
 if Florence would only thus put all her old sculp- 
 ture and painting under her feet, and simply use 
 them for gravestones and oilcloth, she would be 
 more merciful to them than she is now. Here, at 
 least, what little is left is true. 
 
 And, if you look long, you will find it is not 
 so little. That worn face is still a perfect por- 
 trait of the old man, though like one struck out 
 at a venture, with a few rough touches of a 
 master's chisel. And that falling drapery of his 
 cap is, in its few lines, faultless, and subtle beyond 
 description. 
 
 And now, here is a simple but most useful test 
 of your capacity for understanding Florentine 
 sculpture or painting. If you can see that the
 
 SAXTA CROCE. 19 
 
 lines of that cap are both right, and lovely ; that 
 the choice of the folds is exquisite in its orna- 
 mental relations of line ; and that the softness and 
 ease of them is complete, though only sketched 
 with a few dark touches, then you can under- 
 stand Giotto's drawing, and Botticelli's ; Dona- 
 tello's carving, and Luca's. But if you see 
 nothing in this sculpture, you will see nothing in 
 theirs, of theirs. Where they choose to imitate 
 flesh, or silk, or to play any vulgar modern trick 
 with marble (and they often do) whatever, in 
 a word, is French, or American, or Cockney, 
 in their work, you can see ; but what is Floren- 
 tine, and for ever great unless you can see also 
 the beauty of this old man in his citizen's cap, 
 you will see never. 
 
 There is more in this sculpture, however, than 
 its simple portraiture and noble drapery. The 
 old man lies on a piece of embroidered carpet ; 
 and, protected by the higher relief, many of the 
 finer lines of this are almost uninjured ; in par- 
 ticular, its exquisitely-wrought fringe and tassels 
 are nearly perfect. And if you will kneel down 
 and look long at the tassels of the cushion under 
 the head, and the way they fill the angles of the 
 stone, you will, or may know, from this ex- 
 ample alone, what noble decorative sculpture is, 
 and was, and must be, from the days of earliest 
 Greece to those of latest Italy. 
 
 ' Exquisitely sculptured fringe ! ' and you have
 
 20 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 just been abusing sculptors who play tricks with 
 marble ! Yes, and you cannot find a better 
 example, in all the museums of Europe, of the 
 work of a man who does not play tricks with it 
 than this tomb. Try to understand the differ- 
 ence : it is a point of quite cardinal . importance 
 to all your future study of sculpture. 
 
 I told you, observe, that the old Galileo was 
 lying on a piece of embroidered carpet. I don't 
 think, if I had not told you, that you would have 
 found it out for yourself. It is not so like a 
 carpet as all that comes to. 
 
 But had it been a modern trick-sculpture, the 
 moment you came to the tomb you would have 
 said, " Dear me ! how wonderfully that carpet is 
 done, it doesn't look like stone in the least, one 
 longs to take it up and beat it, to get the dust 
 off." 
 
 Now whenever you feel inclined to speak so of a 
 sculptured drapery, be assured, without more ado, 
 the sculpture is base, and bad. You will merely 
 waste your time and corrupt your taste by looking 
 at it. Nothing is so easy as to imitate drapery in 
 marble. You may cast a piece any day; and carve 
 it with such subtlety that the marble shall be an 
 absolute image of the folds. But that is not 
 sculpture. That is mechanical manufacture. 
 
 No great sculptor, from the beginning of art to 
 the end of it, has ever carved, or ever will, a 
 deceptive drapery. He has neither time nor will
 
 SANTA CROCE. 21 
 
 to do it. His mason's lad may do that, if he likes. 
 A man who can carve a limb or a face never 
 finishes inferior parts, but either with a hasty and 
 scornful chisel, or with such grave and strict 
 selection of their lines as you know at once to be 
 imaginative, not imitative. 
 
 But if, as in this case, he wants to oppose 
 the simplicity of his central subject with a rich 
 background, a labyrinth of ornamental lines to 
 relieve the severity of expressive ones, he will 
 carve you a carpet, or a tree, or a rose thicket, 
 with their fringes and leaves and thorns, elabo- 
 rated as richly as natural ones ; but always for 
 the sake of the ornamental form, never of the 
 imitation ; yet, seizing the natural character in 
 the lines he gives, with twenty times the precision 
 and clearness of sight that the mere imitator 
 has. Examine the tassels of the cushion, and the 
 way they blend with the fringe, thoroughly ; you 
 cannot possibly see finer ornamental sculpture. 
 Then, look at the same tassels in the same place 
 of the slab next the west end of the church, and 
 you will see a scholar's rude imitation of a master's 
 hand, though in a fine school. (Notice, however, 
 the folds of the drapery at the feet of this figure : 
 they are cut so as to show the hem of the robe 
 within as well as without, and are fine.) Then, as 
 you go back to Giotto's chapel, keep to the left, and 
 just beyond the north door in the aisle is the much- 
 celebrated tomb of C. Marsuppini, by Desiderio
 
 22 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 of Settignano. It is very fine of its kind ; but 
 there the drapery is chiefly done to cheat you, and 
 chased delicately to show how finely the sculptor 
 could chisel it. It is wholly vulgar and mean in 
 cast of fold. Under your feet, as you look at 
 it, you will tread another tomb of the fine time, 
 which, looking last at, you will recognize the dif- 
 ference between false and true art, as far as there 
 is capacity in you at present to do so. And if 
 you really and honestly like the low-lying stones, 
 and see more beauty in them, you have also the 
 power of enjoying Giotto, into whose chapel wo 
 will return to-morrow ; not to-day, for the light 
 must have left it by this time ; and now that 
 you have been looking at these sculptures on the 
 floor you had better traverse nave and aisle across 
 and across ; and get some idea of that sacred field 
 of stone. In the north transept you will find a 
 beautiful knight, the finest in chiselling of all 
 these tombs, except one by the same hand in 
 the south aisle just where it enters the south 
 transept. Examine the lines of the Gothic niches 
 traced above them ; and what is left of arabesque 
 on their armour. They are far more beautiful 
 arid tender in chivalric conception than Donatello's 
 St. George, which is merely a piece of vigorous 
 naturalism founded on these older tombs. If you 
 will drive in the evening to the Chartreuse in Val 
 d'Ema, you may see there an uninjured example 
 of this slab-tomb by Donatello himself : very
 
 SANTA CROCE. 23 
 
 beautiful ; but not so perfect as the earlier ones 
 on which it is founded. And you may see some 
 fading light and shade of monastic life, among 
 which if you stay till the fireflies come out in the 
 twilight, and thus get to sleep when you come 
 home, you will be better prepared for to-morrow 
 morning's walk if you will take another with 
 me than if you go to a party, to talk sentiment 
 about Italy, and hear the last news from London 
 and New York.
 
 <
 
 THE SECOND MORNING. 
 
 THE GOLDEN GATE. 
 
 rj^ 0-DAY, as early as you please, and at all 
 -L events before doing anything else, let us 
 go to Giotto's own parish-church, Santa Maria 
 Novella. If, walking from the Strozzi Palace, 
 you look on your right for the ' Way of the 
 Beautiful Ladies,' it will take you quickly there. 
 
 Do not let anything in the way of acquaintance, 
 sacristan, or chance sight, stop you in doing what 
 I tell you. Walk straight up the church, into 
 the apse of it ; (you may let your eyes rest, as 
 you walk, on the glow of its glass, only mind the 
 step, half way;) and lift the curtain ; and go 
 in behind the grand marble altar, giving anybody 
 who follows you anything they want, to hold their 
 tongues, or go away. 
 
 You know, most probably, already, that the 
 frescos on each side of you are Ghirlandajo's. You 
 have been told they are very fine, and if you 
 know anything of painting, you know the por- 
 traits in them are so. Nevertheless, somehow, 
 you don't really enjoy these frescos, nor come 
 often here, do you ? 
 
 3
 
 20 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 The reason of which is, that if you are a nice 
 person, they are not nice enough for you ; and 
 if a vulgar person, not vulgar enough. But, if 
 you are a nice person, I want you to look care- 
 fully, to-day, at the two lowest, next the windows, 
 for a few minutes, that you may better feel the 
 art you are really to study, by its contrast with 
 these. 
 
 On your left hand is represented the birth of 
 the Virgin. On your right, her meeting with 
 Elizabeth. 
 
 You can't easily see better pieces (nowhere 
 more pompous pieces) of flat goldsmiths' work. 
 Ghirlandajo was to the end of his life a mere 
 goldsmith, with a gift of portraiture. And here 
 he has done his best, and has put a long wall 
 in wonderful perspective, and the whole city of 
 Florence behind Elizabeth's house in the hill- 
 country; and a splendid bas-relief, in the style of 
 Luca della Robbia, in St. Anne's bedroom ; and 
 he has carved all the pilasters, and embroidered 
 all the dresses, and flourished and trumpeted into 
 every corner ; and it is all done, within just a 
 point, as well as it can be done ; and quite as well 
 as Ghirlandajo could do it. But the point in 
 which it just misses being as well as it can be 
 done, is the vital point. And it is all simply 
 good for nothing. 
 
 Extricate yourself from the goldsmiths' rubbish 
 of it ; and look full at the Salutation. You will
 
 THE GOLDEN GATE. 27 
 
 say, perhaps, at first, ' What grand and graceful 
 figures ! ' Are you sure they are graceful ? Look 
 again, and you will see their draperies hang from 
 them exactly as they would from two clothes- 
 pegs. Now fine drapery, really well drawn, as 
 it hangs from a clothes-peg, is always rather 
 impressive, especially if it be disposed in large 
 breadths and deep folds ; but that is the only 
 grace of their figures. 
 
 Secondly. Look at the Madonna, carefully. 
 You will find she is not the least meek only 
 stupid, as all the other women in the picture 
 are. 
 
 'St. Elizabeth, you think, is nice'? Yes; 'And 
 she says, " Whence is this to me, that the mother 
 of my Lord should come to me?" really with a 
 great deal of serious feeling ? ' Yes, with a great 
 deal. Well, you have looked enough at those 
 two. Now -just for another minute look at the 
 birth of the Virgin. 'A most graceful group, 
 (your Murray's Guide tells you,) in the attendant 
 servants.' Extremely so. Also, the one holding 
 the child is rather pretty. Also, the servant 
 pouring out the water does it from a great 
 height, without splashing, most cleverly. Also, 
 the lady coming to ask for St. Anne, and see the 
 baby, walks majestically, and is very finely dressed. 
 And as for that bas-relief in the style of Luca 
 della Robbia, you might really almost think it 
 was Luca ! The very best plated goods, Master
 
 28 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 Ghirlandajo, no doubt always on hand, at your 
 shop. 
 
 Well, now you must ask for the Sacristan, 
 who is civil and nice enough; and get him to let 
 you into the green cloister, and then into the less 
 cloister opening out of it on the right, as you go 
 down the steps ; and you must ask for the tomb 
 of the Marchesa Stiozzi Kidolfi ; and in the recess 
 behind the Marchesa's tomb very close to the 
 ground, and in excellent light, if the day is fine, 
 you will see two small frescos, only about 
 four feet wide each, in odd-shaped bits of wall 
 quarters of circles ; representing that on the 
 left, the Meeting of Joachim and Anna at the 
 Golden Gate ; and that on the right, the Birth 
 of the Virgin. 
 
 No flourish of trumpets here, at any rate, 
 you think ! No gold on the gate ; and, for the 
 birth of the Virgin is this all ! Goodness ! 
 nothing to be seen, whatever, of bas-reliefs, nor 
 fine dresses, nor graceful pourings out of water, 
 nor processions of visitors ? 
 
 No. But there's one thing you can see, here, 
 which you didn't in Ghirlandajo's fresco, unless 1 
 you were very clever and looked hard for it the 
 Baby ! And you are never likely to see a more 
 true piece of Giotto's work in this world. 
 
 A round-faced, small-eyed little thing, tied up 
 in a bundle ! 
 
 Yes, Giotto was of opinion she must have
 
 THE GOLDEN GATE. 29 
 
 appeared really not much else than that. But 
 look at the servant who has just finished dressing 
 her ; awe-struck, full of love and wonder, pufr- 
 ting her hand softly on the child's head, who has 
 never cried. The nurse, who has just taken her, 
 is the nurse, and no more : tidy in the extreme, 
 and greatly proud and pleased ; but would be as 
 much so with any other child. 
 
 Ghirlandajo's St. Anne (I ought to have told 
 you to notice that, you can, afterwards) is sitting 
 strongly up in bed, watching, if not directing, 
 all that is going on. Giotto's, lying down on 
 the pillow, leans her face on her hand; partly 
 exhausted, partly in deep thought. She knows 
 that all will be well done for the child, either 
 by the servants, or God ; she need not look after 
 anything. 
 
 At the foot of the bed is the midwife, and a 
 servant who has brought drink for St. Anne. 
 The servant stops, seeing her so quiet ; asking 
 the midwife, Shall I give it her now? The 
 midwife, her hands lifted under her robe, in 
 the attitude of thanksgiving, (with Giotto dis- 
 tinguishable always, though one doesn't know 
 how, from that of prayer,) answers, with her 
 look, " Let be she does not want anything." 
 
 At the door a single acquaintance is coming in, 
 to see the child. Of Ornament, there is only the 
 entirely simple outline of the vase which the 
 servant carries ; of colour, two or three masses
 
 SO MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 of sober red, and pure white, with brown and 
 
 grey- 
 That is all. And if you can be pleased with 
 this, you can see Florence. But if not, by all 
 means amuse yourself there, if you find it 
 amusing, as long as you like ; you can never 
 see it. 
 
 But if indeed you are pleased, ever so little, 
 with this fresco, think what that pleasure means. 
 I brought you, on purpose, round, through the 
 richest overture, and farrago of tweedledum and 
 tweedledee, I could find in Florence ; and here 
 is a tune of four notes, on a shepherd's pipe, 
 played by the picture of nobody ; and yet you 
 like it ! You know what music is, then. Here 
 is another little tune, by the same player, and 
 sweeter. I let you hear the simplest first. 
 
 The fresco on the left hand, with the bright 
 blue sky, and the rosy figures ! Why, anybody 
 might like that ! 
 
 Yes ; but, alas, all the blue sky is repainted. It 
 was blue always, however, and bright too ; and I 
 dare say, when the fresco was first done, anybody 
 did like it. 
 
 You know the story of Joachim and Anna, I 
 hope? Not that I do, myself, quite in the ins 
 and outs ; and if you don't, I'm not going to 
 keep you waiting while I tell it. All you need 
 know, and you scarcely, before this fresco, need 
 know so much, is, that here are an old husband
 
 THE GOLDEN GATE. 31 
 
 and old wife, meeting again by surprise, after 
 losing each other, and being each in great fear ; 
 meeting at the place where they were told by 
 God each to go, without knowing what was to 
 happen there. 
 
 ' So they rushed into one another's arms, and 
 kissed each other.' 
 
 No, says Giotto, not that. 
 
 1 They advanced to meet, in a manner conform- 
 able to the strictest laws of composition ; and 
 with their draperies cast into folds which no one 
 until Raphael could have arranged better.' 
 
 No, says Giotto, not that. 
 
 St. Anne has moved quickest ; her dress just 
 falls into folds sloping backwards enough to tell 
 you so much. She has caught St. Joachim by 
 his mantle, and draws him to her, softly, by that. 
 St. Joachim lays his hand under her arm, seeing 
 she is like to faint, and holds her up. They do 
 not kiss each other only look into each other's 
 eyes. And God's angel lays his hand on their 
 heads. 
 
 Behind them, there are two rough figures, 
 busied with their own affairs, two of Joachim's 
 shepherds; one, bare-headed, the other wearing the 
 wide Florentine cap with the falling point behind, 
 which is exactly like the tube of a larkspur or 
 violet ; both carrying game, and talking to each 
 other about Greasy Joan and her pot, or the 
 like. Not at air the sort of persons whom you
 
 32 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 would have thought in harmony with the scene ; 
 by the laws of the drama, according to Racine 
 or Voltaire. 
 
 No, but according to Shakespeare, or Giotto, 
 these are just the kind of persons likely to be 
 there : as much as the angel is likely to be there 
 also, though you will be told nowadays that 
 Giotto was absurd for putting him into the sky, 
 of which an apothecary can always produce the 
 similar blue, in a bottle. And now that you have 
 had Shakespeare, and sundry other men of head 
 and heart, following the track of this shepherd 
 lad, you can forgive him his grotesques in the 
 corner. But that he should have forgiven them 
 to himself, after the training he had had, this 
 is the wonder ! We have seen simple pictures 
 enough in our day; and therefore we think that 
 of course shepherd boys will sketch shepherds : 
 what wonder is there in that? 
 
 I can show you how in this shepherd boy it 
 was very wonderful indeed, if you will walk for 
 five minutes back into the church with me, and 
 up into the chapel at the end of the south tran- 
 sept, at least if the day is bright, and you get 
 the Sacristan to undraw the window-curtain in 
 the transept itself. For then the light of it will 
 be enough to show you the entirely authentic 
 and most renowned work of Giotto's master ; 
 and you will see through what schooling the 
 lad had gone.
 
 THE GOLDEN GATE. 33 
 
 A good and brave master lie was, if ever 
 boy had one ; and, as you will find when you 
 know really who the great men are, the master 
 is half their life ; and well they know it always 
 naming themselves from their master, rather than 
 their families. See then what kind of work Giotto 
 had been first put to. There is, literally, not a 
 square inch of all that panel some ten feet high 
 by six or seven wide which is not wrought in 
 gold and colour with the fineness of a Greek 
 manuscript. There is not such an elaborate piece 
 of ornamentation in the first page of any Gothic 
 king's missal, as you will find in that Madonna's 
 throne ; the Madonna herself is meant to be 
 grave and noble only; and to be attended only 
 by angels. 
 
 And here is this saucy imp of a lad declares 
 his people must do without gold, and without 
 thrones ; nay, that the Golden Gate itself shall 
 have no gilding, that St. Joachim and St. Anne 
 shall have only one angel between them ; and 
 their servants shall have their joke, and nobody 
 say them nay ! 
 
 It is most wonderful ; and would have been 
 impossible, had Cimabue been a common man, 
 though ever so great in his own way. Nor could 
 I in any of my former thinking understand how 
 it was, till I saw Cimabue's own work at Assisi; 
 in which he shows himself, at heart, as inde- 
 pendent of his gold as Giotto, even more intense,
 
 34 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 capable of higher things than Giotto, though of 
 none, perhaps, so keen or sweet. But to this 
 day, among all the Mater Dolorosas of Christi- 
 anity, Cimabue's at Assisi is the noblest ; nor did 
 any painter after him add one link to the chain 
 of thought with which he summed the creation 
 of the earth, and preached its redemption. 
 
 He evidently never checked the boy, from the 
 first day he found him. Showed him all he 
 knew : talked with him of many things he felt 
 himself unable to paint : made him a workman 
 and a gentleman, above all, a Christian, yet 
 left him a shepherd. And Heaven had made 
 him such a painter, that, at his height, the words 
 of his epitaph are in nowise overwrought : " Ille 
 ego sum, per quern pictura extinct a revixit." 
 
 A word or two, now, about the repainting by 
 which this pictura extincta has been revived to 
 meet existing taste. The sky is entirely daubed 
 over with fresh blue ; yet it leaves with un- 
 usual care the original outline of the descending 
 angel, and of the white clouds about his body. 
 This idea of the angel laying his hands on the two 
 heads (as a bishop at Confirmation does, in a 
 hurry ; and I've seen one sweep four together, like 
 Arnold de Winkelried), partly in blessing, partly 
 as a symbol of their being brought together to 
 the same place by God, was afterwards repeated 
 again and again : there is one beautiful little echo 
 of it among the old pictures in the schools of
 
 THE GOLDEN GATE. 35 
 
 Oxford. This is the first occurrence of it that 
 I know in pure Italian painting ; but the idea is 
 Etruscan-Greek, and is used by the Etruscan 
 sculptors of the door of the Baptistery of Pisa, of 
 the evil angel, who 'lays the heads together' of 
 two very different persons from these Herodias 
 and her daughter. 
 
 Joachim, and the shepherd with the larkspur 
 cap, are both quite safe ; the other shepherd a 
 little reinforced : the black bunches of grass, 
 hanging about, are retouches. They were once 
 bunches of plants drawn with perfect delicacy 
 and care ; you may see one left, faint, with 
 heart-shaped leaves, on the highest ridge of rock 
 above the shepherds. The whole landscape is, 
 however, quite undecipherably changed and 
 spoiled. 
 
 You will be apt to think, at first, that if 
 anything has been restored, surely the ugly shep- 
 herd's uglier feet have. No, not at all. Restored 
 feet are always drawn with entirely orthodox and 
 academical toes, like the Apollo Belvidere's. You 
 would have admired them very much. These are 
 Giotto's own doing, every bit ; and a precious 
 business he has had of it, trying again and again 
 in vain. Even hands were difficult enough to 
 him, at this time ; but feet, and bare legs ! Well, 
 he'll have a try, he thinks, and gets really a fair 
 line at last, when you are close to it ; but, laying 
 the light on the ground afterwards, he dare not
 
 36 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 touch this precious and dear-bought outline. 
 Stops all round it, a quarter of an inch off,* with 
 such effect as you see. But if you want to know 
 what sort of legs and feet he can draw, look at 
 our lambs, in the corner of the fresco under the 
 arch on your left ! 
 
 And there is yet one on your right, though 
 more repainted the little Virgin presenting her- 
 self at the Temple, about which I could also say 
 much. The stooping figure, kissing the hem of 
 her robe without her knowing, is, as far as I 
 remember, first in this fresco ; the origin, itself, 
 of the main design in all the others you know 
 so well; (and with its steps, by the way, in 
 better perspective already than most of them). 
 
 "This the original one!" you will be inclined 
 to exclaim, if you have any general knowledge 
 of subsequent art. " This Giotto ! why it's a 
 cheap rechauffe of Titian ! " No, my friend. 
 The boy who tried so hard to draw those steps 
 in perspective had been carried down others, to 
 his grave, two hundred years before Titian ran 
 alone at Cadore. But, as surely as Venice looks 
 on the sea, Titian looked upon this, and caught 
 the reflected light of it for ever. 
 
 What kind of boy is this, think you, who can 
 make Titian his copyist, Dante his friend? 
 
 * Perhaps it is only the restorer's white on the ground that 
 stops ; but I think a restorer would never have been so wise, 
 but have gone right up to the outline, and spoiled all.
 
 THE GOLDEN GATE. 37 
 
 What new power is here which is to change 
 the heart of Italy ? can you see it, feel it, 
 writing before you these words on the faded 
 wall? 
 
 " You shall see things as they Are." 
 " And the least with the greatest, because 
 God made them." 
 
 " And the greatest with the least, because God 
 made you, and gave you eyes and a heart." 
 
 I. You shall see things as they Are. So 
 easy a matter that, you think? So much more 
 difficult and sublime to paint grand processions 
 and golden thrones, than St. Anne faint on her 
 pillow, and her servant at pause? 
 
 Easy or not, it is all the sight that is re- 
 quired of you in this world, to see things, 
 and men, and yourself, as they are. 
 
 II. And the least, with the greatest, because 
 God made them, shepherd, and flock, and grass 
 of the field, no less than the Golden Gate. 
 
 III. But also the golden gate of Heaven itself, 
 open, and the angels of God coming down from 
 it. 
 
 These three things Giotto taught, and men 
 believed, in his day. Of which Faith you shall 
 next see brighter work ; only, before we leave 
 the cloister, I want to sum for you one or two 
 of the instant and evident technical changes pro- 
 duced in the school of Florence by this teaching. 
 
 One of quite the first results of Giotto's simply
 
 38 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 looking at things as they were, was his finding 
 out that a red thing was red, and a brown thing 
 brown, and a white thing white all over. 
 
 The Greeks had painted anything anyhow, 
 gods black, horses red, lips and cheeks white : 
 and when the Etruscan vase expanded into a 
 Cimabue picture, or a Tafi mosaic, still, except 
 that the Madonna was to have a blue dress, and 
 everything else as much gold on it as could be 
 managed, there was very little advance in notions 
 of colour. Suddenly, Giotto threw aside all the 
 glitter, and all the conventionalism ; and declared 
 that he saw the sky blue, the tablecloth white, 
 and angels, when he dreamed of them, rosy. And 
 he simply founded the schools of colour in Italy 
 Venetian and all, as I will show you to-morrow 
 morning, if it is fine. And what is more, nobody 
 discovered much about colour after him. 
 
 But a deeper result of his resolve to look at 
 things as they were, was his getting so heartily 
 interested in them that he couldn't miss their 
 decisive moment. There is a decisive instant 
 in all matters ; and if you look languidly, you 
 are sure to miss it. Nature seems always, some- 
 how, trying to make you miss it. ; I will see 
 that through,' you must say, 'without turning my 
 head'; or you won't see the trick of it at all. And 
 the most significant thing in all his work, you will 
 find hereafter, is his choice of moments. I will 
 give you at once two instances in a picture which,
 
 THE GOLDEN GATE. 39 
 
 for other reasons, you should quickly compare 
 with these frescos. Return by the Via delle Belle 
 Donne ; keep the Casa Strozzi on your righ't ; 
 and go straight on, through the market. The 
 Florentines think themselves so civilized, for- 
 sooth, for Luilding a nuovo Lung-ArnO, and 
 three manufactory chimneys opposite it ; and yet 
 sell butchers' meat, dripping red, peaches, and 
 anchovies, side by side : it is a sight to be seen. 
 Much more, Luca della Robbia's Madonna in 
 the circle above the chapel door. Never pass 
 near the market without looking at it ; and 
 glance from the vegetables underneath to Luca's 
 leaves and lilies, that you may see how honestly 
 he was trying to make his clay like the garden- 
 stun 7 . But to-day, you may pass quickly on to 
 the Uffizii, which will be just open ; and when 
 you enter the great gallery, turn to the right, 
 and there, the first picture you come at will be 
 No. G, Giotto's "Agony in the Garden." 
 
 I used to think it so dull, that I could not 
 believe it was Giotto's. That is partly from its 
 dead colour, which is the boy's way of telling 
 you it is night : more, from the subject being 
 one quite beyond his age, and which he felt no 
 pleasure in trying at. You may see he was 
 still a boy, for he not only cannot draw feet yet, 
 in the least, and scrupulously hides them there- 
 fore ; but is very hard put to it for the hands, 
 being obliged to draw them mostly in the same
 
 40 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 position, all the four fingers together. But in 
 the careful bunches of grass and weeds you will 
 see what the fresco foregrounds were, before 
 they got spoiled ; and there are some things he 
 can understand already, even about that Agony, 
 thinking of it in his own fixed way. Some 
 things, not altogether to be explained by the 
 old symbol of the angel with the cup. He will 
 try if he cannot explain them better in those two 
 little pictures below ; which nobody ever looks 
 at ; the great Roman sarcophagus being put in 
 front of them, and the light glancing on the 
 new varnish so that you must twist about like 
 a lizard to see anything. Nevertheless, you may 
 make out what Giotto meant. 
 
 " The cup which my Father hath given me, 
 shall I not drink it?" In what was its bitter- 
 ness? thought the boy. 'Crucifixion? Well, 
 it hurts, doubtless ; but the thieves had to bear 
 it too, and many poor human wretches have to 
 bear worse, on our battlefields. But ' and he 
 thinks, and thinks, and then he paints his two 
 lit.tle pictures, for the predella. 
 
 They represent, of course, the sequence of the 
 time in Gethsemane ; but see what choice the 
 youth made of his moments, having two panels 
 to fill. Plenty of choice for him in pain. The 
 Flagellation the Mocking the Bearing the 
 Cross; all habitually given by the Margheri- 
 tones, and their school, as extremes of pain.
 
 THE GOLDEN GATE. 41 
 
 1 No,' thinks Giotto. ' There was worse than 
 all that. Many a good man has been mocked, 
 spitefully entreated, spitted on, slain. But who 
 was ever so betrayed? Who ever saw such a 
 sword thrust in his mother's heart?' 
 
 He paints, first, the laying hands on Him in 
 the garden, but with only two principal figures, 
 Judas and Peter, of course ; Judas and Peter 
 were always principal in the old Byzantine com- 
 position, Judas giving the kiss Peter cutting 
 off the servant's ear. But the two are here, not 
 merely principal, but almost alone in sight, all 
 the other figures thrown back ; and Peter is 
 not at all concerned about the servant, or his 
 struggle with him. He has got him down, but 
 looks back suddenly at Judas giving the kiss. 
 What ! you are the traitor, then you ! 
 
 ' Yes,' says Giotto ; ' and you, also, in an 
 hour more.' 
 
 The other picture is more deeply felt, still. It 
 is of Christ brought to the foot of the cross. 
 There is no wringing of hands or lamenting 
 crowd no haggard signs of fainting or pain in 
 His body. Scourging or fainting, feeble knee 
 and torn wound, he thinks scorn of all that, 
 this shepherd-boy. One executioner is hammer- 
 ing the wedges of the cross harder down. The 
 other not ungently is taking Christ's red 
 robe off His shoulders. And St. John, a few 
 yards off, is keeping his mother from coming 
 
 4
 
 42 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 nearer. She looks down, not at Christ ; but trie? 
 to come. 
 
 And now you may go on for your day's seeings 
 through the rest of the gallery, if you will 
 Fornarina, and the wonderful cobbler, and all 
 the rest of it. I don't want you any more, till 
 to-morrow morning. 
 
 But if, meantime, you will sit down, say. 
 before ISandro Botticelli's 'Fortitude', which I 
 shall want you to look at, one of these days ; 
 (No. 1299, innermost room from the Tribune,) 
 and there read this following piece of one of 
 my Oxford lectures on the relation of Cimabue 
 to Giotto, you will be better prepared for our 
 work to-morrow morning in Santa Croce ; and 
 may find something to consider of, in the room 
 you are in. Where, by the way, observe that No. 
 1288 is a most true early Lionardo, of extreme 
 
 interest; and the savants who doubt it are 
 
 never mind what ; but sit down at present at 
 the feet of Fortitude ; and read. 
 
 Those of my readers who have been unfortu- 
 nate enough to interest themselves in that most 
 profitless of studies the Philosophy of art 
 have been at various times teased or amused 
 by disputes respecting the relative dignity of 
 the contemplative and dramatic schools. 
 
 Contemplative of course, being the term at- 
 tached to the system of painting things only
 
 THE GOLDEN GATE. 43 
 
 for the sake of their own niceness a lady be- 
 cause she is pretty, or a lion because he is 
 strong : and the dramatic school being that 
 \vhich cannot be satisfied unless it sees some- 
 thing going on : which can't paint a pretty 
 lady unless she is being made love to, or being 
 murdered ; and can't paint a stag or a lion? 
 unless they are being hunted, or shot, or the one 
 eating the other. 
 
 You have always heard me or, if not, will 
 expect by the very tone of this sentence to 
 hear me, now, on the whole recommend you to 
 prefer the Contemplative school. But the com- 
 parison is always an imperfect and unjust one, 
 unless quite other terms are introduced. 
 
 The real greatness or smallness of schools is 
 not in their preference of inactivity to action, 
 nor of action to inactivity. It is in their pre- 
 ference of worthy things to unworthy, in rest ; 
 and of kind action to unkind, in business. 
 
 A Dutchman can be just as solemnly and 
 entirely contemplative of a lemon pip and a 
 cheese paring, as an Italian of the Virgin in 
 Glory. An English squire has pictures, purely 
 contemplative, of his favourite horse and a 
 Parisian lady, pictures, purely contemplative, 
 of the back and front of the last dress pro- 
 posed to her in La Mode Artistique. All these 
 works belong to the same school of silent ad-
 
 44 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 miration ; the vital question concerning them 
 is, ' What do you admire ? ' 
 
 Now therefore, when you hear me so often 
 saying that the Northern races Norman and 
 Lombard, are active, or dramatic, in their art ; 
 and that the Southern races Greek and Arabian, 
 are contemplative, you ought instantly to ask 
 farther, Active in what? Contemplative of what? 
 And the answer is, The active art Lombardic, 
 rejoices in hunting and fighting ; the con- 
 templative art Byzantine, contemplates the 
 mysteries of the Christian faith. 
 
 And at first, on such answer, one would be 
 apt at once to conclude All grossness must be 
 in the Lombard ; all good in the Byzantine. 
 But again we should be wrong, and extremely 
 wrong. For the hunting and fighting did prac- 
 tically produce strong, and often virtuous, men ; 
 while the perpetual and inactive contemplation of 
 Avhat it was impossible to understand, did not 
 on the whole render the contemplative persons 
 stronger, wiser, or even more amiable. So 
 that, in the twelfth century, while the Northern 
 art was only in need of direction, the Southern 
 was in need of life. The North was indeed 
 spending its valour and virtue on ignoble objects ; 
 but the South disgracing the noblest objects by 
 its want of valour and virtue. 
 
 Central stood Etruscan Florence her root in 
 the earth, bound with iron and brass wet with
 
 THE GOLDEX GATE. 45 
 
 the dew of heaven. Agricultural in occupation, 
 religious in thought, she accepted, like good 
 ground, the good ; refused, like the Rock of 
 Fesole, the evil ; directed the industry of the 
 Northman into the arts of peace; kindled the 
 dreams of the Byzantine with th3 fire of charity. 
 Child of her peace, and exponent of her passion, 
 her Cimabue became the interpreter to mankind 
 of the meaning of the Birth of Christ. 
 
 We hear constantly, and think naturally, of 
 him as of a man whose peculiar genius in 
 painting suddenly reformed its principles ; who 
 suddenly painted, out of his own gifted imagi- 
 nation, beautiful instead of rude pictures ; and 
 taught his scholar Giotto to carry on the 
 impulse ; which we suppose thenceforward to 
 have enlarged the resources and bettered the 
 achievements of painting continually, up to our 
 own time, when the triumphs of art having 
 been completed, and its uses ended, something 
 higher is offered to the ambition of mankind ; 
 and Watt and Faraday initiate the Age of 
 Manufacture and Science, as Cimabue and 
 Giotto instituted that of Art and Imagination. 
 
 In this conception of the History of mental 
 and Physical culture, we much overrate the 
 influence, though we cannot overrate the power, 
 of the men by whom the change seems to have 
 been effected. We cannot overrate their power, 
 for the greatest men of any age, those who
 
 4G MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 become its leaders when there is a great march 
 to be begun, are indeed separated from the 
 average intellects of their day by a distance 
 which is immeasurable in any ordinary terms 
 of wonder. 
 
 But we far overrate their influence; because 
 the apparently sudden result of their labour or 
 invention is only the manifested fruit of the 
 toil and thought of many who preceded them, 
 and of whose names we have never heard. The 
 skill of Cimabue cannot be extolled too highly; 
 but no Madonna by his hand could ever have 
 rejoiced the soul of Italy, unless for a thousand 
 years before, many a nameless Greek and name- 
 less G-oth had adorned the traditions, and lived 
 in the love, of the Virgin. 
 
 In like manner, it is impossible to overrate the 
 sagacity, patience, or precision, of the masters 
 in modern mechanical and scientific discovery. 
 But their sudden triumph, and the unbalancing 
 of all the world by their words, may not in any 
 wise be attributed to their own power, or even to 
 that of the facts they have ascertained. They 
 owe their habits and methods of industry to the 
 paternal example, no less than the inherited 
 energy, of men who long ago prosecuted the 
 truths of nature, through the rage of war, and 
 the adversity of superstition ; and the universal 
 and overwhelming consequences of the facts 
 which their followers have now proclaimed, indi-
 
 THE GOLDEN GATE. 47 
 
 cate only the crisis of a rapture produced by the 
 offering of new objects of curiosity to nations 
 who had nothing to look at ; and of the amuse- 
 ment of novel motion and action to nations who 
 had nothing to do. 
 
 Nothing to look at! That is indeed you 
 will find, if you consider of it our sorrowful 
 case. The vast extent of the advertising frescos 
 of London, daily refreshed into brighter and 
 larger fresco by its billstickers, cannot some- 
 how sufficiently entertain the popular eyes. The 
 great Mrs. Allen, with her flowing hair, and 
 equally flowing promises, palls upon repetition, 
 "and that Madonna of the nineteenth century 
 smiles in vain above many a borgo unrejoiced : 
 even the excitement of the shop-window, with 
 its unattainable splendours, or too easily attain- 
 able impostures, cannot maintain itself in the 
 wearying mind of the populace, and I find my 
 charitable friends inviting the children, whom 
 the streets educate only into vicious misery, to 
 entertainments of scientific vision, in microscope 
 or magic lantern; thus giving them something 
 to look at, such as it is ; fleas mostly ; and 
 the stomachs of various vermin ; and people with 
 their heads cut off and set on again ; still some- 
 thing, to look at. 
 
 The fame of Cimabue rests, and justly, on a 
 similar charity. He gave the populace of his 
 day something to look at ; and satisfied their
 
 48 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 curiosity with science of something they had 
 long desired to know. We have continually 
 imagined in our carelessness, that his triumph 
 consisted only in a new pictorial skill ; recent 
 critical writers, unable to comprehend how any 
 street populace could take pleasure in painting, 
 have ended by denying his triumph altogether, 
 and insisted that he gave no joy to Florence ; 
 and that the 'Joyful quarter' was accidentally 
 so named or at least from no other festivity 
 than that of the procession attending Charles of 
 Anjou. I proved to you, in a former lecture, 
 that the old tradition was true, and the delight 
 of the people unquestionable. But that delight 
 was not merely in the revelation of an art they 
 had not known how to practise ; it was delight 
 in the revelation of a Madonna whom they had 
 not known how to love. 
 
 Again ; what was revelation to them we sup- 
 pose farther and as unwisely, to have been only 
 art in him; that in better laying of colours, in 
 better tracing of perspectives in recovery of 
 principles of classic composition he had manu- 
 factured, as our Gothic Firms now manufacture 
 to order, a Madonna in whom he believed no 
 more than they. 
 
 Not so. First of the Florentines, first of 
 European men he attained in thought, and saw 
 with spiritual eyes, exercised to discern good from 
 evil, the face of her who was blessed among
 
 THE GOLDEN GATE. 49 
 
 women ; and with his following hand, made 
 visible the Magnificat of his heart. 
 
 He magnified the Maid ; and Florence rejoiced 
 in her Queen. But it was left for Giotto to 
 make the queenship better beloved, in its sweet 
 humiliation. 
 
 You had the Etruscan stock in Florence 
 Christian, or at least semi-Christian ; the statue 
 of Mars still in its streets, but with its central 
 temple built for Baptism in the name of Christ. 
 It was a race living by agriculture ; gentle, 
 thoughtful, and exquisitely fine in handiwork. 
 The straw bonnet of Tuscany the Leghorn is 
 pure Etruscan art, young ladies : only plaited 
 gold of God's harvest, instead of the plaited gold 
 of His earth. 
 
 You had then the Norman and Lombard races 
 coming down on this : kings, and hunters 
 splendid in war insatiable of action. You had 
 the Greek and Arabian races flowing from the 
 east, bringing with them the law of the City, 
 and the dream of the Desert. 
 
 Cimabue Etruscan born, gave, we saw, the 
 life of the Norman to the tradition of the 
 Greek : eager action to holy contemplation. 
 And what more is left for his favourite shepherd 
 boy Giotto to do, than this, except to paint with 
 over-increasing skill? We fancy he only sur- 
 passed Cimabue eclipsed by greater brightness. 
 
 Not so. The sudden and new applause of Italy
 
 50 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 would never have been won by mere increase of 
 the already-kindled light. Griotto had wholly 
 another work to do. The meeting of the Norman 
 race with the Byzantine is not merely that of 
 action with repose not merely that of war with 
 religion, it is the meeting of domestic life with 
 monastic, and of practical household sense with 
 unpractical Desert insanity. 
 
 I have no other word to use than this last. I 
 use it reverently, meaning a very noble thing ; 
 I do not know how far I ought to say even a 
 divine thing. Decide that for yourselves. Com- 
 pare the Northern farmer with St. Francis ; the 
 palm hardened by stubbing Thornaby waste, 
 with the palm softened by the imagination of 
 the wounds of Christ. To my own thoughts, 
 both are divine : decide that for yourselves ; 
 but assuredly, and without possibility of other 
 decision, one is, humanly speaking, healthy; the 
 other wfthealthy ; one sane, the other insane. 
 
 To reconcile Drama with Dream, Cimabue's 
 task was comparatively an easy one. But to 
 reconcile Sense with I still use even this fol- 
 lowing word reverently Non-sense, is not so 
 easy; and he who did it first, no wonder he 
 has a name in the world. 
 
 I must lean, however, still more distinctly on 
 the word ' domestic.' For it is not Rationalism 
 and commercial competition Mr. Stuart Mill's 
 i other career for woman than that of wife and
 
 THE GOLDEN GATE. 51 
 
 mother' which are reconcileable, by Giotto, or by 
 anybody else, with divine vision. But household 
 wisdom, labour of love, toil upon earth according 
 to the law of Heaven these are reconcileable, 
 in one code of glory, with revelation in cave or 
 island, with the endurance of desolate and love- 
 less days, with the repose of folded hands that 
 wait Heaven's time. 
 
 Domestic, and monastic. He was the first of 
 Italians the first of Christians who equally 
 knew the virtue of both lives ; and who was able 
 to show it in the sight of men of all ranks, from 
 the prince to the shepherd ; and of all powers, 
 from the wisest philosopher to the simplest child. 
 
 For, note the way in which the new gift of 
 painting, bequeathed to him by his great master, 
 strengthened his hands. Before Cimabue, no 
 beautiful rendering of human form was possible; 
 and the rude or formal types of the Lombard 
 and Byzantine, though they would serve in 
 the tumult of the chase, or as the recognized 
 symbols of creed, could not represent personal 
 and domestic character. Faces with goggling 
 eyes and rigid lips might be endured with ready 
 help of imagination, for gods, angels, saints, or 
 hunters or for anybody else in scenes of recog- 
 nized legend ; but would not serve for pleasant 
 portraiture of one's own self or of the incidents 
 of gentle, actual life. And even Cimabue did not 
 venture to leave the sphere of conventionally
 
 52 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 reverenced dignity. He still painted though 
 beautifully only the Madonna, and the St. Joseph, 
 and the Christ. These he made living, Florence 
 asked no more : and " Credette Cimabue nella 
 pintura tener lo campo." 
 
 But Giotto came from the field ; and saw with 
 his simple eyes a lowlier worth. And he painted 
 the Madonna, and St. Joseph, and the Christ, 
 yes, by all means, if you choose to call them so, 
 but essentially, Mamma, Papa, and the Baby. 
 And all Italy threw up its cap, " Ora ha Giotto 
 il grido." 
 
 For he defines, explains, and exalts, every sweet 
 incident of human nature ; and makes dear to 
 daily life every mystic imagination of natures 
 greater than our own. He reconciles, while he 
 intensifies, every virtue of domestic and monastic 
 thought. He makes the simplest household duties 
 sacred ; and the highest religious passions, service- 
 able, and just.
 
 THE THIRD MORNING. 
 
 BEFOKE THE SOLDAN. 
 
 T PROMISED some note of Sandro's Fortitude, 
 -*- before whom I asked you to sit and read the 
 end of my last letter ; and I've lost my own notes 
 about her, and forget, now, whether she has a 
 sword, or a mace ; it does not matter. What is 
 chiefly notable in her is that you would not, if 
 you had to guess who she was, take ,her for 
 Fortitude at all. Everybody else's Fortitudes 
 announce themselves clearly and proudly. They 
 have tower-like shields, and lion-like helmets 
 and stand firm astride on their legs, and are 
 confidently ready for all comers. 
 
 Yes ; that is your common Fortitude. Very 
 grand, though common. But not the highest, by 
 any means. 
 
 Ready for all comers, and a match for them, 
 thinks the universal Fortitude ; no thanks to 
 her for standing so steady, then ! 
 
 But Botticelli's Fortitude is no match, it may 
 be, for any that are coming. Worn, somewhat ; 
 and not a little weary, instead of standing ready 
 for all comers, she is sitting, apparently in reverie, 
 
 5
 
 58 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 her fingers playing restlessly and idly nay, I 
 think even nervously, about the hilt of her 
 sword. 
 
 For her battle is not to begin to-day ; nor did 
 it begin yesterday. Many a morn and eve have 
 passed since it began and now is this to be the 
 ending day of it ? And if this ; by what manner 
 of end ? 
 
 That is what Sandro's Fortitude is thinking. 
 And the playing fingers about the sword-hilt 
 would fain let it fall, if it might be : and yet, 
 how swiftly and gladly will they close on it, 
 when the far-off trumpet blows, which she will 
 hear through all her reverie ! 
 
 There is yet another picture of Sandro's- here, 
 which you must look at before going back to 
 Giotto : the small Judith in the room next the 
 Tribune, as you return from this outer one. It 
 is just under Lionardo's Medusa. She is return- 
 ing to the camp of her Israel, followed by her 
 maid carrying the head of Holofernes. And she 
 walks in one of Botticelli's light dancing actions, 
 her drapery all on flutter, and her hand, like 
 Fortitude's, light on the sword-hilt, but daintily 
 not nervously, the little finger laid over the 
 cross of it. 
 
 And at the first glance you will think the 
 figure merely a piece of fifteenth-century affec- 
 tation. ' Judith, indeed ! say rather the daughter 
 of Herodias, at her mincingest.'
 
 BEFORE THE SOLDAX. 59 
 
 Well, yes Botticelli is affected, in the way 
 that all men in that century necessarily were. 
 Much euphuism, much studied grace of manner, 
 much formal assertion of scholarship, mingling 
 with his force of imagination. And he likes 
 twisting the fingers of hands about, just as 
 Correggio does. But he never does it like 
 Correggio, without cause. 
 
 Look at Judith again, at her face, not her 
 drapery, and remember that when a man is base 
 at the heart, he blights his virtues into weak- 
 nesses ; but when he is true at the heart, he 
 sanctifies his weaknesses into virtues. It is a 
 weakness of Botticelli's, this love of dancing 
 motion and waved drapery ; but why has he given 
 it full flight here ? 
 
 Do you happen to know anything about Judith 
 yourself, except that she cut off Holofernes' head ; 
 and has been made the high light of about a 
 million of vile pictures ever since, in which the 
 painters thought they could surely attract the 
 public to the double show of an execution, and a 
 pretty woman, especially with the added pleasure 
 of hinting at previously ignoble sin ? 
 
 When you go home to-day, take the pains to 
 write out for yourself, in the connection I here 
 place them, the verses underneath numbered from 
 the book of Judith ; you will probably think of 
 their meaning more carefully as you write. 
 
 Begin thus :
 
 60 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 " Now at that time, Judith heard thereof, Avhich 
 was the daughter of Merari, * * * the son of 
 Simeon, the son of Israel." And then write out, 
 consecutively, these pieces 
 
 Chapter viii., verses 2 to 8. (Always inclu- 
 sive,) and read the whole chapter. 
 
 Chapter ix., verses 1 and 5 to 7, beginning this 
 piece with the previous sentence, " Oh God, oh 
 my God, hear me also, a widow." 
 Chapter ix., verses 11 to 14. 
 
 x., 1 to 5. 
 
 xiii., 6 to 10. 
 
 xv., 11 to 13. 
 
 xvi. r 1 to 6. 
 
 xvi., 11 to 15. 
 
 xvi., 18 and ID. 
 
 xvi., - 23 to 25. 
 Now, as in many other cases of noble history, 
 apocryphal and other, I do not in the least care 
 how far the literal facts are true. The conception 
 of facts, and the idea of Jewish womanhood, are 
 there, grand and real as a marble statue, pos- 
 session for all ages. And you will feel, after 
 you have read this piece of history, or epic 
 poetry, with honourable care, that there is some- 
 what more to be thought of and pictured in 
 Judith, than painters have mostly found it in 
 them to show you : that she is not merely the 
 Jewish Dalilah to the Assyrian Samson ; but the 
 mightiest, purest, brightest type of high passion
 
 BEFORE THE SOLDAX. 6t 
 
 in severe womanhood offered to our human 
 memory. Sandro's picture is but slight ; but it 
 is true to her, and the only one I know that is ; 
 and after writing out these verses, you will see 
 why he gives her that swift, peaceful motion, 
 while you read in her face, only sweet solem- 
 nity of dreaming thought. " My people delivered, 
 and by my hand ; and God has been gracious to 
 His handmaid!" The triumph of Miriam over a 
 fallen host, the fire of exulting mortal life in an 
 immortal hour, the purity and severity of a 
 guardian angel all are here ; and as her servant 
 follows, carrying indeed the head, but invisible 
 (a mere thing to be carried no more to be 
 so much as thought of) she looks only at her 
 mistress, with intense, servile, watchful love. 
 Faithful, not in these days of fear only, but 
 hitherto in all her life, and afterwards for 
 ever. 
 
 After you have seen it enough, look also for 
 a little while at Angelico's Marriage and Death 
 of the Virgin, in the same room ; you may after- 
 wards associate the three pictures always together 
 in your mind. And, looking at nothing else 
 to-day in the Uffizii, let us go back to Giotto's 
 chapel. 
 
 AVe must begin with this work on our lef: 
 hand, the Death of St. Francis; for it is the 
 key to all the rest. Let us hear first what 
 Mr. Crowe directs us to think of it. " In the
 
 62 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 composition of this scene, Giotto produced a 
 masterpiece, which served as a model but too 
 often feebly imitated by his successors. Good 
 arrangement, variety of character and expression 
 in the heads, unity and harmony in the whole, 
 make this an exceptional work of its kind. As 
 a composition, worthy of the fourteenth century, 
 Ghirlandajo and Benedetto da Majano both imi- 
 tated, without being able to improve it. No 
 painter ever produced its equal except Raphael ; 
 nor could a better be created except in so far 
 as regards improvement in the mere rendering 
 of form." 
 
 To these inspiring observations by the rapturous 
 Crowe, more cautious Cavalcasella* appends a 
 refrigerating note, saying " The St. Francis in the 
 glory is new, but the angels are in part preserved. 
 The rest has all been more or less retouched ; and 
 no judgment can be given as to the colour of this 
 or any other (!) of these works." 
 
 You are, therefore instructed reader called 
 upon to admire a piece of art which no painter 
 ever produced the equal of except Raphael ; but 
 it is unhappily deficient, according to Crowe, in 
 
 * I venture to attribute the wiser note to Signor Caval- 
 casella because I have every reason to put real confidence 
 in his judgment. But it was impossible for any man 
 engaged as he is, to go over all the ground covered by 
 so extensive a piece of critical work as these three volumes 
 contain, with effective attention.
 
 BEFORE THE SOLDAN. 63 
 
 the " mere rendering of form " ; and, according 
 to Signer Cavalcasella, "no opinion can be given 
 as to its colour." 
 
 Warned thus of the extensive places where 
 the ice is dangerous, and forbidden to look here 
 either for form or colour, you are to admire 
 " the variety of character and expression in the 
 heads." I do not myself know how these are to 
 be given without form or colour ; but there 
 appears to me, in my innocence, to be only one 
 head in the whole picture, drawn up and down in 
 different positions. 
 
 The "unity and harmony" of the whole 
 which make this an exceptional work of its kind 
 mean, I suppose, its general look of having 
 been painted out of a scavenger's cart ; and so 
 we are reduced to the last article of our creed 
 according to Crowe, 
 
 " In the composition of this scene Giotto pro- 
 duced a masterpiece." 
 
 Well, possibly. The question is, What you 
 mean by 'composition.' Which, putting modern 
 criticism now out of our way, I will ask the reader 
 to think, in front of this wreck of Giotto, with 
 some care. 
 
 Was it, in the first place, to Giotto, think you, 
 the " composition of a scene," or the conception 
 of a fact ? You probably, if a fashionable person, 
 have seen the apotheosis of Margaret in Faust ? 
 You know what care is taken, nightly, in the
 
 64 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 composition of that scene, how the draperies 
 are arranged for it; the lights turned off, and 
 on; the fiddlestrings taxed for their utmost ten- 
 derness ; the bassoons exhorted to a grievous 
 solemnity. 
 
 You don't believe, however, that any real soul 
 of a Margaret ever appeared to any mortal in that 
 manner ? 
 
 Here is an apotheosis also. Composed ! yes ; 
 figures high on the right and left, low in the 
 middle, etc., etc., etc. 
 
 But the important questions seem to me, Was 
 there ever a St. Francis? did he ever receive 
 stigmata ? did his soul go up to heaven did any 
 monk see it rising and did Giotto mean to tell 
 us so ? If you will be good enough to settle these 
 few small points in your mind first, the " com- 
 position" will take a wholly different aspect to 
 you, according to your answer. 
 
 Nor does it seem doubtful to me what your 
 answer, after investigation made, must be. 
 
 There assuredly was a St. Francis, whose life 
 and works you had better study than either to-day's 
 Gmlignani, or whatever, this year, may supply the 
 place of the Tichborne case, in public interest. 
 
 His reception of the stigmata is, perhaps, a 
 marvellous instance of the power of imagination 
 over physical conditions ; perhaps an equally mar- 
 vellous instance of the swift change of metaphor 
 into tradition ; but assuredly, and beyond dispute,
 
 BEFORE THE SOLD AN. 65 
 
 one of the most influential, significant, and in- 
 structive traditions possessed by the Church of 
 Christ. And, that, if ever soul rose to heaven 
 from the dead body, his soul did so rise, is equally 
 sure. 
 
 And, finally, Giotto believed that all he was 
 called on to represent, concerning St. Francis, 
 really had taken place, just as surely as you, if you 
 are a Christian, believe that Christ died and rose 
 again ; and he represents it with all fidelity and 
 passion : but, as I just now said, he is a man of 
 supreme common sense ; has as much humour 
 and clearness of sight as Chaucer, and as much 
 dislike of falsehood in clergy, or in professedly 
 pious people : and in his gravest moments he will 
 still see and say truly that what is fat, is fat 
 and what is lean, lean and what is hollow, 
 empty. 
 
 His great point, however, in this fresco, is the 
 assertion of the reality of the stigmata against all 
 question. There is not only one St. Thomas to 
 be convinced ; there are five ; one to each wound. 
 Of these, four are intent only on satisfying their 
 curiosity, and are peering or probing ; one only 
 kisses the hand he has lifted. The rest of the 
 picture never was much more than a grey drawing 
 of a noble burial service ; of all concerned in 
 which, one monk, only, is worthy to see the soul 
 taken up to heaven ; and he is evidently just the 
 monk whom nobody in the convent thought any-
 
 66 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 thing of. (His face is all repainted ; but one can 
 gather this much, or little, out of it, yet.) 
 
 Of the composition, or " unity and harmony of 
 the whole," as a burial service, we may better 
 judge after we have looked at the brighter picture 
 of St. Francis's Birth birth spiritual, that is to 
 say, to his native heaven ; the uppermost, namely, 
 of the three subjects on this side of the chapel. 
 It is entirely characteristic of Giotto ; much of it 
 by his hand all of it beautiful. All important 
 matters to be known of Giotto you may know 
 from this fresco. 
 
 1 But we can't see it, even with our opera- 
 glasses, but all foreshortened and spoiled. What 
 is the use of lecturing us on this ? ' 
 
 That is precisely the first point which is 
 essentially Giottesque in it ; its being so out 
 of the way ! It is this which makes it a 
 perfect specimen of the master. I will tell you 
 next something about a work of his which you 
 can see perfectly, just behind you on the 
 opposite side of the wall ; but that you have 
 half to break your neck to look at this one, is 
 the very first thing I want you to feel. 
 
 It is a characteristic (as far as I know, quite 
 a universal one) of the greatest masters, that 
 they never expect you to look at them ; seem 
 always rather surprised if you want to ; and not 
 overpleased. Tell them you are going to hang 
 their picture at the upper end of the table
 
 BEFORE THE SOLDAX. 67 
 
 at the next great City dinner, and that Mr. 
 So and So will make a speech about it ; you 
 produce no impression upon them whatever, or 
 an unfavourable one. The chances are ten to 
 one they send you the most rubbishy thing they 
 can find in their lumber-room. But send for one 
 of them in a hurry, and tell him the rats have 
 gnawed a nasty hole behind the parlour door, 
 and you want it plastered and painted over ^ 
 and he does you a masterpiece which the world 
 will peep behind your door to look at for ever. 
 
 I have no time to tell you why this is so; nor 
 do I know why, altogether ; but so it is. 
 
 Giotto, then, is sent for, to paint this high 
 chapel : I am not sure if he chose his own sub- 
 jects from the life of St. Francis : I think so, 
 but of course can't reason on the guess securely. 
 At all events, he would have much of his own 
 way in the matter. 
 
 Now you must observe that painting a Gothic 
 chapel rightly is just the same thing as paint- 
 ing a Greek vase rightly. The chapel is merely 
 the vase turned upside-down, and outside-in. 
 The principles of decoration are exactly the 
 same. Your decoration is to be proportioned to 
 the size of your vase ; to be together delightful 
 when you look at the cup, or chapel, as a whole ; 
 to be various and entertaining when you turn 
 the cup round ; (you turn yourself round in the 
 chapel ;) and to bend its heads and necks of figures
 
 68 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 about, as it best can, over the hollows, and ins and 
 outs, so that anyhow, whether too long or too 
 short possible or impossible they may be living, 
 and full of grace. You will also please take it 
 on my word to-day in another morning walk 
 you shall have proof of it that Griotto was a 
 pure Etruscan-Greek of the thirteenth century: 
 converted indeed to worship St. Francis instead 
 of Heracles ; but as far as vase-painting goes, 
 precisely the Etruscan he was before. This is 
 nothing else than a large, beautiful, coloured 
 Etruscan vase you have got, inverted over your 
 heads like a diving-bell.* 
 
 * I observe that recent criticism is engaged in proving all 
 Etruscan vases to be of late manufacture, in imitation of 
 archaic Greek. And I therefore must briefly anticipate a 
 statement which I shall have to enforce in following letters. 
 Etruscan art remains in its own Italian valleys, of the Arno 
 and upper Tiber, in one unbroken series of work, from the 
 seventh century before Christ, to this hour, when the country 
 whitewasher still scratches his plaster in Etruscan patterns. 
 All Florentine work of the finest kind Luca della Robbia's. 
 Ghiberti's, Donatello's, Filippo Lippi's, Botticelli's. Fra 
 Angelico's is absolutely pure Etruscan, merely changing its 
 subjects, and representing the Virgin instead of Athena, 
 and Christ instead of Jupiter. Every line of the Floren- 
 tine chisel in the fifteenth century is based on national 
 principles of art which existed in the seventh century before 
 Christ ; and Angelico, in his convent of St. Dominic, at the 
 root of the hill of F^sole, is as true an Etruscan as the builder 
 who laid the rude stones of the wall along its crest of 
 which modern civilization has used the only arch that re- 
 mained for cheap building stone. Luckily, I sketched it in 
 1845 : but alas, too carelessly, never conceiving of the 
 brutalities of modern Italy as possible.
 
 BEFORE THE SOLDAN. 69 
 
 Accordingly, after the quatrefoil ornamentation 
 of the top of the bell, you get two spaces at the 
 sides under arches, very difficult to cramp one's 
 picture into, if it is to be a picture only ; but 
 entirely provocative of our old Etruscan instinct 
 of ornament. And, spurred by the difficulty, and 
 pleased by the national character of it, we put our 
 best work into these arches, utterly neglectful of 
 the public below, who will see the white and red 
 and blue spaces, at any rate, which is all they 
 will want to see, thinks Giotto, if he ever looks 
 down from his scaffold. 
 
 Take the highest compartment, then, on the 
 left, looking towards the window. It was wholly 
 impossible to get the arch filled with figures, 
 unless they stood on each other's heads; so 
 Giotto ekes it out with a piece of fine architec- 
 ture. Raphael, in the Sposalizio, does the same, 
 for pleasure. 
 
 Then he puts two dainty little white figures, 
 bending, on each flank, to stop up his corners. 
 But he puts the taller inside on the right, and 
 outside on the left. And he puts his Greek 
 chorus of observant and moralizing persons on 
 each side of his main action. 
 
 Then he puts one Choragus or leader of 
 chorus, supporting the main action on each side. 
 Then he puts the main action in the middle 
 which is a quarrel about that white bone of 
 contention in the centre. Choragus on the right,
 
 70 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 who sees that the bishop is going to have the 
 best of it, backs him serenely. Choragus on 
 the left, who sees that his impetuous friend is 
 going to get the worst of it, is pulling him 
 back, and trying to keep him quiet. The sub- 
 ject of the picture, which, after you are 
 quite sure it is good as a decoration, but not 
 till then, yon may be allowed to understand, 
 is the following. One of St. Francis's three 
 great virtues being Obedience, he begins his 
 spiritual life by quarrelling with his father. He, 
 I suppose' in modern terms I should say, 'com- 
 mercially invests' some of his father's goods in 
 charity. His father objects to that investment ; 
 on which St. Francis runs away, taking what lie 
 can find about the house along with him. His 
 father follows to claim his property, but finds it 
 is all gone, already ; and that St. Francis has 
 made friends with the Bishop of Assisi. His 
 father flies into an indecent passion, and declares 
 he will disinherit him ; on which St. Francis 
 then and there takes all his clothes off, throws 
 them frantically in his father's face, and says he 
 has nothing more to do with clothes or father. 
 The good Bishop, in tears of admiration, embraces 
 St. Francis, and covers him with his own mantle. 
 
 I have read the picture to you as, if Mr. 
 Spurgeon knew anything about art, Mr. Spurgeon 
 would read it, that is to say, from the plain, 
 common sense, Protestant side. If you are
 
 BEFOKE THE SOLDAN. 71 
 
 content with that view of it, you may leave the 
 chapel, and, as far as any study of history is 
 concerned, Florence also ; for you can never know 
 anything either about Giotto, or her. 
 
 Yet do not be afraid of my re-reading it to 
 you from the mystic, nonsensical, and Papistical 
 side. I am going to read it to you if after 
 many and many a year of thought, I am able 
 as Giotto meant it ; Giotto being, as far as 
 we know, then the man of strongest brain and 
 hand in Florence ; the best friend of the best 
 religious poet of the world ; and widely differing, 
 as his friend did also, in his views of the world, 
 from either Mr. Spurgeon, or Pius IX. 
 
 The first duty of a child is to obey its father 
 and mother ; as the first duty of a citizen to 
 obey the laws of his state. And this duty is so 
 strict that I believe the only limits to it are those 
 fixed by Isaac and Iphigenia. On the other hand, 
 the father and mother have also a fixed duty to 
 the child not to provoke it to wrath. I have 
 never heard this text explained to fathers and 
 mothers from the pulpit, which is curious. For 
 it appears to me that God will expect the parents 
 to understand their duty to their children, better 
 even than children can be expected to know their 
 duty to their parents. 
 
 But farther. A child's duty is to obey its 
 parents. It is never said anywhere in the Bible, 
 and never was yet said in any good or wise book,
 
 72 MORNINGS IX FLORENCE. 
 
 that a man's, or woman's, is. When, precisely, 
 a child becomes a man or a woman, it can no 
 more be said, than when it should first stand on 
 its legs. But a time assuredly comes when it 
 should. In great states, children are always 
 trying to remain children, and the parents want- 
 ing to make men and women of them. In rile 
 states, the children are always wanting to be 
 men and women, and the parents to keep them 
 children. It may be and happy the house in 
 which it is so that the father's at least equal 
 intellect, and older experience, may remain to 
 the end of his life a law to his children, not of 
 force, but of perfect guidance, with perfect love. 
 Barely it is so ; not often possible. It is as 
 natural for the old to be prejudiced as for the 
 young to be presumptuous ; and, in the change of 
 centuries, each generation has something to judge 
 of for itself. 
 
 But this scene, on which Giotto has dwelt with 
 so great force, represents, not the child's assertion 
 of his independence, but his adoption of another 
 Father. 
 
 You must not confuse the desire of this boy 
 of Assisi to obey God rather than man, with the 
 desire of your young cockney Hopeful to have a 
 latch-key, and a separate allowance. No point of 
 duty has been more miserably warped and per- 
 verted by false priests, in all churches, than this 
 duty of the young to choose whom they will
 
 BEFORE THE SOLDAN. 73 
 
 serve. But the duty itself does not the less exist ; 
 and if there be any truth in Christianity at all, 
 there will come, for all true disciples, a time when 
 they have to take that saying to heart, " He that 
 loveth father or mother more than me, is not 
 worthy of me." 
 
 ' Loveth ' observe. There is no talk of dis- 
 obeying fathers or mothers whom you do not 
 love, or of ru^uiing away from a home where you 
 would rather not stay. But to leave the home 
 which is your peace, and to be at enmity with 
 those who are most dear to you, this, if there 
 be meaning in Christ's words, one day or other 
 will be demanded of His true followers. 
 
 And there is meaning in Christ's words. What- 
 ever misuse may have been made of them, 
 whatever false prophets and Heaven knows there 
 have been many have called the young children 
 to them, not to bless, but to curse, the assured 
 fact remains, that if you will obey God, there 
 will come a moment when the voice of man will 
 be raised, with all its holiest natural authority, 
 against you. The friend and the wise adviser 
 the brother and the sister the father and the 
 master the entire voice of your prudent and 
 keen-sighted acquaintance the entire weight of 
 the scornful stupidity of the vulgar world for 
 once, they will be against you, all at one. You 
 have to obey God rather than man. The human 
 race, with all its wisdom and love, all its indig- 
 
 6
 
 74 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 nation and folly, on one side, God alone on the 
 other. You have to choose. 
 
 That is the meaning of St. Francis's renouncing 
 his inheritance ; and it is the beginning of Giotto's 
 gospel of Works. Unless this hardest of deeds 
 be done first, this inheritance of mammon and 
 the world cast away, all other deeds are useless. 
 You cannot serve, cannot obey, God and mammon. 
 No charities, no obediences, no self-denials, are 
 of any use, while you are still at heart in con- 
 formity with the world. You go to church, 
 because the world goes. You keep Sunday, 
 because your neighbours keep it. But you dress 
 ridiculously, because your neighbours ask it ; and 
 you dare not do a rough piece of work, because 
 your neighbours despise it. You must renounce 
 your neighbour, in his riches and pride, and re- 
 member him in his distress. That is St. Francis's 
 ' disobedience.' 
 
 And now you can understand the relation of 
 subjects throughout the chapel, and Giotto's choice 
 of them. 
 
 The roof has the symbols of the three virtues of 
 labour Poverty, Chastity, Obedience. 
 
 A. Highest on the left side, looking to the 
 window. The life of St. Francis begins in his 
 renunciation of the world. 
 
 B. Highest on the right side. His new life 
 is approved and ordained by the authority of the 
 church.
 
 BEFORE THE SOLDAN. To 
 
 C. Central on the left side. He preaches to 
 his own disciples. 
 
 D. Central on the right side. He preaches to 
 the heathen. 
 
 E. Lowest on the left side. His burial. 
 
 F. Lowest on the right side. His power after 
 death. 
 
 Besides these six subjects, there are, on the 
 sides of the window, the four great Franciscan 
 saints, St. Louis of France, St. Louis of Toulouse, 
 St. Clare, and St. Elizabeth of Hungary. 
 
 So that you have in the whole series this 
 much given you to think of : first, the law of 
 St. Francis's conscience ; then, his own adoption 
 of it ; then, the ratification of it by the Christian 
 Church ; then, his preaching it in life ; then, his 
 preaching it in death ; and then, the fruits of it in 
 his disciples. 
 
 I have only been able myself to examine, 01 
 in any right sense to see, of this code of sub- 
 jects, the first, second, fourth, and the St. Louis 
 and Elizabeth. I will ask you only to look at 
 two more of them, namely, St. Francis before 
 the Soldan, midmost on your right, and St. 
 Louis. 
 
 The Soldan, with an ordinary opera-glass, you 
 may see clearly enough ; and I think it will be 
 first well to notice some technical points in it. 
 
 If the little virgin on the stairs of the temple 
 reminded you of one composition of Titian's, this
 
 IS 
 
 76 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 Spldan should, I think, remind you of all that 
 greatest in Titian ; so forcibly, indeed, that for my 
 own part, if I had been told that a careful early 
 fresco by Titian had been recovered in Santa 
 Croce, I could have believed both report and my 
 own eyes, more quickly than I have been able to 
 admit that this is indeed by Giotto. It is so 
 great that had its principles been understood 
 there was in reality nothing more to be taught of 
 art in Italy ; nothing to be invented afterwards, 
 except Dutch effects of light. 
 
 That there is no 'effect of light' here arrived at, 
 I beg you at once to observe as a most important 
 lesson. The subject is St. Francis challenging 
 the Soldan's Magi, fire-worshippers to pass with 
 him through the fire, which is blazing red at his 
 feet. It is so hot that the two Magi on the other 
 side of the throne shield their faces. But it is 
 represented simply as a red mass of writhing 
 forms of flame ; and casts no firelight whatever. 
 There is no ruby colour on anybody's nose ; there 
 are no black shadows under anybody's chin ; 
 there are no Rembrandtesque gradations of gloom, 
 or glitterings of sword-hilt and armour. 
 
 Is this ignorance, think you, in Giotto, and pure 
 artlessness? He was now a man in middle life, 
 having passed all his days in painting, and pro- 
 fessedly, and almost contentiously, painting things 
 as he saw them. Do you suppose he never saw 
 fire cast firelight ? and he the friend of Dante !
 
 BEFORE THE SOLBAN. 77 
 
 who of all poets is the most subtle in bis sense 
 of every kind of effect of light though he 
 has been thought by the public to know that of 
 fire only. Again and again, his ghosts wonder 
 that there is no shadow cast by Dante's body ; 
 and is the poet's friend, because a painter, likely, 
 therefore, not to have known that mortal substance 
 casts shadow, and terrestrial flame, light ? Nay, the 
 passage in the ' Purgatorio ' where the shadows 
 from the morning sunshine make the flames 
 redder, reaches the accuracy of Newtonian science ; 
 and does Giotto, think yon, all the while, see 
 nothing of the sort? 
 
 The fact was, he saw light so intensely that he 
 never for an instant thought of painting it. He 
 knew that to paint the sun was as impossible as to 
 stop it ; and he was no trickster, trying to find 
 out ways of seeming to do what he did not. I 
 can paint a rose, yes ; and I will. I can't paint 
 a red-hot coal ; and I won't try to, nor seem to. 
 This was just as natural and certain a process of 
 thinking with him, as the honesty of it, and true 
 science, were impossible to the false painters of 
 the sixteenth century. 
 
 Nevertheless, what his art can honestly do to 
 make you feel as much as he wants you to feel, 
 about this fire, he will do ; and that studiously. 
 That the fire be luminous or not, is no matter just 
 now. But that the fire is hot, he would have you to 
 know. Now, will you notice what colours he has
 
 78 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 used in the whole picture. First, the blue back- 
 ground, necessary to unite it with the other three 
 subjects, is reduced to the smallest possible space. 
 St. Francis must be in grey, for that is his dress ; 
 also the attendant of one of the Magi is in grey ; 
 but so warm, that, if you saw it by itself, you 
 would call it brown. The shadow behind the 
 throne, which Giotto knows he can paint, and 
 therefore does, is grey also. The rest of the 
 picture* in at least six-sevenths of its area is 
 either crimson, gold, orange, purple, or white, all 
 as warm as Giotto could paint them ; and set 
 off by minute spaces only of intense black, the 
 Soldan's fillet at the shoulders, his eyes, beard, 
 and the points necessary in the golden pattern 
 behind. And the whole picture is one glow. 
 
 A single glance round at the other subjects will 
 convince you of the special character in this ; but 
 you will recognize also that the four upper sub- 
 jects, in which St. Francis's life and zeal are 
 shown, are all in comparatively warm colours, 
 while the two lower ones of the death, and the 
 visions after it have been kept as definitely sad 
 and cold. 
 
 Necessarily, you might think, being full of 
 monks' dresses. Not so. Was there any need 
 for Giotto to have put the priest at the foot of the 
 dead body, with the black banner stooped over it 
 
 * The floor has been repainted ; but though its grey is now 
 heavy and cold, it cannot kill the splendour of the rest.
 
 BEFORE THE SOLDAN. 79 
 
 in the shape of a grave ? Might he not, had he 
 chosen, in either fresco, have made the celestial 
 visions brighter? Might not St. Francis have 
 appeared in the centre of a celestial glory to the 
 dreaming Pope, or his soul been seen of the 
 poor monk, rising through more radiant clouds ? 
 Look, however, how radiant, in the small space 
 allowed out of the blue, they are in reality. You 
 cannot anywhere see a lovelier piece of Giott- 
 esque colour, though here, you have to mourn 
 over the smallness of the piece, and its isolation. 
 For the face of St. Francis himself is repainted, 
 and all the blue sky ; but the clouds and four 
 sustaining angels are hardly retouched at all, and 
 their iridescent and exquisitely graceful wings are 
 left with really very tender and delicate care by 
 the restorer of the sky. And no one but Giotto 
 or Turner could have painted them. 
 
 For in all his use of opalescent and warm 
 colour, Giotto is exactly like Turner, as, in his 
 swift expressional power, he is like Gainsborough. 
 All the other Italian religious painters work out 
 their expression with toil; he only can give it 
 with a touch. All the other great Italian colour- 
 ists see only the beauty of colour, but Giotto also 
 its brightness. And none of the others, except 
 Tintoret, understood to the full its symbolic 
 power ; but with those Giotto and Tintoret 
 there is always, not only a colour harmony, but 
 a colour secret. It is not merelv to make the
 
 80 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 picture glow, but to remind you that St. Francis 
 preaches to a fire-worshipping king, that Giotto 
 covers the Avail with purple and scarlet ; and 
 above, in the dispute at Assisi, the angry father is 
 dressed in red, varying like passion ; and the robe 
 with which his protector embraces St. Francis, 
 blue, symbolizing the peace of Heaven. Of course 
 certain conventional colours were traditionally 
 employed by all painters; but only Giotto and 
 Tintoret invent a symbolism of their own for 
 every picture. Thus in Tintoret's picture of the 
 fall of the manna, the figure of God the Father 
 is entirely robed in white, contrary to all received 
 custom : in that of Moses striking the rock, it 
 is surrounded by a rainbow. Of Giotto's sym- 
 bolism in colour at Assisi, I have given account 
 elsewhere.* 
 
 You are not to think, therefore, the difference 
 between the colour of the upper and lower frescoes 
 unintentional. The life of St. Francis was always 
 full of joy and triumph. His death, in great 
 suffering, weariness, and extreme humility. The 
 tradition of him reverses that of Elijah : living, he 
 is seen in the chariot of fire ; dying, he submits 
 to more than the common sorrow of death. 
 
 There is, however, much more than a difference 
 in colour between the upper and lower frescos. 
 There is a difference in manner which I cannot 
 account for ; and above all, a very singular differ- 
 
 * Tors Clavigera' for September, 1874.
 
 BEFORE THE SOLDAN. 81 
 
 encc in skill, indicating, it seems to me, that the 
 two lower were done long before the others, and 
 afterwards united and harmonized with them. It 
 is of no interest to the general reader to pursue 
 this question ; but one point he can notice quickly, 
 that the lower frescos depend much on a mere 
 black or brown outline of the features, while the 
 faces above are evenly and completely painted 
 in the most accomplished Venetian manner : and 
 another, respecting the management of the dra- 
 peries, contains much interest for us. 
 
 Giotto never succeeded, to the very end of his 
 days, in representing a figure lying down, and at 
 ease. It is one of the most curious points in 
 all his character. Just the thing which he could 
 study from nature without the smallest hindrance, 
 is the thing he never can paint ; while subtleties 
 of form and gesture, which depend absolutely on 
 their momentariness, and actions in which no 
 model can stay for an instant, he seizes with 
 infallible accuracv. 
 
 Not only has the sleeping Pope, in the right 
 hand lower fresco, his head laid uncomfortably 
 on his pillow, but all the clothes on him are in 
 awkward angles, even Giotto's instinct for lines 
 of drapery failing him altogether when he has to 
 lay it on a reposing figure. But look at the folds 
 of the Soldan's robe over his knees. None could 
 be more beautiful or right ; and it is to me wholly 
 inconceivable that the two paintings should be
 
 82 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 within even twenty years of each other in date 
 the skill in the upper one is so supremely greater. 
 We shall find, however, more than mere truth in 
 its casts of drapery, if we examine them. 
 
 They are so simply right, in the figure of the 
 Soldan, that we do not think of them ; we see 
 him only, not his dress. But we see dress first, 
 in the figures of the discomfited Magi. Very fully 
 draped personages these, indeed, with trains, it 
 appears, four yards long, and bearers of them. 
 
 The one nearest the Soldan has done his devoir 
 as bravely as he could ; would fain go up to the 
 fire, but cannot ; is forced to shield his face, 
 though he has not turned back. Giotto gives 
 him full sweeping breadth of fold ; what dignity 
 he can ; a man faithful to his profession, at all 
 events. 
 
 The next one has no such courage. Collapsed 
 altogether, he has nothing more to say for him- 
 self or his creed. Giotto hangs the cloak upon 
 him, in Ghirlandajo's fashion, as from a peg, but 
 with ludicrous narrowness of fold. Literally, he 
 is a 'shut-up' Magus closed like a fan. He turns 
 his head away, hopelessly. And the last Magus 
 shows nothing but his back, disappearing through 
 the door. 
 
 Opposed to them, in a modern work, you 
 would have had a St. Francis standing as high 
 as he could in his sandals, contemptuous, denun- 
 ciatory ; magnificently showing the Magi the door.
 
 BEFORE THE SOLDAN. 83 
 
 No such tiling, says Giotto. A somewhat mean 
 man ; disappointing enough in presence even in 
 feature ; I do not understand his gesture, pointing 
 to his forehead perhaps meaning, ' mj life, or my 
 head, upon the truth of this.' The attendant monk 
 behind him is terror-struck ; but will follow his 
 master. The dark Moorish servants of the Magi 
 show no emotion will arrange their masters' 
 trains as usual, and decorously sustain their 
 retreat. 
 
 Lastly, for the Soldan himself. In a modern 
 work, you would assuredly have had him staring 
 at St. Francis with his eyebrows up, or frowning 
 thundrously at his Magi, with them bent as 
 far down as they would go. Neither of these 
 aspects does he bear, according to Giotto. A 
 perfect gentleman and king, he looks on his 
 Magi with quiet eyes of decision ; he is much the 
 noblest person in the room though an infidel, the 
 true hero of the scene, far more than St. Francis. 
 It is evidently the Soldan whom Giotto wants you 
 to think of mainly, in this picture of Christian 
 missionary work. 
 
 He does not altogether take the view of the 
 Heathen which you would get in an Exeter Hall 
 meeting. Does not expatiate on their ignorance, 
 their blackness, or their nakedness. Does not at 
 all think of the Florentine Islington and Penton- 
 ville, as inhabited by persons in every respect 
 superior to the kings of the East ; nor does he
 
 84 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 imagine every other religion but his own to be 
 log-worship. Probably the people who really 
 worship logs whether in Persia or Pentonville 
 will be left to worship logs to their hearts' content, 
 thinks Giotto. But to those who worship God, 
 and who have obeyed the laws of heaven written 
 in their hearts, and numbered the stars of it 
 visible to them, to these, a nearer star may rise ; 
 and a higher God be revealed. 
 
 You are to note, therefore, that Giotto's Soldan 
 is the type of all noblest religion and law, in 
 countries where the name of Christ has not been 
 preached. There was no doubt what king or 
 people should be chosen : the country of the three 
 Magi had already been indicated by the miracle 
 of Bethlehem ; and the religion and morality of 
 Zoroaster were the purest, and in spirit the oldest, 
 in the heathen world. Therefore, when Dante, 
 in the nineteenth and twentieth books of the 
 Paradise, gives his final interpretation of the law 
 of human and divine justice in relation to the 
 gospel of Christ the lower and enslaved body of 
 the heathen being represented by St. Philip's 
 convert, (" Christians like these the Ethiop shall 
 condemn") the noblest state of heathenism is at 
 once chosen, as by Giotto : " What may the 
 Persians say unto your kings ? " Compare also 
 Milton, 
 
 " At the Soldan's chair, 
 " Defied the best of Paynim chivalry."
 
 BEFORE THE SOLDAX. 85 
 
 And now, the time is come for you to look at 
 Giotto's St. Louis, who is the type of a Christian 
 king. 
 
 You would, I suppose, never have seen it at 
 all, unless I had dragged you here on purpose. 
 It was enough in the dark originally is trebly 
 darkened by the modern painted glass and 
 dismissed to its oblivion contentedly by Mr. 
 Murray's " Four saints, all much restored and 
 repainted," and Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcasella's 
 serene " The St. Louis is quite new." 
 
 Xow, I am the last person to call any restora- 
 tion whatever, judicious. Of all destructive manias, 
 that of restoration is the frightfullest and foolishest. 
 Nevertheless, what good, in its miserable way, it 
 can bring, the poor art scholar must now apply 
 his common sense to take ; there is no use, because 
 a great work has been restored, in now passing it 
 by altogether, not even looking for what instruc- 
 tion Ave still may find in its design, which will 
 be more intelligible, if the restorer has had any 
 conscience at all, to the ordinary spectator, than 
 it would have been in the faded work. When, 
 indeed, Mr. Murray's Guide tells you that a 
 building has been ' magnificently restored,' you 
 may pass the building by in resigned despair ; 
 for that means that every bit of the old sculpture 
 has been destroyed, and modern vulgar copies 
 put up in its place. But a restored picture or 
 fresco will often be, to you, more useful than a
 
 8G MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 pure one ; and in all probability if an important 
 piece of art it will have been spared in many 
 places, cautiously completed in others, and still assert 
 itself in a mysterious way as Leonardo's Cenacolo 
 d oes through every phase of reproduction.* 
 
 * For a test of your feeling in the matter, having looked 
 well at these two lower frescoes in this chapel, walk round into 
 the next, and examine the lower one on your left hand as you 
 enter that. You will find in your Murray that the frescoes 
 in this chapel "were also, till lately, (1862) covered with 
 whitewash " ; but I happen to have a long critique of this 
 particular picture written in the year 1845, and I see no 
 change in it since then. Mr. Murray's critic also tells you 
 to observe in it that " the daughter of Herodias playing on a 
 violin is not unlike Perugino's treatment of similar subjects." 
 By which Mr. Murray's critic means that the male musician 
 playing on a violin, whom, without looking either at his dress, 
 or at the rest of the fresco, he took for the daughter of Herodias. 
 has a broad face. Allowing you the full benefit of this 
 criticism there is still a point or two more to be observed. 
 This is the only fresco near the ground in which Giotto's 
 work is untouched, at least, by the modern restorer. So 
 felicitously safe it is, that you may learn from it at once 
 and for ever, what good fresco painting is how quiet how 
 delicately clear how little coarsely or vulgarly attractive 
 how capable of the most tender light and shade, and of the 
 most exquisite and enduring colour. 
 
 In this latter respect, this fresco stands almost alone among 
 the works of Giotto ; the striped curtain behind the table 
 being wrought with a variety and fantasy of playing colour 
 which Paul Veronese could not better at his best. 
 
 You will find, without difficulty, in spite ot the faint tints, 
 the daughter of Herodias in the middle of the picture slowly 
 inocing, not dancing, to the violin music she herself playing 
 on a lyre. In the farther corner of the picture, she gives St. 
 John's head to her mother ; the face of Herodias is almost 
 entirely faded, which may be a farther guarantee to you of the
 
 BEFORE THE SOLDAN. 87 
 
 But I can assure you, in the first place, that 
 St. Louis is by no means altogether new. I have 
 been up at it, and found most lovely and true 
 colour left in many parts : the cro\vn, which you 
 will find, after our mornings at the Spanish chapel, 
 is of importance, nearly untouched ; the lines of the 
 features and hair, though all more or less repro- 
 duced, still of definite and notable character ; and 
 the junction throughout of added colour so careful, 
 that the harmony of the whole, if not delicate 
 with its old tenderness, is at least, in its coarser 
 way, solemn and unbroken. Such as the figure 
 remains, it still possesses extreme beauty pro- 
 foundest interest. And, as you can see it from 
 below with your glass, it leaves little to be desired, 
 and may be dwelt upon with more profit than 
 nine out of ten of the renowned pictures of the 
 Tribune or the Pitti. You will enter into the 
 spirit of it better if I first translate for you a little 
 piece from the Fioretti di San Francesco. 
 
 " How St. Louis, King of France, went personally 
 in the guise of a pilgrim, to Perugia, to visit the 
 holy Brother Giles. St. Louis, King of France, 
 went on pilgrimage to visit the sanctuaries of the 
 safety of the rest. The subject of the Apocalypse, highest on 
 the right, is one of the most interesting mythic pictures in 
 Florence ; nor do I know any other so completely rendering 
 the meaning of the scene between the woman in the wilder- 
 ness, and the Dragon enemy. But it cannot be seen from the 
 floor level : and I have no power of showing its beauty in 
 words.
 
 88 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 world ; and hearing the most great fame of the 
 holiness of Brother Giles, who had been among 
 the first companions of St. Francis, put it in his 
 heart, and determined assuredly that he would 
 visit him personally ; wherefore he came to 
 Perugia, where was then staying the said brother. 
 And coming to the gate of the place of the 
 Brothers, with few companions, and being un- 
 known, he asked with great earnestness for Brother 
 Giles, telling nothing to the porter who he was 
 that asked. The porter, therefore, goes to Brother 
 Giles, and says that there is a pilgrim asking for 
 him at the gate. And by God it was inspired in 
 him and revealed that it was the King of France ; 
 whereupon quickly with great fervour he left his 
 cell and ran to the gate, and without any question 
 asked, or ever having seen each other before, 
 kneeling down together with greatest devotion, 
 they embraced and kissed each other with as much 
 familiarity as if for a long time they had held 
 great friendship ; but all the while neither the 
 one nor the other spoke, but stayed, so embraced, 
 with such signs of charitable love, in silence. 
 And so having remained for a great while, they 
 parted from one another, and St. Louis went on 
 his way, and Brother Giles returned to his cell. 
 And the King being gone, one of the brethren 
 asked of his companion who he was, who answered 
 that he was the King of France. Of which the 
 other brothers being told, were in the greatest
 
 BEFORE THE SOLDAN. 89 
 
 melancholy because Brother Giles had never said 
 a word to him ; and murmuring at it, they said, 
 ' Oh, Brother Giles, wherefore hadst thou so 
 country manners that to so holy a king, who had 
 come from France to see thee and hear from thee 
 some good word, thou hast spoken nothing?' 
 
 " Answered Brother Giles : ' Dearest brothers, 
 wonder not ye at this, that neither I to him, nor 
 he to me, could speak a word ; for so soon as 
 we had embraced, the light of the divine wisdom 
 revealed and manifested, to me, his heart, and to 
 him, mine.; and so by divine operation we looked 
 each in the other's heart on what we would have 
 said to one another, and knew it better far than if 
 we had spoken with the mouth, and with more 
 consolation, because of the defect of the human 
 tongue, Avhich cannot clearly express the secrets 
 of God, and would have been for discomfort rather 
 than comfort. And know, therefore, that the 
 King parted from me marvellously content, and 
 comforted in his mind." 
 
 Of all which story, not a word, of course, is 
 credible by any rational person. 
 
 Certainly not : the spirit, nevertheless, which 
 created the story, is an entirely indisputable fact in 
 the history of Italy and of mankind. Whether 
 St. Louis and Brother Giles ever knelt together 
 in the street of Perugia matters not a whit. That 
 a king and a poor monk could be conceived to 
 have thoughts of each other which no words could 
 
 7
 
 90 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 speak ; and that indeed the King's tenderness and 
 humility made such a tale credible to the people, 
 this is what you have to meditate on here. 
 
 Nor is there any better spot in the world, 
 whencesoever your pilgrim feet may have jour- 
 neyed to it, wherein to make up so much mind 
 as you have in you for the making, concerning 
 the nature of Kinghood and Princedom generally ; 
 and of the forgeries and mockeries of both which 
 are too often manifested in their room. For it 
 happens that this Christian and this Persian King 
 are better painted here by Giotto than elsewhere 
 by any one, so as to give you the best attainable 
 conception of the Christian and Heathen powers 
 which have both received, in the book which Chris- 
 tians profess to reverence, the same epithet as the 
 King of the Jews Himself ; anointed, or Christos : 
 and as the most perfect Christian Kinghood was 
 exhibited in the life, partly real, partly traditional, 
 of St. Louis, so the most perfect Heathen King- 
 hood was exemplified in the life, partly real, partly 
 traditional, of Cyrus of Persia, and in the laws 
 for human government and education which had 
 chief force in his dynasty. And before the images 
 of these two Kings I think therefore it will be well 
 that you should read the charge to Cyrus, written 
 by Isaiah. The second clause of it, if not all, 
 will here become memorable to you literally 
 illustrating, as it does, the very manner of the 
 defeat of the Zoroastrian Magi, on which Giotto
 
 BEFORE THE SOLDAN. 91 
 
 founds his Triumph of Faith. I write the 
 leading sentences continuously; what I omit is 
 only their amplification, which you can easily 
 refer to at home. (Isaiah xliv. 24, to xlv. 13.) 
 
 "Thus saith the Lord, thy Redeemer, and he that 
 formed thee from the womb. I the Lord that 
 maketh all ; that stretcheth forth the heavens, 
 alone ; that spreadeth abroad the earth, alone ; 
 that turneth wise men backward, and maketh 
 their knowledge, foolish; that confirmeth the 
 word of his Servant, and fulfilleth the counsel of 
 his messengers : that saith of Cyrus, He is my 
 Shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure, even 
 saying to Jerusalem, 'thou shalt be built,' and 
 to the temple, ' thy foundations shah 1 be laid.' 
 
 " Thus saith the Lord to his Christ ; to Cyrus, 
 whose right hand I have holden, to subdue 
 nations before him, and I will loose the loins of 
 Kings. 
 
 " I will go before thee, and make the crooked 
 places straight ; I will break in pieces the gates 
 of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron ; and 
 I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and 
 hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest 
 know that I the Lord, which call thee by thy 
 name, am the God of Israel. 
 
 " For Jacob my servant's sake, and Israel mine 
 elect, I have even called thee by thy name ; I 
 have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known
 
 92 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 " I am the Lord, and there is none else ; there 
 is no God beside me. I girded thee, though thou 
 hast not known me. That they may know, from 
 the rising of the sun, and from the west, that 
 there is none beside me ; I am the Lord and there 
 is none else. I form the light, and create dark- 
 ness ; I make peace, and create evil. I the Lord 
 do all these things. 
 
 " I have raised him up in Righteousness, and 
 will direct all his ways ; he shall build my city, 
 and let go my captives, not for price nor reward, 
 saith the Lord of Nations." 
 
 To this last verse, add the ordinance of Cyrus 
 in fulfilling it, that you may understand what 
 is meant by a King's being " raised up in 
 Righteousness," and notice, with respect to the 
 picture under which you stand, the Persian 
 King's thought of the Jewish temple. 
 
 "In the first year of the reign of Cyrus,* 
 King Cyrus commanded that the house of the 
 Lord at Jerusalem should be built again, where 
 they do service with perpetual jire ; (the italicized 
 sentence is Darius's, quoting Cyrus's decree the 
 decree itself worded thus,) Thus saith Cyrus, 
 King of Persia : f The Lord God of heaven hath 
 given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he 
 hath charged me to build him an house at 
 Jerusalem. 
 
 * 1st Esdras vi. 24. 
 
 f Ezra i. 3, and 2nd Esdras ii. 3.
 
 BEFORE THE SOLDAN. 93 
 
 " Who is there among you of all his people ? 
 his God be with him, and let him go up to 
 Jerusalem which is in Judah, and let the men 
 of his place help him with silver and with gold, 
 and with goods and with beasts." 
 
 Between which " bringing the prisoners out 
 of captivity" and modern liberty, free trade, and 
 anti-slavery eloquence, there is no small interval. 
 To these two ideals of Kinghood, then, the boy 
 has reached, since the day he was drawing the 
 lamb on the stone, as Cimabue passed by. You 
 will not find two other such, that I know of, in 
 the west of Europe ; and yet there has been many 
 a try at the painting of crowned heads, and King 
 George III. and Queen Charlotte, by Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds, are very fine, no doubt. Also your 
 black-muzzled kings of Velasquez, and Vandyke's 
 long-haired and white-handed ones; and Rubens' 
 riders in those handsome boots. Pass such 
 shadows of them as you can summon, rapidly 
 before your memory then look at this St. Louis. 
 His face gentle, resolute, glacial-pure, thin- 
 cheeked ; so sharp at the chin that the entire 
 head is almost of the form of a knight's shield 
 the hair short on the forehead, falling on each side 
 in the old Greek-Etruscan curves of simplest line, 
 to the neck ; I don't know if you. can see without 
 being nearer, the difference in the arrangement 
 of it on the two sides the mass of it on the 
 right shoulder bending inwards, while that on the
 
 94 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 left falls straight. It is one of the pretty changes 
 which a modern workman would never dream of 
 and which assures me the restorer has followed 
 the old lines rightly. 
 
 He wears a crown formed by an hexagonal 
 pyramid, beaded with pearls on the edges ; and 
 walled round, above the brow, with a vertical for- 
 tress-parapet, as it were, rising into sharp pointed 
 spines at the angles : it is chasing of gold with 
 pearl beautiful in the remaining work of it ; the 
 Soldan wears a crown of the same general form; 
 the hexagonal outline signifying all order, strength, 
 and royal economy. We shall see farther sym- 
 bolism of this kind, soon, by Simon Memmi, in the 
 Spanish chapel. 
 
 I cannot tell you anything definite of the two 
 other frescoes for I can only examine one or two 
 pictures in a day ; and never begin with one 
 till I have done with another ; and I had to leave 
 Florence without looking at these even so far as 
 to be quite sure of their subjects. The central 
 one on the left is either the twelfth subject of 
 Assisi St. Francis in Ecstasy ;* or the eighteenth ; 
 the Apparition of St. Francis at Aries ; f while 
 
 * " Represented " (next to St. Francis before the Soldan, at 
 Assisi) " as seen one night by the brethren, praying, elevated 
 from the ground, his hands extended like the cross, and sur- 
 rounded by a shining cloud. " Lord Lindsay. 
 
 f " St. Anthony of Padua was preaching at a general chapter 
 of the order, held at Aries, in 1224, when St. Francis appeared in 
 the midst, his arms extended, and in an attitude of benedic- 
 tion." Lord Lindsay.
 
 BEFORE THE SOLDAN. 95 
 
 the lowest on the right may admit choice between 
 two subjects in each half of it : my own reading of 
 them would be that they are the twenty-first and 
 twenty-fifth subjects of Assisi, the Dying Friar * 
 and Vision of Pope Gregory IX. ; f but Crowe 
 and Cavalcasella may be right in their different 
 interpretation ; | in any case, the meaning of the 
 entire system of work remains unchanged, as I 
 have given it above. 
 
 * " A brother of the order, lying on his deathbed, saw the 
 spirit of St. Francis rising to heaven, and springing forward, 
 cried, ' Tarry, Father, I come with thee ! ' and fell back dead." 
 Lord Lindsay. 
 
 f " He hesitated, before canonizing St. Francis ; doubting 
 the celestial infliction of the stigmata. St. Francis appeared 
 to him in a vision, and with a severe countenance reproving 
 his unbelief, opened his robe, and, exposing the wound in his 
 side, filled a vial with the blood that flowed from it, and gave 
 it to the Pope, who awoke and found it in his hand." Lord 
 Lindsay. 
 
 J " As St. Francis was carried on his bed of sickness to St. 
 Maria degli Angeli, he stopped at an hospital on the roadside, 
 and ordering his attendants to turn his head in the direction 
 of Assisi, he rose in his litter and said, ' Blessed be thou amongst 
 cities ! may the blessing of God cling to thee, oh holy place, 
 for by thee shall many souls be saved ; ' and, having said this, 
 he lay down and was carried on to St. Maria degli Angeli. 
 On the evening of the 4th of October his death was revealed 
 at the very hour to the bishop of Assisi on Mount Sarzana." 
 Crmve and Caralcaxclla.
 
 THE FOURTH MORNING. 
 
 THE VAULTED BOOK. , 
 
 AS early as may be this morning, let us look 
 for a minute or two into the cathedral : I 
 was going to say, entering by one of the side 
 doors of the aisles ; but we can't do anything 
 else, which perhaps might not strike you unless 
 you were thinking specially of it. There are no 
 transept doors ; and one never wanders round to 
 the desolate front. 
 
 From either of the side doors, a few paces 
 will bring you to the middle of the nave, and 
 to the point opposite the middle of the third 
 arch from the west end; where you will find 
 yourself if well in the mid-nave standing on 
 a circular slab of green porphyry, which marks 
 the former place of the grave of the bishop 
 Zenobius. The larger inscription, on the wide 
 circle of the floor outside of you, records the 
 translation of his body ; the smaller one round 
 the stone at your feet " quiescimus, donium hanc 
 quum adimus ultimam " is a painful truth, I 
 suppose, to travellers like us, who never rest 
 anywhere now, if we can help it. 
 
 8
 
 98 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 Resting here, at any rate, for a few minutes, 
 look up to the whitewashed vaulting of the com- 
 partment of the roof next the west end. 
 
 You will see nothing whatever in it worth 
 looking at. Nevertheless, look a little longer. 
 
 But the longer you look, the less you will 
 understand why I tell you to look. It is nothing 
 but a whitewashed ceiling : vaulted indeed, but 
 so is many a tailor's garret window, for that 
 matter. Indeed, now that you have looked 
 steadily for a minute or so, and are used to the 
 form of the arch, it seems to become so small 
 that you can almost fancy it the ceiling of a 
 good-sized lumber-room in an attic. 
 
 Having attained to this modest conception of it, 
 carry your eyes back to the similar vault of the 
 second compartment, nearer you. Very little 
 further contemplation will reduce that also to the 
 similitude of a moderately-sized attic. And then, 
 resolving to bear, if possible for it is worth while, 
 the cramp in your neck for another quarter of 
 a minute, look right up to the third vault, over 
 your head ; which, if not, in the said quarter of 
 a minute, reducible in imagination to a tailor's 
 garret, will at least sink, like the two others, 
 into the semblance of a common arched ceiling, 
 of no serious magnitude or majesty. 
 
 Then, glance quickly down from it to the floor, 
 and round at the space, (included between the 
 four pillars), which that vault covers.
 
 THE VAULTED BOOK. 99 
 
 It is sixty feet square,* four hundred square 
 yards of pavement, and I believe you will have 
 to look up again more than once or twice, before 
 you can convince yourself that the mean-looking 
 roof is swept indeed over all that twelfth part 
 of an acre. And still less, if I mistake not, will 
 you, without slow proof, believe, when you turn 
 yourself round towards the east end, that the 
 narrow niche (it really looks scarcely more than 
 a niche) which occupies, beyond the dome, the 
 position of our northern choirs, is indeed the un- 
 narrowed elongation of the nave, whose breadth 
 extends round you like a frozen lake. From 
 which experiments and comparisons, your con- 
 clusion, I think, will be, and I am sure it ought 
 to be, that the most studious ingenuity could not 
 produce a design for the interior of a building 
 which should more completely hide its extent, 
 and throw away every common advantage of its 
 magnitude, than this of the Duomo of Florence. 
 
 Having arrived at this, I assure you, quite 
 securely tenable conclusion, we will quit the 
 cathedral by the western door, for once ; and, 
 as quickly as we can walk, return to the Green 
 cloister of Sta. Maria Novella ; and place our- 
 selves on the south side of it, so as to see as 
 
 * Approximately. Thinking I could find the dimensions of 
 the duomo anywhere, I only paced it myself, and cannot, 
 at this moment, lay my hand on English measurements 
 of it.
 
 100 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 much as we can of the entrance, on the opposite 
 side, to the so-called ' Spanish Chapel.' 
 
 There is, indeed, within the opposite cloister, 
 an arch of entrance, plain enough. But no chapel, 
 whatever, externally manifesting itself as worth 
 entering. No walls, or gable, or dome, raised 
 above the rest of the outbuildings only two win- 
 dows with traceries opening into the cloister ; and 
 one story of inconspicuous building above. You 
 can't conceive there should be any effect of mag- 
 nitude produced in the interior, however it has 
 been vaulted or decorated. It may be pretty, but 
 it cannot possibly look large. 
 
 Entering it, nevertheless, you will be surprised 
 at the effect of height, and disposed to fancy that 
 the circular window cannot surely be the same 
 you saw outside, looking so low. I had to go 
 out again, myself, to make sure that it was. 
 
 And gradually, as you let the eye follow the 
 sweep of the vaulting arches, from the small 
 central keystone-boss, with the Lamb carved on 
 it, to the broad capitals of the hexagonal pillars 
 at the angles, there will form itself in your 
 mind, I think, some impression not only of vast- 
 ness in the building, but of great daring in the 
 builder ; and at last, after closely following out 
 the lines of a fresco or two, and looking up and 
 up again to the coloured vaults, it will become 
 to you literally one of the grandest places you 
 ever entered, roofed without a central pillar. You
 
 THE VAULTED BOOK. 101 
 
 will begin to wonder that human daring ever 
 achieved anything so magnificent. 
 
 But just go out again into the cloister, and 
 recover knowledge of the facts. It is nothing like 
 so large as the blank arch which at home we 
 filled with brickbats or leased for a gin-shop 
 under the last railway we made to carry eoals 
 to NeAvcastle. And if you pace the floor it covers, 
 you will find it is three feet less one way, and 
 thirty feet less the other, than that single square 
 of the cathedral which was roofed like a tailor's 
 loft, accurately, for I did measure here, myself, 
 the floor of the Spanish chapel is fifty-seven feet 
 by thirty-two. 
 
 I hope, after this experience, that you will need 
 no farther conviction of the first law of noble 
 building, that grandeur depends on proportion 
 and design not, except in a quite secondary 
 degree, on magnitude. Mere size has, indeed, 
 under all disadvantage, some definite value ; and 
 so has mere splendour. Disappointed as you may 
 be, or at least ought to be, at first, by St. Peter's, 
 in the end you will feel its size, and its bright- 
 ness. These are all you can feel in it it is 
 nothing more than the pump-room at Leamington 
 built bigger ; but the bigness tells at last : and 
 Corinthian pillars whose capitals alone are ten 
 feet high, and their acanthus leaves, three feet 
 six long, give you a serious conviction of the 
 infallibility of the Pope, and the fallibility of the
 
 102 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 wretched Corinthians, who invented the style 
 indeed, but built with capitals no bigger than 
 hand-baskets. 
 
 Vastness has thus its value. But the glory of 
 architecture is to be whatever you wish it to 
 be, lovely, or grand, or comfortable, on such 
 terms as it can easily obtain. Grand, by pro- 
 portion lovely, by imagination comfortable, by 
 ingenuity secure, by honesty : with such 
 materials and in such space as you have got to 
 give it. 
 
 Grand by proportion, I said ; but ought to 
 have said by disproportion. Beauty is given by 
 the relation of parts size, by their comparison. 
 The first secret in getting the impression of size 
 in this chapel is the ^proportion between pillar 
 and arch. You take the pillar for granted, it 
 is thick, strong, and fairly high above your head. 
 You look to the vault springing from it and it 
 soars away, nobody knows where. 
 
 Another great, but more subtle secret is in the 
 inequality and immeasurability of the curved lines ; 
 and the hiding of the form by the colour. 
 
 To begin, the room, I said, is fifty-seven feet 
 wide, and only thirty4wo deep. It is thus nearly 
 one-third larger in the direction across the line of 
 entrance, which gives to every arch, pointed and 
 round, throughout the roof, a different spring 
 from its neighbours. 
 
 The vaulting ribs have the simplest of all pro-
 
 THE VAULTED BOOK. 103 
 
 files that of a chamfered beam. I call it simpler 
 than even that of a square beam ; for in barking 
 a log you cheaply get your chamfer, and nobody 
 cares whether the level is alike on each side : 
 but you must take a larger tree, and use much 
 more work to get a square. And it is the same 
 with stone. 
 
 And this profile is fix the conditions of it, 
 therefore, in your mind venerable in the history 
 of mankind as the origin of all Gothic trace ry- 
 mouldings ; venerable in the history of the 
 Christian Church as that of the roof ribs, 
 both of the lower church of Assisi, bearing the 
 scroll of the precepts of St. Francis, and here at 
 Florence, bearing the scroll of the faith of St. 
 Dominic. If you cut it out in paper, and cut 
 the corners off farther and farther, at every cut, 
 you Avill produce a sharper profile of rib, con- 
 nected in architectural use with differently treated 
 styles. But the entirely venerable form is the 
 massive one in which the angle of the beam is 
 merely, as it were, secured and completed in sta- 
 bility by removing its too sharp edge. 
 
 Well, the vaulting ribs, as in Giotto's vault, then, 
 have here, under their painting, this rude profile : 
 but do not suppose the vaults are simply the shells 
 cast over them. Look how the ornamental bor- 
 ders fall on the capitals ! The plaster receives 
 all sorts of indescribably accommodating shapes 
 the painter contracting and stopping his design
 
 104 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 upon it as it happens to be convenient. You can't 
 measure anything ; you can't exhaust ; you can't 
 grasp, except one simple ruling idea, which a 
 child can grasp, if it is interested and intelligent : 
 namely, that the room has four sides with four tales 
 told upon them ; and the roof four quarters, with 
 another four tales told on those. And each history 
 in the sides has its correspondent history in the 
 roof. Generally, in good Italian decoration, the 
 roof represents constant, or essential facts ; the 
 walls, consecutive histories arising out of them, 
 or leading up to them. Thus here, the roof repre- 
 sents in front of you, in its main quarter, the 
 Resurrection the cardinal fact of Christianity : 
 opposite, (above, behind you), the Ascension ; on 
 your left hand, the descent of the Holy Spirit ; on 
 your right, Christ's perpetual presence with His 
 Church, symbolized by His appearance on the Sea 
 of Galilee to the disciples in the storm. 
 
 The correspondent walls represent : under the 
 first quarter, (the Resurrection), the story of the 
 Crucifixion ; under the second quarter, (the Ascen- 
 sion), the preaching after that departure, that 
 Christ will return symbolized here in the Domi- 
 nican church by the consecration of St. Dominic ; 
 under the third quarter, (the descent of the Holy 
 Spirit), the disciplining power of human virtue 
 and wisdom ; under the fourth quarter, (St. Peter's 
 Ship), the authority and government of the State 
 and Church.
 
 THE VAULTED BOOK. 105 
 
 The order of these subjects, chosen by the 
 Dominican monks themselves, was sufficiently 
 comprehensive to leave boundless room for tho 
 invention of the painter. The execution of it was 
 first entrusted to Taddeo Gaddi, the best archi- 
 tectural master of Giotto's school, who painted the 
 four quarters of the roof entirely, but with no 
 great brilliancy of invention, and was beginning 
 to go down one of the sides, when, luckily, a 
 man of stronger brain, his friend, came from 
 Siena. Taddeo thankfully yielded the room to 
 him ; he joined his own work to that of his less 
 .able friend in an exquisitely pretty and compli- 
 mentary way ; throwing his own greater strength 
 into it, not competitively, but gradually and help- 
 fully. When, however, he had once got himself 
 well joined, and softly, to the more simple work, 
 he put his own force on with a will ; and produced 
 the most noble piece of pictorial philosophy * and 
 divinity existing in Italy. 
 
 This pretty, and, according to all evidence by 
 me attainable, entirely true, tradition has been all 
 but lost, among the ruins of fair old Florence, 
 by the industry of modern mason-critics who, 
 without exception, labouring under the primal 
 (and necessarily unconscious) disadvantage of not 
 
 * There is no philosophy taught either by the school of Athens, 
 or Michael Angelo's ' Last Judgment ; ' and the ' Disputa' is 
 merely a graceful assemblage of authorities, the effects of such 
 authority not being shown.
 
 106 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 knowing good work from bad, and never, there- 
 fore, knowing a man by his hand or his thoughts, 
 would be in any case sorrowfully at the mercy of 
 mistakes in a document ; but are tenfold more 
 deceived by their own vanity, and delight in 
 overthrowing a received idea, if they can. 
 
 Farther ; as every fresco of this early date 
 has been retouched again and again, and often 
 painted half over, and as, if there has been the 
 least care or respect for the old work in the 
 restorer, he will now and then follow the old lines 
 and match the old colours carefully in some places, 
 while he puts in clearly recognizable work of his 
 own in others, two critics, of whom one knows 
 the first man's work well, and the other the last's, 
 will contradict each other to almost any extent on 
 the securest grounds. And there is then no safe 
 refuge for an uninitiated person but in the old 
 tradition, which, if not literally true, is founded 
 assuredly on some root of fact which you are 
 likely to get at, if ever, through it only. So that 
 my general directions to all young people going 
 to Florence or Rome would be very short: " Know 
 your first volume of Vasari, and your two first 
 books of Livy ; look about you, and don't talk, 
 nor listen to talking." 
 
 On those terms, you may know, entering this 
 chapel, that in Michael Angelo's time, all Florence 
 attributed these frescoes to Taddeo Gaddi and 
 Simon Memmi.
 
 THE VAULTED BOOK. 107 
 
 I have studied neither of these artists myself 
 with any speciality of care, and cannot tell you, 
 positively, anything about them or their works. 
 But I know good work from bad, as a cobbler 
 knows leather, and I can tell you positively the 
 quality of these frescoes, and their relation to con- 
 temporary panel pictures ; whether authentically 
 ascribed to Gaddi, Memmi, or any one else, it 
 is for the Florentine Academy to decide. 
 
 The roof, and the north side, down to the feet of 
 the horizontal line of sitting figures, were originally 
 third-rate work of the school of Giotto ; the rest 
 of the chapel was originally, and most of it is still, 
 magnificent work of the school of Siena. The 
 roof and north side have been heavily repainted in 
 many places ; the rest is faded and injured, but not 
 destroyed in its most essential qualities. And 
 now, farther, you must bear with just a little bit 
 of tormenting history of painters. 
 
 There were two Gaddis, father and son, Taddeo 
 and Angelo. And there were two Memmis, brothers, 
 Simon and Philip. 
 
 I daresay you will find, in the modern books, 
 that Simon's real name was Peter, and Philip's 
 real name was Bartholomew; and Angelo's real 
 name was Taddeo, and Taddeo's real name was 
 Angelo ; and Memmi's real name was Gaddi, and 
 Gaddi' s real name was Memmi. You may find 
 out all that at your leisure, afterwards, if you like. 
 What it is important for you to know here, in the
 
 108 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 Spanish Chapel, is only this much that follows : 
 There were certainly two persons once called 
 Gaddi, both rather stupid in religious matters and 
 high art ; but one of them, I don't know or care 
 which, a true decorative painter of the most ex- 
 quisite skill, a perfect architect, an amiable person, 
 and a great lover of pretty domestic life. Vasari 
 says this was the father, Taddeo. He built the 
 Ponte Vecchio ; and the old stones of it which if 
 you ever look at anything on the Ponte Vecchio 
 but the shops, you may still see (above those 
 wooden pent-houses) with the Florentine shield 
 were so laid by him that they are unshaken to 
 this day. 
 
 He painted an exquisite series of frescoes at 
 Assisi from the Life 'of Christ; in which, just 
 to. show you what the man's nature is, when the 
 Madonna has given Christ into Simeon's arms, 
 she can't help holding out her own arms to him, 
 and saying, (visibly,) "Won't you come back to 
 mamma ? " The child laughs his answer " I love 
 you, mamma; but I'm quite happy just now." 
 
 Well; he, or he and his son together, painted 
 these four quarters of the roof of the Spanish 
 Chapel. They were very probably much re- 
 touched afterwards by Antonio Veneziano, or 
 whomsoever Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcasella 
 please; but that architecture in the descent of 
 the Holy Grhost is by the man who painted the 
 north transept of Assisi, and there need be no
 
 THE VAULTED BOOK. 109 
 
 more talk about the matter, for you never catch 
 a restorer doing his old architecture right again. 
 And farther, the ornamentation of the vaulting 
 ribs is by the man who painted the Entombment, 
 No. 31 in the Galerie des Grands Tableaux, in the 
 catalogue of the Academy for 1874. Whether 
 that picture is Taddeo Gaddi's or not, as stated in 
 the catalogue, I do not know ; but I know the 
 vaulting ribs of the Spanish Chapel are painted 
 by the same hand. 
 
 Again : of the two brothers Memmi, one or 
 other, I don't know or care which, had an ugly 
 way of turning the eyes of his figures up and 
 their mouths down ; of which you may see an 
 entirely disgusting example in the four saints 
 attributed to Filippo Memmi on the cross wall 
 of the north (called always in Murray's guide 
 the south, because he didn't notice the way the 
 church was built) transept of Assisi. You may, 
 however, also see the way the mouth goes down 
 in the much repainted, but still characteristic 
 No. 9 in the Uffizii.* 
 
 Now I catch the wring and verjuice of this 
 brother again and again, among the minor heads 
 
 * This picture bears the inscription (I quote from the 
 French catalogue, not having verified it myself), "Simon 
 Martini, et Lippus Memmi de Senis me pinxerant." I have 
 no doubt whatever, myself, that the two brothers worked 
 together on these frescoes of the Spanish Chapel : but that most 
 of the Limbo is Philip's, and the Paradise, scarcely with his 
 interference. Simon's.
 
 110 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 of the lower frescoes in this Spanish Chapel. The 
 head of the Queen beneath Noah, in the Limbo 
 (see below) is unmistakable. 
 
 Farther : one of the two brothers, I don't care 
 which, had a way of painting leaves ; of which 
 you may see a notable example in the rod in 
 the hand of Gabriel in that same picture of the 
 Annunciation in the Uffizii. No Florentine 
 painter, or any other, ever painted leaves as well 
 as that, till you get down to Sandro Botticelli, 
 who did them much better. But the man who 
 painted that rod in the hand of Gabriel, painted 
 the rod in the right hand of Logic in the Spanish 
 Chapel, and nobody else in Florence, or the 
 world, could. 
 
 Farther (and this is- the last of the antiquarian 
 business) : you see that the frescoes on the roof 
 are, on the whole, dark, with much blue and red 
 in them, the white spaces coming out strongly. 
 This is the characteristic colouring of the partially 
 defunct school of Giotto, becoming merely deco- 
 rative, and passing into a colourist school which 
 connected itself afterwards with the Venetians. 
 There is an exquisite example of all its specialities 
 in the little Annunciation in the Uffizii, No. 14, 
 attributed to Angelo Gaddi, in which you see the 
 Madonna is stupid, and the angel stupid, but the 
 colour of the whole, as a piece of painted glass, 
 lovely ; and the execution exquisite, at once a 
 painter's and jeweller's ; with subtle sense of
 
 THE VAULTED BOOK. Ill 
 
 chiaroscuro underneath ; (note the delicate shadow 
 of the Madonna's arm across her breast). 
 
 The head of this school was (according to 
 Vasari) Taddeo Gaddi ; and henceforward, with- 
 out further discussion, I shall speak of him as 
 the painter of the roof of the Spanish Chapel, 
 not without suspicion, however, that his son Angelo 
 may hereafter turn out to have been the better 
 decorator, and the painter of the frescoes from the 
 life of Christ in the north transept of Assisi, 
 with such assistance as his son or scholars might 
 give and such change or destruction as time, 
 Antonio Veneziano, or the last operations of the 
 Tuscan railroad company, may have effected on 
 them. 
 
 On the other hand, you see that the frescoes on 
 the walls are of paler colours, the blacks coming 
 out of these clearly, rather than the whites ; but 
 the pale colours, especially, for instance, the whole 
 of the Duomo of Florence in that on your right, 
 very tender and lovely. Also, you may feel a 
 tendency to express much with outline, and draw, 
 more than paint, in the most interesting parts ; 
 while in the duller ones, nasty green and yellow 
 tones come out, which prevent the effect of the 
 whole from being very pleasant. These charac- 
 teristics belong, on the whole, to the school of 
 Siena ; and they indicate here the work assuredly 
 of a man of vast power and most refined educa- 
 tion, whom I shall call without further discussion,
 
 112 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 during the rest of this and the following morn- 
 ing's study, Simon Memmi. 
 
 And of the grace and subtlety with which he 
 joined his work to that of the Gaddis, you may 
 judge at once by comparing the Christ standing 
 on the fallen gate of the Limbo, with the Christ 
 in the Resurrection above. Memmi has retained 
 the dress and imitated the general effect of the 
 figure in the roof so faithfully that you suspect no 
 difference of mastership nay, he has even raised 
 the foot in the same awkward way : but you will 
 find Memmi's foot delicately drawn Taddeo's 
 hard and rude : and all the folds of Memmi's 
 drapery cast with unbroken grace and complete 
 gradations of shade, while Taddeo's are rigid and 
 meagre ; also in the heads, generally Taddeo's 
 type of face is square in feature, with massive 
 and inelegant clusters or volutes of hair and 
 beard ; but Memmi's delicate and long in feature, 
 with much divided and flowing hair, often ar- 
 ranged with exquisite precision, as in the finest 
 Greek coins. Examine successively in this re- 
 spect only the heads of Adam, Abel, Methuselah, 
 and Abraham, in the Limbo, and you will not 
 confuse the two designers any more. I have not 
 had time to make out more than the principal 
 figures in the Limbo, of which indeed the entire 
 dramatic power is centred in the Adam and Eve. 
 The latter dressed as a nun, in her fixed gaze 
 on Christ, with her hands clasped, is of extreme
 
 THE VAULTED BOOK. 113 
 
 beauty : and however feeble tbe work of any 
 early painter may be, in its decent and grave in- 
 offensiveness it guides tbe imagination unerringly 
 to a certain point. How far you are yourself 
 capable of filling up what is left untold, and con- 
 ceiving, as a reality, Eve's first look on this her 
 child, depends on no painter's skill, but on your 
 own understanding. Just above Eve is Abel, 
 bearing the lamb : and behind him, Noah, be- 
 tween his wife and Shem : behind them, Abraham, 
 between Isaac and Ishmael ; (turning from Ish- 
 mael to Isaac) ; behind these, Moses, between 
 Aaron and David. I have not identified the 
 others, though I find the white-bearded figure 
 behind Eve called Methuselah in my notes : 1 
 know not on what authority. Looking up from 
 these groups, however, to the roof painting, you 
 will at once feel the imperfect grouping and ruder 
 features of all the figures ; and the greater depth 
 of colour. We will dismiss these comparatively 
 inferior paintings at once. 
 
 The roof and walls must be read together, each 
 segment of the roof forming an introduction to, 
 or portion of, the subject on the wall below. But 
 the roof must first be looked at alone, as the 
 work of Taddeo Gaddi, for the artistic qualities 
 and failures of it. 
 
 I. In front, as you enter, is the compartment 
 with the subject of the Resurrection. It is the 
 traditional Byzantine composition : the guards 
 
 9
 
 114 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 sleeping, and the two angels in white saying to 
 the women, " He is not here," while Christ is 
 seen rising with the flag of the Cross. 
 
 But it would be difficult to find another exam- 
 ple of the subject, so coldly treated so entirely 
 without passion or action. The faces are expres- 
 sionless ; the gestures powerless. Evidently the 
 painter is not making the slightest effort to con- 
 ceive what really happened, but merely repeating 
 and spoiling what he could remember of old 
 design, or himself supply of commonplace for 
 immediate need. The " Noli me tangere," on the 
 right, is spoiled from Giotto, and others before 
 him ; a peacock, woefully plumeless and colourless, 
 a fountain, an ill-drawn toy-horse, and two toy- 
 children gathering flowers, are emaciate remains 
 of Greek symbols. He has taken pains with the 
 vegetation, but in vain. Yet Taddeo Gaddi was 
 a true painter, a very beautiful designer, and a 
 very amiable person. How comes he to do that 
 Resurrection so badly ? 
 
 In the first place, he was probably tired of a 
 subject which was a great strain to his feeble 
 imagination : and gave it up as impossible : doing 
 simply the required figures in the required posi- 
 tions. In the second, he was probably at the time 
 despondent and feeble because of his master's 
 death. See Lord Lindsay, II. 273, where also it 
 is pointed out that in the effect of the light pro- 
 ceeding from the figure of Christ, Taddeo Gaddi
 
 THE VAULTED BOOK. 115 
 
 indeed was the first of the Griottisti who showed 
 true sense of light and shade. But until Lio- 
 nardo's time the innovation did not materially 
 affect Florentine art, 
 
 II. The Ascension (opposite the Resurrection, 
 and not worth looking at, except for the sake 
 of making more sure our conclusions from the 
 first fresco). The Madonna is fixed in Byzantine 
 stiffness, without Byzantine dignity. 
 
 III. The Descent of the Holy Grhost, on the left 
 hand. The Madonna and disciples are gathered 
 in an upper chamber : underneath are the Par- 
 thians, Medes, Elamites, etc., who hear them 
 speak in their own tongues. 
 
 Three dogs are in the foreground their mythic 
 purpose the same as that of the two verses which 
 affirm the fellowship of the dog in the journey 
 and return of Tobias : namely, to mark the share 
 of the lower animals in the gentleness given by 
 the outpouring of the Spirit of Christ. 
 
 IV. The Church sailing on the Sea of the 
 World. St. Peter coming to Christ on the water. 
 
 I was too little interested in the vague sym- 
 bolism of this fresco to examine it with care, the 
 rather that the subject beneath, the literal contest 
 of the Church with the world, needed more time for 
 study in itself alone than I had for all Florence. 
 
 On this, and the opposite side of the chapel, are 
 represented, by Simon Memmi's hand, the teach- 
 ing power of the Spirit of God, and the saving
 
 110 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 power of the Christ of God, in the world, accord- 
 ing to the understanding of Florence in his time. 
 
 We will take the side of Intellect first, beneath 
 the pouring forth of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 In the point of the arch beneath, are the three 
 Evangelical Virtues. Without these, says Florence, 
 you can have no science. Without Love, Faith, 
 and Hope no intelligence. 
 
 Under these are the four Cardinal Virtues, the 
 entire group being thus arranged : 
 
 A 
 
 B C 
 
 D E F a 
 
 A, Charity ; flames issuing from her head and 
 hands. 
 
 B, Faith ; holds cross and shield, quenching 
 fiery darts. This symbol, so frequent in modern 
 adaptation from St. Paul's address to personal 
 faith, is rare in older art. 
 
 C, Hope, with a branch of lilies. 
 
 D, Temperance ; bridles a black fish, on which 
 she stands. 
 
 E, Prudence, with a book. 
 
 F, Justice, with crown and baton. 
 Gr, Fortitude, with tower and sword. 
 
 Under these are the great prophets and apostles : 
 on the left,* David, St. Paul, St. Mark, St. John ; 
 
 * I can't find my note of the first one on the left ; answer- 
 ing to Solomon, opposite.
 
 THE VAULTED BOOK. 117 
 
 on the right, St. Matthew, St. Luke, Moses, Isaiah, 
 Solomon. In the midst of the Evangelists, St. 
 Thomas Aquinas, seated on a Gothic throne. 
 
 Now observe, this throne, with all the canopies 
 below it, and the complete- representation of the 
 Duomo of Florence opposite, are of finished 
 Gothic of Orcagna's school later than Giotto's 
 Gothic. But the building in which the apostles 
 are gathered at the Pentecost is of the early 
 Romanesque mosaic school, with a wheel window 
 from the duomo of Assisi, and square windows 
 from the Baptistery of Florence. And this is al- 
 ways the type of architecture used by Taddeo 
 Gaddi : while the finished Gothic could not pos- 
 sibly have been drawn by him, but is absolute 
 evidence of the later hand. 
 
 Under the line of prophets, as powers summoned 
 by their voices, are the mythic figures of the seven 
 theological or spiritual, and the seven geological or 
 natural sciences: and under the feet of each of them, 
 the figure of its Captain-teacher to the world. 
 
 The Seven Earthly Sciences begin with Gram- 
 mar, on the right, farthest from the window, and 
 are to be read towards the window, thus : 
 
 1. Grammar (Under her) Priscian. 
 
 2. Rhetoric. Cicero. 
 
 3. Logic. Aristotle. 
 
 4. Music. Tubalcain. 
 
 5. Astronomy. Atlas, King of Fesole. 
 
 6. Geometry. Euclid. 
 
 7. Arithmetic. Pythagoras.
 
 118 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 Then follow, read from right to left, the 
 Heavenly Sciences thus : 
 
 1. Civil Law (Under her) The Emperor Justinian. 
 
 2. Canon Law. Pope Clement V. 
 
 3. Practical Theology. Peter Lombard. 
 
 4. Contemplative Theo- 
 
 logy. Boethius. 
 
 5. Dogmatic Theology. Dionysius the Areopagite. 
 
 6. Mystic Theology. St. John Damascene. 
 
 7. Polemic Theology. St. Augustine. 
 
 Here, then, you have picfcorially represented, 
 the system of manly education, supposed in old 
 Florence to be that necessarily instituted in great 
 earthly kingdoms or republics, animated by the 
 Spirit shed down upon the world at Pentecost. 
 How long do you think it will take you, or ought 
 to take, to see such a picture ? We were to get 
 to work this morning, as early as might be : you 
 have probably allowed half an hour for Santa 
 Maria Novella ; half an hour for San Lorenzo ; 
 an hour for the museum of sculpture at the Bar- 
 gello ; an hour for shopping ; and then it will be 
 lunch time, and you mustn't be late, because you 
 are to leave by the afternoon train, and must 
 positively be in Rome to-morrow morning. Well, 
 c/f your half-hour for Santa Maria Novella, after 
 Ghirlandajo's choir, Orcagna's transept, and 
 Cimabue's Madonna, and the painted windows, 
 have been seen properly, there will remain, suppose, 
 at the utmost, a quarter of an hour for the Spanish
 
 THE VAULTED BOOK. 119 
 
 Chapel. That will give you two minutes and a 
 half for each side, two for the ceiling, and three 
 for studying Murray's explanations or mine. Two 
 minutes and a half you have got, then (and I 
 observed, during my five weeks' work in the 
 chapel, that English visitors seldom gave so much) 
 to read this scheme given you by Simon Memmi 
 of human spiritual education. In order to under- 
 stand the purport of it, in any the smallest degree, 
 you must summon to your memory, in the course 
 of these two minutes and a half, what you happen 
 to be acquainted with of the doctrines and cha- 
 racters of Pythagoras, Aristotle, Dionysius the 
 Areopagite, St. Augustine, and the emperor Jus- 
 tinian, and having further observed the expressions 
 and actions attributed by the painter to these 
 personages, judge how far he has succeeded in 
 reaching a true and worthy ideal of them, and 
 how large or how subordinate a part in his general 
 scheme of human learning he supposes their pecu- 
 liar doctrines properly to occupy. For myself, 
 being, to my much sorrow, now an old person ; 
 and, to my much pride, an old-fashioned one, I 
 have not found my powers either of reading or 
 memory in the least increased by any of Mr. 
 Stephenson's or Mr. Wheatstone's inventions ; 
 and though indeed I came here from Lucca 
 in three hours instead of a day, which it used 
 to take, I do not think myself able, on that 
 account, to see any picture in Florence in
 
 120 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 less time than it took formerly, or even obliged 
 to hurry myself in any investigations connected 
 with it. 
 
 Accordingly, I have myself taken five weeks to 
 see the quarter of this picture of Simon Memmi's : 
 and can give you a fairly good account of that 
 quarter, and some partial account of a fragment 
 or two of those on the other walls : but, alas ! only 
 of their pictorial qualities in either case ; for 
 I don't myself know anything \vhatever, worth 
 trusting to, about Pythagoras, or Dionysius the 
 Areopagite ; and have not had, and never shall 
 have, probably, any time to learn much of them ; 
 while in the very feeblest light only, in what the 
 French would express by their excellent word 
 Mueur,' I am able to understand something of 
 the characters of Atlas, Aristotle, and Justinian. 
 But this only increases in me the reverence with 
 which I ought to stand before the work of a 
 painter, who was not only a master of his own 
 craft, but so profound a scholar and theologian as 
 to be able to conceive this scheme of picture, and 
 write the divine law by which Florence was to live. 
 Which Law, written in the northern page of this 
 Vaulted Book, we will begin quiet interpretation 
 of, if you care to return hither, to-morrow morning.
 
 THE FIFTH MORNING. 
 
 THE STRAIT GATE. 
 
 [I have revised the text of this edition with care ; holding it 
 one of the most important minor letters I have written, in its 
 aphorisms of principle with respect to education. Some valu- 
 able observations and corrections, made for me by Mr. G. 
 Collingwood. at Florence, this year, are subjoined in the notes 
 at the bottom of the pages. J. KUSKIN. Lucca, October 12th, 
 1882. J 
 
 A S yon return this morning to St. Mary's, you 
 -*-^- may as well observe the matter before us 
 being concerning gates, that the western facade 
 of the church is of two periods. Your Murray 
 refers it all to the latest of these, I forget when, 
 and do not care, in which the largest flanking 
 columns, and the entire effective mass of the walls, 
 with their riband mosaics and high pediment, were 
 built in front of, and above, what the barbarian 
 renaissance designer chose to leave of the pure old 
 Dominican church. You may see his ungainly 
 jointing at the pedestals of the great columns, 
 running through the pretty, parti-coloured base, 
 which, with the ' Strait ' Gothic doors, and the 
 entire lines of the fronting and flanking tombs, 
 (where not restored by the devil-begotten brood of 
 
 10
 
 122 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 modern Florence), is of pure, and exquisitely severe 
 and refined, fourteenth century Gothic, with su- 
 perbly carved bearings on its shields. The small 
 detached line of tombs on the left, untouched in 
 its sweet colour and living weed ornament, I would 
 fain have painted, stone by stone : but one can never 
 draw in front of a church in these republican days ; 
 for all the blackguard children of the neighbour- 
 hood come to howl, and throw stones, on the steps, 
 and the ball or stone play against these sculptured 
 tombs, as a dead wall adapted for that purpose 
 only, is incessant in the fine days w r hen I could 
 have worked.* 
 
 If you enter by the door most to the left, or 
 north, and turn immediately to the right, on the 
 interior of the Avail of the facade is an Annuncia- 
 tion, visible enough because well preserved, though 
 in the dark; and extremely pretty in its way, of 
 the decorated and ornamental school following 
 Giotto : I can't guess by whom, nor does it much 
 matter ; but it is well to look at it by way of contrast 
 with the delicate, intense, slightly decorated design 
 of Memmi, in which, when you return into the 
 Spanish chapel, you will feel -the dependence for 
 its effect on broad masses of w r hite and pale amber, 
 where the decorative school would have had 
 mosaic of red, blue, and gold. 
 
 * I have since bought for St. George's Museum a drawing of 
 these three arches, carried out with more patience than I 
 possessed, by Mr. Henry R. Newman.
 
 THE STRAIT GATE. 123 
 
 Our first business this morning must be to 
 read and understand the writing on the book held 
 open by St. Thomas Aquinas, for that informs us 
 of the meaning of the whole picture. 
 
 It is this text from the Book of Wisdom vii. 6. 
 
 Optavi, et datus est mihi sensus. 
 Invocavi, et venit in me Spiritus Sapientise, 
 Et preposui illam regnis et sedibus." 
 
 I willed, and Sense was given me. 
 I prayed, and the Spirit of Wisdom came upon me 
 And I set her before, (preferred her to,) kingdoms 
 and thrones." 
 
 The common translation in our English Apocry- 
 pha loses the entire meaning of this passage, which 
 not only as the statement of the experience of 
 Florence in her own education, but as universally 
 descriptive of the process of all noble education 
 whatever we had better take pains to under- 
 stand. 
 
 First, says Florence, " I willed, (in sense of 
 resolutely desiring,) and Sense was given me." 
 You must begin your education with the distinct 
 resolution to know what is true, and choice of the 
 strait and rough road to such knowledge. This 
 choice is offered io every youth and maid at 
 some moment of their life ; choice between the 
 easy downward road, so broad that we can dance 
 down it in companies, and the steep narrow
 
 124 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 way, which we must enter alone.* Then, and for 
 many a day afterwards, they need that form of 
 persistent Option, and Will : but day by day, the 
 1 Sense ' of the rightness of what they have done, 
 deepens on them, not in consequence of the effort, 
 but by gift granted in reward of it. And the 
 Sense of difference between right and wrong, 
 and between beautiful and unbeautiful things, is 
 confirmed in the heroic, and fulfilled in the indus- 
 trious, soul. 
 
 That is the process of education in the earthly 
 sciences, and the morality connected with them. 
 Reward given to faithful Volition. 
 
 Next, when Moral and Physical senses are per- 
 fect, comes the desire for education in the higher 
 world, where the senses are no more our Teachers ; 
 but the Maker of the senses. And that teaching, 
 we cannot get by labour, but only by petition. 
 
 " Invocavi, et venit in me Spiritus Sapienti*" 
 '* I prayed, and the Spirit of Wisdom," (not, you 
 observe, was given^ but,) " came upon me." The 
 personal power of Wisdom : the "acxfria" or Santa 
 Sophia, to whom the first great Christian temple 
 was dedicated. This higher wisdom, governing 
 by her presence, all earthly conduct, and by her 
 
 * ' Alone ' is too strong a word for what I meant, namely, 
 that however helped or guided by our friends, masters, and 
 predecessors, each of us determines for himself, in the critical 
 moments, what his life is to be, when it is right. To the 
 wrong, we may always flow with the stream, 
 t I, in careless error, wrote " was given " in Tors Clavigera. '
 
 THE STRAIT GATE. 125 
 
 teaching, all earthly art, Florence tells you, she 
 obtained only by prayer. 
 
 And these two Earthly and Divine sciences are 
 expressed beneath, in the symbols of their divided 
 powers ; Seven terrestrial, Seven Celestial, whose 
 names have been already indicated to you : in 
 which figures I must point out one or two technical 
 matters before attempting their interpretation. 
 They are all by Simon Memmi originally ; but 
 repainted, many of them all over, some hundred 
 years later, (certainly after the discovery of 
 America, as you will see) by an artist of con- 
 siderable power, and some feeling for the general 
 action of the figures ; but of no refinement or 
 carefulness. He dashes paint in huge spaces over 
 the subtle old work ; puts in his own chiaro-oscuro 
 where all had been shadeless, and his own violent 
 colour where all had been pale ; and repaints the 
 faces, so as to make them, to his notion, prettier 
 and more human : some of this upper work has, 
 however, come away since, and the original out- 
 line, at least, is traceable ; while in the face of the 
 Logic, the Music, and, one or two others, the 
 original work is very pure. Being most interested 
 myself in the earthly sciences, I had a scaffolding 
 put up, made on a level with them, and examined 
 them inch by inch, and the following report will 
 be found accurate until next repainting. 
 
 For interpretation of them, you must always 
 take the central figure of the Science, with the
 
 126 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 little medallion above it, and the figure below, all 
 together. Which I proceed to do, reading first from 
 left to right for the earthly sciences, and then from 
 right to left the heavenly ones, to the centre, where 
 their two highest powers sit, side by side. 
 
 We begin, then, with the first in the list given 
 above, (Vaulted Book, page 118) : Grammar, in 
 the corner farthest from the window. 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 The Seven Earthly Sciences ; read from right to left, 
 from the corner opposite the window, to the centre of 
 the side ivall. 
 
 I. GRAMMAR : more properly Grammatice, 
 11 Grammatic Art," the Art of Letters or " Litera- 
 ture," or using the word which to some English 
 ears will carry most weight with it, " Scripture," 
 and its use. The Art of faithfully reading what has 
 been written for our learning; and of clearly writing 
 what we would make immortal of our thoughts. 
 Power w r hich consists first in recognizing letters ; 
 secondly, in forming them ; thirdly, in the under- 
 standing and choice of words which, errorless, shall 
 express our thought. Severe exercises all, reach- 
 ing very few living persons know, how far ; 
 beginning properly in childhood, and then only to 
 be truly acquired. It is wholly impossible this I 
 say from too sorrowful experience to conquer bv 
 any effort or time, habits of the hand (much more 
 of head, and soul,) with which the vase of flesh has
 
 THE STRAIT GATE. 127 
 
 been formed and filled in youth, the law of God 
 being that parents shall compel* the child in the 
 day of its obedience into habits of hand, and eye, 
 dud soid, which, ivhen it is old, shall not, by any 
 strength, or any iveakness, be departed from. 
 
 "Enter ye in," therefore, says Grammatice, "at 
 the Strait Gate." She points through it with her 
 rod, holding a fruit (?) for reward, in her left hand. 
 The gate is very strait indeed her own waist no 
 less so,f her hair fastened close. She had once a 
 white veil binding it, which is lost. Not a gushing 
 form of literature, this, or in any wise disposed 
 to subscribe to Mudie's, my English friends or 
 even patronize Tauchnitz editions of what is 
 the last new novel you see ticketed up to-day 
 in Mr. Goodban's window? She looks kindly 
 down, nevertheless, to the three children whom 
 she is teaching two boys and a girl : (Qy. 
 Does this mean that one girl out of every two 
 should not be able to read or write ? I am 
 <[uite willing to accept that inference, for my own 
 part, should perhaps even say, two girls out 
 of three). This girl is of the highest classes, 
 crowned,| her golden hair falling behind her, the 
 
 * I italicize this primary sentence : the word ' compel ' may 
 be read in its mildest sense by really good parents, whose steps 
 their children follow in pure love. 
 
 f I don't see that her waist is straighter than other people's ; 
 and she has neither stays nor girdle. (G. C.) 
 
 { The crown has been since effaced by advancing decay. 
 -(G. C.)
 
 128 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 Florentine girdle round her hips (not waist, the 
 object being to leave the lungs full play ; but to 
 keep the dress always well down in dancing or 
 running). The boys are of good birth also, the 
 nearest one with luxuriant curly hair only the 
 profile of the farther one seen. All reverent and 
 eager. Above, the medallion is of a figure looking 
 at a fountain. Underneath, Lord Lindsay says, 
 Priscian, and is, I doubt not, right. 
 
 Technical Points. The figure is said by Crowe 
 to be entirely repainted. The dress is so, through- 
 out, both the hands also; the fruit, and rod. 
 But the eyes, mouth, hair above the forehead, 
 and outline of the rest, with the faded veil, and 
 happily, the traces left of the children, are genuine; 
 the strait gate perfectly so, in the colour under- 
 neath, though reinforced ; and the action of the en- 
 tire figure is well preserved : but there is a curious 
 question about both the rod and fruit. Seen close, 
 the former perfectly assumes the shape of folds of 
 dress gathered up over the raised right arm, and I 
 am not absolutely sure that the restorer has not 
 mistaken the folds at the same time changing a 
 pen or style into a rod. The fruit also I have 
 doubts of, as fruit is not so rare at Florence that 
 it should be made a reward. It is entirely and 
 roughly repainted, and is oval in shape. In Giotto's 
 Charity, luckily not restored, at Assisi, the guide- 
 books have always mistaken the heart she holds for
 
 THE STRAIT GA.TE. 129 
 
 an apple : and my own belief is that originally, 
 the Grammatice of Simon Memmi made with her 
 right hand the sign which said, "Enter ye in at 
 the Strait Gate," and with her left, the sign which 
 said, " My son, give me thine Heart." 
 
 II. RHETORIC. Next to learning how to read 
 and write, you are to learn to speak ; and, young 
 ladies and gentlemen, observe, to speak as little as 
 possible, it is farther implied, till you have learned. 
 
 In the streets of Florence at this day you may hear 
 much of what some people would call " rhetoric " 
 very passionate speaking indeed, and quite "from the 
 heart" such hearts as the people have got.* That 
 is to say, you never hear a word uttered but in a 
 rage, either just ready to burst, or for the most 
 part, explosive instantly : everybody man, woman, 
 or child roaring out their incontinent, foolish, 
 infinitely contemptible opinions and wills, on every 
 smallest occasion, with flashing eyes, hoarsely 
 shrieking and wasted voices, insane hope to drag 
 by vociferation whatever they would have, out of 
 man and God. 
 
 Now consider Simon Memmi's Rhetoric. The 
 science of Speaking ; primarily of making oneself 
 heard therefore : which is not to be done by shout- 
 ing. She alone, of all the sciences, carries a scroll : 
 
 * Very noble hearts the people, meaning the peasantry, 
 have : but the streets of the great cities bring all evil to the 
 surface, and continually multiply and reverberate its power.
 
 130 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 and although a speaker, gives you something to read. 
 It is not thrust forward at you at all, but held 
 quietly down with her beautiful depressed right 
 hand; her left hand set coolly and strongly on 
 her side. 
 
 And you will find that, thus, she alone of all the 
 sciences needs no use of her hands. All the others 
 have some important business for them ; she, none. 
 She can do all with her lips, holding scroll, or 
 bridle, or what you will, with her right hand, her 
 left on her side. 
 
 Again, look at the talkers in the streets of Flo- 
 rence, and see how, being essentially unable to 
 talk, they try to make lips of their fingers ! How 
 they poke, wave, flourish, point, jerk, shake finger 
 and fist at their antagonists dumb essentially, all 
 the while, if they knew it ; unpersuasive and in- 
 effectual, as the shaking of tree branches in the 
 wind. 
 
 You will at first think her figure ungainly and 
 stifK It is so, partly ; the dress being more coarsely 
 repainted than in any other of the series. But she 
 is meant to be both stout and strong. What she 
 has to say is indeed to persuade you, if possible ; but 
 assuredly to overpower you. And she has not the 
 Florentine girdle, for she does not want to move. 
 !She has her girdle broad at the waist of all the 
 sciences, you would at first have thought, the one 
 that most needed breath ! No, says Simon Memmi. 
 You want breath to run, or dance, or fight with.
 
 THE STRAIT GATE. 131 
 
 But to speak! If you know hoic, you can do your 
 work with few words ; very little of this pure 
 Florentine air will be enough, if you shape it 
 rightly. 
 
 Note, also, that calm setting of her hand against 
 her side. You think Rhetoric should be glowing, 
 fervid, impetuous? No, says Simon Memmi. 
 Above all things, cool. 
 
 And now let us read what is written on her 
 scroll : Mulceo, dum loquor, varios induta colores. 
 
 Her chief function, to melt ; make soft, thaw 
 the hearts of men with kind fire ; to overpower 
 with peace ; and bring rest, with rainbow colours. 
 The chief mission of all words that they should be 
 of comfort. 
 
 You think the function of words is to excite ? 
 Why, a red rag will do that, or a blast through a 
 brass pipe. But to give calm and gentle heat ; to 
 be as the south wind, and the iridescent rain, to all 
 bitterness of frost ; and bring at once strength, 
 and healing. This is the work of human lips, 
 taught of God. 
 
 One farther and final lesson is given in the 
 medallion above. Aristotle, and too many modern 
 rhetoricians of his school, thought there could be 
 good speaking in a false cause. But above Simon 
 Memmi's Rhetoric is Truth, with her mirror.* 
 There is a curious feeling, almost innate in men, 
 
 * Same figure as Rhetoric, plus the mirror. Memmi there- 
 fore thinks Rhetoric and Truth are one. (G. C.)
 
 132 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 that though they are bound to speak truth, in 
 speaking to a single person, they may lie as much 
 as they please, provided they lie to two or more 
 people at once. There is the same feeling about 
 killing : most people would shrink from shooting 
 one innocent man ; but will fire a mitrailleuse con- 
 tentedly into an innocent regiment. 
 
 When you look down from the figure of the 
 Science, to that of Cicero, beneath, you will at first 
 think it entirely overthrows my conclusion that 
 Rhetoric has no need of her hands. For Cicero, 
 it appears, has three instead of two. 
 
 The uppermost, at his chin, is the only genuine 
 one. That raised, with the finger up, is entirely 
 false. That on the book, is repainted so as to defy 
 conjecture of its original action. 
 
 But observe how the gesture of the true one 
 confirms, instead of overthrowing, what I have 
 said above. Cicero is not speaking at all, but 
 profoundly thinking before he speaks. It is the 
 most abstractedly thoughtful face to be found 
 among all the philosophers ; and very beautiful. 
 The whole is under Solomon, in the line of 
 Prophets. 
 
 Technical Points. These two figureshave suffered 
 from restoration more than any others, but the 
 right hand of Rhetoric is still entirely genuine, 
 and the left, except the ends of the fingers. The 
 ear, and hair just above it, are quite safe, the head
 
 THE STRAIT GATE. 133 
 
 well set on its original line, but the crown of leaves 
 rudely retouched, and then faded. All the lower 
 part of the figure of Cicero has been not only 
 repainted, but changed ; the face is genuine I 
 believe retouched ; but so cautiously and skilfully, 
 that it is probably now more beautiful than at 
 first. 
 
 III. LOGIC. The science of Reasoning, or more 
 accurately Reason herself, or pure intelligence. 
 
 Science to be gained after that of Expression, 
 says Simon Memmi ; so, young people, it appears, 
 that though you must not speak before you have 
 been taught how to speak, you may yet properly 
 speak before you have been taught how to think. 
 
 For indeed, it is only by frank speaking that you 
 can learn how to think. And it is no matter how 
 wrong the first thoughts you have may be, provided 
 you express them clearly ; and are willing to have 
 them put right. 
 
 Fortunately, nearly all of this beautiful figure 
 is virtually safe, the outlines pure everywhere, 
 and the face perfect : the prettiest, as far as I know, 
 which exists in Italian art of this early date. It is 
 subtle to the extreme in gradations of colour : the 
 eyebrows drawn, not with a sweep of the brush, 
 but with separate cross touches in the line of 
 their growth absolutely pure in arch ; the nose 
 straight and fine ; the lips playful slightly, proud, 
 unerringly cut ; the hair flowing in sequent waves,
 
 134 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 ordered as if in musical time ; head perfectly up- 
 Tight on the shoulders ; the height of the brow 
 completed by a crimson frontlet set with pearls, 
 surmounted by a fleur-de-lys. 
 
 Her shoulders are exquisitely drawn, her white 
 jacket fitting close to soft, yet scarcely rising 
 breasts ; her arms singularly strong, at perfect 
 rest; her hands, exquisitely delicate. In her right, 
 she holds a branching and leaf-bearing rod, (the 
 syllogism) ; in her left, a scorpion with double sting, 
 (the dilemma) more generally, the powers of 
 rational construction and dissolution,* 
 
 Beneath her, Aristotle, intense keenness of 
 search in his half-closed eyes. 
 
 Medallion above, (less expressive than usual) a 
 man writing, with his "head stooped. 
 
 The whole under Isaiah, in the line of Prophets. 
 
 Technical Points. The only parts of this figure 
 which have suffered seriously in repainting are 
 the leaves of the rod, and the scorpion. I have 
 no idea, as I said above, what the background 
 once was ; it is now a mere mess of scrabbled 
 grey, carried over the vestiges, still with care 
 much redeemable, of the richly ornamental ex- 
 tremity of the rod, which was a cluster of green 
 leaves on a black ground. But the scorpion is 
 indecipherably injured, most of it confused re- 
 painting, mixed with the white of the dress, the 
 
 * See farther the notes on Polemic Theology, page 151.
 
 THE STRAIT GATE. 135 
 
 double sting emphatic enough still, but not on 
 the first lines. 
 
 The Aristotle is very genuine throughout, 
 except his hat, and I think that must be nearly on 
 the old lines, though I cannot trace them. They 
 are good lines, new or old. 
 
 IV. Music. After you have learned to reason, 
 young people, of course you will be very grave, 
 if not dull, you think. No, says Simon Memmi. 
 By no means anything of the kind. After learn- 
 ing to reason, you will learn to sing ; for you will 
 want to. There is so much reason for singing in 
 the sweet world, when one thinks rightly of it. 
 None for grumbling, provided always you have 
 entered in at the strait gate. You will sing all 
 along the road then, in a little while, in a manner 
 pleasant for other people to hear. 
 
 This figure has been one of the loveliest in the 
 series, an extreme refinement and tender severity 
 being aimed at throughout. She is crowned, not 
 with laurel, but with small leaves, I am not sure 
 what they are, being too much injured : the face 
 thin, abstracted, wistful ; the lips not far open in 
 their low singing ; the hair rippling softly on the 
 shoulders. She plays on a small organ, richly 
 ornamented with Gothic tracery, the slope of it 
 set with crockets like those of Santa Maria del 
 Fiore. Simon Memmi means that all music must 
 be " sacred." Not that you are never to sing any-
 
 186 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 thing but hymns ; but that whatever is rightly 
 called music, or work of the Muses, is divine in 
 help and healing. 
 
 The actions of both hands are singularly sweet. 
 The right is one of the loveliest things I ever saw 
 done in painting. She is keeping down one note 
 only, with her third finger, seen under the raised 
 fourth : the thumb, just passing under ; all the 
 curves of the fingers exquisite, and the pale light 
 and shade of the rosy flesh relieved against the 
 ivory white and brown of the notes. Only the 
 thumb and end of the forefinger are seen of the 
 left hand, but they indicate enough its light pres- 
 sure on the bellows. Fortunately, all these por- 
 tions of the fresco are absolutely intact. 
 
 Underneath, Tubal-Cain. Not Jubal, as you 
 would expect. Jubal is the inventor of musical 
 instruments. Tubal-Cain, thought the old Floren- 
 tines, invented harmony itself. They, the best 
 smiths in the world, knew the differences in tones 
 of hammer strokes on anvil. Curiously enough, 
 the only piece of true part-singing, done beautifully 
 and joyfully, which I have heard this year (1874) 
 in Italy, (being south of Alps exactly six months, 
 and ranging from Genoa to Palermo) was out of 
 a busy smithy at Perugia. Of bestial howling, and 
 entirely frantic vomiting up of hopelessly damned 
 souls through their still carnal throats, I have 
 heard more than, please God, I will ever endure 
 the hearing of again, in one of His summers.
 
 THE STRAIT GATE. 137 
 
 You think Tubal-Cain .very ugly ? Yes. Much 
 like a shaggy baboon : not accidentally, but 
 Avith most scientific understanding of baboon 
 character. Men must have looked like that, 
 before they had invented harmony, or felt that 
 one note differed from another, says Simon 
 Memmi. Darwinism, like all widely popular 
 and widely mischievous fallacies, has many a 
 curious gleam and grain of truth in its tissue. 
 
 Under Moses. 
 
 Medallion, a youth drinking. Otherwise, you 
 might have thought only church music meant, 
 and not feast music also. 
 
 Technical Points. The Tubal-Cain, one of the 
 most entirely pure and precious remnants of the 
 old painting, nothing lost: and nothing but the 
 redder ends of his beard retouched. Green 
 dress of Music, in the body and over limbs, 
 entirely repainted : it was once beautifully em- 
 broidered : sleeves, partly genuine, hands perfect, 
 face and hair nearly so. Leaf crown faded and 
 broken away, but not retouched. 
 
 V. ASTRONOMY. By her ancient name Astro- 
 logy, as we say Theology, not Theonomy : the 
 knowledge of so much of the stars as we can 
 know wisely; not the attempt to define their 
 laws for them. Not that it is unbecoming of us 
 to find out, if we can, that they move in ellipses, 
 
 11
 
 138 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 and so on ; but it is no business of ours. AYhat 
 effects their rising and setting have on man, and 
 beast, and leaf; what their times and changes 
 are, seen and felt in this world, it is our business 
 to know, passing our nights, if wakef'ully, by that 
 divine candlelight, and no other. 
 
 She wears a dark purple robe ; holds in her 
 left hand the hollow globe with golden zodiac and 
 meridians : lifts her right hand in noble awe. 
 
 " When I consider the heavens, the work of 
 Thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which Thou 
 hast ordained." 
 
 Crowned with gold, her dark hair in elliptic 
 waves, bound with glittering chains of pearl. 
 Her eyes dark, lifted. 
 
 Beneath her, Zoroaster,* entirely noble and 
 beautiful, the delicate Persian head made softer 
 still by the elaborately wreathed silken hair, 
 twisted into the pointed beard, and into tapering 
 plaits, falling on his shoulders. The head entirely 
 thrown back, he looks up with no distortion of 
 the delicately arched brow : writing, as he gazes. 
 
 * Atlas 1 according to poor Vasari, and sundry modern guides. 
 I find Vasari's mistakes usually of this brightly blundering 
 kind. In matters needing research, after a while, I find he is 
 right, usually. 
 
 And I did find him right myself, after farther ' research ' 
 the 'Atlas' in question being the builder and first king of 
 Fesole ! but how far Magian or Persian, I know not ; only 
 in the fresco he is, I believe, represented as watching the 
 stars for the hour to lay the first stone of his city. J. R., 
 Florence, October, 1882
 
 THE STRUT GATE. 139 
 
 For the association of the religion of the 
 Magi with their own, in the mind of the Floren- 
 tines of this time, see " Before the Soldan." 
 
 The dress must always have been white, because 
 of its beautiful opposition to the purple above and 
 that of Tubal-Cain beside it. But it has been 
 too much repainted to be trusied anywhere, 
 nothing left but a fold or two in the sleeves. 
 The cast of it from the knees down is entirely 
 beautiful, and I suppose on the old lines ; but 
 the restorer also could throw a fold well when he 
 chose. The warm light which relieves the purple 
 of Atlas above, is lain in by him. I don't know 
 if I should have liked it better, flat, as it was, 
 against the dark purple ; it seems to me quite 
 beautiful now. The full red flush on the face of 
 the Astronomy is the restorer's doing also. She 
 was much paler, if not quite pale. 
 
 Under St. Luke. 
 
 Medallion, a stern man, with sickle and spade. 
 For the flowers, and for us, when stars have risen 
 and set such and such times ; remember. 
 
 Technical Points. Left hand, globe, most of 
 the important folds of the purple dress, eyes, 
 mouth, hair in great part, and crown, genuine. 
 Golden tracery on border of dress lost ; extremity 
 of falling folds from left sleeve altered and con- 
 fused, but the confusion prettily got out of. Right 
 hand and much of face and dress repainted.
 
 140 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 Zoroaster's head quite pure. Dress repainted, 
 but carefully, leaving the hair untouched. Right 
 hand and pen, now a common feathered quill, 
 entirely repainted, but dexterously and with 
 feeling. The hand was once slightly different in 
 position, and held, most probably, a style. 
 
 VI. GEOMETRY. You have now learned, young 
 ladies and gentlemen, to read, to speak, to think, 
 to sing, and to see. You are getting old, and will 
 have soon to think of being married ; you must 
 learn to build your house, therefore. Here is your 
 carpenter's square for you, and you may safely 
 and wisely contemplate the ground a little, and the 
 measures and laws relating to that, seeing you 
 have got to abide upon it : and have properly 
 looked at the stars ; not before then, lest, had you 
 studied the ground first, you might perchance 
 never have raised your heads from it. 
 
 Geometry is here considered as the arbitress of 
 all laws of practical labour, issuing in beauty. 
 
 She looks down, a little puzzled, greatly in- 
 terested, holding her carpenter's square in her left 
 hand, not wanting that but for practical work ; 
 following a diagram with her right. 
 
 Her beauty, altogether soft and in curves, I 
 commend to your notice, as the exact opposite of 
 what a vulgar designer would have imagined for 
 her. Note the wreath of hair at the back of her 
 head, which, though fastened by a spiral fillet,
 
 THE STRAIT GATE. 141 
 
 escapes at last, and flies off loose in a sweeping 
 curve. Contemplative Theology is the only other 
 of the sciences who has such wavy hair. 
 
 Beneath her, Euclid, in white turban. Very 
 fine and original work throughout ; but nothing 
 of special interest in him. 
 
 Under St. Matthew. 
 
 Medallion, a soldier with a straight sword (best 
 for science of defence), octagon shield, helmet 
 like the beehive cap of Canton Vaud. As the 
 secondary use of music in feasting, so the secondary 
 use of geometry in war her noble art being all 
 in sweetest peace is shown in the medallion. 
 
 Technical Points. It is more than fortunate 
 that in nearly every figure, the original outline of 
 the hair is safe. Geometry's has scarcely been 
 retouched at all, except at the ends, once in single 
 knots, now in confused double ones. The hands, 
 girdle, most of the dress, and her black carpenter's 
 square are original. Face and breast repainted. 
 
 VII. ARITHMETIC. Having built your house, 
 young people, and understanding the light of 
 heaven, and the measures of earth, you may 
 marry and can't do better. And here is now 
 your conclusive science, which you will have to 
 apply, all your days, to all your affairs. 
 
 The Science of Number. Infinite in solemnity 
 of use in Italy at this time ; including, of course,
 
 142 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 whatever was known of the higher abstract mathe- 
 matics and mysteries of numbers, but reverenced 
 especially in its vital necessity to the prosperity of 
 families and kingdoms ; and first fully so under- 
 stood here in commercial Florence. 
 
 Her hand lifted, with two fingers bent, two 
 straight, solemnly enforcing on your attention her 
 primal law Two and two are four, you ob- 
 serve, not five, as those unhappy usurers 
 think. 
 
 Under her, Pythagoras. 
 
 Above, medallion of king, with sceptre and 
 globe, counting money. Have you ever chanced 
 to read carefully Carlyle's account of the founda- 
 tion of the existing Prussian empire, in economy ? 
 
 You can, at all events, consider with yourself 
 a little, what empire this Queen of the terrestrial 
 sciences must hold over the rest, if they are to be 
 put to good use ; or what depth and breadth of 
 application there is in the brief parables of the 
 counted cost of Power, and number of Armies. 
 
 To give a very minor, but characteristic instance. 
 I have always felt that with my intense love of 
 the Alps, 1 ought to have been able to make a 
 drawing of Chamouni, or the vale of Cluse, which 
 should give people morepleasure thana photograph; 
 but I always wanted to do it as I saw it, and 
 engrave pine for pine, and crag for crag, like Albert 
 Durer. I broke my strength down for many a 
 year, always tiring of my work, or finding the
 
 THE STRAIT GATE. 143 
 
 leaves drop off, or the snow come on, before I 
 had well begun what I meant to do. If I 
 had only counted my pines first, and calculated 
 the number of hours necessary to do them in the 
 manner of Durer, I should have saved the avail- 
 able drawing time of some five years, spent in 
 vain effort. But Turner counted his pines, and 
 did all that could be done for them, and rested 
 content with that. 
 
 And how often in greater affairs of life, the 
 arithmetical part of the business must become the 
 dominant one ! How many and how much have 
 we ? How many and how much do we want ? 
 How constantly does noble Arithmetic of the finite 
 lose itself in base Avarice of the Infinite, and in 
 blind imagination of it ! In counting of minutes, 
 is our arithmetic ever solicitous enough ? In 
 counting our days, is she ever severe enough ? 
 How we shrink from reckoning in their decades, 
 the diminished store of them ! And if we ever 
 pray the solemn prayer that we may be taught 
 to number them, do we even try to do it after 
 praying ? 
 
 Technical Points. The Pythagoras almost en- 
 tirely genuine. The upper figures, from this 
 inclusive to the outer wall, I have not been able 
 to examine thoroughly, my scaffolding not extend- 
 ing beyond the Geometry. 
 
 Here then we have the sum of sciences, seven,
 
 144 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 according to the Florentine mind necessary to the 
 secular education of man and woman. Of these 
 the modern average respectable English gentle- 
 man and gentlewoman know usually only a little 
 of the last, and entirely hate the prudent applica- 
 tions of that : being unacquainted, except as they 
 chance here and there to pick up a broken piece 
 of information, with either grammar, rhetoric, 
 music,* astronomy, or geometry ; and are not only 
 unacquainted with logic, or the use of reason, 
 themselves, but instinctively antagonistic to its 
 use by anybody else. 
 
 We are now to read the series of the Divine 
 sciences, beginning at the opposite side, next the 
 window. 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 The Seven Heavenly Sciences; read from left to right; 
 from the corner next the window to tJie centre of tlie 
 iv all. 
 
 I. CIVIL LAW. Civil, or 'of citizens,' not 
 only as distinguished from Ecclesiastical, but from 
 Local kw. She is the universal Justice of the 
 peaceful relations of men throughout the world, 
 therefore holds the globe, with its three quarters, 
 white, as being justly governed, in her left hand. 
 
 She is also the law of eternal equity, not of erring 
 statute ; therefore holds her sword level across her 
 breast. 
 
 * In all the classic, simple, and eternal modes of it.
 
 THE STRAIT GATE. 145 
 
 She is the foundation of all other divine science.- 
 To know anything whatever about God, you must 
 begin by being Just. 
 
 Dressed in red, which in these frescoes is always 
 a sign of power, or zeal ; but her face very calm, 
 gentle, and beautiful. Her hair bound close, and 
 crowned by the royal circlet of gold, with pure 
 thirteenth century strawberry leaf ornament. 
 
 Under her, the Emperor Justinian, in blue, with 
 conical mitre of white and gold ; the face in profile, 
 very beautiful. The imperial staff in his right 
 hand, the Institutes in his left. 
 
 Medallion, a figure, apparently in distress, ap- 
 pealing for justice. (Trajan's suppliant widow ?) 
 
 Technical Points. The three divisions of the 
 globe in her hand were originally inscribed ASIA, 
 AFRICA, EUROPE. The restorer has ingeniously 
 changed AF into AME RICA. Faces, both of 
 the science and emperor, little retouched, nor any 
 of the rest altered. 
 
 II. CHRISTIAN LAW. After the justice which 
 rules men, comes that which rules the Church of 
 Christ. The distinction is not between secular law, 
 and ecclesiastical authority, but between the rough 
 equity of humanity, and the discriminate com- 
 passion of Christian discipline. 
 
 In full, straight-falling, golden robe, with white 
 mantle over it ; a church in her left hand ; her
 
 146 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 right raised, with the forefinger lifted ; (indicating 
 heavenly source of all Christian law ? or warning?) 
 
 Head-dress, a white veil floating into folds in 
 the air. You will find nothing in these frescoes 
 without significance ; and as the escaping hair of 
 Geometry indicates the infinite conditions of lines 
 of the higher orders, so the floating veil here 
 indicates that the higher relations of Christian 
 justice are indefinable. So her golden mantle sig- 
 nifies that it is a glorious and excellent justice 
 beyond that which unchristian men conceive ; 
 while the severely falling lines of the folds, which 
 form a kind of gabled niche for the head of the 
 Pope beneath, correspond with the strictness of 
 true Church discipline, and of the firmer as well 
 as more luminous statute. 
 
 Beneath, Pope Clement V., in red, lifting his 
 hand, not in the position of benediction, but, I 
 suppose, of injunction, only the forefinger straight, 
 the second a little bent, the two last quite. Note 
 the strict level of the book ; and the vertical direct- 
 ness of the key. 
 
 The medallion puzzles me. It looks like a figure 
 counting money.* 
 
 Technical Points. Fairly well preserved ; but 
 the face of the Science retouched : the grotesquely 
 false perspective of the Pope's tiara, one of the 
 
 * Probably a doctor expounding laws : the points of his 
 fingers being touched in order. (G. C.)
 
 THE STRAIT GATE. 147 
 
 most curiously nai've examples of the entirely 
 ignorant feeling after merely scientific truth of 
 form which still characterized Italian art. 
 
 Type of church interesting in its extreme sim- 
 plicity ; no idea of transept, campanile, or dome. 
 
 III. PEACTICAL THEOLOGY. The beginning of 
 the knowledge of God being Human Justice, and 
 its elements defined by Christian Law, the appli- 
 cation of the law so defined follows, first with 
 respect to man, then with respect to God. 
 
 " Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's 
 and to God the things that are God's." 
 
 We have therefore now following, two sciences, 
 one of our duty to men, the other to their 
 Maker. 
 
 This is the first : duty to men. She holds a cir- 
 cular medallion, representing Christ preaching on 
 the Mount, and points with her right hand to the 
 earth. 
 
 The sermon on the Mount is perfectly expressed 
 by the craggy pinnacle in front of Christ, and the 
 high dark horizon. There is curious evidence 
 throughout all these frescoes of Simon Memmi's 
 having read the Gospels with a quite clear under- 
 standing of their innermost meaning. 
 
 I have called this science, Practical Theology : 
 the instructive knowledge, that is to say, of what 
 God would have us do, personally, in any given 
 human relation : and the speaking His Gospel
 
 148 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 therefore by act. u Let your light so shine before 
 men." 
 
 She wears a green dress, like Music ; her hair 
 in the Arabian arch, with jewelled diadem. 
 
 Under David. 
 
 Medallion, Almsgiving. 
 
 Beneath her, Peter Lombard. 
 
 Technical Points. It is curious that while the 
 instinct of perspective was not strong enough to 
 enable any painter at this time to foreshorten a 
 foot, it yet suggested to them the expression of 
 elevation by raising the horizon. 
 
 I have not examined the retouching. The hair 
 and diadem at least are genuine, the face is 
 dignified and compassionate, and much on the 
 old lines. 
 
 IV. DEVOTIONAL THEOLOGY. Giving glory to 
 God, or, more accurately, whatever feelings He 
 desires us to have towards Him, whether of affec- 
 tion or awe. 
 
 This is the science or method of devotion for 
 Christians universally, just as the Practical Theo- 
 logy is their science or method of action. 
 
 In blue and red : a narrow black rod still trace- 
 able in the left -hand ; I am not sure of its mean- 
 ing. (" Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me ? ") 
 The other hand open in admiration, like Astro- 
 nomy's ; but Devotion's is held at her breast.
 
 THE STRAIT GATE. 149 
 
 Her head very characteristic of Memmi, with 
 upturned eyes, and Arab arch in hair. 
 
 Beneath her, Boethius. 
 
 Medallion, a mother lifting her hands : teach- 
 ing her child the first elements of religion ? 
 
 Under St. Paul. 
 
 Technical Points, Both figures very genuine, 
 and the painting of Boethius's black book, as of 
 the red one in the next fresco, worth notice, show- 
 ing how pleasant and interesting the commonest 
 things become, when well painted. 
 
 V. DOGMATIC THEOLOGY. After action and 
 worship, thought becoming too wide and difficult, 
 the need of dogma becomes felt; the assertion 
 that is, within limited range, of the things that 
 are to be believed. 
 
 Since whatever pride and folly pollute Christian 
 scholarship naturally delight in dogma, the science 
 itself cannot but be in a kind of disgrace among 
 sensible men : nevertheless it would be difficult to 
 overvalue the peace and security which have been 
 given to humble persons by forms of creed ; and 
 it is evident that either there is no such thing as 
 theology, or some of its knowledge must be thus, 
 if not expressible, at least reducible within certain 
 limits of expression, so as to be protected from 
 misinterpretation. 
 
 In red, again the sign of power, crowned
 
 150 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 with a black (once golden ?) triple* crown, emble- 
 matic of the Trinity. The left hand holding a 
 scoop for winnowing corn ; the other points 
 upwards. " Prove all things hold fast that 
 which is good, or of Grod." 
 
 Under her, Dionysius the Areopagite mending 
 his pen ! But I am doubtful of Lord Lindsay's 
 identification of this figure, and the action is 
 curiously common and meaningless. It may have 
 meant that meditative theology is essentially a 
 writer, not a preacher. 
 
 Medallion, female figure lay ing hands on breast. | 
 
 Under St. Mark. 
 
 Technical Points. I have not examined the 
 upper figure ; the lower one is almost entirely 
 genuine, and the painting of the red book quite 
 exemplary in fresco style. 
 
 VI. MYSTIC THEOLOGY.! Monastic science, 
 above dogma, and attaining to new revelation by 
 reaching higher spiritual states. 
 
 In white robes, her left hand gloved (I don't know 
 why) holding chalice. She wears a nun's veil 
 
 * Three-cusped, better than triple, which would mean the 
 papal tiara; and I think it was outlined with black only. 
 (G. C.) 
 
 f The right laid on the breast, the left holds her girdle. 
 (G. C.) 
 
 J Blunderingly in the guide-books called ' Faith ' ! 
 
 I think the remnant of a falcon's wing is traceable above 
 the hand. (G.C.) Well but if so why ? Monks don't ride
 
 THE STRAIT GATE. 151 
 
 fastened under her chin, her hair fastened close, 
 like Grammar's, showing her necessarily monastic 
 life ; all states of mystic spiritual life involving 
 retreat from much that is allowable in the material 
 and practical world. 
 
 There is no possibility of denying this fact, in- 
 finite as the evils are which have arisen from mis- 
 conception of it. They have been chiefly induced 
 by persons who falsely pretended to lead monastic 
 life, and led it without having natural faculty 
 for it. But many more lamentable errors have 
 arisen from the pride of really noble persons, who 
 have thought it would be a more pleasing thing to 
 God to be a sybil or a witch, than a useful house- 
 wife. Pride is always somewhat involved even in 
 the true effort : the scarlet head-dress in the form 
 of a horn on the forehead in the fresco may per- 
 haps indicate this, both here, and in the Contem- 
 plative Theology. 
 
 Under St. John. 
 
 Medallion unintelligible, to me. A woman laying 
 hands on the shoulders * of two small figures. 
 
 Technical Points. More of the minute folds 
 of the white dress left than in any other of the 
 repainted draperies. It is curious that minute 
 division has always in drapery, more or less, been 
 
 a-hawking. Does it mean the falcon's sight or soaring or 
 is it the Egyptian falcon emblem of immortality ? 
 * No, reaching out to them. (G. C.)
 
 152 MORNINGS IN" FLORENCE. 
 
 understood as an expression of spiritual life, from 
 the delicate folds of Athena's peplus down to 
 the rippled edges of modern priests' white robes ; 
 Titian's breadth of fold, on the other hand, meaning 
 for the most part bodily power. The relation of 
 the two modes of composition was lost by Michael 
 Angelo, who thought to express spirit by making 
 flesh colossal. 
 
 For the rest, the figure is not of any interest, 
 Memmi's own mind being intellectual rather than 
 mystic. 
 
 VII. POLEMIC THEOLOGY.* 
 
 " Who goes forth, conquering and to conquer ? " 
 
 " For we war, not with flesh and blood," etc. 
 
 In red, as sign of power, but not in armour, 
 because she is herself invulnerable. A close red 
 cap, with cross for crest, instead of helmet. Bow 
 in left hand ; long arrow in right. 
 
 She partly means Aggressive Logic : compare 
 the set of her shoulders and arms with Logic's. 
 
 She is placed the last of the Heavenly sciences, 
 not as their culminating power, but as the last 
 which can be rightly learned. You must know all 
 the others, before you go out to battle. Whereas 
 the general principle of modern Christendom is to 
 go out to battle without knowing any one of the 
 others ! one of the reasons for this error, the prince 
 of errors, being the vulgar notion that truth may be 
 * Blunderingly called ' Charity ' in the guide-books.
 
 THE STRAIT GATE. 153 
 
 .ascertained by debate ! Truth is never learned, in 
 any department of industry, by arguing, but by 
 working, and observing. And when you have got 
 good hold of one truth, for certain, two others will 
 grow out of it, in a beautifully dicotyledonous 
 fashion, (which, as before noticed, is the meaning 
 of the branch in Logic's right hand). Then, when 
 you have got so much true knowledge as is worth 
 fighting for, you are bound to fight,* or to die 
 for it ; but not to debate about it, any more. 
 
 There is, however, one further reason for Polemic 
 Theology being put beside Mystic. It is only in 
 some approach to mystic science that any man 
 becomes aware of what St. Paul means by "spiritual 
 wickedness in heavenly f places ; " or, in any true 
 sense, knows the enemies of God and of man. 
 
 Beneath, St. Augustine. Showing you the 
 proper method of controversy ; perfectly firm ; 
 perfectly gentle. 
 
 You are to distinguish, of course, controversy 
 from rebuke. The assertion of truth is to be 
 always gentle : the chastisement of wilful falsehood 
 may be very much the contrary indeed. Christ's 
 sermon on the Mount is full of polemic theology, 
 
 * I will not encumber this letter with a defence of Holy 
 Wars, whether defensive as that for the Scottish Covenant, or 
 aggressive as the Mahometans under the four great Caliphs : 
 the sentence is, I believe, hitherto the only one in which my 
 opinion about them has been stated. 
 
 f With cowardly intentional fallacy, translated ' high ' in 
 the English Bible. 
 
 12
 
 154 MOBNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 yet perfectly gentle : "Ye have heard that it hath 
 been said but / say unto you " ; " And if ye 
 salute your brethren only, what do ye more than 
 others ? " and the like. But His " Ye fools and 
 blind, for whether is greater," is not merely the 
 exposure of .error, but rebuke of the avarice which 
 made that error possible. 
 
 Under the throne of St. Thomas; and next to 
 Arithmetic, of the earthly sciences. 
 
 Medallion, a soldier, but not interesting. 
 
 Technical Points. Very genuine and beautiful 
 throughout. Note the use of St. Augustine's red 
 bands, to connect him with the full red of the 
 upper figure ; and compare the niche formed by the 
 dress of Canon Law, above the Pope, for different 
 artistic methods of attaining the same object, 
 unity of composition. 
 
 But lunch time is near, my friends, and you 
 have that shopping to do, you know.
 
 THE SIXTH MORNING. 
 
 THE SHEPHERD'S TOWER. 
 
 ~T AM obliged to interrupt my account of the 
 * Spanish chapel by the following notes on the 
 sculptures of Giotto's Campanile : first because 
 I find that inaccurate accounts of those sculptures 
 are in course of publication ; and chiefly because 
 I cannot finish my work in the Spanish chapel 
 until one of my good Oxford helpers, Mr. Caird, 
 has completed some investigations he has under- 
 taken for me upon the history connected with it. 
 I had written my own analysis of the fourth side, 
 believing that in every scene of it the figure of 
 St. Dominic was repeated. Mr. Caird first sug- 
 gested, and has shown me already good grounds 
 for his belief,* that the preaching monks repre- 
 sented are in each scene intended for a different 
 person. I am informed also of several careless 
 mistakes which have got into my description of 
 the fresco of the Sciences ; and finally, another 
 
 * He wrote thus to me on llth November last : " The three 
 preachers are certainly different. The first is Dominic ; the 
 second, Peter Martyr, whom I have identified from his mar- 
 tyrdom on the other wall ; and the third, Aquinas. " 
 
 12
 
 154 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 of my young helpers, Mr. Charles F. Murray, 
 
 one, however, whose help is given much in the 
 
 form of antagonism, informs me of various 
 
 critical discoveries lately made, both by himself, 
 
 and by industrious Germans, of points respecting 
 
 the authenticity of this and that, which will 
 
 require notice from me : more especially he tells 
 
 me of certification that the picture in the Uffizii, 
 
 of which I accepted the ordinary attribution to 
 
 Giotto, is by Lorenzo Monaco, which indeed may 
 
 well be, without in the least diminishing the use 
 
 to you of what I have written of its predella, and 
 
 without in the least, if you think rightly of the 
 
 matter, diminishing your confidence in what I 
 
 tell you of Giotto generally. There is one kind 
 
 of knowledge of pictures which is the artist's, 
 
 and another which is the antiquary's and the 
 
 picture-dealer's ; the latter especially acute, and 
 
 founded on very secure and wide knowledge of 
 
 canvas, pigment, and tricks of touch, without, 
 
 necessarily, involving any knowledge whatever 
 
 of the qualities of art itself. There are few 
 
 practised dealers in the great cities of Europe 
 
 whose opinion would not be more trustworthy 
 
 than mine, (if you could get it, mind you,) on 
 
 points of actual authenticity. But they could 
 
 only tell you whether the picture was by such 
 
 and such a master, and not at all what either 
 
 the master or his work were good for. Thus, 
 
 I have, before now, taken drawings by Varley
 
 THE SHEPHERD'S TOWER. 155 
 
 and by Cousins for early studies by Turner, and 
 have been convinced by the dealers that they 
 knew better than I, as far as regarded the 
 authenticity of those drawings ; but the dealers 
 don't know Turner, or the worth of him, so 
 well as I, for all that. So also, you may find 
 me again and again mistaken among the much 
 more confused work of the early Giottesque 
 schools, as to the authenticity of this work or 
 the other ; but you will find (and I say it with 
 far more sorrow than pride) that I am simply 
 the only person who can at present tell you the 
 real worth of any ; you will find that whenever 
 I tell you to look at a picture, it is worth your 
 pains ; and whenever I tell you the character of 
 a painter, that it is his character, discerned by 
 me faithfully in spite of all confusion of work 
 falsely attributed to him in which similar cha- 
 racter may exist. Thus, when I mistook Cousins 
 for Turner, I was looking at a piece of subtlety 
 in 4 the sky of which the dealer had no conscious- 
 ness whatever, which was essentially Turneresque, 
 but which another man might sometimes equal ; 
 whereas the dealer might be only looking at the 
 quality of Whatman's paper, which Cousins used, 
 and Turner did not. 
 
 Not, in the meanwhile, to leave you quite 
 guideless as to the main subject of the fourth 
 fresco in the Spanish chapel, the Pilgrim's Pro- 
 gress of Florence, here is a brief map of it.
 
 156 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 On the right, in lowest angle, St. Dominic 
 preaches to the group of Infidels ; in the next 
 group towards the left, he (or some one very 
 like him) preaches to the Heretics : the Heretics 
 proving obstinate, he sets his dogs at them, as at 
 the fatallest of wolves, who being driven away, 
 the rescued lambs are gathered at the feet of 
 the Pope. I have copied the head of the very 
 pious, but slightly weak-minded, little lamb in the 
 centre, to compare with my rough Cumberland 
 ones, who have had no such grave experiences. 
 The whole group, with the Pope above, (the 
 niche of the Duomo joining with and enriching 
 the decorative power of his mitre,) is a quite 
 delicious piece of design. 
 
 The Church being "thus pacified, is seen in 
 worldly honour under the powers of the Spiritual 
 and Temporal Rulers. The Pope, with Cardinal 
 and Bishop descending in order on his right ; 
 the Emperor, with King and Baron descending 
 in order on his left ; the ecclesiastical body of the 
 whole Church on the right side, and the laity, 
 chiefly its poets and artists, on the left. 
 
 Then, the redeemed Church nevertheless giving 
 itself up to the vanities and temptations of the 
 world, its forgetful saints are seen feasting, with 
 their children dancing before them, (the Seven 
 Mortal Sins, say some commentators). But the 
 wise-hearted of them confess their sins to another 
 ghost of St. Dominic ; and confessed, becoming
 
 THE SHEPHERD'S TOWER. 157 
 
 as little children, enter hand in hand the gate of 
 the Eternal Paradise, crowned with flowers by the 
 waiting angels, and admitted by St. Peter among 
 the serenely joyful crowd of all the saints, above 
 whom the white Madonna stands reverently before 
 the throne. There is, so far as I know, through- 
 out all the schools of Christian art, no other so 
 perfect statement of the noble policy and religion 
 of men. 
 
 I had intended to give the best account of it 
 in my power ; but, when at Florence, lost all time 
 for writing that I might copy the group of the 
 Pope and Emperor for the schools of Oxford ; 
 and the work since done by Mr. Caird has in- 
 formed me of so much, and given me, in some 
 of its suggestions, so much to think of, that I 
 believe it will be best and most just to print 
 at once his account of the fresco as a supplement 
 to these essays of mine, merely indicating any 
 points on which I have objections to raise, and 
 so leave matters till Fors lets me see Florence 
 once more. 
 
 Perhaps she may, in kindness, forbid my ever 
 seeing it more, the wreck of it being now too 
 ghastly and heart-breaking to any human soul 
 that remembers the days of old. Forty years 
 ago, there was assuredly no spot of ground, out 
 of Palestine, in all the round world, on which, if 
 you knew, even but a little, the true course of 
 that world's history, you saw with so much joyful
 
 158 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 reverence the dawn of morning, as at the foot of 
 the Tower of Giotto. For there the traditions of 
 faith and hope, of both the Gentile and Jewish 
 races, met for their beautiful labour : the Baptister y 
 of Florence is the last building raised on the earth 
 by the descendants of the workmen taught by 
 Dasdalus : and the Tower of Giotto is the loveliest 
 of those raised on earth under the inspiration 
 of the men who lifted up the tabernacle in the 
 wilderness. Of living Greek work there is none 
 after the Florentine Baptistery ; of living Christian 
 work, none so perfect as the Tower of Giotto ; 
 and, under the gleam and shadow of their marbles, 
 the morning light was haunted by the ghosts of 
 the Father of Natural Science, Galileo ; of Sacred 
 Art, Angelico, and of the Master of Sacred Song. 
 Which spot of ground the modern Florentine 
 has made his principal hackney-coach stand and 
 omnibus station. The hadkney coaches, with their 
 more or less farmyard-like litter of occasional 
 hay, and smell of variously mixed horse-manure, 
 are yet in more permissible harmony with the 
 place than the ordinary populace of a fashionable 
 promenade would be, with its cigars, spitting, and 
 harlot-planned fineries : but the omnibus place of 
 call being in front of the door of the tower, 
 renders it impossible to stand for a moment near 
 it, to look at the sculptures either of the eastern 
 or southern side ; while the north side is enclosed 
 with an iron railing, and usually encumbered
 
 THE SHEPHERD'S TOWER. 159 
 
 with lumber as well : not a soul in Florence ever 
 caring now for sight of any piece of its old artists' 
 work ; and the mass of strangers being on the 
 whole intent on nothing but getting the omnibus 
 to go by steam; and so seeing the cathedral in 
 one swift circuit, by glimpses between the puffs 
 of it. 
 
 The front of Notre Dame of Paris was similarly 
 turned into a coach-office when I last saw it 
 1872.* Within fifty yards of me as I write, 
 the Oratory of the Holy Ghost is used for a 
 tobacco- store, and in fine, over all Europe, mere 
 Caliban bestiality and Satyric ravage staggering, 
 drunk and desperate, into every once enchanted 
 cell where the prosperity of kingdoms ruled and 
 the miraculousness of beauty was shrined in 
 peace. 
 
 Deluge of profanity, drowning dome and tower 
 in Stygian pool of vilest thought, nothing now 
 left sacred, in the places where once nothing 
 was profane. 
 
 For that is indeed the teaching, if you could 
 receive it, of the Tower of Giotto ; as of all 
 Christian art in its day. Next to declaration 
 of the facts of the Gospel, its purpose, (often in 
 actual work the eagerest,) was to show the power 
 of the Gospel. History of Christ in due place; 
 yes, history of all He did, and how He died : but 
 then, and often, as I say, with more animated 
 * See Fors Clavigera in that year.
 
 160 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 imagination, the showing of His risen presence in 
 granting the harvests and guiding the labour of 
 the year. All sun and rain, and length or decline 
 of days received from His hand ; all joy, and 
 grief, and strength, or cessation of labour, indulged 
 or endured, as in His sight and to His glory. 
 And the familiar employments of the seasons, the 
 homely toils of the peasant, the lowliest skills of 
 the craftsman, are signed always on the stones 
 of the Church, as the first and truest condition 
 of sacrifice and offering. 
 
 Of these representations of human art under 
 heavenly guidance, the series of bas-reliefs which 
 stud the base of this tower of Giotto's must be 
 held certainly the chief in Europe.* At first you 
 may be surprised at the' smallness of their scale in 
 proportion to their masonry ; but this smallness of 
 scale enabled the master workmen of the tower to 
 execute them with their own hands ; and for the 
 rest, in the very finest architecture, the decoration 
 of most precious kind is usually thought of as a 
 jewel, and set with space round it, as the jewels 
 of a crown, or the clasp of a girdle. It is in 
 general not possible for a great workman to carve, 
 himself, a greatly conspicuous series of ornament ; 
 nay, even his energy fails him in design, when 
 the bas-relief extends itself into incrustation, or 
 
 * For account of the series on the main archivolt of St. 
 Mark's, see my sketch of the schools of Venetian sculpture in 
 third forthcoming number of ' St. Mark's Rest.'
 
 THE SHEPHERD'S TOWER. 161 
 
 involves the treatment of great masses of stone. 
 If his own does not, the spectator's will. It would 
 be the work of a long summer's day to examine 
 the over-loaded sculptures of the Certosa of 
 Pavia; and yet in the tired last hour, you 
 would be empty-hearted. Read but these inlaid 
 jewels of Giotto's once with patient following ; 
 and your hour's study will give you strength for 
 all your life. So far as you can, examine them of 
 course on the spot ; but to know them thoroughly 
 you must have their photographs : the subdued 
 colour of the old marble fortunately keeps the lights 
 subdued, so that the photograph may be made 
 more tender in the shadows than is usual in its 
 renderings of sculpture, and there are few pieces 
 of art which may now be so well known as these, 
 in quiet homes far away. 
 
 We begin on the western side. There are 
 seven sculptures on the western, southern, and 
 northern sides : six on the eastern ; counting 
 the Lamb over the entrance door of the tower, 
 which divides the complete series into two groups 
 of eighteen and eight. Itself, between them, 
 being the introduction to the following eight, 
 you must count it as the first of the terminal 
 group ; you then have the whole twenty-seven 
 sculptures divided into eighteen and nine. 
 
 Thus lettering the groups on each side for 
 West, South, East, and North, we have :
 
 162 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 W. S. E. N. 
 
 7 + 7 + 6 + 7 = 27 ; or, 
 W. S. E. 
 
 7-1-7 + 4 = 18 ; and, 
 
 E. N. 
 
 2 + 7 = 9. 
 
 There is a very special reason for this division 
 by nines ; but, for convenience' sake, I shall 
 number the whole from 1 to 27, straightforwardly. 
 And if you will have patience with me, I should 
 like to go round the tower once and again ; first 
 observing the general meaning and connection 
 of the subjects, and then going back to examine 
 the technical points in each, and such minor 
 specialties as it may. be well, at the first time, 
 to pass over. 
 
 1. The series begins, then, on the west side, with 
 the Creation of Man. It is not the beginning of 
 the story of Genesis ; but the simple assertion that 
 God made us, and breathed, and still breathes, 
 into our nostrils the breath of life. 
 
 This, Giotto tells you to believe as the begin- 
 ning of all knowledge and all power.* This he 
 tells you to believe, as a thing which he himself 
 knows. 
 
 He will tell you nothing but what he does 
 know. 
 
 * So also the Master-builder of the Ducal Palace of Venice. 
 See Fors Clavigera for June of this year.
 
 THE SHEPHERD'S TOWER. 163 
 
 2. Therefore, though Giovanni Pisano and his 
 fellow-sculptors had given, literally, the taking of 
 the rib out of Adam's side, Giotto merely gives 
 the mythic expression of the truth he knows, 
 "they two shall be one flesh." 
 
 3. And though all the theologians and -poets 
 of his time would have expected, if not demanded, 
 that his next assertion, after that of the Creation 
 of Man, should be of the Fall of Man, he asserts 
 nothing of the kind. He knows nothing of what 
 man was. What he is, he knows best of living 
 men at that hour, and proceeds to say. The next 
 sculpture is of Eve spinning and Adam hewing 
 the ground into clods. Not digging : you cannot, 
 usually, dig but in ground already dug. The 
 native earth you must hew. 
 
 They are not clothed in skins. What would 
 have been the use of Eve's spinning if she could 
 not weave? They wear, each, one simple piece 
 of drapery, Adam's knotted behind him, Eve's 
 fastened round her neck with a rude brooch. 
 
 Above them are an oak and an apple-tree. 
 Into the apple-tree a little bear is trying to 
 climb. 
 
 The meaning of which entire myth is, as I read 
 it, that men and women must both eat their bread 
 with toil. That the first duty of man is to feed 
 his family, and the first duty of the woman to 
 clothe it. That the trees of the field are given 
 us for strength and for delight, and that the wild
 
 164 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 beasts of the field must have their share with 
 us.* 
 
 4. The fourth sculpture, forming the centre- 
 piece of the series on the west side, is nomad 
 pastoral life. 
 
 Jabal, the father of such as dwell in tents, 
 and of such as have cattle, lifts the curtain of 
 his tent to look out upon his flock. His dog 
 watches it. 
 
 5. Jubal, the father of all such as handle the 
 harp and organ. 
 
 That is to say, stringed and wind instruments ; 
 the lyre and reed. The first arts (with the 
 Jew and Greek) of the shepherd David, and 
 shepherd Apollo. 
 
 Giotto has given him the long level trumpet, 
 afterwards adopted so grandly in the sculptures 
 of La Robbia and Donatello. It is, I think, 
 intended to be of wood, as now the long Swiss 
 horn, and a long and shorter tube are bound 
 together. 
 
 6. Tubal Cain, the instructor of every arti- 
 ficer in brass and iron. 
 
 Giotto represents him as sitting, fully robed, 
 turning a wedge of bronze on the anvil with 
 extreme watchfulness. 
 
 * The oak and apple boughs are placed, with the same mean, 
 ing, by Sandro Botticelli, in the lap of Zipporah. The figure 
 of the bear is again represented by Jacopo della Quercia, on 
 the north door of the Cathedral of Florence. I am not sure 
 of its complete meaning.
 
 THE SHEPHERD'S TOWER. 165 
 
 These last three sculptures, observe, represent 
 the life of the race of Cain ; of those who are 
 wanderers, and have no home. Nomad pastoral 
 life ; Nomad artistic life, Wandering Willie ; 
 yonder organ man, whom you want to send the 
 policeman after, and the gipsy who is mending 
 the old schoolmistress's kettle on the grass, which 
 the squire has wanted so long to take into his 
 park from the roadside. 
 
 7. Then the last sculpture of the seven begins 
 the story of the race of Seth, and of home life. 
 The father of it lying drunk under his trellised 
 vine ; such the general image of civilized societ}^ 
 in the abstract, thinks Giotto. 
 
 With several other meanings, universally known 
 to the Catholic world of that day, too many to 
 be spoken of here. 
 
 The second side of the tower represents, after 
 this introduction, the sciences and arts of civilized 
 or home life. 
 
 8. Astronomy. In nomad life you may serve 
 yourself of the guidance of the stars; but to 
 know the laws of their nomadic life, your own 
 must be fixed. 
 
 The astronomer, with his sextant revolving on 
 a fixed pivot, looks up to the vault of the heavens 
 and beholds their zodiac ; prescient of what else 
 with optic glass the Tuscan artist viewed, at 
 evening, from the top of Fesole. 
 
 Above the dome of heaven, as yet unseen, are
 
 106 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 the Lord of the worlds and His angels. To-day, 
 the Dawn and the Daystar : to-morrow, the Day- 
 star arising in the heart. 
 
 9. Defensive architecture. The building of 
 the watch-tower. The beginning of security in 
 possession. 
 
 10. Pottery. The making of pot, cup, and 
 platter. The first civilized furniture ; the means 
 of heating liquid, and serving drink and meat with 
 decency and economy. 
 
 11. Riding. The subduing of animals to do- 
 mestic service. 
 
 12. Weaving. The making of clothes with 
 swiftness, and in precision of structure, by help 
 of the loom. 
 
 13. Law, revealed as directly from heaven. 
 
 14. Daedalus (not Icarus, but the father trying 
 the wings). The conquest of the element of air. 
 
 As the seventh subject of the first group intro- 
 duced the arts of home after those of the savage 
 wanderer, this seventh of the second group intro- 
 duces the arts of the missionary, or civilized and 
 gift-bringing wanderer. 
 
 15. The Conquest of the Sea. The helmsman, 
 and two rowers, rowing as Venetians, face to 
 bow. 
 
 16. The Conquest of the Earth. Hercules victor 
 over Antaeus. Beneficent strength of civilization 
 crushing the savageness of inhumanity. 
 
 17. Agriculture. The oxen and plough.
 
 THE SHEPHERD'S TOWER. 16? 
 
 18. Trade. The cart and horses. 
 
 19. And now the sculpture over the door of the 
 tower, The Lamb of God, expresses the Law of 
 Sacrifice, and door of ascent to heaven. And theu 
 follow the fraternal arts of the Christian world. 
 
 20. Geometry. Again the angle sculpture, 
 introductory to the following series. We shall see 
 presently why this science must be the foundation 
 of the rest. 
 
 21. Sculpture. 
 
 22. Painting. 
 
 23. Grammar. 
 
 24. Arithmetic. The laws of number, weight, 
 and measures of capacity. 
 
 25. Music. The laws of number, weight (or 
 force), and measure, applied to sound. 
 
 26. Logic. The laws of number and measure 
 applied to thought. 
 
 27. The Invention of Harmony. 
 
 You see now by taking first the great division 
 of pre-Christian and Christian arts, marked by 
 the door of the Tower ; and then the divisions into 
 four successive historical periods, marked by its 
 angles that you have a perfect plan of human 
 civilization. The first side is of the nomad life, 
 learning how to assert its supremacy over other 
 wandering creatures, herbs, and beasts. Then the 
 second side is the fixed home life, developing race 
 and country ; then the third side, the human inter- 
 course between stranger races ; then the fourth
 
 168 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 side, the harmonious arts of all who are gathered 
 into the fold of Christ. 
 
 Now let us return to the first angle, and examine 
 piece by piece with care. 
 
 1 . Crea tion of Ma n. 
 
 Scarcely disengaged from the clods of the earth, 
 he opens his eyes to the face of Christ. Like all 
 the rest of the sculptures, it is less the repre- 
 sentation of a past fact than of a constant one. 
 It is the continual state of man, ' of the earth/ 
 yet seeing God. 
 
 Christ holds the book of His Law the ' Law of 
 life ' in His left hand. 
 
 The trees of the garden above are. central above 
 Christ, palm (immortal life) ; above Adam, oak 
 (human life). Pear, and fig, and a large-leaved 
 ground fruit (what?) complete the myth of the 
 Food of Life. 
 
 As decorative sculpture, these trees are espe- 
 cially to be noticed, with those in the two next 
 subjects, and the Noah's vine, as differing in treat- 
 ment from Giotto's foliage, of which perfect 
 examples are seen in 16 and 17. Giotto's branches 
 are set in close sheaf-like clusters; and every 
 mass disposed with extreme formality of radiation. 
 The leaves of these first, on the contrary, are 
 arranged with careful concealment of their orna- 
 mental system, so as to look inartificial. This is 
 done so studiously as to become, by excess, a 
 little unnatural ! Nature herself is more deco-
 
 THE SHEPHERD'S TOWER. 169 
 
 rative and formal in grouping. But the occult 
 design is very noble, and every leaf modulated 
 with loving, dignified, exactly right and sufficient 
 finish; not done to show skill, nor with mean 
 fbrgetf illness of main subject, but in tender com- 
 pletion and harmony with it. 
 
 Look at the subdivisions of the palm-leaves with 
 your magnifying glass. The others are less 
 finished in this than in the next subject. Man 
 himself incomplete, the leaves that are created 
 with him, for his life, must not be so. 
 
 (Are not his fingers yet short ; growing ?) 
 
 2. Creation of Woman. 
 
 Far, in its essential qualities, the transcendent 
 sculpture of this subject, Ghiberti's is only a dainty 
 elaboration and beautification of it, losing its 
 solemnity and simplicity in a flutter of feminine 
 grace. The older sculptor thinks of the Uses of 
 Womanhood, and of its dangers and sins, before 
 he thinks of its beauty; but, were the arm not 
 lost, the quiet naturalness of this head and breast 
 of Eve, and the bending grace of the submissive 
 rendering of soul and body to perpetual guidance 
 by the hand of Christ (grasping the arm, note, 
 for full support) would be felt to be far beyond 
 Ghiberfl's in beauty, as in mythic truth. 
 
 The line of her body joins with that of the 
 serpent-ivy round the tree trunk above her: a 
 double myth of her fall, and her support after- 
 wards by her husband's strength. " Thy desire 
 
 13
 
 170 MORNJNGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 shall be to thy husband." The fruit of the tree 
 double-set filbert, telling nevertheless the happy- 
 equality. 
 
 The leaves in this piece are finished with con- 
 summate poetical care and precision. Above 
 Adam, laurel (a virtuous woman is a crown to 
 her husband) ; the filbert for the two together ; 
 the fig, for fruitful household joy (under thy vine 
 and fig-tree* but vine properly the masculine 
 joy) ; and the fruit taken by Christ for type of 
 all naturally growing food, in his own hunger. 
 
 Examine with lens the ribbing of these leaves, 
 and the insertion on their stem of the three laurel 
 leaves on extreme right : and observe that in all 
 cases the sculptor works the moulding with his own 
 part of the design; look how he breaks variously 
 deeper into it, beginning from the foot of Christ, 
 and going up to the left into full depth above the 
 shoulder. 
 
 3. Original labour. Much poorer, and inten- 
 tionally so. For the myth of the creation of 
 humanity, the sculptor uses his best strength, and 
 shows supremely the grace of womanhood; but 
 in representing the first peasant state of life, 
 makes the grace of woman by no means her con- 
 spicuous quality. She even walks awkwardly ; 
 some feebleness in foreshortening the foot also 
 embarrassing the sculptor. He knows its form 
 perfectly but its perspective, not quite yet. 
 * Compare Fors Clavigera, February, 1877.
 
 THE SHEPHEKD'S TOWER. 171 
 
 The trees stiff and stunted they also needing 
 culture. Their fruit dropping at present only into 
 beasts' mouths. 
 4. Jabal. 
 
 If you have looked long enough, and carefully 
 enough, at the three previous sculptures, you 
 cannot but feel that the hand here is utterly 
 changed. The drapery sweeps in broader, softer, 
 but less true folds ; the handling is far more deli- 
 cate ; exquisitely sensitive to gradation over broad 
 surfaces scarcely using an incision of any depth 
 but in outline ; studiously reserved in appliance of 
 shadow, as a thing precious and local look at it 
 above the puppy's head, and under the tent. This 
 is assuredly painter's work, not mere sculptor's. I 
 have no doubt whatever it is by the own hand of 
 the shepherd-boy of Fesole. Cimabue had found 
 him drawing, (more probably scratching with 
 Etrurian point,) one of his sheep upon a stone. 
 These, on the central foundation-stone of his tower 
 he engraves, looking back on the fields of life: 
 the time soon near for him to draw the curtains of 
 his tent. 
 
 I know no dog like this in method of drawing, 
 and in skill of giving the living form without one 
 touch of chisel for hair, or incision for eye, except 
 the dog barking at Poverty in the great fresco 
 of Assisi. 
 
 Take the lens and look at every piece of the 
 work from corner to corner note especially as a
 
 172 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 thing which would only have been enjoyed by 
 a painter, and which all great painters do in- 
 tensely enjoy the fringe of the tent,* and 
 precise insertion of its point in the angle of the 
 hexagon, prepared for by the archaic masonry 
 indicated in the oblique joint above ; f architect 
 and painter thinking at once, and doing as they 
 thought. 
 
 I gave a lecture to the Eton boys a year or 
 two ago, on little more than the shepherd's dog, 
 which is yet more -wonderful in magnified scale 
 of photograph. The lecture is partly published 
 somewhere, but I can't refer to it. 
 
 5. Jubal 
 
 Still Giotto's, though a little less delighted in ; 
 but with exquisite introduction of the Gothic of 
 his own tower. See the light surface sculpture 
 of a mosaic design in the horizontal moulding. 
 
 Note also the painter's freehand working of the 
 complex mouldings of the table also resolvedly 
 oblong, not square ; see central flower. 
 
 6. Tubal Cain. 
 
 Still Giotto's, and entirely exquisite; finished 
 with no less care than the shepherd, to mark the 
 vitality of this art to humanity; the spade and 
 
 * " I think Jabal's tent is made of leather ; the relaxed 
 intervals between the tent-pegs show a curved ragged edge 
 like leather near the ground " (Mr. Caird). The edge of the 
 opening is still more characteristic, I think. 
 
 f Prints of these photographs which do not show the 
 masonry all round the hexagon are quite valueless for study.
 
 THE SHEPHERD'S TOWER. 173 
 
 hoe its heraldic bearing hung on the hinged 
 door.* For subtlety of execution, note the 
 texture of wooden block under anvil, and of its 
 iron hoop. 
 
 The workman's face is the best sermon on the 
 dignity of labour yet spoken by thoughtful man. 
 Liberal Parliaments and fraternal Reformers have 
 nothing essential to say more. 
 
 7. Noah. 
 
 Andrea Pisano's again, more or less imitative 
 of Giotto's work. 
 
 8. Astronomy. 
 
 We have a new hand here altogether. The hair 
 and drapery bad; the face expressive, but blunt in 
 cutting ; the small upper heads, necessarily little 
 more than blocked out, on the small scale; but 
 not suggestive of grace in completion : the minor 
 detail worked with great mechanical precision, 
 but little feeling; the lion's head, with leaves in its 
 ears, is quite ugly; and by comparing the work of 
 the small cusped arch at the bottom with Giotto's 
 soft handling of the mouldings of his, in 5, you 
 may for ever know common mason's work from 
 fine Gothic. The zodiacal signs are quite hard 
 
 * Pointed out to me by Mr. Caird, who adds farther, " I 
 saw a forge identical with this one at Pelago the other day, 
 the anvil resting on a tree-stump : the same fire, bellows, 
 and implements ; the door in two parts, the upper part like 
 a shutter, and used for the exposition of finished work as a 
 sign of the craft ; and I saw upon it the same finished work 
 of the same shape as in the bas-relief a spade and a hoe.
 
 174 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 and common in the method of bas-relief, but 
 quaint enough in design : Capricorn, Aquarius, 
 and Pisces, on the broad heavenly belt; Taurus 
 upside down, Gemini, and Cancer, on the small 
 
 I think the whole a restoration of the original 
 panel, or else an inferior workman's rendering of 
 Giotto's design, which the next piece is, with less 
 question. 
 
 9. Building. 
 
 The larger figure, I am disposed finally to 
 think, represents civic power, as in Lorenzetti's 
 fresco at Siena. The extreme rudeness of the 
 minor figures may be guarantee of their origi- 
 nality; it is the smoothness of mass and hard 
 edge work that make "me suspect the 8th for a 
 restoration. 
 
 10. Pottery. 
 
 Very grand; with much painter's feeling, and 
 fine mouldings again. The tiled roof projecting 
 in the shadow above, protects the first Ceramicus- 
 home. I think the women are meant to be carrying 
 some kind of wicker or reed-bound water-vessel. 
 The Potter's servant explains to them the extreme 
 advantages of the new invention. I can't make 
 any conjecture about the author of this piece. 
 
 11. Riding. 
 
 Again Andrea Pisano's, it seems to me. 
 Compare the tossing up of the dress behind the 
 shoulders, in 3 and 2. The head is grand, having
 
 THE SHEPHEKD'S TOWER. 175 
 
 nearly an Athenian profile : the loss of the horse's 
 fore-leg prevents me from rightly judging of the 
 entire action. I must leave riders to say. 
 
 12. Weaving. 
 
 Andrea's again, and of extreme loveliness ; the 
 stooping face of the woman at the loom is more 
 like a Leonardo drawing than sculpture. The 
 action of throwing the large shuttle, and all the 
 structure of the loom and its threads, distinguish- 
 ing rude or smooth surface, are quite wonderful. 
 The figure on the right shows the use and grace 
 of finely woven tissue, under and upper that over 
 the bosom so delicate that the line of separation 
 from the flesh of the neck is unseen. 
 
 If you hide with your hand the carved masonry 
 at the bottom, the composition separates itself into 
 two pieces, one disagreeably rectangular. The 
 still more severely rectangular masonry throws 
 out by contrast all that is curved and rounded in 
 the loom, and unites the whole composition: that 
 is its aesthetic function; its historical one is to 
 show that weaving is queen's work, not peasant's; 
 for this is palace masonry. 
 
 13. The Giving of Law. More strictly, of the 
 Book of God's Law: the only one which can 
 ultimately be obeyed.* 
 
 * Mr. Caird convinced me of the real meaning of this 
 sculpture. I had taken it for the giving of a book, writing 
 further of it as follows : 
 
 All books, rightly so called, are Books of Law, and all
 
 176 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 The authorship of this is very embarrassing to 
 me. The face of the central figure is most noble, 
 and all the work good, but not delicate; it is like 
 original work of the master of whose design No. 8 
 might be a restoration. 
 
 14. Daedalus. 
 
 Andrea Pisano again; the head superb, founded 
 on Greek models, feathers of wings wrought with 
 extreme care; but with no precision of arrange- 
 ment or feeling. How far intentional in awkward- 
 ness, I cannot say ; but note the good mechanism 
 of the whole plan, with strong standing-board for 
 the feet, 
 
 15. Navigation. 
 
 An intensely puzzling one ; coarse (perhaps un- 
 finished) in work, and done by a man who could not 
 row; the plaited bands used for rowlocks being 
 
 Scripture is given by inspiration of God. (What me now 
 mostly call a book, the infinite reduplication and vibratory 
 echo of a lie, is not given, but belched up out of volcanic clay 
 by the inspiration of the devil.) On the Book-giver's right 
 hand the students in cell, restrained by the lifted right 
 hand: 
 
 " Silent, you, till you know" ; then, perhaps, you also. 
 
 On the left, the men of the world, kneeling, receive the 
 gift. 
 
 Kecommendable seal, this, for Mr. Mudie ! 
 
 Mr. Caird says : " The book is written law, which is given 
 by Justice to the inferiors, that they may know the laws 
 regulating their relations to their superiors who are also 
 under the hand of law. The vassal is protected by the 
 accessibility of formularized law the superior is restrained 
 by the right hand of power."
 
 THE SHEPHEKD'S TOWER. 177 
 
 pulled the wrong way. Right, had the rowers 
 been rowing English-wise : but the water at the 
 boat's head shows its motion forwards, the way 
 the oarsmen look. I cannot make out the action 
 of the figure at the stern ; it ought to be steering 
 with the stern oar. 
 
 The water seems quite unfinished. Meant, I 
 suppose, for surface and section of sea, with 
 slimy rock at the bottom; but all stupid and 
 inefficient. 
 
 16. Hercules and Antcuus. 
 
 The Earth power, half hidden by the earth, its 
 hair and hand becoming roots, the strength of its 
 life passing through the ground into the oak tree. 
 With Cercyon, but first named, (Plato, Laws, 
 book VII., 796,) Antaeus is the master of con- 
 test without use ; (f>i\oveucla<i dxprja-rov and is 
 generally the power of pure selfishness and its 
 various inflation to insolence and degradation 
 to cowardice ; finding its strength only in fall 
 back to its Earth, he is the master, in a word, 
 of all such kind of persons as have been writing 
 lately about the " interests of England." He is, 
 therefore, the Power invoked by Dante to place 
 Virgil and him in the lowest circle of Hell ; 
 " Alcides whilom felt, that grapple, straitened 
 sore," etc. The Antaeus in the sculpture is very 
 grand ; but the authorship puzzles me, as of the 
 next piece, by the same hand. I believe both 
 Giotto's design.
 
 178 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 17. Ploughing. 
 
 The sword in its Christian form. Magnificent: 
 the grandest expression of the power of man over 
 the earth and its strongest creatures that I re- 
 member in early sculpture, (or for that matter, 
 in late.) It is the subduing of the bull which 
 the sculptor thinks most of; the plough, though 
 large, is of wood, and the handle slight. But 
 the pawing and bellowing labourer he has bound 
 to it! here is victory. 
 
 18. The Chariot. 
 
 The horse also s.ubdued to draught Achilles 
 chariot in its first, and to be its last, simplicity. 
 The face has probably been grand the figure is 
 so still. Andrea's, I think, by the flying drapery. 
 
 19. The Lamb, with the symbol of Resurrection. 
 Over the door : ' I am the door ; by me, if 
 
 any man enter in,' etc. Put to the right of the 
 tower, you see, fearlessly, for the convenience of 
 staircase ascent ; all external symmetry being 
 subject with the great builders to interior use ; 
 and then, out of the rightly ordained infraction 
 of formal law, comes perfect beauty ; and when, 
 as here, the Spirit of Heaven is working with 
 the designer, his thoughts are suggested in truer 
 order, by the concession to use. After this 
 sculpture come the Christian arts, those which 
 necessarily imply the conviction of immortality. 
 Astronomy without Christianity only reaches as 
 far as 'Thou hast made Him a li'Jie lower than
 
 THE SHEPHERD'S TOWER. 179 
 
 the angels and put all things under His feet': 
 Christianity says beyond this, 'Know ye not 
 that we shall judge angels (as also the lower 
 creatures shall judge us !) ' * The series of sculp- 
 tures now beginning, therefore, show the arts 
 which can only be accomplished through belief 
 in Christ. 
 
 20. Geometry. 
 
 Not 'mathematics': they have been implied 
 long ago in astronomy and architecture ; but the 
 due Measuring of the Earth and all that is on 
 it. Actually done only by Christian faith first 
 inspiration of the great Earth-measurers. Your 
 Prince Henry of Spain, your Columbus, your 
 Captain Cook, (whose tomb, with the bright 
 artistic invention and religious tenderness which 
 are so peculiarly the gifts of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury, we have just provided a fence for, of 
 old cannon open-mouthed, straight up towards 
 Heaven your modern method of symbolising 
 the only appeal to Heaven of which the nineteenth 
 century has left itself capable ' The voice of 
 thy Brother's blood crieth to me' your outworn 
 cannon, now silently agape, but sonorous in the 
 ears of angels with that appeal) first inspiration, 
 
 * In the deep sense of this truth, which underlies all the 
 bright fantasy and humour of Mr. Courthope's " Paradise of 
 Birds," that rhyme of the risen spirit of Aristophanes may 
 well be read tinder the tower of Giotto, beside his watch-dog 
 of the told.
 
 180 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 I. say, of these ; constant inspiration of all who set 
 true landmarks and hold to them, knowing their 
 measure ; the devil interfering, I observe, lately 
 in his own way, with the Geometry of Yorkshire, 
 where the landed proprietors,* when the neglected 
 walls by the roadside tumble down, benevolently 
 repair the same, with better stonework, outside 
 always of the fallen heaps ; which, the wall being 
 thus built on what was the public road, absorb 
 themselves, with help of moss and time, into the 
 heaving swells of the rocky field and behold, 
 gain of a couple of feet along so much of the 
 road as needs repairing operations. 
 
 This, then, is the first of the Christian sciences: 
 division of land rightly, and the general law of 
 measuring between wisely-held compass points. 
 The type of mensuration, circle in square, on his 
 desk, I use for my first exercise in the laws of 
 Fesole. 
 
 21. Sculpture. 
 
 The first piece of the closing series on the north 
 
 * I mean no accusation against any class; probably the 
 one-fielded statesman is more eager for his little gain of fifty 
 yards of grass than the squire for his bite and sup out of 
 the gipsy's part of the roadside. But it is notable enough 
 to the passing traveller, to find himself shut into a narrow 
 road between high stone dykes which he can neither see over 
 nor climb over, (I always deliberately pitch them dcwn myself, 
 wherever I need a gap,) instead of on a broad road between 
 low grey walls with all the moor beyond and the power of 
 leaping over when he chooses, in innocent trespass for herb, 
 or view, or splinter of grey rock.
 
 THE SHEPHEKD'S TOWER. 181 
 
 side of the Campanile, of which some general 
 points must be first noted, before any special 
 examination. 
 
 The two initial ones, Sculpture and Painting, 
 are by tradition the only ones attributed to 
 Giotto's own hand. The fifth, Song, is known, 
 and recognizable in its magnificence, to be by 
 Luca della Robbia. The remaining four are all 
 of Luca's school, later work therefore, all these 
 five, than any we have been hitherto examining, 
 entirely different in manner, and with late flower- 
 work beneath them instead of our hitherto severe 
 Gothic arches. And it becomes of course in- 
 stantly a vital question Did Giotto die leaving 
 the series incomplete, only its subjects chosen, 
 and are these two bas-reliefs of Sculpture and 
 Painting among his last works ? or was the series 
 ever completed, and these later bas-reliefs substi- 
 tuted for the earlier ones, under Luca's influence, 
 by way of conducting the whole to a grander 
 close, and making their order more representative 
 of Florentine art in its fulness of power ? 
 
 I must repeat, once more, and with greater in- 
 sistence respecting Sculpture than Painting, that 
 I do not in the least set myself up for a critic of 
 authenticity, but only of absolute goodness. My 
 readers may trust me to tell them what is well 
 done or ill ; but by whom, is quite a separate 
 question, needing for any certainty, in this school 
 of much-associated masters and pupils, extremest
 
 182 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 attention to minute particulars not at all bearing 
 on my objects in teaching. 
 
 Of this closing group of sculptures, then, all I 
 can tell you is that the fifth is a quite magnificent 
 piece of work, and recognizably, to my extreme 
 conviction, Luca della Robbia's ; that the last, 
 Harmonia, is also fine work ; that those attributed 
 to Giotto are fine in a different way, and the 
 other three in reality the poorest pieces in the 
 series, though done with much more advanced 
 sculptural dexterity. 
 
 But I am chiefly puzzled by the two attributed 
 to Giotto, because they are much coarser than 
 those which seem to me so plainly his on the 
 west side, and slightly different in workmanship 
 with much that is common to both, however, 
 in the casting of drapery and mode of in- 
 troduction of details. The difference may be 
 accounted for partly by haste or failing power, 
 partly by the artist's less deep feeling of the 
 importance of these merely symbolic figures, as 
 compared with those of the Fathers of the Arts ; 
 but it is very notable and embarrassing not- 
 withstanding, complicated as it is with extreme 
 resemblance in other particulars. 
 
 You cannot compare the subjects on the tower 
 itself; but of my series of photographs take 6 
 and 21, and put them side by side. 
 
 I need not dwell on the conditions of re- 
 semblance, which are instantly visible ; but the
 
 THE SHEPHERD'S TOWER. 183 
 
 difference in the treatment of the heads is in- 
 comprehensible. That of the Tubal Cain is 
 exquisitely finished, and with a painter's touch; 
 every lock of the hair laid with studied flow, as in 
 the most beautiful drawing. In the ; Sculpture,' 
 it is struck out with ordinary tricks of rapid 
 sculptor trade, entirely unfinished, and with offen- 
 sively frank use of the drill hole to give picturesque 
 rustication to the beard. 
 
 Next, put 22 and 5 back to back. You see 
 again the resemblance in the earnestness of both 
 figures, in the unbroken arcs of their backs, in the 
 breaking of the octagon moulding by the pointed 
 angles ; and here, even also in the general con- 
 ception of the heads. But again, in the one of 
 Painting, the hair is struck with more vulgar 
 indenting and drilling, and the Gothic of the 
 picture frame is less precise in touch and later in 
 style. Observe, however, and this may perhaps 
 give us some definite hint for clearing the question, 
 a picture frame would be less precise in making, 
 and later in style, properly, than cusped arches 
 to be put under the feet of the inventor of all 
 musical sound by breath of man. And if you 
 will now compare finally the eager tilting of the 
 workman's seat in 22 and 6, and the working 
 of the wood in the painter's low table for his 
 pots of colour, and his three-legged stool, with 
 that of Tubal Cain's anvil block ; and the way in 
 which the lines of the forge and upper triptych
 
 184 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 are in each composition used to set off the 
 rounding of the head, I believe you will have 
 little hesitation in accepting my own view of 
 the matter namely, that the three pieces of the 
 Fathers of the Arts were wrought with Giotto's 
 extremest care for the most precious stones of 
 his tower ; that also, being a sculptor and painter, 
 he did the other two, but with quite definite and 
 wilful resolve that they should be, as mere symbols 
 of his own two trade?, wholly inferior to the 
 other subjects of the patriarchs ; that he made 
 the Sculpture picturesque and bold as you see 
 it is, and showed all a sculptor's tricks in the 
 work of it ; and a sculptor's Greek subject, 
 Bacchus, for the model of it ; that he wrought the 
 Painting, as the higher art, with more care, still 
 keeping it subordinate to the primal subjects, but 
 showed, for a lesson to all the generations of 
 painters for evermore, this one lesson, like his 
 circle of pure line containing all others, ' Your 
 soul and body must be all in every touch.' 
 
 I can't resist the expression of a little piece 
 of personal exultation, in noticing that he holds 
 his pencil as I do myself : no writing master, 
 and no effort (at one time very steady for many 
 months), having ever cured me of that way of 
 holding both pen and pencil between my fore 
 and second finger; the third and fourth resting 
 the backs of them on my paper. 
 
 As I finally arrange these notes for press, I am
 
 THE SHEPHERD'S TOWER. 185 
 
 further confirmed in my opinion by discovering 
 little finishings in the two later pieces which I 
 was not before aware of. I beg the masters of 
 High Art, and sublime generalization, to take a 
 good magnifying glass to the ' Sculpture ' and look 
 at the way Giotto has cut the compasses, the 
 edges of the chisels, and the keyhole of the lock of 
 the toolbox. 
 
 For the rest, nothing could be more probable, 
 in the confused and perpetually false mass of 
 Florentine tradition, than the preservation of the 
 memory of Giotto's carving his own two trades, 
 and the forgetfulness, or quite as likely ignorance, 
 of the part he took with Andrea Pisano in the 
 initial sculptures. 
 
 I now take up the series of subjects at the 
 point where we broke off, to trace their chain 
 of philosophy to its close. 
 
 To Geometry, which gives to every man his 
 possession of house and land, succeed 21, Sculp- 
 ture, and 22, Painting, the adornments of per- 
 manent habitation. And then, the great arts of 
 education in a Christian home. First 
 
 23. Grammar^ or more properly Literature 
 altogether, of which we have already seen the 
 ancient power in the Spanish Chapel series ; then, 
 
 24. Arithmetic, 
 
 central here as also in the Spanish Chapel, for the 
 same reasons ; here, more impatiently asserting, 
 with both hands, that two, on the right, you 
 
 14
 
 186 MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. 
 
 observe and two on the left do indeed and for 
 ever make Four. Keep your accounts, you, with 
 your book of double entry, on that principle ; 
 and you will be safe in this world and the next, 
 in your steward's office. But by no means so, 
 if you ever admit the usurers' Gospel of Arith- 
 metic, that two and two make Five. 
 
 You see by the rich hem of his robe that the 
 assertor of this economical first principle is a 
 man well to do in the world. 
 
 25. Logic. 
 
 The art of Demonstration. Vulgarest of the 
 whole series ; far too expressive of the mode in 
 which argument is conducted by those who are 
 not masters of its reins. 
 
 26. Song. 
 
 The essential power of music in animal life. 
 Orpheus, the symbol of it all, the inventor pro- 
 perly of Music, the Law of Kindness, as Dsedalus 
 of Music, the Law of Construction. Hence the 
 " Orphic life " is one of ideal mercy, (vegetarian,) 
 Plato, Laws, Book VI., 782, and he is named 
 first after Dadalus, and in balance to him as head 
 of the school of harmonists, in Book III., 677, 
 (Steph.) Look for the two singing birds clapping 
 their wings in the tree above him : then the five 
 mystic beasts, closest to his feet the irredeemable 
 boar; then lion and bear, tiger, unicorn, and 
 fiery dragon closest to his head, the flames of 
 its mouth mingling with his breath as he sings.
 
 
 THE SHEPHEKD'S TOWER. 187 
 
 The audient eagle, alas ! has lost the beak, and is 
 only recognizable by his proud holding of him- 
 self; the duck, sleepily delighted after muddy 
 dinner, close to his shoulder, is a true conquest. 
 Hoopoe, or indefinite bird of crested race, behind ; 
 of the other three no clear certainty. The leafage 
 throughout such as only Luca could do, and the 
 whole consummate in skill and understanding. 
 
 27. Harmony. 
 
 Music of Song, in the full power of it, meaning 
 perfect education in all art of the Muses and of 
 civilized life: the mystery of its concord is taken 
 for the symbol of that of a perfect state; one day, 
 doubtless, of the perfect world. So prophesies 
 the last corner stone of the Shepherd's Tower.

 
 442 
 
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