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diff --git a/8523.txt b/8523.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..128aaad --- /dev/null +++ b/8523.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5611 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Val d'Arno, by John Ruskin + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Val d'Arno + +Author: John Ruskin + + +Release Date: July, 2005 [EBook #8523] +This file was first posted on July 19, 2003 +Last Updated: May 17, 2013 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VAL D'ARNO *** + + + + +Produced by Tiffany Vergon, ckirschner and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + + + + + VAL D'ARNO + + + BY + + + JOHN RUSKIN, M.A. + + + + + LECTURE I. NICHOLAS THE PISAN + LECTURE II. JOHN THE PISAN + LECTURE III. SHIELD AND APRON + LECTURE IV. PARTED PER PALE + LECTURE V. PAX VOBISCUM + LECTURE VI. MARBLE COUCHANT + LECTURE VII. MARBLE RAMPANT +LECTURE VIII. FRANCHISE LECTURE IX. THE TYRRHENE SEA + LECTURE X. FLEUR DE LYS + APPENDIX + + + + + LIST OF PLATES. + + + THE ANCIENT SHORES OF ARNO + + + I. THE PISAN LATONA + II. NICCOLA PISANO'S PULPIT + III. THE FOUNTAIN OF PERUGIA + IV. NORMAN IMAGERY + V. DOOR OF THE BAPTISTERY. PISA + VI. THE STORY OF ST. JOHN. ADVENT + VII. " " " " " DEPARTURE + VIII. "THE CHARGE TO ADAM" GIOVANNI PISANO + IX. " " " " MODERN ITALIAN + X. THE NATIVITY. GIOVANNI PISANO + XI. " " MODERN ITALIAN + XII. THE ANNUNCIATION AND VISITATION + + + + + VAL D'ARNO + + TEN LECTURES + + ON + +THE TUSCAN ART DIRECTLY ANTECEDENT TO THE FLORENTINE + YEAR OF VICTORIES + + +GIVEN BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD IN MICHAELMAS + TERM, 1873 + + + + + LECTURE I. + + NICHOLAS THE PISAN. + +1. On this day, of this month, the 20th of October, six hundred and +twenty-three years ago, the merchants and tradesmen of Florence met +before the church of Santa Croce; marched through the city to the palace +of their Podesta; deposed their Podesta; set over themselves, in his +place, a knight belonging to an inferior city; called him "Captain of +the People;" appointed under him a Signory of twelve Ancients chosen +from among themselves; hung a bell for him on the tower of the Lion, +that he might ring it at need, and gave him the flag of Florence to +bear, half white, and half red. + +The first blow struck upon the bell in that tower of the Lion began +the tolling for the passing away of the feudal system, and began the +joy-peal, or carillon, for whatever deserves joy, in that of our modern +liberties, whether of action or of trade. + +2. Within the space of our Oxford term from that day, namely, on the +13th of December in the same year, 1250, died, at Ferentino, in Apulia, +the second Frederick, Emperor of Germany; the second also of the two +great lights which in his lifetime, according to Dante's astronomy, +ruled the world,--whose light being quenched, "the land which was once +the residence of courtesy and valour, became the haunt of all men who +are ashamed to be near the good, or to speak to them." + + "In sul paese chadice e po riga + solea valore e cortesia trovar si + prima che federigo Bavessi briga, + or puo sicuramente indi passarsi + per qualuuche lasciassi per vergogna + di ragionar co buoni, e appressarsi." + PURO., Cant. 16. + + +3. The "Paese che Adice e Po riga" is of course Lombardy; and might have +been enough distinguished by the name of its principal river. But Dante +has an especial reason for naming the Adige. It is always by the valley +of the Adige that the power of the German Caesars descends on Italy; and +that battlemented bridge, which doubtless many of you remember, thrown +over the Adige at Verona, was so built that the German riders might have +secure and constant access to the city. In which city they had their +first stronghold in Italy, aided therein by the great family of the +Montecchi, Montacutes, Mont-aigu-s, or Montagues; lords, so called, of +the mountain peaks; in feud with the family of the Cappelletti,--hatted, +or, more properly, scarlet-hatted, persons. And this accident of +nomenclature, assisted by your present familiar knowledge of the real +contests of the sharp mountains with the flat caps, or petasoi, of +cloud, (locally giving Mont Pilate its title, "Pileatus,") may in many +points curiously illustrate for you that contest of Frederick the Second +with Innocent the Fourth, which in the good of it and the evil alike, +represents to all time the war of the solid, rational, and earthly +authority of the King, and State, with the more or less spectral, +hooded, imaginative, and nubiform authority of the Pope, and Church. + +4. It will be desirable also that you clearly learn the material +relations, governing spiritual ones,--as of the Alps to their clouds, +so of the plains to their rivers. And of these rivers, chiefly note the +relation to each other, first, of the Adige and Po; then of the Arno +and Tiber. For the Adige, representing among the rivers and fountains of +waters the channel of Imperial, as the Tiber of the Papal power, and the +strength of the Coronet being founded on the white peaks that look down +upon Hapsburg and Hohenzollern, as that of the Scarlet Cap in the marsh +of the Campagna, "quo tenuis in sicco aqua destituisset," the study of +the policies and arts of the cities founded in the two great valleys of +Lombardy and Tuscany, so far as they were affected by their bias to the +Emperor, or the Church, will arrange itself in your minds at once in +a symmetry as clear as it will be, in our future work, secure and +suggestive. + +5. "Tenuis, in sicco." How literally the words apply, as to the native +streams, so to the early states or establishings of the great cities of +the world. And you will find that the policy of the Coronet, with its +tower-building; the policy of the Hood, with its dome-building; and +the policy of the bare brow, with its cot-building,--the three main +associations of human energy to which we owe the architecture of +our earth, (in contradistinction to the dens and caves of it,)--are +curiously and eternally governed by mental laws, corresponding to the +physical ones which are ordained for the rocks, the clouds, and the +streams. + +The tower, which many of you so well remember the daily sight of, in +your youth, above the "winding shore" of Thames,--the tower upon +the hill of London; the dome which still rises above its foul and +terrestrial clouds; and the walls of this city itself, which has been +"alma," nourishing in gentleness, to the youth of England, because +defended from external hostility by the difficultly fordable streams of +its plain, may perhaps, in a few years more, be swept away as heaps of +useless stone; but the rocks, and clouds, and rivers of our country will +yet, one day, restore to it the glory of law, of religion, and of life. + +6. I am about to ask you to read the hieroglyphs upon the architecture +of a dead nation, in character greatly resembling our own,--in laws +and in commerce greatly influencing our own;--in arts, still, from her +grave, tutress of the present world. I know that it will be expected of +me to explain the merits of her arts, without reference to the wisdom of +her laws; and to describe the results of both, without investigating the +feelings which regulated either. I cannot do this; but I will at once +end these necessarily vague, and perhaps premature, generalizations; +and only ask you to study some portions of the life and work of two men, +father and son, citizens of the city in which the energies of this great +people were at first concentrated; and to deduce from that study +the conclusions, or follow out the inquiries, which it may naturally +suggest. + +7. It is the modern fashion to despise Vasari. He is indeed despicable, +whether as historian or critic,--not least in his admiration of Michael +Angelo; nevertheless, he records the traditions and opinions of his day; +and these you must accurately know, before you can wisely correct. I +will take leave, therefore, to begin to-day with a sentence from Vasari, +which many of you have often heard quoted, but of which, perhaps, few +have enough observed the value. + +"Niccola Pisano finding himself under certain Greek sculptors who were +carving the figures and other intaglio ornaments of the cathedral of +Pisa, and of the temple of St. John, and there being, among many spoils +of marbles, brought by the Pisan fleet, [1] some ancient tombs, there +was one among the others most fair, on which was sculptured the hunting +of Meleager." [2] + +[Footnote 1: "Armata." The proper word for a land army is "esercito."] + +[Footnote 2: Vol. i., p. 60, of Mrs. Foster's English translation, to +which I shall always refer, in order that English students may compare +the context if they wish. But the pieces of English which I give are +my own direct translation, varying, it will be found, often, from Mrs. +Foster's, in minute, but not unimportant, particulars.] + +Get the meaning and contents of this passage well into your minds. In +the gist of it, it is true, and very notable. + +8. You are in mid thirteenth century; 1200-1300. The Greek nation has +been dead in heart upwards of a thousand years; its religion dead, for +six hundred. But through the wreck of its faith, and death in its heart, +the skill of its hands, and the cunning of its design, instinctively +linger. In the centuries of Christian power, the Christians are still +unable to build but under Greek masters, and by pillage of Greek +shrines; and their best workman is only an apprentice to the 'Graeculi +esurientes' who are carving the temple of St. John. + +9. Think of it. Here has the New Testament been declared for 1200 years. +No spirit of wisdom, as yet, has been given to its workmen, except +that which has descended from the Mars Hill on which St. Paul stood +contemptuous in pity. No Bezaleel arises, to build new tabernacles, +unless he has been taught by Daedalus. + +10. It is necessary, therefore, for you first to know precisely the +manner of these Greek masters in their decayed power; the manner +which Vasari calls, only a sentence before, "That old Greek manner, +blundering, disproportioned,"--Goffa, e sproporzionata. + +"Goffa," the very word which Michael Angelo uses of Perugino. Behold, +the Christians despising the Dunce Greeks, as the Infidel modernists +despise the Dunce Christians. [1] + +[Footnote 1: Compare "Ariadne Floreutina," Sec. 46.] + +11. I sketched for you, when I was last at Pisa, a few arches of the +apse of the duomo, and a small portion of the sculpture of the font of +the Temple of St. John. I have placed them in your rudimentary series, +as examples of "quella vecchia maniera Greca, goffa e sproporzionata." +My own judgment respecting them is,--and it is a judgment founded on +knowledge which you may, if you choose, share with me, after working +with me,--that no architecture on this grand scale, so delicately +skilful in execution, or so daintily disposed in proportion, exists +elsewhere in the world. + +12. Is Vasari entirely wrong then? + +No, only half wrong, but very fatally half wrong. There are Greeks, and +Greeks. + +This head with the inlaid dark iris in its eyes, from the font of St. +John, is as pure as the sculpture of early Greece, a hundred years +before Phidias; and it is so delicate, that having drawn with equal care +this and the best work of the Lombardi at Venice (in the church of the +Miracoli), I found this to possess the more subtle qualities of design. +And yet, in the cloisters of St. John Lateran at Rome, you have Greek +work, if not contemporary with this at Pisa, yet occupying a parallel +place in the history of architecture, which is abortive, and monstrous +beyond the power of any words to describe. Vasari knew no difference +between these two kinds of Greek work. Nor do your modern architects. +To discern the difference between the sculpture of the font of Pisa, and +the spandrils of the Lateran cloister, requires thorough training of the +hand in the finest methods of draughtsmanship; and, secondly, trained +habit of reading the mythology and ethics of design. I simply assure you +of the fact at present; and if you work, you may have sight and sense of +it. + +13. There are Greeks, and Greeks, then, in the twelfth century, +differing as much from each other as vice, in all ages, must differ from +virtue. But in Vasari's sight they are alike; in ours, they must be so, +as far as regards our present purpose. As men of a school, they are to +be summed under the general name of 'Byzantines;' their work all alike +showing specific characters of attenuate, rigid, and in many respects +offensively unbeautiful, design, to which Vasari's epithets of "goffa, +e sproporzionata" are naturally applied by all persons trained only in +modern principles. Under masters, then, of this Byzantine race, Niccola +is working at Pisa. + +14. Among the spoils brought by her fleets from Greece, is a +sarcophagus, with Meleager's hunt on it, wrought "con bellissima +maniera," says Vasari. + +You may see that sarcophagus--any of you who go to Pisa;--touch it, for +it is on a level with your hand; study it, as Niccola studied it, to +your mind's content. Within ten yards of it, stand equally accessible +pieces of Niccola's own work and of his son's. Within fifty yards of it, +stands the Byzantine font of the chapel of St. John. Spend but the good +hours of a single day quietly by these three pieces of marble, and you +may learn more than in general any of you bring home from an entire +tour in Italy. But how many of you ever yet went into that temple of St. +John, knowing what to look for; or spent as much time in the Campo Santo +of Pisa, as you do in Mr. Ryman's shop on a rainy day? + +15. The sarcophagus is not, however, (with Vasari's pardon) in +'bellissima maniera' by any means. But it is in the classical Greek +manner instead of the Byzantine Greek manner. You have to learn the +difference between these. + +Now I have explained to you sufficiently, in "Aratra Pentelici," what +the classical Greek manner is. The manner and matter of it being easily +summed--as those of natural and unaffected life;--nude life when nudity +is right and pure; not otherwise. To Niccola, the difference between +this natural Greek school, and the Byzantine, was as the difference +between the bull of Thurium and of Delhi, (see Plate 19 of "Aratra +Pentelici"). + +Instantly he followed the natural fact, and became the Father of +Sculpture to Italy. + +16. Are we, then, also to be strong by following the natural fact? + +Yes, assuredly. That is the beginning and end of all my teaching to you. +But the noble natural fact, not the ignoble. You are to study men; not +lice nor entozoa. And you are to study the souls of men in their bodies, +not their bodies only. Mulready's drawings from the nude are more +degraded and bestial than the worst grotesques of the Byzantine or even +the Indian image makers. And your modern mob of English and American +tourists, following a lamplighter through the Vatican to have pink light +thrown for them on the Apollo Belvidere, are farther from capacity of +understanding Greek art, than the parish charity boy, making a ghost out +of a turnip, with a candle inside. + +17. Niccola followed the facts, then. He is the Master of Naturalism +in Italy. And I have drawn for you his lioness and cubs, to fix that in +your minds. And beside it, I put the Lion of St. Mark's, that you may +see exactly the kind of change he made. The Lion of St. Mark's (all +but his wings, which have been made and fastened on in the fifteenth +century), is in the central Byzantine manner; a fine decorative piece +of work, descending in true genealogy from the Lion of Nemea, and the +crested skin of him that clothes the head of the Heracles of Camarina. +It has all the richness of Greek Daedal work,--nay, it has fire and +life beyond much Greek Daedal work; but in so far as it is non-natural, +symbolic, decorative, and not like an actual lion, it would be felt +by Niccola Pisano to be imperfect. And instead of this decorative +evangelical preacher of a lion, with staring eyes, and its paw on +a gospel, he carves you a quite brutal and maternal lioness, with +affectionate eyes, and paw set on her cub. + +18. Fix that in your minds, then. Niccola Pisano is the Master of +Naturalism in Italy,--therefore elsewhere; of Naturalism, and all that +follows. Generally of truth, common-sense, simplicity, vitality,--and of +all these, with consummate power. A man to be enquired about, is not +he? and will it not make a difference to you whether you look, when you +travel in Italy, in his rough early marbles for this fountain of life, +or only glance at them because your Murray's Guide tells you,--and think +them "odd old things"? + +19. We must look for a moment more at one odd old thing--the sarcophagus +which was his tutor. Upon it is carved the hunting of Meleager; and it +was made, or by tradition received as, the tomb of the mother of the +Countess Matilda. I must not let you pass by it without noticing two +curious coincidences in these particulars. First, in the Greek subject +which is given Niccola to read. + +The boar, remember, is Diana's enemy. It is sent upon the fields of +Calydon in punishment of the refusal of the Calydonians to sacrifice +to her. 'You have refused _me_,' she said; 'you will not have Artemis +Laphria, Forager Diana, to range in your fields. You shall have the +Forager Swine, instead.' + +Meleager and Atalanta are Diana's servants,--servants of all order, +purity, due sequence of season, and time. The orbed architecture of +Tuscany, with its sculptures of the succession of the labouring months, +as compared with the rude vaults and monstrous imaginations of the past, +was again the victory of Meleager. + +20. Secondly, take what value there is in the tradition that this +sarcophagus was made the tomb of the mother of the + + [Illustration: PLATE I:--THE PISAN LATONA. Angle of Panel of the +Adoration, in Niccola's Pulpit.] + +Countess Matilda. If you look to the fourteenth chapter of the third +volume of "Modern Painters," you will find the mythic character of the +Countess Matilda, as Dante employed it explained at some length. She is +the representative of Natural Science as opposed to Theological. + +21. Chance coincidences merely, these; but full of teaching for us, +looking back upon the past. To Niccola, the piece of marble was, +primarily, and perhaps exclusively, an example of free chiselling, and +humanity of treatment. What else it was to him,--what the spirits +of Atalanta and Matilda could bestow on him, depended on what he was +himself. Of which Vasari tells you nothing. Not whether he was gentleman +or clown--rich or poor--soldier or sailor. Was he never, then, in those +fleets that brought the marbles back from the ravaged Isles of Greece? +was he at first only a labourer's boy among the scaffoldings of the +Pisan apse,--his apron loaded with dust--and no man praising him for his +speech? Rough he was, assuredly; probably poor; fierce and energetic, +beyond even the strain of Pisa,--just and kind, beyond the custom of his +age, knowing the Judgment and Love of God: and a workman, with all his +soul and strength, all his days. + +22. You hear the fame of him as of a sculptor only. It is right that you +should; for every great architect must be a sculptor, and be renowned, +as such, more than by his building. But Niccola Pisano had even more +influence on Italy as a builder than as a carver. + +For Italy, at this moment, wanted builders more than carvers; and a +change was passing through her life, of which external edifice was a +necessary sign. I complained of you just now that you never looked at +the Byzantine font in the temple of St. John. The sacristan generally +will not let you. He takes you to a particular spot on the floor, and +sings a musical chord. The chord returns in prolonged echo from the +chapel roof, as if the building were all one sonorous marble bell. + +Which indeed it is; and travellers are always greatly amused at being +allowed to ring this bell; but it never occurs to them to ask how it +came to be ringable:--how that tintinnabulate roof differs from the dome +of the Pantheon, expands into the dome of Florence, or declines into the +whispering gallery of St. Paul's. + +23. When you have had full satisfaction of the tintinnabulate roof, you +are led by the sacristan and Murray to Niccola Pisano's pulpit; which, +if you have spare time to examine it, you find to have six sides, to be +decorated with tablets of sculpture, like the sides of the sarcophagus, +and to be sustained on seven pillars, three of which are themselves +carried on the backs of as many animals. + +All this arrangement had been contrived before Niccola's time, and +executed again and again. But behold! between the capitals of the +pillars and the sculptured tablets there are interposed five cusped +arches, the hollow beneath the pulpit showing dark through their foils. +You have seen such cusped arches before, you think? + +Yes, gentlemen, _you_ have; but the Pisans had _not_. And that +intermediate layer of the pulpit means--the change, in a word, for all +Europe, from the Parthenon to Amiens Cathedral. For Italy it means the +rise of her Gothic dynasty; it means the duomo of Milan instead of the +temple of Paestum. + +24. I say the duomo of Milan, only to put the change well before your +eyes, because you all know that building so well. The duomo of Milan is +of entirely bad and barbarous Gothic, but the passion of pinnacle and +fret is in it, visibly to you, more than in other buildings. It will +therefore serve to show best what fulness of change this pulpit of +Niccola Pisano signifies. + +In it there is no passion of pinnacle nor of fret. You see the edges of +it, instead of being bossed, or knopped, or crocketed, are mouldings +of severest line. No vaulting, no clustered shafts, no traceries, no +fantasies, no perpendicular flights of aspiration. Steady pillars, each +of one polished block; useful capitals, one trefoiled arch between them; +your panel above it; thereon your story of the founder of Christianity. +The whole standing upon beasts, they being indeed the foundation of us, +(which Niccola knew far better than Mr. Darwin); Eagle to carry your +Gospel message--Dove you think it ought to be? + +[Illustration: PLATE II.--NICCOLA PISANO'S PULPIT.] + +Eagle, says Niccola, and not as symbol of St. John Evangelist only, but +behold! with prey between its claws. For the Gospel, it is Niccola's +opinion, is not altogether a message that you may do whatever you like, +and go straight to heaven. Finally, a slab of marble, cut hollow +a little to bear your book; space enough for you to speak from at +ease,--and here is your first architecture of Gothic Christianity! + +25. Indignant thunder of dissent from German doctors,--clamour from +French savants. 'What! and our Treves, and our Strasburg, and our +Poictiers, and our Chartres! And you call _this_ thing the first +architecture of Christianity!' Yes, my French and German friends, very +fine the buildings you have mentioned are; and I am bold to say I love +them far better than you do, for you will run a railroad through any of +them any day that you can turn a penny by it. I thank you also, Germans, +in the name of our Lady of Strasburg, for your bullets and fire; and +I thank you, Frenchmen, in the name of our Lady of Rouen, for your new +haberdashers' shops in the Gothic town;--meanwhile have patience with me +a little, and let me go on. + +26. No passion of fretwork, or pinnacle whatever, I said, is in this +Pisan pulpit. The trefoiled arch itself, pleasant as it is, seems +forced a little; out of perfect harmony with the rest (see Plate II.). +Unnatural, perhaps, to Niccola? + +Altogether unnatural to him, it is; such a thing never would have come +into his head, unless some one had shown it him. Once got into his head, +he puts it to good use; perhaps even he will let this somebody else put +pinnacles and crockets into his head, or at least, into his son's, in +a little while. Pinnacles,--crockets,--it may be, even traceries. The +ground-tier of the baptistery is round-arched, and has no pinnacles; +but look at its first story. The clerestory of the Duomo of Pisa has no +traceries, but look at the cloister of its Campo Santo. + +27. I pause at the words;--for they introduce a new group of thoughts, +which presently we must trace farther. + +The Holy Field;--field of burial. The "cave of Machpelah which is before +Mamre," of the Pisans. "There they buried Abraham, and Sarah his wife; +there they buried Isaac, and Rebekah his wife; and there I buried Leah." + +How do you think such a field becomes holy,--how separated, as the +resting-place of loving kindred, from that other field of blood, bought +to bury strangers in? + +When you have finally succeeded, by your gospel of mammon, in making +all the men of your own nation not only strangers to each other, but +enemies; and when your every churchyard becomes therefore a field of the +stranger, the kneeling hamlet will vainly drink the chalice of God +in the midst of them. The field will be unholy. No cloisters of noble +history can ever be built round such an one. + +28. But the very earth of this at Pisa was holy, as you know. That +"armata" of the Tuscan city brought home not only marble and ivory, for +treasure; but earth,--a fleet's burden,--from the place where there was +healing of soul's leprosy: and their field became a place of holy tombs, +prepared for its office with earth from the land made holy by one tomb; +which all the knighthood of Christendom had been pouring out its life to +win. + +29. I told you just now that this sculpture of Niccola's was the +beginning of Christian architecture. How do you judge that Christian +architecture in the deepest meaning of it to differ from all other? + +All other noble architecture is for the glory of living gods and men; +but this is for the glory of death, in God and man. Cathedral, cloister, +or tomb,--shrine for the body of Christ, or for the bodies of the +saints. All alike signifying death to this world;--life, other than of +this world. + +Observe, I am not saying how far this feeling, be it faith, or be it +imagination, is true or false;--I only desire you to note that the power +of all Christian work begins in the niche of the catacomb and depth +of the sarcophagus, and is to the end definable as architecture of the +tomb. + +30. Not altogether, and under every condition, sanctioned in doing +such honour to the dead by the Master of it. Not every grave is by His +command to be worshipped. Graves there may be--too little guarded, yet +dishonourable;--"ye are as graves that appear not, and the men that +walk over them are not aware of them." And graves too much guarded, yet +dishonourable, "which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but are within +full of all uncleanness." Or graves, themselves honourable, yet which +it may be, in us, a crime to adorn. "For they indeed killed them, and ye +build their sepulchres." + +Questions, these, collateral; or to be examined in due time; for the +present it is enough for us to know that all Christian architecture, as +such, has been hitherto essentially of tombs. + +It has been thought, gentlemen, that there is a fine Gothic revival in +your streets of Oxford, because you have a Gothic door to your County +Bank: + +Remember, at all events, it was other kind of buried treasure, and +bearing other interest, which Niccola Pisano's Gothic was set to guard. + + + + + LECTURE II. + + JOHN THE PISAN. + +31. I closed my last lecture with the statement, on which I desired to +give you time for reflection, that Christian architecture was, in its +chief energy, the adornment of tombs,--having the passionate function of +doing honour to the dead. + +But there is an ethic, or simply didactic and instructive architecture, +the decoration of which you will find to be normally representative of +the virtues which are common alike to Christian and Greek. And there +is a natural tendency to adopt such decoration, and the modes of design +fitted for it, in civil buildings. [1] + +[Footnote: "These several rooms were indicated by symbol and device: +Victory for the soldier, Hope for the exile, the Muses for the poets, +Mercury for the artists, Paradise for the preacher."--(Sagacius Gazata, +of the Palace of Can Grande. I translate only Sismondi's quotation.)] + +32. _Civil_, or _civic_, I say, as opposed to military. But again +observe, there are two kinds of military building. One, the robber's +castle, or stronghold, out of which he issues to pillage; the other, the +honest man's castle, or stronghold, into which he retreats from pillage. +They are much like each other in external forms;--but Injustice, +or Unrighteousness, sits in the gate of the one, veiled with forest +branches, (see Giotto's painting of him); and Justice or Righteousness +_enters_ by the gate of the other, over strewn forest branches. Now, for +example of this second kind of military architecture, look at Carlyle's +account of Henry the Fowler, [1] and of his building military towns, or +burgs, to protect his peasantry. In such function you have the first and +proper idea of a walled town,--a place into which the pacific country +people can retire for safety, as the Athenians in the Spartan war. +Your fortress of this kind is a religious and civil fortress, or burg, +defended by burgers, trained to defensive war. Keep always this idea of +the proper nature of a fortified city:--Its walls mean protection,--its +gates hospitality and triumph. In the language familiar to you, spoken +of the chief of cities: "Its walls are to be Salvation, and its gates to +be Praise." And recollect always the inscription over the north gate of +Siena: "Cor magis tibi Sena pandit."--"More than her gates, Siena opens +her heart to you." + +[Footnote 1: "Frederick," vol. i.] + +33. When next you enter London by any of the great lines, I should like +you to consider, as you approach the city, what the feelings of the +heart of London are likely to be on your approach, and at what part of +the railroad station an inscription, explaining such state of her heart, +might be most fitly inscribed. Or you would still better understand +the difference between ancient and modern principles of architecture by +taking a cab to the Elephant and Castle, and thence walking to London +Bridge by what is in fact the great southern entrance of London. The +only gate receiving you is, however, the arch thrown over the road to +carry the South-Eastern Railway itself; and the only exhibition either +of Salvation or Praise is in the cheap clothes' shops on each side; and +especially in one colossal haberdasher's shop, over which you may see +the British flag waving (in imitation of Windsor Castle) when the master +of the shop is at home. 34. Next to protection from external hostility, +the two necessities in a city are of food and water supply;--the latter +essentially constant. You can store food and forage, but water must flow +freely. Hence the Fountain and the Mercato become the centres of civil +architecture. + +Premising thus much, I will ask you to look once more at this cloister +of the Campo Santo of Pisa. + +35. On first entering the place, its quiet, its solemnity, the +perspective of its aisles, and the conspicuous grace and precision of +its traceries, combine to give you the sensation of having entered a +true Gothic cloister. And if you walk round it hastily, and, glancing +only at a fresco or two, and the confused tombs erected against them, +return to the uncloistered sunlight of the piazza, you may quite easily +carry away with you, and ever afterwards retain, the notion that +the Campo Santo of Pisa is the same kind of thing as the cloister of +Westminster Abbey. + +36. I will beg you to look at the building, thus photographed, more +attentively. The "long-drawn aisle" is here, indeed,--but where is the +"fretted vault"? + +A timber roof, simple as that of a country barn, and of which only the +horizontal beams catch the eye, connects an entirely plain outside wall +with an interior one, pierced by round-headed openings; in which are +inserted pieces of complex tracery, as foreign in conception to the rest +of the work as if the Pisan armata had gone up the Rhine instead of to +Crete, pillaged South Germany, and cut these pieces of tracery out of +the windows of some church in an advanced stage of fantastic design at +Nuremberg or Frankfort. + +37. If you begin to question, hereupon, who was the Italian robber, +whether of marble or thought, and look to your Vasari, you find the +building attributed to John the Pisan; [1]--and you suppose the son to +have been so pleased by his father's adoption of Gothic forms that he +must needs borrow them, in this manner, ready made, from the Germans, +and thrust them into his round arches, or wherever else they would go. + +[Footnote 1: The present traceries are of fifteenth century work, +founded on Giovanni's design.] + +We will look at something more of his work, however, before drawing such +conclusion. + +38. In the centres of the great squares of Siena and Perugia, rose, +obedient to engineers' art, two perennial fountains Without engineers' +art, the glens which cleave the sand-rock of Siena flow with living +water; and still, if there be a hell for the forger in Italy, he +remembers therein the sweet grotto and green wave of Fonte Branda. +But on the very summit of the two hills, crested by their great civic +fortresses, and in the centres of their circuit of walls, rose the two +guided wells; each in basin of goodly marble, sculptured--at Perugia, by +John of Pisa, at Siena, by James of Quercia. + +39. It is one of the bitterest regrets of my life (and I have many which +some men would find difficult to bear,) that I never saw, except when I +was a youth, and then with sealed eyes, Jacopo della Quercia's fountain. +[1] The Sienese, a little while since, tore it down, and put up a model +of it by a modern carver. In like manner, perhaps, you will some day +knock the Elgin marbles to pieces, and commission an Academician to put +up new ones,--the Sienese doing worse than that (as if the Athenians +were _themselves_ to break their Phidias' work). + +[Footnote 1: I observe that Charles Dickens had the fortune denied to +me. "The market-place, or great Piazza, is a large square, with a great +broken-nosed fountain in it." ("Pictures from Italy.")] + +But the fountain of John of Pisa, though much injured, and glued +together with asphalt, is still in its place. + +40. I will now read to you what Vasari first says of him, and it. (I. +67.) "Nicholas had, among other sons, one called John, who, because he +always followed his father, and, under his discipline, intended (bent +himself to, with a will,) sculpture and architecture, in a few years +became not only equal to his father, but in some things superior to him; +wherefore Nicholas, being now old, retired himself into Pisa, and +living quietly there, left the government of everything to his son. +Accordingly, when Pope Urban IV. died in Perugia, sending was made for +John, who, going there, made the tomb of that Pope of marble, the which, +together with that of Pope Martin IV., was afterwards thrown down, when +the Perugians + +[Illustration: PLATE III.--THE FOUNTAIN OF PERUGIA.] + +enlarged their vescovado; so that only a few relics are seen sprinkled +about the church. And the Perugians, having at the same time brought +from the mountain of Pacciano, two miles distant from the city, through +canals of lead, a most abundant water, by means of the invention and +industry of a friar of the order of St. Silvester, it was given to John +the Pisan to make all the ornaments of this fountain, as well of bronze +as of marble. On which he set hand to it, and made there three orders +of vases, two of marble and one of bronze. The first is put upon twelve +degrees of twelve-faced steps; the second is upon some columns which +put it upon a level with the first one;" (that is, in the middle of it,) +"and the third, which is of bronze, rests upon three figures which have +in the middle of them some griffins, of bronze too, which pour water out +on every side." + +41. Many things we have to note in this passage, but first I will show +you the best picture I can of the thing itself. + +The best I can; the thing itself being half destroyed, and what remains +so beautiful that no one can now quite rightly draw it; but Mr. Arthur +Severn, (the son of Keats's Mr. Severn,) was with me, looking reverently +at those remains, last summer, and has made, with help from the sun, +this sketch for you (Plate III.); entirely true and effective as far as +his time allowed. + +Half destroyed, or more, I said it was,--Time doing grievous work on it, +and men worse. You heard Vasari saying of it, that it stood on twelve +degrees of twelve-faced steps. These--worn, doubtless, into little +more than a rugged slope--have been replaced by the moderns with four +circular steps, and an iron railing; [1] the bas-reliefs have been +carried off from the panels of the second vase, and its fair marble lips +choked with asphalt:--of what remains, you have here a rough but true +image. + +[Footnote 1: In Mr. Severn's sketch, the form of the original foundation +is approximately restored.] + +In which you see there is not a trace of Gothic feeling or design of any +sort. No crockets, no pinnacles, no foils, no vaultings, no grotesques +in sculpture. Panels between pillars, panels carried on pillars, +sculptures in those panels like the Metopes of the Parthenon; a Greek +vase in the middle, and griffins in the middle of that. Here is your +font, not at all of Saint John, but of profane and civil-engineering +John. This is _his_ manner of baptism of the town of Perugia. + +42. Thus early, it seems, the antagonism of profane Greek to +ecclesiastical Gothic declares itself. It seems as if in Perugia, as in +London, you had the fountains in Trafalgar Square against Queen Elinor's +Cross; or the viaduct and railway station contending with the Gothic +chapel, which the master of the large manufactory close by has erected, +because he thinks pinnacles and crockets have a pious influence; and +will prevent his workmen from asking for shorter hours, or more wages. + +43. It _seems_ only; the antagonism is quite of another kind,--or, +rather, of many other kinds. But note at once how complete it is--how +utterly this Greek fountain of Perugia, and the round arches of Pisa, +are opposed to the school of design which gave the trefoils to Niccola's +pulpit, and the traceries to Giovanni's Campo Santo. + +The antagonism, I say, is of another kind than ours; but deep and wide; +and to explain it, I must pass for a time to apparently irrelevant +topics. + +You were surprised, I hope, (if you were attentive enough to catch the +points in what I just now read from Vasari,) at my venturing to bring +before you, just after I had been using violent language against the +Sienese for breaking up the work of Quercia, that incidental sentence +giving account of the much more disrespectful destruction, by the +Perugians, of the tombs of Pope Urban IV., and Martin IV. + +Sending was made for John, you see, first, when Pope Urban IV. died in +Perugia--whose tomb was to be carved by John; the Greek fountain being a +secondary business. But the tomb was so well destroyed, afterwards, that +only a few relics remained scattered here and there. + +The tomb, I have not the least doubt, was Gothic;--and the breaking of +it to pieces was not in order to restore it afterwards, that a living +architect might get the job of restoration. Here is a stone out of one +of Giovanni Pisano's loveliest Gothic buildings, which I myself saw with +my own eyes dashed out, that a modern builder might be paid for putting +in another. But Pope Urban's tomb was not destroyed to such end. There +was no qualm of the belly, driving the hammer,--qualm of the conscience +probably; at all events, a deeper or loftier antagonism than one on +points of taste, or economy. + +44. You observed that I described this Greek profane manner of design +as properly belonging to _civil_ buildings, as opposed not only +to ecclesiastical buildings, but to military ones. Justice, or +Righteousness, and Veracity, are the characters of Greek art. These +_may_ be opposed to religion, when religion becomes fantastic; but they +_must_ be opposed to war, when war becomes unjust. And if, perchance, +fantastic religion and unjust war happen to go hand in hand, your Greek +artist is likely to use his hammer against them spitefully enough. + +45. His hammer, or his Greek fire. Hear now this example of the +engineering ingenuities of our Pisan papa, in his younger days. + +"The Florentines having begun, in Niccola's time, to throw down many +towers, which had been built in a barbarous manner through the whole +city; either that the people might be less hurt, by their means, in the +fights that often took place between the Guelphs and Ghibellines, or +else that there might be greater security for the State, it appeared +to them that it would be very difficult to ruin the Tower of the +Death-watch, which was in the place of St. John, because it had its +walls built with such a grip in them that the stones could not be +stirred with the pickaxe, and also because it was of the loftiest; +whereupon Nicholas, causing the tower to be cut, at the foot of it, all +the length of one of its sides; and closing up the cut, as he made it, +with short (wooden) under-props, about a yard long, and setting fire +to them, when the props were burned, the tower fell, and broke itself +nearly all to pieces: which was held a thing so ingenious and so useful +for such affairs, that it has since passed into a custom, so that when +it is needful, in this easiest manner, any edifice may be thrown down." + +46. 'When it is needful.' Yes; but when is that? If instead of the +towers of the Death-watch in the city, one could ruin the towers of the +Death-watch of evil pride and evil treasure in men's hearts, there would +be need enough for such work both in Florence and London. But the walls +of those spiritual towers have still stronger 'grip' in them, and are +fireproof with a vengeance. + + "Le mure me parean die ferro fosse, + . . . e el mi dixe, il fuoco eterno + Chentro laffoca, le dimostra rosse." + + +But the towers in Florence, shattered to fragments by this ingenious +engineer, and the tombs in Perugia, which his son will carve, only +that they also may be so well destroyed that only a few relics remain, +scattered up and down the church,--are these, also, only the iron +towers, and the red-hot tombs, of the city of Dis? + +Let us see. + +47. In order to understand the relation of the tradesmen and working +men, including eminently the artist, to the general life of the +thirteenth century, I must lay before you the clearest elementary charts +I can of the course which the fates of Italy were now appointing for +her. + +My first chart must be geographical. I want you to have a clearly +dissected and closely fitted notion of the natural boundaries of her +states, and their relations to surrounding ones. Lay hold first, firmly, +of your conception of the valleys of the Po and the Arno, running +counter to each other--opening east and opening west,--Venice at the end +of the one, Pisa at the end of the other. + +48. These two valleys--the hearts of Lombardy and Etruria--virtually +contain the life of Italy. They are entirely different in character: +Lombardy, essentially luxurious and worldly, at this time rude in art, +but active; Etruria, religious, intensely imaginative, and inheriting +refined forms of art from before the days of Porsenna. + +49. South of these, in mid-Italy, you have Romagna,--the valley of +the Tiber. In that valley, decayed Rome, with her lust of empire +inextinguishable;--no inheritance of imaginative art, nor power of it; +dragging her own ruins hourly into more fantastic ruin, and defiling her +faith hourly with more fantastic guilt. + +South of Romagna, you have the kingdoms of Calabria and Sicily,---Magna +Graecia, and Syracuse, in decay;----strange spiritual fire from the +Saracenic east still lighting the volcanic land, itself laid all in +ashes. + +50. Conceive Italy then always in these four masses: Lombardy, Etruria, +Romagna, Calabria. + +Now she has three great external powers to deal with: the western, +France--the northern, Germany--the eastern, Arabia. On her right the +Frank; on her left the Saracen; above her, the Teuton. And roughly, the +French are a religious chivalry; the Germans a profane chivalry; the +Saracens an infidel chivalry. What is best of each is benefiting Italy; +what is worst, afflicting her. And in the time we are occupied with, all +are afflicting her. + +What Charlemagne, Barbarossa, or Saladin did to teach her, you can trace +only by carefullest thought. But in this thirteenth century all these +three powers are adverse to her, as to each other. Map the methods of +their adversity thus:--- + +51. Germany, (profane chivalry,) is vitally adverse to the Popes; +endeavouring to establish imperial and knightly power against theirs. It +is fiercely, but frankly, covetous of Italian territory, seizes all it +can of Lombardy and Calabria, and with any help procurable either from +robber Christians or robber Saracens, strives, in an awkward manner, and +by open force, to make itself master of Rome, and all Italy. + +52. France, all surge and foam of pious chivalry, lifts herself in +fitful rage of devotion, of avarice, and of pride. She is the natural +ally of the church; makes her own monks the proudest of the Popes; +raises Avignon into another Rome; prays and pillages insatiably; pipes +pastoral songs of innocence, and invents grotesque variations of crime; +gives grace to the rudeness of England, and venom to the cunning of +Italy. She is a chimera among nations, and one knows not whether to +admire most the valour of Guiscard, the virtue of St. Louis or the +villany of his brother. + +53. The Eastern powers--Greek, Israelite, Saracen--are at once the +enemies of the Western, their prey, and their tutors. + +They bring them methods of ornament and of merchandise, and stimulate in +them the worst conditions of pugnacity, bigotry, and rapine. That is +the broad geographical and political relation of races. Next, you must +consider the conditions of their time. + +54. I told you, in my second lecture on Engraving, that before the +twelfth century the nations were too savage to be Christian, and after +the fifteenth too carnal to be Christian. + +The delicacy of sensation and refinements of imagination necessary to +understand Christianity belong to the mid period when men risen from a +life of brutal hardship are not yet fallen to one of brutal luxury. You +can neither comprehend the character of Christ while you are chopping +flints for tools, and gnawing raw bones for food; nor when you have +ceased to do anything with either tools or hands, and dine on gilded +capons. In Dante's lines, beginning + + "I saw Bellincion Berti walk abroad + In leathern girdle, with a clasp of bone," + + +you have the expression of his sense of the increasing luxury of the +age, already sapping its faith. But when Bellincion Berti walked abroad +in skins not yet made into leather, and with the bones of his dinner in +a heap at his door, instead of being cut into girdle clasps, he was just +as far from capacity of being a Christian. + +55. The following passage, from Carlyle's "Chartism," expresses better +than any one else has done, or is likely to do it, the nature of this +Christian era, (extending from the twelfth to the sixteenth century,) in +England,--the like being entirely true of it elsewhere:-- + +"In those past silent centuries, among those silent classes, much had +been going on. Not only had red deer in the New and other forests been +got preserved and shot; and treacheries [1] of Simon de Montfort, wars +of Red and White Roses, battles of Crecy, battles of Bosworth, and many +other battles, been got transacted and adjusted; but England wholly, +not without sore toil and aching bones to the millions of sires and +the millions of sons of eighteen generations, had been got drained and +tilled, covered with yellow harvests, beautiful and rich in possessions. +The mud-wooden Caesters and Chesters had become steepled, tile-roofed, +compact towns. Sheffield had taken to the manufacture of Sheffield +whittles. Worstead could from wool spin yarn, and knit or weave the same +into stockings or breeches for men. England had property valuable to the +auctioneer; but the accumulate manufacturing, commercial, economic +skill which lay impalpably warehoused in English hands and heads, what +auctioneer could estimate? + +[Footnote 1: Perhaps not altogether so, any more than Oliver's dear +papa Carlyle. We may have to read _him_ also, otherwise than the British +populace have yet read, some day.] + +"Hardly an Englishman to be met with but could do something; some +cunninger thing than break his fellow-creature's head with battle-axes. +The seven incorporated trades, with their million guild-brethren, with +their hammers, their shuttles, and tools, what an army,--fit to conquer +that land of England, as we say, and hold it conquered! Nay, strangest +of all, the English people had acquired the faculty and habit of +thinking,--even of believing; individual conscience had unfolded itself +among them;--Conscience, and Intelligence its handmaid. [1] Ideas +of innumerable kinds were circulating among these men; witness one +Shakspeare, a wool-comber, poacher or whatever else, at Stratford, in +Warwickshire, who happened to write books!--the finest human figure, +as I apprehend, that Nature has hitherto seen fit to make of our widely +Teutonic clay. Saxon, Norman, Celt, or Sarmat, I find no human soul +so beautiful, these fifteen hundred known years;--our supreme modern +European man. Him England had contrived to realize: were there not +ideas? + +[Footnote 1: Observe Carlyle's order of sequence. Perceptive Reason is +the Handmaid of Conscience, not Conscience hers. If you resolve to do +right, you will soon do wisely; but resolve only to do wisely, and you +will never do right.] + +"Ideas poetic and also Puritanic, that had to seek utterance in the +notablest way! England had got her Shakspeare, but was now about to get +her Milton and Oliver Cromwell. This, too, we will call a new expansion, +hard as it might be to articulate and adjust; this, that a man could +actually have a conscience for his own behoof, and not for his priest's +only; that his priest, be he who he might, would henceforth have to take +that fact along with him." + +56. You observe, in this passage, account is given you of two +things--(A) of the development of a powerful class of tradesmen and +artists; and, (B) of the development of an individual conscience. + +In the savage times you had simply the hunter, digger, and robber; now +you have also the manufacturer and salesman. The ideas of ingenuity +with the hand, of fairness in exchange, have occurred to us. We can do +something now with our fingers, as well as with our fists; and if we +want our neighbours' goods, we will not simply carry them off, as of +old, but offer him some of ours in exchange. + +57. Again; whereas before we were content to let our priests do for us +all they could, by gesticulating, dressing, sacrificing, or beating of +drums and blowing of trumpets; and also direct our steps in the way of +life, without any doubt on our part of their own perfect acquaintance +with it,--we have now got to do something for ourselves--to think +something for ourselves; and thus have arrived in straits of conscience +which, so long as we endeavour to steer through them honestly, will be +to us indeed a quite secure way of life, and of all living wisdom. + +58. Now the centre of this new freedom of thought is in Germany; and the +power of it is shown first, as I told you in my opening lecture, in the +great struggle of Frederick II. with Rome. And German freedom of thought +had certainly made some progress, when it had managed to reduce the Pope +to disguise himself as a soldier, ride out of Rome by moonlight, and +gallop his thirty-four miles to the seaside before + +[Illustration: PLATE IV.--NORMAN IMAGERY.] + +summer dawn. Here, clearly, is quite a new state of things for the Holy +Father of Christendom to consider, during such wholesome horse-exercise. + +59. Again; the refinements of new art are represented by +France--centrally by St. Louis with his Sainte Chapelle. Happily, I am +able to lay on your table to-day--having placed it three years ago in +your educational series--a leaf of a Psalter, executed for St. Louis +himself. He and his artists are scarcely out of their savage life yet, +and have no notion of adorning the Psalms better than by pictures of +long-necked cranes, long-eared rabbits, long-tailed lions, and red and +white goblins putting their tongues out. [1] But in refinement of touch, +in beauty of colour, in the human faculties of order and grace, they are +long since, evidently, past the flint and bone stage,--refined enough, +now,--subtle enough, now, to learn anything that is pretty and fine, +whether in theology or any other matter. + +[Footnote 1: I cannot go to the expense of engraving this most subtle +example; but Plate IV. shows the average conditions of temper and +imagination in religious ornamental work of the time.] + +60. Lastly, the new principle of Exchange is represented by Lombardy and +Venice, to such purpose that your Merchant and Jew of Venice, and your +Lombard of Lombard Street, retain some considerable influence on your +minds, even to this day. + +And in the exact midst of all such transition, behold, Etruria with her +Pisans--her Florentines,--receiving, resisting, and reigning over all: +pillaging the Saracens of their marbles--binding the French bishops +in silver chains;--shattering the towers of German tyranny into +small pieces,--building with strange jewellery the belfry tower for +newly-conceived Christianity;--and, in sacred picture, and sacred song, +reaching the height, among nations, most passionate, and most pure. + +I must close my lecture without indulging myself yet, by addition +of detail; requesting you, before we next meet, to fix these general +outlines in your minds, so that, without disturbing their distinctness, +I may trace in the sequel the relations of Italian Art to these +political and religious powers; and determine with what force of +passionate sympathy, or fidelity of resigned obedience, the Pisan +artists, father and son, executed the indignation of Florence and +fulfilled the piety of Orvieto. + + + + + + LECTURE III. + + SHIELD AND APRON. + +61. I laid before you, in my last lecture, first lines of the chart of +Italian history in the thirteenth century, which I hope gradually to +fill with colour, and enrich, to such degree as may be sufficient for +all comfortable use. But I indicated, as the more special subject of our +immediate study, the nascent power of liberal thought, and liberal art, +over dead tradition and rude workmanship. + +To-day I must ask you to examine in greater detail the exact relation of +this liberal art to the illiberal elements which surrounded it. + +62. You do not often hear me use that word "Liberal" in any favourable +sense. I do so now, because I use it also in a very narrow and exact +sense. I mean that the thirteenth century is, in Italy's year of life, +her 17th of March. In the light of it, she assumes her toga virilis; and +it is sacred to her god Liber. + +63. To her god _Liber_,--observe: not Dionusos, still less Bacchus, but +her own ancient and simple deity. And if you have read with some care +the statement I gave you, with Carlyle's help, of the moment and +manner of her change from savageness to dexterity, and from rudeness to +refinement of life, you will hear, familiar as the lines are to you, the +invocation in the first Georgic with a new sense of its meaning:-- + + "Vos, O clarissima mundi + Lumina, labentem coelo quae ducitis annum, + Liber, et alma Ceres; vestro si munere tellus + Chaoniam pingui glandem mutavit arista, + Poculaqu' inventis Acheloia miscuit uvis, + Munera vestra cano." + + +These gifts, innocent, rich, full of life, exquisitely beautiful in +order and grace of growth, I have thought best to symbolize to you, +in the series of types of the power of the Greek gods, placed in your +educational series, by the blossom of the wild strawberry; which in +rising from its trine cluster of trine leaves,--itself as beautiful as +a white rose, and always single on its stalk, like an ear of corn, yet +with a succeeding blossom at its side, and bearing a fruit which is as +distinctly a group of seeds as an ear of corn itself, and yet is the +pleasantest to taste of all the pleasant things prepared by nature +for the food of men, [1]--may accurately symbolize, and help you to +remember, the conditions of this liberal and delightful, yet entirely +modest and orderly, art, and thought. + +[Footnote 1: I am sorry to pack my sentences together in this confused +way. But I have much to say; and cannot always stop to polish or adjust +it as I used to do.] + +64. You will find in the fourth of my inaugural lectures, at the 98th +paragraph, this statement,--much denied by modern artists and authors, +but nevertheless quite unexceptionally true,--that the entire vitality +of art depends upon its having for object either to _state a true +thing_, or _adorn a serviceable one_. The two functions of art in Italy, +in this entirely liberal and virescent phase of it,--virgin art, we +may call it, retaining the most literal sense of the words virga and +virgo,--are to manifest the doctrines of a religion which now, for the +first time, men had soul enough to understand; and to adorn edifices +or dress, with which the completed politeness of daily life might be +invested, its convenience completed, and its decorous and honourable +pride satisfied. + +65. That pride was, among the men who gave its character to the century, +in honourableness of private conduct, and useful magnificence of public +art. Not of private or domestic art: observe this very particularly. + +"Such was the simplicity of private manners,"--(I am now quoting +Sismondi, but with the fullest ratification that my knowledge enables +me to give,)--"and the economy of the richest citizens, that if a city +enjoyed repose only for a few years, it doubled its revenues, and found +itself, in a sort, encumbered with its riches. The Pisans knew neither +of the luxury of the table, nor that of furniture, nor that of a number +of servants; yet they were sovereigns of the whole of Sardinia, Corsica, +and Elba, had colonies at St. Jean d'Acre and Constantinople, and their +merchants in those cities carried on the most extended commerce with the +Saracens and Greeks." [1] + +[Footnote 1: Sismondi; French translation, Brussels, 1838; vol. ii., p. +275.] + +66. "And in that time," (I now give you my own translation of Giovanni +Villani,) "the citizens of Florence lived sober, and on coarse meats, +and at little cost; and had many customs and playfulnesses which were +blunt and rude; and they dressed themselves and their wives with coarse +cloth; many wore merely skins, with no lining, and _all_ had only +leathern buskins; [1] and the Florentine ladies, plain shoes and +stockings with no ornaments; and the best of them were content with +a close gown of coarse scarlet of Cyprus, or camlet girded with an +old-fashioned clasp-girdle; and a mantle over all, lined with vaire, +with a hood above; and that, they threw over their heads. The women of +lower rank were dressed in the same manner, with coarse green Cambray +cloth; fifty pounds was the ordinary bride's dowry, and a hundred or +a hundred and fifty would in those times have been held brilliant, +('isfolgorata,' dazzling, with sense of dissipation or extravagance;) +and most maidens were twenty or more before they married. Of such gross +customs were then the Florentines; but of good faith, and loyal among +themselves and in their state; and in their coarse life, and poverty, +did more and braver things than are done in our days with more +refinement and riches." + +[Footnote 1: I find this note for expansion on the margin of my lecture, +but had no time to work it out:--'This lower class should be either +barefoot, or have strong shoes--wooden clogs good. Pretty Boulogne +sabot with purple stockings. Waterloo Road--little girl with her hair +in curlpapers,--a coral necklace round her neck--the neck bare--and her +boots of thin stuff, worn out, with her toes coming through, and rags +hanging from her heels,--a profoundly accurate type of English national +and political life. Your hair in curlpapers--borrowing tongs from every +foreign nation, to pinch you into manners. The rich ostentatiously +wearing coral about the bare neck; and the poor--cold as the stones and +indecent.'] + +67. I detain you a moment at the words "scarlet of Cyprus, or camlet." + +Observe that camelot (camelet) from _kamaelotae_, camel's skin, is a +stuff made of silk and camel's hair originally, afterwards of silk and +wool. At Florence, the camel's hair would always have reference to the +Baptist, who, as you know, in Lippi's picture, wears the camel's +skin itself, made into a Florentine dress, such as Villani has just +described, "col tassello sopra," with the hood above. Do you see how +important the word "Capulet" is becoming to us, in its main idea? + +68. Not in private nor domestic art, therefore, I repeat to you, but +in useful magnificence of public art, these citizens expressed their +pride:--and that public art divided itself into two branches--civil, +occupied upon ethic subjects of sculpture and painting; and religious, +occupied upon scriptural or traditional histories, in treatment of +which, nevertheless, the nascent power and liberality of thought were +apparent, not only in continual amplification and illustration of +scriptural story by the artist's own invention, but in the acceptance +of profane mythology, as part of the Scripture, or tradition, given by +Divine inspiration. + +69. Nevertheless, for the provision of things necessary in domestic +life, there developed itself, together with the group of inventive +artists exercising these nobler functions, a vast body of craftsmen, +and, literally, _man_ufacturers, workers by hand, who associated +themselves, as chance, tradition, or the accessibility of material +directed, in towns which thenceforward occupied a leading position in +commerce, as producers of a staple of excellent, or perhaps inimitable, +quality; and the linen or cambric of Cambray, the lace of Mechlin, +the wool of Worstead, and the steel of Milan, implied the tranquil and +hereditary skill of multitudes, living in wealthy industry, and humble +honour. + +70. Among these artisans, the weaver, the ironsmith, the goldsmith, the +carpenter, and the mason necessarily took the principal rank, and on +their occupations the more refined arts were wholesomely based, so that +the five businesses may be more completely expressed thus: + + The weaver and embroiderer, + The ironsmith and armourer, + The goldsmith and jeweller, + The carpenter and engineer, + The stonecutter and painter. + + +You have only once to turn over the leaves of Lionardo's sketch book, +in the Ambrosian Library, to see how carpentry is connected with +engineering,--the architect was always a stonecutter, and the +stonecutter not often practically separate, as yet, from the painter, +and never so in general conception of function. You recollect, at a much +later period, Kent's description of Cornwall's steward: + +"KENT. You cowardly rascal!--nature disclaims in thee, a tailor made +thee! + +CORNWALL. Thou art a strange fellow--a tailor make a man? + +KENT. Ay, sir; a stonecutter, or a painter, could not have made him so +ill; though they had been but two hours at the trade." + +71. You may consider then this group of artizans with the merchants, as +now forming in each town an important Tiers Etat, or Third State of +the people, occupied in service, first, of the ecclesiastics, who +in monastic bodies inhabited the cloisters round each church; and, +secondly, of the knights, who, with their retainers, occupied, each +family their own fort, in allied defence of their appertaining streets. + +72. A Third Estate, indeed; but adverse alike to both the others, to +Montague as to Capulet, when they become disturbers of the public peace; +and having a pride of its own,--hereditary still, but consisting in +the inheritance of skill and knowledge rather than of blood,--which +expressed the sense of such inheritance by taking its name habitually +from the master rather than the sire; and which, in its natural +antagonism to dignities won only by violence, or recorded only by +heraldry, you may think of generally as the race whose bearing is the +Apron, instead of the shield. + +73. When, however, these two, or in perfect subdivision three, bodies +of men, lived in harmony,--the knights remaining true to the State, the +clergy to their faith, and the workmen to their craft,--conditions of +national force were arrived at, under which all the great art of the +middle ages was accomplished. The pride of the knights, the avarice of +the priests, and the gradual abasement of character in the craftsman, +changing him from a citizen able to wield either tools in peace or +weapons in war, to a dull tradesman, forced to pay mercenary troops to +defend his shop door, are the direct causes of common ruin towards the +close of the sixteenth century. + +74. But the deep underlying cause of the decline in national character +itself, was the exhaustion of the Christian faith. None of its practical +claims were avouched either by reason or experience; and the imagination +grew weary of sustaining them in despite of both. Men could not, as +their powers of reflection became developed, steadily conceive that the +sins of a life might be done away with, by finishing it with Mary's name +on the lips; nor could tradition of miracle for ever resist the personal +discovery, made by each rude disciple by himself, that he might pray to +all the saints for a twelvemonth together, and yet not get what he asked +for. + +75. The Reformation succeeded in proclaiming that existing Christianity +was a lie; but substituted no theory of it which could be more +rationally or credibly sustained; and ever since, the religion of +educated persons throughout Europe has been dishonest or ineffectual; +it is only among the labouring peasantry that the grace of a pure +Catholicism, and the patient simplicities of the Puritan, maintain their +imaginative dignity, or assert their practical use. + +76. The existence of the nobler arts, however, involves the +harmonious life and vital faith of the three classes whom we have +just distinguished; and that condition exists, more or less disturbed, +indeed, by the vices inherent in each class, yet, on the whole, +energetically and productively, during the twelfth, thirteenth, +fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries. But our present subject being +Architecture only, I will limit your attention altogether to the state +of society in the great age of architecture, the thirteenth century. +A great age in all ways; but most notably so in the correspondence +it presented, up to a just and honourable point, with the utilitarian +energy of our own days. + +77. The increase of wealth, the safety of industry, and the conception +of more convenient furniture of life, to which we must attribute the +rise of the entire artist class, were accompanied, in that century, by +much enlargement in the conception of useful public works: and--not by +_private_ enterprise,--that idle persons might get dividends out of the +public pocket,--but by _public_ enterprise,--each citizen paying down +at once his share of what was necessary to accomplish the benefit to the +State,--great architectural and engineering efforts were made for +the common service. Common, observe; but not, in our present sense, +republican. One of the most ludicrous sentences ever written in the +blindness of party spirit is that of Sismondi, in which he declares, +thinking of these public works only, that 'the architecture of the +thirteenth century is entirely republican.' The architecture of +the thirteenth century is, in the mass of it, simply baronial or +ecclesiastical; it is of castles, palaces, or churches; but it is true +that splendid civic works were also accomplished by the vigour of the +newly risen popular power. + +"The canal named Naviglio Graude, which brings the waters of the Ticino +to Milan, traversing a distance of thirty miles, was undertaken in 1179, +recommended in 1257, and, soon after, happily terminated; in it still +consists the wealth of a vast extent of Lombardy. At the same time the +town of Milan rebuilt its walls, which were three miles round, and +had sixteen marble gates, of magnificence which might have graced the +capital of all Italy. The Genovese, in 1276 and 1283, built their two +splendid docks, and the great wall of their quay; and in 1295 finished +the noble aqueduct which brings pure and abundant waters to their city +from a great distance among their mountains. There is not a single town +in Italy which at the same time did not undertake works of this kind; +and while these larger undertakings were in progress, stone bridges were +built across the rivers, the streets and piazzas were paved with +large slabs of stone, and every free government recognized the duty of +providing for the convenience of the citizens." [1] + +[Footnote 1: Simondi, vol ii. chap. 10.] + +78. The necessary consequence of this enthusiasm in useful building, was +the formation of a vast body of craftsmen and architects; corresponding +in importance to that which the railway, with its associated industry, +has developed in modern times, but entirely different in personal +character, and relation to the body politic. + +Their personal character was founded on the accurate knowledge of their +business in all respects; the ease and pleasure of unaffected invention; +and the true sense of power to do everything better than it had ever +been yet done, coupled with general contentment in life, and in its +vigour and skill. + +It is impossible to overrate the difference between such a condition +of mind, and that of the modern artist, who either does not know his +business at all, or knows it only to recognize his own inferiority to +every former workman of distinction. + +79. Again: the political relation of these artificers to the State was +that of a caste entirely separate from the noblesse; [1] paid for their +daily work what was just, and competing with each other to supply the +best article they could for the money. And it is, again, impossible to +overrate the difference between such a social condition, and that of the +artists of to-day, struggling to occupy a position of equality in wealth +with the noblesse,--paid irregular and monstrous prices by an entirely +ignorant and selfish public; and competing with each other to supply the +worst article they can for the money. + +[Footnote 1: The giving of knighthood to Jacopo della Quercia for his +lifelong service to Siena was not the elevation of a dexterous workman, +but grace to a faithful citizen.] + +I never saw anything so impudent on the walls of any exhibition, in +any country, as last year in London. It was a daub professing to be a +"harmony in pink and white" (or some such nonsense;) absolute rubbish, +and which had taken about a quarter of an hour to scrawl or daub--it +had no pretence to be called painting. The price asked for it was two +hundred and fifty guineas. + +80. In order to complete your broad view of the elements of social +power in the thirteenth century, you have now farther to understand the +position of the country people, who maintained by their labour these +three classes, whose action you can discern, and whose history you can +read; while, of those who maintained them, there is no history, +except of the annual ravage of their fields by contending cities or +nobles;--and, finally, that of the higher body of merchants, whose +influence was already beginning to counterpoise the prestige of noblesse +in Florence, and who themselves constituted no small portion of the +noblesse of Venice. + +The food-producing country was for the most part still possessed by +the nobles; some by the ecclesiastics; but a portion, I do not know how +large, was in the hands of peasant proprietors, of whom Sismondi gives +this, to my mind, completely pleasant and satisfactory, though, to his, +very painful, account:-- + +"They took no interest in public affairs; they had assemblies of their +commune at the village in which the church of their parish was situated, +and to which they retreated to defend themselves in case of war; they +had also magistrates of their own choice; but all their interests +appeared to them enclosed in the circle of their own commonality; they +did not meddle with general politics, and held it for their point of +honour to remain faithful, through all revolutions, to the State of +which they formed a part, obeying, without hesitation, its chiefs, +whoever they were, and by whatever title they occupied their places." + +81. Of the inferior agricultural labourers, employed on the farms of the +nobles and richer ecclesiastics, I find nowhere due notice, nor does any +historian seriously examine their manner of life. Liable to every form +of robbery and oppression, I yet regard their state as not only morally +but physically happier than that of riotous soldiery, or the lower class +of artizans, and as the safeguard of every civilized nation, through +all its worst vicissitudes of folly and crime. Nature has mercifully +appointed that seed must be sown, and sheep folded, whatever lances +break, or religions fail; and at this hour, while the streets of +Florence and Verona are full of idle politicians, loud of tongue, +useless of hand and treacherous of heart, there still may be seen in +their market-places, standing, each by his heap of pulse or maize, the +grey-haired labourers, silent, serviceable, honourable, keeping faith, +untouched by change, to their country and to Heaven. [1] + +[Footnote 1: Compare "Sesame and Lilies," sec. 38, p. 58. (P. 86 of the +small edition of 1882.)] + +82. It is extremely difficult to determine in what degree the feelings +or intelligence of this class influenced the architectural design of the +thirteenth century;--how far afield the cathedral tower was intended +to give delight, and to what simplicity of rustic conception Quercia or +Ghiberti appealed by the fascination of their Scripture history. You may +at least conceive, at this date, a healthy animation in all men's minds, +and the children of the vineyard and sheepcote crowding the city on its +festa days, and receiving impulse to busier, if not nobler, education, +in its splendour. [1] + +[Footnote 1: Of detached abbeys, see note on Education of Joan of Arc, +"Sesame and Lilies," sec. 82, p. 106. (P. 158 of the small edition of +1882.)] + +83. The great class of the merchants is more difficult to define; but +you may regard them generally as the examples of whatever modes of life +might be consistent with peace and justice, in the economy of transfer, +as opposed to the military license of pillage. + +They represent the gradual ascendancy of foresight, prudence, and order +in society, and the first ideas of advantageous national intercourse. +Their body is therefore composed of the most intelligent and temperate +natures of the time,--uniting themselves, not directly for the purpose +of making money, but to obtain stability for equal institutions, +security of property, and pacific relations with neighbouring states. +Their guilds form the only representatives of true national +council, unaffected, as the landed proprietors were, by merely local +circumstances and accidents. + +84. The strength of this order, when its own conduct was upright, and +its opposition to the military body was not in avaricious cowardice, +but in the resolve to compel justice and to secure peace, can only +be understood by you after an examination of the great changes in the +government of Florence during the thirteenth century, which, among other +minor achievements interesting to us, led to that destruction of the +Tower of the Death-watch, so ingeniously accomplished by Niccola Pisano. +This change, and its results, will be the subject of my next lecture. +I must to-day sum, and in some farther degree make clear, the facts +already laid before you. + +85. We have seen that the inhabitants of every great Italian state may +be divided, and that very stringently, into the five classes of knights, +priests, merchants, artists, and peasants. No distinction exists between +artist and artizan, except that of higher genius or better conduct; the +best artist is assuredly also the best artizan; and the simplest workman +uses his invention and emotion as well as his fingers. The entire body +of artists is under the orders (as shopmen are under the orders of their +customers), of the knights, priests, and merchants,--the knights for the +most part demanding only fine goldsmiths' work, stout armour, and rude +architecture; the priests commanding both the finest architecture +and painting, and the richest kinds of decorative dress and +jewellery,--while the merchants directed works of public use, and were +the best judges of artistic skill. The competition for the Baptistery +gates of Florence is before the guild of merchants; nor is their award +disputed, even in thought, by any of the candidates. + +86. This is surely a fact to be taken much to heart by our present +communities of Liverpool and Manchester. They probably suppose, in their +modesty, that lords and clergymen are the proper judges of art, and +merchants can only, in the modern phrase, 'know what they like,' or +follow humbly the guidance of their golden-crested or flat-capped +superiors. But in the great ages of art, neither knight nor pope shows +signs of true power of criticism. The artists crouch before them, or +quarrel with them, according to their own tempers. To the merchants they +submit silently, as to just and capable judges. And look what men these +are, who submit. Donatello, Ghiberti, Quercia, Luca! If men like these +submit to the merchant, who shall rebel? + +87. But the still franker, and surer, judgment of innocent pleasure was +awarded them by all classes alike: and the interest of the public was +the _final _rule of right,--that public being always eager to see, and +earnest to learn. For the stories told by their artists formed, they +fully believed, a Book of Life; and every man of real genius took up his +function of illustrating the scheme of human morality and salvation, +as naturally, and faithfully, as an English mother of to-day giving her +children their first lessons in the Bible. In this endeavour to teach +they almost unawares taught themselves; the question "How shall I +represent this most clearly?" became to themselves, presently, "How was +this most likely to have happened?" and habits of fresh and accurate +thought thus quickly enlivened the formalities of the Greek pictorial +theology; formalities themselves beneficent, because restraining by +their severity and mystery the wantonness of the newer life. Foolish +modern critics have seen nothing in the Byzantine school but a +barbarism to be conquered and forgotten. But that school brought to the +art-scholars of the thirteenth century, laws which had been serviceable +to Phidias, and symbols which had been beautiful to Homer: and methods +and habits of pictorial scholarship which gave a refinement of manner +to the work of the simplest craftsman, and became an education to +the higher artists which no discipline of literature can now bestow, +developed themselves in the effort to decipher, and the impulse to +re-interpret, the Eleusinian divinity of Byzantine tradition. + +88. The words I have just used, "pictorial scholarship," and "pictorial +theology," remind me how strange it must appear to you that in this +sketch of the intellectual state of Italy in the thirteenth century I +have taken no note of literature itself, nor of the fine art of Music +with which it was associated in minstrelsy. The corruption of the +meaning of the word "clerk," from "a chosen person" to "a learned one," +partly indicates the position of literature in the war between the +golden crest and scarlet cap; but in the higher ranks, literature and +music became the grace of the noble's life, or the occupation of the +monk's, without forming any separate class, or exercising any +materially visible political power. Masons or butchers might establish +a government,--but never troubadours: and though a good knight held his +education to be imperfect unless he could write a sonnet and sing it, +he did not esteem his castle to be at the mercy of the "editor" of a +manuscript. He might indeed owe his life to the fidelity of a minstrel, +or be guided in his policy by the wit of a clown; but he was not the +slave of sensual music, or vulgar literature, and never allowed his +Saturday reviewer to appear at table without the cock's comb. + +89. On the other hand, what was noblest in thought or saying was in +those times as little attended to as it is now. I do not feel sure that, +even in after times, the poem of Dante has had any political effect +on Italy; but at all events, in his life, even at Verona, where he was +treated most kindly, he had not half so much influence with Can Grande +as the rough Count of Castelbarco, not one of whose words was ever +written, or now remains; and whose portrait, by no means that of a man +of literary genius, almost disfigures, by its plainness, the otherwise +grave and perfect beauty of his tomb. + + + + + LECTURE IV. + + PARTED PER PALE. + +90. The chart of Italian intellect and policy which I have endeavoured +to put into form in the last three lectures, may, I hope, have given you +a clear idea of the subordinate, yet partly antagonistic, position +which the artist, or merchant,--whom in my present lecture I shall class +together,--occupied, with respect to the noble and priest. As an honest +labourer, he was opposed to the violence of pillage, and to the folly +of pride: as an honest thinker, he was likely to discover any +latent absurdity in the stories he had to represent in their nearest +likelihood; and to be himself moved strongly by the true meaning of +events which he was striving to make ocularly manifest. The painter +terrified himself with his own fiends, and reproved or comforted himself +by the lips of his own saints, far more profoundly than any verbal +preacher; and thus, whether as craftsman or inventor, was likely to +be foremost in defending the laws of his city, or directing its +reformation. + +91. The contest of the craftsman with the pillaging soldier is typically +represented by the war of the Lombard League with Frederick II.; and +that of the craftsman with the hypocritical priest, by the war of the +Pisans with Gregory IX. (1241). But in the present lecture I wish only +to fix your attention on the revolutions in Florence, which indicated, +thus early, the already established ascendancy of the moral forces which +were to put an end to open robber-soldiership; and at least to compel +the assertion of some higher principle in war, if not, as in some +distant day may be possible, the cessation of war itself. + +The most important of these revolutions was virtually that of which I +before spoke to you, taking place in mid-thirteenth century, in the +year l250,--a very memorable one for Christendom, and the very crisis of +vital change in its methods of economy, and conceptions of art. + +92. Observe, first, the exact relations at that time of Christian and +Profane Chivalry. St. Louis, in the winter of 1248-9, lay in the isle +of Cyprus, with his crusading army. He had trusted to Providence for +provisions; and his army was starving. The profane German emperor, +Frederick II., was at war with Venice, but gave a safe-conduct to the +Venetian ships, which enabled them to carry food to Cyprus, and to +save St. Louis and his crusaders. Frederick had been for half his life +excommunicate,--and the Pope (Innocent IV.) at deadly spiritual and +temporal war with him;--spiritually, because he had brought Saracens +into Apulia; temporally, because the Pope wanted Apulia for himself. +St. Louis and his mother both wrote to Innocent, praying him to be +reconciled to the kind heretic who had saved the whole crusading army. +But the Pope remained implacably thundrous; and Frederick, weary of +quarrel, stayed quiet in one of his Apulian castles for a year. +The repose of infidelity is seldom cheerful, unless it be criminal. +Frederick had much to repent of, much to regret, nothing to hope, +and nothing to do. At the end of his year's quiet he was attacked by +dysentery, and so made his final peace with the Pope, and heaven,--aged +fifty-six. + +93. Meantime St. Louis had gone on into Egypt, had got his army +defeated, his brother killed, and himself carried captive. You may be +interested in seeing, in the leaf of his psalter which I have laid on +the table, the death of that brother set down in golden letters, between +the common letters of ultramarine, on the eighth of February. + +94. Providence, defied by Frederick, and trusted in by St. Louis, made +such arrangements for them both; Providence not in anywise regarding the +opinions of either king, but very much regarding the facts, that the one +had no business in Egypt, nor the other in Apulia. + +No two kings, in the history of the world, could have been happier, or +more useful, than these two might have been, if they only had had the +sense to stay in their own capitals, and attend to their own affairs. +But they seem only to have been born to show what grievous results, +under the power of discontented imagination, a Christian could achieve +by faith, and a philosopher by reason. [1] + +[Footnote 1: It must not be thought that this is said in disregard of +the nobleness of either of these two glorious Kings. Among the many +designs of past years, one of my favorites was to write a life of +Frederick II. But I hope that both his, and that of Henry II. of +England, will soon be written now, by a man who loves them as well as I +do, and knows them far better.] + +95. The death of Frederick II. virtually ended the soldier power +in Florence; and the mercantile power assumed the authority it +thenceforward held, until, in the hands of the Medici, it destroyed the +city. + +We will now trace the course and effects of the three revolutions which +closed the reign of War, and crowned the power of Peace. + +96. In the year 1248, while St. Louis was in Cyprus, I told you +Frederick was at war with Venice. He was so because she stood, if not +as the leader, at least as the most important ally, of the great Lombard +mercantile league against the German military power. + +That league consisted essentially of Venice, Milan, Bologna, and Genoa, +in alliance with the Pope; the Imperial or Ghibelline towns were, Padua +and Verona under Ezzelin; Mantua, Pisa, and Siena. I do not name the +minor towns of north Italy which associated themselves with each party: +get only the main localities of the contest well into your minds. It +was all concentrated in the furious hostility of Genoa and Pisa; Genoa +fighting really very piously for the Pope, as well as for herself; Pisa +for her own hand, and for the Emperor as much as suited her. The mad +little sea falcon never caught sight of another water-bird on the wing, +but she must hawk at it; and as an ally of the Emperor, balanced Venice +and Genoa with her single strength. And so it came to pass that the +victory of either the Guelph or Ghibelline party depended on the final +action of Florence. + +97. Florence meanwhile was fighting with herself, for her own amusement. +She was nominally at the head of the Guelphic League in Tuscany; but +this only meant that she hated Siena and Pisa, her southern and western +neighbours. She had never declared openly against the Emperor. On the +contrary, she always recognized his authority, in an imaginative manner, +as representing that of the Caesars. She spent her own energy chiefly in +street-fighting,--the death of Buondelmonti in 1215 having been the root +of a series of quarrels among her nobles which gradually took the form +of contests of honour; and were a kind of accidental tournaments, fought +to the death, because they could not be exciting or dignified enough on +any other condition. And thus the manner of life came to be customary, +which you have accurately, with its consequences, pictured by +Shakspeare. Samson bites his thumb at Abraham, and presently the streets +are impassable in battle. The quarrel in the Canongate between the +Leslies and Seytons, in Scott's 'Abbot,' represents the same temper; and +marks also, what Shakspeare did not so distinctly, because it would have +interfered with the domestic character of his play, the connection of +these private quarrels with political divisions which paralyzed the +entire body of the State.--Yet these political schisms, in the earlier +days of Italy, never reached the bitterness of Scottish feud, [1] +because they were never so sincere. Protestant and Catholic Scotsmen +faithfully believed each other to be servants of the devil; but the +Guelph and Ghibelline of Florence each respected, in the other, the +fidelity to the Emperor, or piety towards the Pope, which he found it +convenient, for the time, to dispense with in his own person. The street +fighting was therefore more general, more chivalric, more good-humoured; +a word of offence set all the noblesse of the town on fire; every one +rallied to his post; fighting began at once in half a dozen places of +recognized convenience, but ended in the evening; and, on the following +day, the leaders determined in contended truce who had fought best, +buried their dead triumphantly, and better fortified any weak points, +which the events of the previous day had exposed at their palace +corners. Florentine dispute was apt to centre itself about the gate of +St. Peter, [2] the tower of the cathedral, or the fortress-palace of the +Uberti, (the family of Dante's Bellincion Berti and of Farinata), which +occupied the site of the present Palazzo Vecchio. But the streets of +Siena seem to have afforded better barricade practice. They are as steep +as they are narrow--extremely both; and the projecting stones on their +palace fronts, which were left, in building, to sustain, on occasion, +the barricade beams across the streets, are to this day important +features in their architecture. + +[Footnote 1: Distinguish always the personal from the religious feud; +personal feud is more treacherous and violent in Italy than in Scotland; +but not the political or religious feud, unless involved with vast +material interests.] + +[Footnote 2: Sismondi, vol. ii., chap. ii.; G. Villani, vi., 33.] + +98. Such being the general state of matters in Florence, in this year +1248, Frederick writes to the Uberti, who headed the Ghibellines, +to engage them in serious effort to bring the city distinctly to +the Imperial side. He was besieging Parma; and sent his natural son, +Frederick, king of Antioch, with sixteen hundred German knights, to give +the Ghibellines assured preponderance in the next quarrel. + +The Uberti took arms before their arrival; rallied all their Ghibelline +friends into a united body, and so attacked and carried the Guelph +barricades, one by one, till their antagonists, driven together by local +defeat, stood in consistency as complete as their own, by the gate +of St. Peter, 'Scheraggio.' Young Frederick, with his German riders, +arrived at this crisis; the Ghibellines opening the gates to him; the +Guelphs, nevertheless, fought at their outmost barricade for four days +more; but at last, tired, withdrew from the city, in a body, on the +night of Candlemas, 2nd February, 1248; leaving the Ghibellines and +their German friends to work their pleasure,--who immediately +set themselves to throw down the Guelph palaces, and destroyed +six-and-thirty of them, towers and all, with the good help of Niccola +Pisano,--for this is the occasion of that beautiful piece of new +engineering of his. + +99. It is the first interference of the Germans in Florentine affairs +which belongs to the real cycle of modern history. Six hundred years +later, a troop of German riders entered Florence again, to restore its +Grand Duke; and our warmhearted and loving English poetess, looking on +from Casa Guidi windows, gives the said Germans many hard words, and +thinks her darling Florentines entirely innocent in the matter. But if +she had had clear eyes, (yeux de lin [1] the Romance of the Rose calls +them,) she would have seen that white-coated cavalry with its heavy guns +to be nothing more than the rear-guard of young Frederick of Antioch; +and that Florence's own Ghibellines had opened her gates to them. +Destiny little regards cost of time; she does her justice at that +telescopic distance just as easily and accurately as close at hand. + +[Footnote 1: Lynx.] + +100. "Frederick of _Antioch_." Note the titular coincidence. The +disciples were called Christians first in Antioch; here we have our +lieutenant of Antichrist also named from that town. The anti-Christian +Germans got into Florence upon Sunday morning; the Guelphs fought on +till Wednesday, which was Candlemas;--the Tower of the Death-watch was +thrown down next day. It was so called because it stood on the Piazza of +St John; and all dying people in Florence called on St. John for help; +and looked, if it might be, to the top of this highest and best-built of +towers. The wicked anti-Christian Ghibellines, Nicholas of Pisa helping, +cut the side of it "so that the tower might fall on the Baptistery. But +as it pleased God, for better reverencing of the blessed St. John, the +tower, which was a hundred and eighty feet high, as it was coming down, +plainly appeared to eschew the holy church, and turned aside, and fell +right across the square; at which all the Florentines marvelled, (pious +or impious,) and the _people_ (anti-Ghibelline) were greatly delighted." + +101. I have no doubt that this story is apocryphal, not only in its +attribution of these religious scruples to the falling tower; but in +its accusation of the Ghibellines as having definitely intended the +destruction of the Baptistery. It is only modern reformers who feel the +absolute need of enforcing their religious opinions in so practical a +manner. Such a piece of sacrilege would have been revolting to Farinata; +how much more to the group of Florentines whose temper is centrally +represented by Dante's, to all of whom their "bel San Giovanni" was +dear, at least for its beauty, if not for its sanctity. And Niccola +himself was too good a workman to become the instrument of the +destruction of so noble a work,--not to insist on the extreme +probability that he was also too good an engineer to have had his +purpose, if once fixed, thwarted by any tenderness in the conscience of +the collapsing tower. The tradition itself probably arose after the +rage of the exiled Ghibellines had half consented to the destruction, +on political grounds, of Florence itself; but the form it took is of +extreme historical value, indicating thus early at least the suspected +existence of passions like those of the Cromwellian or Garibaldian +soldiery in the Florentine noble; and the distinct character of the +Ghibelline party as not only anti-Papal, but profane. + +102. Upon the castles, and the persons of their antagonists, however, +the pride, or fear, of the Ghibellines had little mercy; and in their +day of triumph they provoked against themselves nearly every rational as +well as religious person in the commonwealth. They despised too much the +force of the newly-risen popular power, founded on economy, sobriety, +and common sense; and, alike by impertinence and pillage, increased the +irritation of the civil body; until, as aforesaid, on the 20th October, +1250, all the rich burgesses of Florence took arms; met in the square +before the church of Santa Croce, ("where," says Sismondi, "the republic +of the dead is still assembled today,") thence traversed the city to the +palace of the Ghibelline podesta; forced him to resign; named Uberto of +Lucca in his place, under the title of Captain of the People; divided +themselves into twenty companies, each, in its own district of the city, +having its captain [1] and standard; and elected a council of twelve +ancients, constituting a seniory or signoria, to deliberate on and +direct public affairs. + +[Footnote 1: 'Corporal,' literally'.] + +103. What a perfectly beautiful republican movement! thinks Sismondi, +seeing, in all this, nothing but the energy of a multitude; and entirely +ignoring the peculiar capacity of this Florentine mob,--capacity of two +virtues, much forgotten by modern republicanism,--order, namely; and +obedience; together with the peculiar instinct of this Florentine +multitude, which not only felt itself to need captains, but knew where +to find them. + +104. Hubert of Lucca--How came they, think you, to choose _him _out of +a stranger city, and that a poorer one than their own? Was there no +Florentine then, of all this rich and eager crowd, who was fit to govern +Florence? + +I cannot find any account of this Hubert, Bright mind, of Ducca; Villani +says simply of him, "Fu il primo capitano di Firenze." + +They hung a bell for him in the Campanile of the Lion, and gave him +the flag of Florence to bear; and before the day was over, that 20th +of October, he had given every one of the twenty companies their flags +also. And the bearings of the said gonfalons were these. I will give you +this heraldry as far as I can make it out from Villani; it will be very +useful to us afterwards; I leave the Italian when I cannot translate +it:-- + +105. A. Sesto, (sixth part of the city,) of the other side of Arno. + + Gonfalon 1. Gules; a ladder, argent. + 2. Argent; a scourge, sable. + 3. Azure; (una piazza bianca con + nicchi vermigli). + 4. Gules; a dragon, vert. + + +B. Sesto of St. Peter Scheraggio. + + 1. Azure; a chariot, or. + 2. Or; a bull, sable. + 3. Argent; a lion rampant, sable. + 4. (A lively piece, "pezza gagliarda") + Barry of (how many?) pieces, + argent and sable. + + +You may as well note at once of this kind of bearing, called 'gagliarda' +by Villani, that these groups of piles, pales, bends, and bars, were +called in English heraldry 'Restrial bearings,' "in respect of their +strength and solid substance, which is able to abide the stresse and +force of any triall they shall be put unto." [1] And also that, the +number of bars being uncertain, I assume the bearing to be 'barry,' that +is, having an even number of bars; had it been odd, as of seven bars, it +should have been blazoned, argent; three bars, sable; or, if so divided, +sable, three bars argent. + +[Footnote 1: Guillim, sect. ii., chap. 3.] + +This lively bearing was St. Pulinari's. + +C. Sesto of Borgo. + + 1. Or; a viper, vert. + 2. Argent; a needle, (?) (aguglia) + sable. + 3. Vert; a horse unbridled; + draped, argent, a cross, + gules. + + +D. Sesto of St. Brancazio. + + 1. Vert; a lion rampant, proper. + 2. Argent; a lion rampant, gules. + 3. Azure; a lion rampant, argent. + + +E. Sesto of the Cathedral gates. + + 1. Azure; a lion (passant?) or. + 2. Or; a dragon, vert. + 3. Argent; a lion rampant, + azure, crowned, or. + + +F. Sesto of St. Peter's gates. + + 1. Or; two keys, gules. + 2. An Italian (or more definitely + a Greek and Etruscan bearing; + I do not know how to + blazon it;) concentric bands, + argent and sable. This is + one of the remains of the + Greek expressions of storm; + hail, or the Trinacrian limbs, + being put on the giant's + shields also. It is connected + besides with the Cretan + labyrinth, and the circles of + the Inferno. + 3. Parted per fesse, gules and + vai (I don't know if vai + means grey--not a proper + heraldic colour--or vaire). + + +106. Of course Hubert of Lucca did not determine these bearings, but +took them as he found them, and appointed them for standards; [1] he did +the same for all the country parishes, and ordered them to come into +the city at need. "And in this manner the old people of Florence ordered +itself; and for more strength of the people, they ordered and began to +build the palace which is behind the Badia,--that is to say, the one +which is of dressed stone, with the tower; for before there was no +palace of the commune in Florence, but the signory abode sometimes in +one part of the town, sometimes in another. + +[Footnote 1: We will examine afterwards the heraldry of the trades, +chap, xi., Villani.] + +107. "And as the people had now taken state and signory on themselves, +they ordered, for greater strength of the people, that all the towers of +Florence--and there were many 180 feet high [1]--should be cut down to +75 feet, and no more; and so it was done, and with the stones of them +they walled the city on the other side Arno." + +[Footnote: 120 braccia.] + +108. That last sentence is a significant one. Here is the central +expression of the true burgess or townsman temper,--resolute maintenance +of fortified peace. These are the walls which modern republicanism +throws down, to make boulevards over their ruins. + +109. Such new order being taken, Florence remained quiet for full two +months. On the 13th of December, in the same year, died the Emperor +Frederick II.; news of his death did not reach Florence till the 7th +January, 1251. It had chanced, according to Villani, that on the actual +day of his death, his Florentine vice-regent, Rinieri of Montemerlo, was +killed by a piece of the vaulting [1] of his room falling on him as he +slept. And when the people heard of the Emperor's death, "which was most +useful and needful for Holy Church, and for our commune," they took +the fall of the roof on his lieutenant as an omen of the extinction +of Imperial authority, and resolved to bring home all their Guelphic +exiles, and that the Ghibellines should be forced to make peace with +them. Which was done, and the peace really lasted for full six months; +when, a quarrel chancing with Ghibelline Pistoja, the Florentines, under +a Milanese podesta, fought their first properly communal and commercial +battle, with great slaughter of Pistojese. Naturally enough, but very +unwisely, the Florentine Ghibellines declined to take part in this +battle; whereupon the people, returning flushed with victory, drove them +all out, and established pure Guelph government in Florence, changing at +the same time the flag of the city from gules, a lily argent, to argent, +a lily gules; but the most ancient bearing of all, simply parted +per pale, argent and gules, remained always on their carroccio of +battle,--"Non si muto mai." + +[Footnote 1: "Una volta ch' era sopra la camera."] + +110. "Non si muto mai." Villani did not know how true his words were. +That old shield of Florence, parted per pale, argent and gules, (or +our own Saxon Oswald's, parted per pale, or and purpure,) are heraldry +changeless in sign; declaring the necessary balance, in ruling men, of +the Rational and Imaginative powers; pure Alp, and glowing cloud. + +Church and State--Pope and Emperor--Clergy and Laity,--all these are +partial, accidental--too often, criminal--oppositions; but the bodily +and spiritual elements, seemingly adverse, remain in everlasting +harmony, + +Not less the new bearing of the shield, the red fleur-de-lys, has +another meaning. It is red, not as ecclesiastical, but as free. Not of +Guelph against Ghibelline, but of Labourer against Knight. No more his +serf, but his minister. His duty no more 'servitium,' but 'ministerium,' +'mestier.' We learn the power of word after word, as of sign after sign, +as we follow the traces of this nascent art. I have sketched for you +this lily from the base of the tower of Giotto. You may judge by the +subjects of the sculpture beside it that it was built just in this fit +of commercial triumph; for all the outer bas-reliefs are of trades. + +111. Draw that red lily then, and fix it in your minds as the sign +of the great change in the temper of Florence, and in her laws, in +mid-thirteenth century; and remember also, when you go to Florence and +see that mighty tower of the Palazzo Vecchio (noble still, in spite of +the calamitous and accursed restorations which have smoothed its +rugged outline, and effaced with modern vulgarisms its lovely +sculpture)--terminating the shadowy perspectives of the Uffizii, or +dominant over the city seen from Fesole or Bellosguardo,--that, as the +tower of Giotto is the notablest monument in the world of the Religion +of Europe, so, on this tower of the Palazzo Vecchio, first shook +itself to the winds the Lily standard of her liberal,--because +honest,--commerce. + + + + + LECTURE V. + + PAX VOBISCUM. + +112. My last lecture ended with a sentence which I thought, myself, +rather pretty, and quite fit for a popular newspaper, about the 'lily +standard of liberal commerce.' But it might occur, and I hope did occur, +to some of you, that it would have been more appropriate if the lily had +changed colour the other way, from red to white, (instead of white to +red,) as a sign of a pacific constitution and kindly national purpose. + +113. I believe otherwise, however; and although the change itself was +for the sake of change merely, you may see in it, I think, one of the +historical coincidences which contain true instruction for us. + +Quite one of the chiefest art-mistakes and stupidities of men has been +their tendency to dress soldiers in red clothes, and monks, or pacific +persons, in black, white, or grey ones. At least half of that mental +bias of young people, which sustains the wickedness of war among us +at this day, is owing to the prettiness of uniforms. Make all Hussars +black, all Guards black, all troops of the line black; dress officers +and men, alike, as you would public executioners; and the number of +candidates for commissions will be greatly diminished. Habitually, on +the contrary, you dress these destructive rustics and their officers in +scarlet and gold, but give your productive rustics no costume of honour +or beauty; you give your peaceful student a costume which he tucks up +to his waist, because he is ashamed of it; and dress your pious rectors, +and your sisters of charity, in black, as if it were _their_ trade +instead of the soldier's to send people to hell, and their own destiny +to arrive there. + +114. But the investiture of the lily of Florence with scarlet is a +symbol,--unintentional, observe, but not the less notable,--of the +recovery of human sense and intelligence in this matter. The reign of +war was past; this was the sign of it;--the red glow, not now of the +Towers of Dis, but of the Carita, "che appena fora dentro al fuoco +nota." And a day is coming, be assured, when the kings of Europe will +dress their peaceful troops beautifully; will clothe their peasant girls +"in scarlet, with other delights," and "put on ornaments of gold upon +_their_ apparel;" when the crocus and the lily will not be the only +living things dressed daintily in our land, and the glory of the wisest +monarchs be indeed, in that their people, like themselves, shall be, at +least in some dim likeness, "arrayed like one of these." + +115. But as for the immediate behaviour of Florence herself, with her +new standard, its colour was quite sufficiently significant in that old +symbolism, when the first restrial bearing was drawn by dying fingers +dipped in blood. The Guelphic revolution had put her into definite +political opposition with her nearest, and therefore,--according to +the custom and Christianity of the time,--her hatefullest, +neighbours,--Pistoja, Pisa, Siena, and Volterra. What glory might not +be acquired, what kind purposes answered, by making pacific mercantile +states also of those benighted towns! Besides, the death of the Emperor +had thrown his party everywhere into discouragement; and what was the +use of a flag which flew no farther than over the new palazzo? + +116. Accordingly, in the next year, the pacific Florentines began +by ravaging the territory of Pistoja; then attacked the Pisans at +Pontadera, and took 3000 prisoners; and finished by traversing, and +eating up all that could be ate in, the country of Siena; besides +beating the Sienese under the castle of Montalcino. Returning in triumph +after these benevolent operations, they resolved to strike a new piece +of money in memory of them,--the golden Florin! + +117. This coin I have placed in your room of study, to be the first +of the series of coins which I hope to arrange for you, not +chronologically, but for the various interest, whether as regards art or +history, which they should possess in your general studies. "The Florin +of Florence," (says Sismondi), "through all the monetary revolutions +of all neighbouring countries, and while the bad faith of governments +adulterated their coin from one end of Europe to the other, has always +remained the same; it is, to-day," (I don't know when, exactly, he wrote +this,--but it doesn't matter), "of the same weight, and bears the same +name and the same stamp, which it did when it was struck in 1252." +It was gold of the purest title (24 carats), weighed the eighth of +an ounce, and carried, as you see, on one side the image of St. John +Baptist, on the other the Fleur-de-lys. It is the coin which Chaucer +takes for the best representation of beautiful money in the Pardoner's +Tale: this, in his judgment, is the fairest mask of Death. Villani's +relation of its moral and commercial effect at Tunis is worth +translating, being in the substance of it, I doubt not, true. + +118. "And these new florins beginning to scatter through the world, +some of them got to Tunis, in Barbary; and the King of Tunis, who was +a worthy and wise lord, was greatly pleased with them, and had them +tested; and finding them of fine gold, he praised them much, and had +the legend on them interpreted to him,--to wit, on one side 'St. John +Baptist,' on the other 'Florentia.' So seeing they were pieces of +Christian money, he sent for the Pisan merchants, who were free of his +port, and much before the King (and also the Florentines traded in Tunis +through Pisan agents),--[see these hot little Pisans, how they are first +everywhere,]--and asked of them what city it was among the Christians +which made the said florins. And the Pisans answered in spite and envy, +'They are our land Arabs.' The King answered wisely, "It does not appear +to me Arab's money; you Pisans, what golden money have _you_ got?" Then +they were confused, and knew not what to answer. So he asked if there +was any Florentine among them. And there was found a merchant from the +other-side-Arno, by name Peter Balducci, discreet and wise. The King +asked him of the state and being of Florence, of which the Pisans +made their Arabs,--who answered him wisely, showing the power and +magnificence of Florence; and how Pisa, in comparison, was not, either +in land or people, the half of Florence; and that they had no golden +money; and that the gold of which those florins had been made was gained +by the Florentines above and beyond them, by many victories. Wherefore +the said Pisans were put to shame, and the King, both by reason of the +florin, and for the words of our wise citizen, made the Florentines +free, and appointed for them their own Fondaco, and church, in Tunis, +and gave them privileges like the Pisans. And this we know for a truth +from the same Peter, having been in company with him at the office of +the Priors." + +119. I cannot tell you what the value of the piece was at this time: +the sentence with which Sismondi concludes his account of it being only +useful as an example of the total ignorance of the laws of currency in +which many even of the best educated persons at the present day remain. + +"Its value," he says always the same, "answers to eleven francs forty +centimes of France." + +But all that can be scientifically said of any piece of money is that +it contains a given weight of a given metal. Its value in other coins, +other metals, or other general produce, varies not only from day to day, +but from instant to instant. + +120. With this coin of Florence ought in justice to be ranked the +Venetian zecchin; [1] but of it I can only thus give you account in +another place,--for I must at once go on now to tell you the first use I +find recorded, as being made by the Florentines of their new money. + +[Footnote 1: In connection with the Pisans' insulting intention by their +term of Arabs, remember that the Venetian 'zecca,' (mint) came from the +Arabic 'sehk,' the steel die used in coinage.] + +They pursued in the years 1253 and 1254 their energetic promulgation of +peace. They ravaged the lands of Pistoja so often, that the Pistojese +submitted themselves, on condition of receiving back their Guelph +exiles, and admitting a Florentine garrison into Pistoja. Next they +attacked Monte Reggione, the March-fortress of the Sienese; and pressed +it so vigorously that Siena was fain to make peace too, on condition +of ceasing her alliance with the Ghibellines. Next they ravaged the +territory of Volterra: the townspeople, confident in the strength of +their rock fortress, came out to give battle; the Florentines beat them +up the hill, and entered the town gates with the fugitives. + +121. And, for note to this sentence, in my long-since-read volume of +Sismondi, I find a cross-fleury at the bottom of the page, with the +date 1254 underneath it; meaning that I was to remember that year as +the beginning of Christian warfare. For little as you may think it, and +grotesquely opposed as this ravaging of their neighbours' territories +may seem to their pacific mission, this Florentine army is fighting +in absolute good faith. Partly self-deceived, indeed, by their own +ambition, and by their fiery natures, rejoicing in the excitement of +battle, they have nevertheless, in this their "year of victories,"--so +they ever afterwards called it,--no occult or malignant purpose. At +least, whatever is occult or malignant is also unconscious; not now in +cruel, but in kindly jealousy of their neighbours, and in a true desire +to communicate and extend to them the privileges of their own new +artizan government, the Trades of Florence have taken arms. They are +justly proud of themselves; rightly assured of the wisdom of the change +they have made; true to each other for the time, and confident in the +future. No army ever fought in better cause, or with more united heart. +And accordingly they meet with no check, and commit no error; from +tower to tower of the field fortresses,--from gate to gate of the great +cities,--they march in one continuous and daily more splendid triumph, +yet in gentle and perfect discipline; and now, when they have entered +Volterra with her fugitives, after stress of battle, not a drop of blood +is shed, nor a single house pillaged, nor is any other condition +of peace required than the exile of the Ghibelline nobles. You may +remember, as a symbol of the influence of Christianity in this result, +that the Bishop of Volterra, with his clergy, came out in procession to +meet them as they began to run [1] the streets, and obtained this mercy; +else the old habits of pillage would have prevailed. + +[Footnote 1: Corsona la citta senza contesto niuno."--_Villani._] + +122. And from Volterra, the Florentine army entered on the territory +of Pisa; and now with so high prestige, that the Pisans at once sent +ambassadors to them with keys in their hands, in token of submission. +And the Florentines made peace with them, on condition that the +Pisans should let the Florentine merchandize pass in and out without +tax;--should use the same weights as Florence,--the same cloth +measure,--and the same alloy of money. + +123. You see that Mr. Adam Smith was not altogether the originator +of the idea of free trade; and six hundred years have passed without +bringing Europe generally to the degree of mercantile intelligence, as +to weights and currency, which Florence had in her year of victories. + +The Pisans broke this peace two years afterwards, to help the Emperor +Manfred; whereupon the Florentines attacked them instantly again; +defeated them on the Serchio, near Lucca; entered the Pisan territory +by the Val di Serchio; and there, cutting down a great pine tree, struck +their florins on the stump of it, putting, for memory, under the feet of +the St. John, a trefoil "in guise of a little tree." And note here the +difference between artistic and mechanical coinage. The Florentines, +using pure gold, and thin, can strike their coin anywhere, with only a +wooden anvil, and their engraver is ready on the instant to make such +change in the stamp as may record any new triumph. Consider the vigour, +popularity, pleasantness of an art of coinage thus ductile to events, +and easy in manipulution. + +124. It is to be observed also that a thin gold coinage like that of the +English angel, and these Italian zecchins, is both more convenient and +prettier than the massive gold of the Greeks, often so small that it +drops through the fingers, and, if of any size, inconveniently large in +value. + +125. It was in the following year, 1255, that the Florentines made +the noblest use of their newly struck florins, so far as I know, ever +recorded in any history; and a Florentine citizen made as noble refusal +of them. You will find the two stories in Giovanni Villani, Book 6th, +chapters 61, 62. One or two important facts are added by Sismondi, but +without references. I take his statement as on the whole trustworthy, +using Villani's authority wherever it reaches; one or two points I have +farther to explain to you myself as I go on. + +126. The first tale shows very curiously the mercenary and independent +character of warfare, as it now was carried on by the great chiefs, +whether Guelph or Ghibelline. The Florentines wanted to send a troop +of five hundred horse to assist Orvieto, a Guelph town, isolated on its +rock, and at present harrassed upon it. They gave command of this troop +to the Knight Guido Guerra de' Conti Guidi, and he and his riders set +out for Orvieto by the Umbrian road, through Arezzo, which was at peace +with Florence, though a Ghibelline town. The Guelph party within the +town asked help from the passing Florentine battalion; and Guido Guerra, +without any authority for such action, used the troop of which he was +in command in their favour, and drove out the Ghibellines. Sismondi does +not notice what is quite one of the main points in the matter, that +this troop of horse must have been mainly composed of Count Guido's own +retainers, and not of Florentine citizens, who would not have cared to +leave their business on such a far-off quest as this help to Orvieto. +However, Arezzo is thus brought over to the Florentine interest; and +any other Italian state would have been sure, while it disclaimed +the Count's independent action, to keep the advantage of it. Not so +Florence. She is entirely resolved, in these years of victory, to do +justice to all men so far she understands it; and in this case it will +give her some trouble to do it, and worse,--cost her some of her fine +new florins. For her counter-mandate is quite powerless with Guido +Guerra. He has taken Arezzo mainly with his own men, and means to stay +there, thinking that the Florentines, if even they do not abet him, will +take no practical steps against him. But he does not know this newly +risen clan of military merchants, who quite clearly understand what +honesty means, and will put themselves out of their way to keep their +faith. Florence calls out her trades instantly, and with gules, a dragon +vert, and or, a bull sable, they march, themselves, angrily up the Val +d'Arno, replace the adverse Ghibellines in Arezzo, and send Master Guido +de' Conti Guido about his business. But the prettiest and most curious +part of the whole story is their equity even to him, after he had given +them all this trouble. They entirely recognize the need he is under of +getting meat, somehow, for the mouths of these five hundred riders of +his; also they hold him still their friend, though an unmanageable +one; and admit with praise what of more or less patriotic and Guelphic +principle may be at the root of his disobedience. So when he claims +twelve thousand lire,--roughly, some two thousand pounds of money at +present value,--from the Guelphs of Arezzo for his service, and +the Guelphs, having got no good of it, owing to this Florentine +interference, object to paying him, the Florentines themselves lend them +the money,--and are never paid a farthing of it back. + +127. There is a beautiful "investment of capital" for your modern +merchant to study! No interest thought of, and little hope of ever +getting back the principal. And yet you will find that there were no +mercantile "panics," in Florence in those days, nor failing bankers, +[1] nor "clearings out of this establishment--any reasonable offer +accepted." + +[Footnote: Some account of the state of modern British business in this +kind will be given, I hope, in some number of "Fors Clavigera" for this +year, 1874.] + +128. But the second story, of a private Florentine citizen, is better +still. + +In that campaign against Pisa in which the florins were struck on the +root of pine, the conditions of peace had been ratified by the surrender +to Florence of the Pisan fortress of Mutrona, which commanded a tract +of seaboard below Pisa, of great importance for the Tuscan trade. The +Florentines had stipulated for the right not only of holding, but of +destroying it, if they chose; and in their Council of Ancients, after +long debate, it was determined to raze it, the cost of its garrison +being troublesome, and the freedom of seaboard all that the city wanted. +But the Pisans feeling the power that the fortress had against them in +case of future war, and doubtful of the issue of council at Florence, +sent a private negotiator to the member of the Council of Ancients who +was known to have most influence, though one of the poorest of them, +Aldobrandino Ottobuoni; and offered him four thousand golden florins if +he would get the vote passed to raze Mutrona. The vote _had_ passed the +evening before. Aldobrandino dismissed the Pisan ambassador in silence, +returned instantly into the council, and without saying anything of the +offer that had been made to him, got them to reconsider their vote, and +showed them such reason for keeping Mutrona in its strength, that the +vote for its destruction was rescinded. "And note thou, oh reader," +says Villani, "the virtue of such a citizen, who, not being rich in +substance, had yet such continence and loyalty for his state." + +129. You might, perhaps, once, have thought me detaining you needlessly +with these historical details, little bearing, it is commonly supposed, +on the subject of art. But you are, I trust, now in some degree +persuaded that no art, Florentine or any other, can be understood +without knowing these sculptures and mouldings of the national soul. You +remember I first begun this large digression when it became a question +with us why some of Giovanni Pisano's sepulchral work had been destroyed +at Perugia. And now we shall get our first gleam of light on the matter, +finding similar operations carried on in Florence. For a little while +after this speech in the Council of Ancients, Aldobrandino died, and +the people, at public cost, built him a tomb of marble, "higher than any +other" in the church of Santa Reparata, engraving on it these verses, +which I leave you to construe, for I cannot:-- + + Fons est supremus Aldobrandino amoenus. + Ottoboni natus, a bono civita datus. + + +Only I suppose the pretty word 'amoenus' may be taken as marking the +delightfulness and sweetness of character which had won all men's love, +more, even, than their gratitude. + +130. It failed of its effect, however, on the Tuscan aristocratic mind. +For, when, after the battle of the Arbia, the Ghibellines had again +their own way in Florence, though Ottobuoni had been then dead three +years, they beat down his tomb, pulled the dead body out of it, dragged +it--by such tenure as it might still possess--through the city, and +threw the fragments of it into ditches. It is a memorable parallel to +the treatment of the body of Cromwell by our own Cavaliers; and indeed +it seems to me one of the highest forms of laudatory epitaph upon a man, +that his body should be thus torn from its rest. For he can hardly have +spent his life better than in drawing on himself the kind of enmity +which can so be gratified; and for the most loving of lawgivers, as of +princes, the most enviable and honourable epitaph has always been + + [Greek: "_oide plitai anton emisoun anton_." + + +131. Not but that pacific Florence, in her pride of victory, was +beginning to show unamiableness of temper also, on her so equitable +side. It is perhaps worth noticing, for the sake of the name of +Correggio, that in 1257, when Matthew Correggio, of Parma, was the +Podesta of Florence, the Florentines determined to destroy the castle +and walls of Poggibonzi, suspected of Ghibelline tendency, though the +Poggibonzi people came with "coregge in collo," leathern straps +round their necks, to ask that their cattle might be spared. And the +heartburnings between the two parties went on, smouldering hotter +and hotter, till July, 1258, when the people having discovered secret +dealings between the Uberti and the Emperor Manfred, and the Uberti +refusing to obey citation to the popular tribunals, the trades ran to +arms, attacked the Uberti palace, killed a number of their people, took +prisoner, Uberto of the Uberti, Hubert of the Huberts, or Bright-mind +of the Bright-minds, with 'Mangia degl' Infangati, ('Gobbler [1] of +the dirty ones' this knight's name sounds like,)--and after they had +confessed their guilt, beheaded them in St. Michael's corn-market; and +all the rest of the Uberti and Ghibelline families were driven out of +Florence, and their palaces pulled down, and the walls towards Siena +built with the stones of them; and two months afterwards, the people +suspecting the Abbot of Vallombrosa of treating with the Ghibellines, +took him, and tortured him; and he confessing under torture, "at the cry +of the people, they beheaded him in the square of St. Apollinare." +For which unexpected piece of clangorous impiety the Florentines were +excommunicated, besides drawing upon themselves the steady enmity of +Pavia, the Abbot's native town; "and indeed people say the Abbot was +innocent, though he belonged to a great Ghibelline house. And for this +sin, and for many others done by the wicked people, many wise persons +say that God, for Divine judgment, permitted upon the said people the +revenge and slaughter of Monteaperti." + +[Footnote: At least, the compound 'Mangia-pane,' 'munch-bread,' stands +still for a good-for-nothing fellow.] + +132. The sentence which I have last read introduces, as you must at once +have felt, a new condition of things. Generally, I have spoken of +the Ghibellines as infidel, or impious; and for the most part they +represent, indeed, the resistance of kingly to priestly power. But, in +this action of Florence, we have the rise of another force against +the Church, in the end to be much more fatal to it, that of popular +intelligence and popular passion. I must for the present, however, +return to our immediate business; and ask you to take note of the +effect, on actually existing Florentine architecture, of the political +movements of the ten years we have been studying. + +133. In the revolution of Candlemas, 1248, the successful Ghibellines +throw down thirty-six of the Guelph palaces. + +And in the revolution of July, 1258, the successful Guelphs throw down +_all_ the Ghibelline palaces. + +Meantime the trades, as against the Knights Castellans, have thrown down +the tops of all the towers above seventy-five feet high. + +And we shall presently have a proposal, after the battle of the Arbia, +to throw down Florence altogether. + +134. You think at first that this is remarkably like the course +of republican reformations in the present day? But there is a wide +difference. In the first place, the palaces and towers are not +thrown down in mere spite or desire of ruin, but after quite definite +experience of their danger to the State, and positive dejection of +boiling lead and wooden logs from their machicolations upon the heads +below. In the second place, nothing is thrown down without complete +certainty on the part of the overthrowers that they are able, and +willing, to build as good or better things instead; which, if any +like conviction exist in the minds of modern republicans, is a wofully +ill-founded one: and lastly, these abolitions of private wealth were +coincident with a widely spreading disposition to undertake, as I have +above noticed, works of public utility, _from which no dividends were to +be received by any of the shareholders_; and for the execution of which +the _builders received no commission on the cost_, but payment at the +rate of so much a day, carefully adjusted to the exertion of real power +and intelligence. + +135. We must not, therefore, without qualification blame, though we may +profoundly regret, the destructive passions of the thirteenth century. +The architecture of the palaces thus destroyed in Florence contained +examples of the most beautiful round-arched work that had been developed +by the Norman schools; and was in some cases adorned with a barbaric +splendour, and fitted into a majesty of strength which, so far as I can +conjecture the effect of it from the few now existing traces, must have +presented some of the most impressive aspects of street edifice ever +existent among civil societies. + +136. It may be a temporary relief for you from the confusion of +following the giddy successions of Florentine temper, if I interrupt, in +this place, my history of the city by some inquiry into technical points +relating to the architecture of these destroyed palaces. Their style +is familiar to us, indeed, in a building of which it is difficult to +believe the early date,--the leaning tower of Pisa. The lower stories of +it are of the twelfth century, and the open arcades of the cathedrals of +Pisa and Lucca, as well as the lighter construction of the spire of St. +Niccol, at Pisa, (though this was built in continuation of the older +style by Niccola himself,) all represent to you, though in enriched +condition, the general manner of buidling in palaces of the Norman +period in Val d'Arno. That of the Tosinghi, above the old market in +Florence, is especially mentioned by Villani, as more than a hundred +feet in height, entirely built with little pillars, (colonnelli,) of +marble. On their splendid masonry was founded the exquisiteness of that +which immediately succeeded them, of which the date is fixed by definite +examples both in Verona and Florence, and which still exists in noble +masses in the retired streets and courts of either city; too soon +superseded, in the great thoroughfares, by the effeminate and monotonous +luxury of Venetian renaissance, or by the heaps of quarried stone +which rise into the ruggedness of their native cliffs, in the Pitti and +Strozzi palaces. + + + + + + LECTURE VI. + + MARBLE COUCHANT. + +137. I told you in my last lecture that the exquisiteness of Florentine +thirteenth century masonry was founded on the strength and splendour of +that which preceded it. + +I use the word 'founded' in a literal as well as figurative sense. While +the merchants, in their year of victories, threw down the walls of the +war-towers, they as eagerly and diligently set their best craftsmen to +lift higher the walls of their churches. For the most part, the Early +Norman or Basilican forms were too low to please them in their present +enthusiasm. Their pride, as well as their piety, desired that these +stones of their temples might be goodly; and all kinds of junctions, +insertions, refittings, and elevations were undertaken; which, the +genius of the people being always for mosaic, are so perfectly executed, +and mix up twelfth and thirteenth century work in such intricate +harlequinade, that it is enough to drive a poor antiquary wild. + +138. I have here in my hand, however, a photograph of a small church, +which shows you the change at a glance, and attests it in a notable +manner. + +You know Hubert of Lucca was the first captain of the Florentine people, +and the march in which they struck their florin on the pine trunk was +through Lucca, on Pisa. + +Now here is a little church in Lucca, of which the lower half of the +facade is of the twelfth century, and the top, built by the Florentines, +in the thirteenth, and sealed for their own by two fleur-de-lys, let +into its masonry. The most important difference, marking the date, is +in the sculpture of the heads which carry the archivolts. But the most +palpable difference is in the Cyclopean simplicity of irregular bedding +in the lower story; and the delicate bands of alternate serpentine and +marble, which follow the horizontal or couchant placing of the stones +above. + +139. Those of you who, interested in English Gothic, have visited +Tuscany, are, I think, always offended at first, if not in permanence, +by these horizontal stripes of her marble walls. Twenty-two years ago +I quoted, in vol. i. of the "Stones of Venice," Professor Willis's +statement that "a practice more destructive of architectural grandeur +could hardly be conceived;" and I defended my favourite buildings +against that judgement, first by actual comparison in the plate opposite +the page, of a piece of them with an example of our modern grandeur; +secondly, (vol. i., chap. v.,) by a comparison of their aspect with +that of the building of the grandest piece of wall in the Alps,--that +Matterhorn in which you all have now learned to take some gymnastic +interest; and thirdly, (vol. i., chap. xxvi.,) by reference to the +use of barred colours, with delight, by Giotto and all subsequent +colourists. + +140. But it did not then occur to me to ask, much as I always disliked +the English Perpendicular, what would have been the effect on the +spectator's mind, had the buildings been striped vertically instead of +horizontally; nor did I then know, or in the least imagine, how much +_practical_ need there was for reference from the structure of the +edifice to that of the cliff; and how much the permanence, as well as +propriety, of structure depended on the stones being _couchant_ in the +wall, as they had been in the quarry: to which subject I wish to-day to +direct your attention. + +141. You will find stated with as much clearness as I am able, in +the first and fifth lectures in "Aratra Pentelici," the principles of +architectural design to which, in all my future teaching, I shall have +constantly to appeal; namely, that architecture consists distinctively +in the adaptation of form to resist force;--that, practically, it may be +always thought of as doing this by the ingenious adjustment of various +pieces of solid material; that the perception of this ingenious +adjustment, or structure, is to be always joined with our admiration +of the superadded ornament; and that all delightful ornament is the +honouring of such useful structures; but that the beauty of the ornament +itself is independent of the structure, and arrived at by powers of mind +of a very different class from those which are necessary to give skill +in architecture proper. + +142. During the course of this last summer I have been myself very +directly interested in some of the quite elementary processes of true +architecture. I have been building a little pier into Coniston Lake, and +various walls and terraces in a steeply sloping garden, all which had to +be constructed of such rough stones as lay nearest. Under the dextrous +hands of a neighbour farmer's son, the pier projected, and the walls +rose, as if enchanted; every stone taking its proper place, and the +loose dyke holding itself as firmly upright as if the gripping cement of +the Florentine towers had fastened it. My own better acquaintance with +the laws of gravity and of statics did not enable me, myself, to build +six inches of dyke that would stand; and all the decoration possible +under the circumstances consisted in turning the lichened sides of the +stones outwards. And yet the noblest conditions of building in the world +are nothing more than the gradual adornment, by play of the imagination, +of materials first arranged by this natural instinct of adjustment. You +must not lose sight of the instinct of building, but you must not think +the play of the imagination depends upon it. Intelligent laying of +stones is always delightful; but the fancy must not be limited to its +contemplation. + +[Illustration: PLATE V.--DOOR OF THE BAPTISTERY. PISA.] + +143. In the more elaborate architecture of my neighbourhood, I have +taken pleasure these many years; one of the first papers I ever wrote +on architecture was a study of the Westmoreland cottage;--properly, +observe, the cottage of West-mereland, of the land of western lakes. +Its principal feature is the projecting porch at its door, formed by two +rough slabs of Coniston slate, set in a blunt gable; supported, if far +projecting, by two larger masses for uprights. A disciple of Mr. Pugin +would delightedly observe that the porch of St. Zeno at Verona was +nothing more than the decoration of this construction; but you do not +suppose that the first idea of putting two stones together to keep off +rain was all on which the sculptor of St. Zeno wished to depend for your +entertainment. + +144. Perhaps you may most clearly understand the real connection between +structure and decoration by considering all architecture as a kind of +book, which must be properly bound indeed, and in which the illumination +of the pages has distinct reference in all its forms to the breadth of +the margins and length of the sentences; but is itself free to follow +its own quite separate and higher objects of design. + +145. Thus, for instance, in the architecture which Niccola was occupied +upon, when a boy, under his Byzantine master. Here is the door of the +Baptistery at Pisa, again by Mr. Severn delightfully enlarged for us +from a photograph. [1] The general idea of it is a square-headed opening +in a solid wall, faced by an arch carried on shafts. And the ornament +does indeed follow this construction so that the eye catches it +with ease,--but under what arbitrary conditions! In the square door, +certainly the side-posts of it are as important members as the lintel +they carry; but the lintel is carved elaborately, and the side-posts +left blank. Of the facing arch and shaft, it would be similarly +difficult to say whether the sustaining vertical, or sustained curve, +were the more important member of the construction; but the decorator +now reverses the distribution of his care, adorns the vertical member +with passionate elaboration, and runs a narrow band, of comparatively +uninteresting work, round the arch. Between this outer shaft and inner +door is a square pilaster, of which the architect carves one side, and +lets the other alone. It is followed by a smaller shaft and arch, in +which he reverses his treatment of the outer order by cutting the shaft +delicately and the arch deeply. Again, whereas in what is called the +decorated construction of English Gothic, the pillars would have +been left plain and the spandrils deep cut,--here, are we to call it +decoration of the construction, when the pillars are carved and the +spandrils left plain? Or when, finally, either these spandril spaces +on each side of the arch, or the corresponding slopes of the gable, are +loaded with recumbent figures by the sculptors of the renaissance, are +we to call, for instance, Michael Angelo's Dawn and Twilight, only the +decorations of the sloping plinths of a tomb, or trace to a geometrical +propriety the subsequent rule in Italy that no window could be properly +complete for living people to look out of, without having two stone +people sitting on the corners of it above? I have heard of charming +young ladies occasionally, at very crowded balls, sitting on the +stairs,--would you call them, in that case, only decorations of the +construction of the staircase? + +[Footnote 1: Plate 5 is from the photograph itself; the enlarged drawing +showed the arrangement of parts more clearly, but necessarily omitted +detail which it is better here to retain.] + +146. You will find, on consideration, the ultimate fact to be that to +which I have just referred you;--my statement in "Aratra," that the idea +of a construction originally useful is retained in good architecture, +through all the amusement of its ornamentation; as the idea of the +proper function of any piece of dress ought to be retained through its +changes in form or embroidery. A good spire or porch retains the first +idea of a roof usefully covering a space, as a Norman high cap or +elongated Quaker's bonnet retains the original idea of a simple covering +for the head; and any extravagance of subsequent fancy may be permitted, +so long as the notion of use is not altogether lost. A girl begins by +wearing a plain round hat to shade her from the sun; she ties it down +over her ears on a windy day; presently she decorates the edge of it, so +bent, with flowers in front, or the riband that ties it with a bouquet +at the side, and it becomes a bonnet. This decorated construction may be +discreetly changed, by endless fashion, so long as it does not become +a clearly useless riband round the middle of the head, or a clearly +useless saucer on the top of it. + +147. Again, a Norman peasant may throw up the top of her cap into a +peak, or a Bernese one put gauze wings at the side of it, and still be +dressed with propriety, so long as her hair is modestly confined, and +her ears healthily protected, by the matronly safeguard of the real +construction. She ceases to be decorously dressed only when the material +becomes too flimsy to answer such essential purpose, and the flaunting +pendants or ribands can only answer the ends of coquetry or +ostentation. Similarly, an architect may deepen or enlarge, in fantastic +exaggeration, his original Westmoreland gable into Rouen porch, and his +original square roof into Coventry spire; but he must not put within his +splendid porch, a little door where two persons cannot together get +in, nor cut his spire away into hollow filigree, and mere ornamental +perviousness to wind and rain. + +148. Returning to our door at Pisa, we shall find these general +questions as to the distribution of ornament much confused with others +as to its time and style. We are at once, for instance, brought to a +pause as to the degree in which the ornamentation was once carried out +in the doors themselves. Their surfaces were, however, I doubt not, +once recipients of the most elaborate ornament, as in the Baptistery of +Florence; and in later bronze, by John of Bologna, in the door of the +Pisan cathedral opposite this one. And when we examine the sculpture and +placing of the lintel, which at first appeared the most completely Greek +piece of construction of the whole, we find it so far advanced in many +Gothic characters, that I once thought it a later interpolation cutting +the inner pilasters underneath their capitals, while the three statues +set on it are certainly, by several tens of years, later still. + +149. How much ten years did at this time, one is apt to forget; and +how irregularly the slower minds of the older men would surrender +themselves, sadly, or awkwardly, to the vivacities of their pupils. The +only wonder is that it should be usually so easy to assign conjectural +dates within twenty or thirty years; but, at Pisa, the currents of +tradition and invention run with such cross eddies, that I often find +myself utterly at fault. In this lintel, for instance, there are +two pieces separated by a narrower one, on which there has been an +inscription, of which in my enlarged plate you may trace, though, I +fear, not decipher, the few letters that remain. The uppermost of +these stones is nearly pure in its Byzantine style; the lower, already +semi-Gothic. Both are exquisite of their kind, and we will examine them +closely; but first note these points about the stones of them. We are +discussing work at latest of the thirteenth century. Our loss of the +inscription is evidently owing to the action of the iron rivets which +have been causelessly used at the two horizontal joints. There was +nothing whatever in the construction to make these essential, and, +but for this error, the entire piece of work, as delicate as an ivory +tablet, would be as intelligible to-day as when it was laid in its +place. [1] + +[Footnote: Plates 6 and 7 give, in greater clearness, the sculpture of +this lintel, for notes on which see Appendix.] + +150. _Laid_. I pause upon this word, for it is an important one. And +I must devote the rest of this lecture to consideration merely of what +follows from the difference between laying a stone and setting it up, +whether we regard sculpture or construction. The subject is so wide, I +scarcely know how to approach it. Perhaps it will be the pleasantest +way to begin if I read you a letter from one of yourselves to me. A +very favourite pupil, who travels third class always, for sake of better +company, wrote to me the other day: "One of my fellow-travellers, who +was a builder, or else a master mason, told me that the way in which red +sandstone buildings last depends entirely on the way in which the stone +is laid. It must lie as it does in the quarry; but he said that very few +workmen could always tell the difference between the joints of planes +of cleavage and the--something else which I couldn't catch,--by which he +meant, I suppose planes of stratification. He said too that some people, +though they were very particular + +[Illustration: PLATE VI.--THE STORY OF ST. JOHN. ADVENT.] + +[Illustration: PLATE VII.--THE STORY OF ST. JOHN. DEPARTURE.] + +about having the stone laid well, allowed blocks to stand in the rain +the wrong way up, and that they never recovered one wetting. The +stone of the same quarry varies much, and he said that moss will grow +immediately on good stone, but not on bad. How curious,--nature helping +the best workman!" Thus far my favourite pupil. + +151. 'Moss will grow on the best stone.' The first thing your modern +restorer would do is to scrape it off; and with it, whatever knitted +surface, half moss root, protects the interior stone. Have you ever +considered the infinite functions of protection to mountain form +exercised by the mosses and lichens? It will perhaps be refreshing to +you after our work among the Pisan marbles and legends, if we have a +lecture or two on moss. Meantime I need not tell you that it would not +be a satisfactory natural arrangement if moss grew on marble, and that +all fine workmanship in marble implies equal exquisiteness of surface +and edge. + +152. You will observe also that the importance of laying the stone in +the building as it lay in its bed was from the first recognised by all +good northern architects, to such extent that to lay stones 'en delit,' +or in a position out of their bedding, is a recognized architectural +term in France, where all structural building takes its rise; and in +that form of 'delit' the word gets most curiously involved with the +Latin delictum and deliquium. It would occupy the time of a whole +lecture if I entered into the confused relations of the words derived +from lectus, liquidus, delinquo, diliquo, and deliquesco; and of +the still more confused, but beautifully confused, (and enriched by +confusion,) forms of idea, whether respecting morality or marble, +arising out of the meanings of these words: the notions of a bed +gathered or strewn for the rest, whether of rocks or men; of the various +states of solidity and liquidity connected with strength, or with +repose; and of the duty of staying quiet in a place, or under a law, +and the mischief of leaving it, being all fastened in the minds of early +builders, and of the generations of men for whom they built, by the +unescapable bearing of geological laws on their life; by the ease +or difficulty of splitting rocks, by the variable consistency of the +fragments split, by the innumerable questions occurring practically as +to bedding and cleavage in every kind of stone, from tufo to granite, +and by the unseemly, or beautiful, destructive, or protective, effects +of decomposition. [1] The same processes of time which cause your Oxford +oolite to flake away like the leaves of a mouldering book, only warm +with a glow of perpetually deepening gold the marbles of Athens and +Verona; and the same laws of chemical change which reduce the granites +of Dartmoor to porcelain clay, bind the sands of Coventry into stones +which can be built up halfway to the sky. + +[Footnote 1: This passage cannot but seem to the reader loose and +fantastic. I have elaborate notes, and many an unwritten thought, on +these matters, but no time or strength to develop them. The passage is +not fantastic, but the rapid index of what I know to be true in all the +named particulars. But compare, for mere rough illustration of what I +mean, the moral ideas relating to the stone of Jacob's pillow, or the +tradition of it, with those to which French Flamboyant Gothic owes its +character.] + +153. But now, as to the matter immediately before us, observe what a +double question arises about laying stones as they lie in the quarry. +First, how _do_ they lie in the quarry? Secondly, how can we lay them so +in every part of our building? + +A. How do they lie in the quarry? Level, perhaps, at Stonesfield and +Coventry; but at an angle of 45 deg. at Carrara; and for aught I know, of +90 deg. in Paros or Pentelicus. Also, the _bedding_ is of prime importance +at Coventry, but the _cleavage_ at Coniston. [1] + +[Footnote 1: There are at least four definite cleavages at Coniston, +besides joints. One of these cleavages furnishes the Coniston slate +of commerce; another forms the ranges of Wetherlam and Yewdale crag; +a third cuts these ranges to pieces, striking from north-west to +south-east; and a fourth into other pieces, from north-east to +south-west.] + +B. And then, even if we know what the quarry bedding is, how are we +to keep it always in our building? You may lay the stones of a wall +carefully level, but how will you lay those of an arch? You think these, +perhaps, trivial, or merely curious questions. So far from it, the fact +that while the bedding in Normandy is level, that at Carrara is steep, +and that the forces which raised the beds of Carrara crystallized them +also, so that the cleavage which is all-important in the stones of my +garden wall is of none in the duomo of Pisa,--simply determined the +possibility of the existence of Pisan sculpture at all, and regulated +the whole life and genius of Nicholas the Pisan and of Christian art. +And, again, the fact that you can put stones in true bedding in a +wall, but cannot in an arch, determines the structural transition from +classical to Gothic architecture. + +154. The _structural_ transition, observe; only a part, and that not +altogether a coincident part, of the _moral_ transition. Read carefully, +if you have time, the articles 'Pierre' and 'Meneau' in M. Violet le +Duc's Dictionary of Architecture, and you will know everything that +is of importance in the changes dependent on the mere qualities of +_matter_. I must, however, try to set in your view also the relative +acting qualities of _mind_. + +You will find that M. Violet le Duc traces all the forms of Gothic +tracery to the geometrical and practically serviceable development of +the stone 'chassis,' chasing, or frame, for the glass. For instance, he +attributes the use of the cusp or 'redent' in its more complex forms, to +the necessity, or convenience, of diminishing the space of glass which +the tracery grasps; and he attributes the reductions of the mouldings in +the tracery bar under portions of one section, to the greater facility +thus obtained by the architect in directing his workmen. The plan of +a window once given, and the moulding-section,--all is said, thinks M. +Violet le Duc. Very convenient indeed, for modern architects who have +commission on the cost. But certainly not necessary, and perhaps even +inconvenient, to Niccola Pisano, who is himself his workman, and cuts +his own traceries, with his apron loaded with dust. + +155. Again, the _re_dent--the 'tooth within tooth' of a French +tracery--may be necessary, to bite its glass. But the cusp, cuspis, +spiny or spearlike point of a thirteenth century illumination, is not in +the least necessary to transfix the parchment. Yet do you suppose that +the structural convenience of the redent entirely effaces from the mind +of the designer the aesthetic characters which he seeks in the cusp? +If you could for an instant imagine this, you would be undeceived by a +glance either at the early redents of Amiens, fringing hollow vaults, +or the late redents of Rouen, acting as crockets on the _outer_ edges +of pediments. 156. Again: if you think of the tracery in its _bars_, you +call the cusp a redent; but if you think of it in the _openings_, you +call the apertures of it foils. Do you suppose that the thirteenth +century builder thought only of the strength of the bars of his +enclosure, and never of the beauty of the form he enclosed? You will +find in my chapter on the Aperture, in the "Stones of Venice," full +development of the aesthetic laws relating to both these forms, while +you may see, in Professor Willis's 'Architecture of the Middle Ages,' a +beautiful analysis of the development of tracery from the juxtaposition +of aperture; and in the article 'Meneau,' just quoted of M. Violet le +Duc, an equally beautiful analysis of its development from the masonry +of the chassis. You may at first think that Professor Willis's +analysis is inconsistent with M. Violet le Duc's. But they are no more +inconsistent than the accounts of the growth of a human being would be, +if given by two anatomists, of whom one had examined only the skeleton +and the other only the respiratory system; and who, therefore, +supposed--the first, that the animal had been made only to leap, and the +other only to sing. I don't mean that either of the writers I name +are absolutely thus narrow in their own views, but that, so far as +inconsistency appears to exist between them, it is of that partial kind +only. + +157. And for the understanding of our Pisan traceries we must introduce +a third element of similarly distinctive nature. We must, to press our +simile a little farther, examine the growth of the animal as if it +had been made neither to leap, nor to sing, but only to think. We must +observe the transitional states of its nerve power; that is to say, in +our window tracery we must consider not merely how its ribs are built, +(or how it stands,) nor merely how its openings are shaped, or how it +breathes; but also what its openings are made to light, or its shafts +to receive, of picture or image. As the limbs of the building, it may +be much; as the lungs of the building, more. As the _eyes_ [1] of the +building, what? + +[Footnote 1: I am ashamed to italicize so many words; but these +passages, written for oral delivery, can only be understood if read with +oral emphasis. This is the first aeries of lectures which I have printed +as they were to be spoken; and it is a great mistake.] + +158. Thus you probably have a distinct idea--those of you at least +who are interested in architecture--of the shape of the windows in +Westminster Abbey, in the Cathedral of Chartres, or in the Duomo of +Milan. Can any of you, I should like to know, make a guess at the shape +of the windows in the Sistine Chapel, the Stanze of the Vatican, the +Scuola di San Rocco, or the lower church of Assisi? The soul or anima of +the first three buildings is in their windows; but of the last three, in +their walls. + +All these points I may for the present leave you to think over for +yourselves, except one, to which I must ask yet for a few moments your +further attention. + +159. The trefoils to which I have called your attention in Niccola's +pulpit are as absolutely without structural office in the circles as in +the panels of the font beside it. But the circles are drawn with evident +delight in the lovely circular line, while the trefoil is struck out by +Niccola so roughly that there is not a true compass curve or section in +any part of it. + +Roughly, I say. Do you suppose I ought to have said carelessly? So +far from it, that if one sharper line or more geometric curve had been +given, it would have caught the eye too strongly, and drawn away the +attention from the sculpture. But imagine the feeling with which a +French master workman would first see these clumsy intersections +of curves. It would be exactly the sensation with which a practical +botanical draughtsman would look at a foliage background of Sir Joshua +Reynolds. + +But Sir Joshua's sketched leaves would indeed imply some unworkmanlike +haste. We must not yet assume the Pisan master to have allowed himself +in any such. His mouldings may be hastily cut, for they are, as I have +just said, unnecessary to his structure, and disadvantageous to his +decoration; but he is not likely to be careless about arrangements +necessary for strength. His mouldings may be cut hastily, but do you +think his _joints_ will be? + +160. What subject of extended inquiry have we in this word, ranging from +the cementless clefts between the couchant stones of the walls of the +kings of Rome, whose iron rivets you had but the other day placed in +your hands by their discoverer, through the grip of the stones of the +Tower of the Death-watch, to the subtle joints in the marble armour of +the Florentine Baptistery! + +Our own work must certainly be left with a rough surface at this place, +and we will fit the edges of it to our next piece of study as closely as +we may. + + + + + LECTURE VII. + + MARBLE RAMPANT. + +161. I closed my last lecture at the question respecting Nicholas's +masonry. His mouldings may be careless, but do you think his joints will +be? + +I must remind you now of the expression as to the building of the +communal palace--"of _dressed_ stones" [1]--as opposed to the Tower +of the Death-watch, in which the grip of cement had been so good. +Virtually, you will find that the schools of structural architecture are +those which use cement to bind + +[Footnote 1: "Pietre conce." The portion of the has-reliefs of Orvieto, +given in the opposite plate, will show the importance of the jointing. +Observe the way in which the piece of stone with the three principal +figures is dovetailed above the extended band, and again in the rise +above the joint of the next stone on the right, the sculpture of the +wings being carried across the junction. I have chosen this piece on +purpose, because the loss of the broken fragment, probably broken +by violence, and the only serious injury which the sculptures have +received, serves to show the perfection of the uninjured surface, as +compared with northern sculpture of the same date. I have thought +it well to show at the same time the modern German engraving of the +subject, respecting which see Appendix.] + +[Illustration: PLATE VIII.--"THE CHARGE TO ADAM." GIOVANNI PISANO.] + +their materials together, and in which, therefore, balance of _weight_ +becomes a continual and inevitable question. But the schools of +sculptural architecture are those in which stones are fitted without +cement, in which, therefore, the question of _fitting_ or adjustment +is continual and inevitable, but the sustainable weight practically +unlimited. + +162. You may consider the Tower of the Death-watch as having been knit +together like the mass of a Roman brick wall. + +But the dressed stone work of the thirteenth century is the hereditary +completion of such block-laying, as the Parthenon in marble; or, in +tufo, as that which was shown you so lately in the walls of Romulus; and +the decoration of that system of couchant stone is by the finished grace +of mosaic or sculpture. + +163. It was also pointed out to you by Mr. Parker that there were two +forms of Cyclopean architecture; one of level blocks, the other of +polygonal,--contemporary, but in localities affording different material +of stone. + +I have placed in this frame examples of the Cyclopean horizontal, and +the Cyclopean polygonal, architecture of the thirteenth century. And as +Hubert of Lucca was the master of the new buildings at Florence, I have +chosen the Cyclopean horizontal from his native city of Lucca; and as +our Nicholas and John brought their new Gothic style into practice at +Orvieto, I have chosen the Cyclopean polygonal from their adopted city +of Orvieto. + +Both these examples of architecture are early thirteenth century work, +the beginnings of its new and Christian style, but beginnings with which +Nicholas and John had nothing to do; they were part of the national work +going on round them. + +164. And this example from Lucca is of a very important class indeed. +It is from above the east entrance gate of Lucca, which bears the cross +above it, as the doors of a Christian city should. Such a city is, or +ought to be, a place of peace, as much as any monastery. + +This custom of placing the cross above the gate is Byzantine-Christian; +and here are parallel instances of its treatment from Assisi. The lamb +with the cross is given in the more elaborate arch of Verona. + +165. But farther. The mosaic of this cross is so exquisitely fitted that +no injury has been received by it to this day from wind or weather. And +the horizontal dressed stones are laid so daintily that not an edge of +them has stirred; and, both to draw your attention to their beautiful +fitting, and as a substitute for cement, the architect cuts his +uppermost block so as to dovetail into the course below. + +Dovetail, I say deliberately. This is stone carpentry, in which the +carpenter despises glue. I don't say he won't use glue, and glue of the +best, but he feels it to be a nasty thing, and that it spoils his wood +or marble. None, at least, he determines shall be seen outside, and his +laying of stones shall be so solid and so adjusted that, take all the +cement away, his wall shall yet stand. + +Stonehenge, the Parthenon, the walls of the Kings, this gate of Lucca, +this window of Orvieto, and this tomb at Verona, are all built on the +Cyclopean principle. They will stand without cement, and no cement shall +be seen outside. Mr. Burgess and I actually tried the experiment on this +tomb. Mr. Burgess modelled every stone of it in clay, put them together, +and it stood. + +166. Now there are two most notable characteristics about this Cyclopean +architecture to which I beg your close attention. + +The first: that as the laying of stones is so beautiful, their joints +become a subject of admiration, and great part of the architectural +ornamentation is in the beauty of lines of separation, drawn as finely +as possible. Thus the separating lines of the bricks at Siena, of this +gate at Lucca, of the vault at Verona, of this window at Orvieto, and +of the contemporary refectory at Furness Abbey, are a main source of the +pleasure you have in the building. Nay, they are not merely engravers' +lines, but, in finest practice, they are mathematical lines--length +without breadth. Here in my hand is a little shaft of Florentine mosaic +executed at the present day. The separations between the stones are, +in dimension, mathematical lines. And the two sides of the thirteenth +century porch of St. Anastasia at Verona are built in this manner,--so +exquisitely, that for some time, my mind not having been set at it, I +passed them by as painted! + +167. That is the first character of the Florentine Cyclopean But +secondly; as the joints are so firm, and as the building must never +stir or settle after it is built, the sculptor may trust his work to two +stones set side by side, or one above another, and carve continuously +over the whole surface, disregarding the joints, if he so chooses. + +Of the degree of precision with which Nicholas of Pisa and his son +adjusted their stones, you may judge by this rough sketch of a piece of +St. Mary's of the Thorn, in which the design is of panels enclosing very +delicately sculptured heads; and one would naturally suppose that the +enclosing panels would be made of jointed pieces, and the heads carved +separately and inserted. But the Pisans would have considered that +unsafe masonry,--liable to the accident of the heads being dropped out, +or taken away. John of Pisa did indeed use such masonry, of necessity, +in his fountain; and the bas-reliefs _have_ been taken away. But here +one great block of marble forms part of two panels, and the mouldings +and head are both carved in the solid, the joint running just behind the +neck. + +168. Such masonry is, indeed, supposing there were no fear of thieves, +gratuitously precise in a case of this kind, in which the ornamentation +is in separate masses, and might be separately carved. But when the +ornamentation is current, and flows or climbs along the stone in the +manner of waves or plants, the concealment of the joints of the pieces +of marble becomes altogether essential. And here we enter upon a most +curious group of associated characters in Gothic as opposed to Greek +architecture. + +169. If you have been able to read the article to which I referred you, +'Meneau,' in M. Violet le Duc's dictionary, you know that one great +condition of the perfect Gothic structure is that the stones shall be +'en de-lit,' set up on end. The ornament then, which on the reposing or +couchant stone was current only, on the erected stone begins to climb +also, and becomes, in the most heraldic sense of the term, rampant. + +In the heraldic sense, I say, as distinguished from the still wider +original sense of advancing with a stealthy, creeping, or clinging +motion, as a serpent on the ground, and a cat, or a vine, up a +tree-stem. And there is one of these reptile, creeping, or rampant +things, which is the first whose action was translated into marble, and +otherwise is of boundless importance in the arts and labours of man. + +170. You recollect Kingsley's expression,--now hackneyed, because +admired for its precision,--the '_crawling foam_,' of waves advancing +on sand. Tennyson has somewhere also used, with equal truth, the epithet +'climbing' of the spray of breakers against vertical rock. [1] In either +instance, the sea action is literally 'rampant'; and the course of a +great breaker, whether in its first proud likeness to a rearing horse, +or in the humble and subdued gaining of the outmost verge of its foam on +the sand, or the intermediate spiral whorl which gathers into a lustrous +precision, like that of a polished shell, the grasping force of a +giant, you have the most vivid sight and embodiment of literally rampant +energy; which the Greeks expressed in their symbolic Poseidon, Scylla, +and sea-horse, by the head and crest of the man, dog, or horse, with +the body of the serpent; and of which you will find the slower image, in +vegetation, rendered both by the spiral tendrils of grasping or climbing +plants, and the perennial gaining of the foam or the lichen upon barren +shores of stone. + +[Footnote: Perhaps I am thinking of Lowell, not Tennyson; I have not +time to look.] + +171. If you will look to the thirtieth chapter of vol. i. in the new +edition of the "Stones of Venice," which, by the gift of its publishers, +I am enabled to lay on your table to be placed in your library, you +will find one of my first and most eager statements of the necessity of +inequality or change in form, made against the common misunderstanding +of Greek symmetry, and illustrated by a woodcut of the spiral ornament +on the treasury of Atreus at Mycenae. All that is said in that chapter +respecting nature and the ideal, I now beg most earnestly to recommend +and ratify to you; but although, even at that time, I knew more of Greek +art than my antagonists, my broken reading has given me no conception +of the range of its symbolic power, nor of the function of that more +or less formal spiral line, as expressive, not only of the waves of the +sea, but of the zones of the whirlpool, the return of the tempest, and +the involution of the labyrinth. And although my readers say that I +wrote then better than I write now, I cannot refer you to the passage +without asking you to pardon in it what I now hold to be the petulance +and vulgarity of expression, disgracing the importance of the truth it +contains. A little while ago, without displeasure, you permitted me to +delay you by the account of a dispute on a matter of taste between my +father and me, in which he was quietly and unavailingly right. It seems +to me scarcely a day, since, with boyish conceit, I resisted his wise +entreaties that I would re-word this clause; and especially take out of +it the description of a sea-wave as "laying a great white tablecloth of +foam" all the way to the shore. Now, after an interval of twenty years, +I refer you to the passage, repentant and humble as far as regards its +style, which people sometimes praised, but with absolue re-assertion +of the truth and value of its contents, which people always denied. As +natural form is varied, so must beautiful ornament be varied. You +are not an artist by reproving nature into deathful sameness, but by +animating your copy of her into vital variation. But I thought at that +time that only Goths were rightly changeful. I never thought Greeks +were. Their reserved variation escaped me, or I thought it accidental. +Here, however, is a coin of the finest Greek workmanship, which shows +you their mind in this matter unmistakably. Here are the waves of the +Adriatic round a knight of Tarentum, and there is no doubt of their +variableness. + +172. This pattern of sea-wave, or river whirlpool, entirely sacred in +the Greek mind, and the [Greek: *bostruchos*] or similarly curling wave +in flowing hair, are the two main sources of the spiral form in lambent +or rampant decoration. Of such lambent ornament, the most important +piece is the crocket, of which I rapidly set before you the origin. + +173. Here is a drawing of the gable of the bishop's throne in the upper +church at Assisi, of the exact period when the mosaic workers of the +thirteenth century at Rome adopted rudely the masonry of the north. +Briefly, this is a Greek temple pediment, in which, doubtful of their +power to carve figures beautiful enough, they cut a trefoiled hold for +ornament, and bordered the edges with harlequinade of mosaic. They then +call to their help the Greek sea-waves, and let the surf of the AEgean +climb along the slopes, and toss itself at the top into a fleur-de-lys. +Every wave is varied in outline and proportionate distance, though cut +with a precision of curve like that of the sea itself. From this root +we are able--but it must be in a lecture on crockets only--to trace the +succeeding changes through the curl of Richard II.'s hair, and the +crisp leaves of the forests of Picardy, to the knobbed extravagances of +expiring Gothic. But I must to-day let you compare one piece of perfect +Gothic work with the perfect Greek. + +174. There is no question in my own mind, and, I believe, none in +that of any other long-practised student of mediaeval art, that in pure +structural Gothic the church of St. Urbain at Troyes is without rival in +Europe. Here is a rude sketch of its use of the crocket in the spandrils +of its external tracery, and here are the waves of the Greek sea round +the son of Poseidon. Seventeen hundred years are between them, but the +same mind is in both. I wonder how many times seventeen hundred years +Mr. Darwin will ask, to retrace the Greek designer of this into his +primitive ape; or how many times six hundred years of such improvements +as we have made on the church of St. Urbain, will be needed in order +to enable our descendants to regard the designers of that, as only +primitive apes. + +175. I return for a moment to my gable at Assisi. You see that the crest +of the waves at the top form a rude likeness of a fleur-de-lys. There +is, however, in this form no real intention of imitating a flower, any +more than in the meeting of the tails of these two Etruscan griffins. +The notable circumstance in this piece of Gothic is its advanced form +of crocket, and its prominent foliation, with nothing in the least +approaching to floral ornament. + +176. And now, observe this very curious fact in the personal character +of two contemporary artists. See the use of my manually graspable flag. +Here is John of Pisa,--here Giotto. They are contemporary for twenty +years;--but these are the prime of Giotto's life, and the last of John's +life: virtually, Giotto is the later workman by full twenty years. + +But Giotto always uses severe geometrical mouldings, and disdains all +luxuriance of leafage to set off interior sculpture. + +John of Pisa not only adopts Gothic tracery, but first allows himself +enthusiastic use of rampant vegetation;--and here in the facade of +Orvieto, you have not only perfect Gothic in the sentiment of Scripture +history, but such luxurious ivy ornamentation as you cannot afterwards +match for two hundred years. Nay, you can scarcely match it then--for +grace of line, only in the richest flamboyant of France. + +177. Now this fact would set you, if you looked at art from its +aesthetic side only, at once to find out what German artists had taught +Giovanni Pisano. There _were_ Germans teaching him,--some teaching +him many things; and the intense conceit of the modern German artist +imagines them to have taught him all things. + +But he learnt his luxuriance, and Giotto his severity, in another +school. The quality in both is Greek; and altogether moral. The grace +and the redundance of Giovanui are the first strong manifestation of +those characters in the Italian mind which culminate in the Madonnas of +Luini and the arabesques of Raphael. The severity of Giotto belongs to +him, on the contrary, not only as one of the strongest practical men who +ever lived on this solid earth, but as the purest and firmest reformer +of the discipline of the Christian Church, of whose writings any remains +exist. + +178. Of whose writings, I say; and you look up, as doubtful that he has +left any. Hieroglyphics, then, let me say instead; or, more accurately +still, hierographics. St. Francis, in what he wrote and said, taught +much that was false. But Giotto, his true disciple, nothing but what +was true. And where _he_ uses an arabesque of foliage, depend upon it it +will be to purpose--not redundant. I return for the time to our soft and +luxuriant John of Pisa. + +179. Soft, but with no unmanly softness; luxuriant, but with no +unmannered luxury. To him you owe as to their first sire in art, the +grace of Ghiberti, the tenderness of Raphael, the awe of Michael Angelo. +Second-rate qualities in all the three, but precious in their kind, and +learned, as you shall see, essentially from this man. Second-rate he +also, but with most notable gifts of this inferior kind. He is the +Canova of the thirteenth century; but the Canova of the thirteenth, +remember, was necessarily a very different person from the Canova of the +eighteenth. + +The Cauova of the eighteenth century mimicked Greek grace for the +delight of modern revolutionary sensualists. The Canova of the +thirteenth century brought living Gothic truth into the living faith of +his own time. + +Greek truth, and Gothic 'liberty,'--in that noble sense of the word, +derived from the Latin 'liber,' of which I have already spoken, and +which in my next lecture I will endeavour completely to develope. +Meanwhile let me show you, as far as I can, the architecture itself +about which these subtle questions arise. + +180. Here are five frames, containing the best representations I can get +for you of the facade of the cathedral of Orvieto. I must remind you, +before I let you look at them, of the reason why that cathedral was +built; for I have at last got to the end of the parenthesis which began +in my second lecture, on the occasion of our hearing that John of Pisa +was sent for to Perugia, to carve the tomb of Pope Urban IV.; and we +must now know who this Pope was. + +181. He was a Frenchman, born at that Troyes, in Champagne, which I gave +you as the centre of French architectural skill, and Royalist character. +He was born in the lowest class of the people, rose like Wolsey; became +Bishop of Verdun; then, Patriarch of Jerusalem; returned in the year +1261, from his Patriarchate, to solicit the aid of the then Pope, +Alexander IV., against the Saracen. I do not know on what day he arrived +in Rome; but on the 25th of May, Alexander died, and the Cardinals, +after three months' disputing, elected the suppliant Patriarch to be +Pope himself. + +182. A man with all the fire of France in him, all the faith, and all +the insolence; incapable of doubting a single article of his creed, or +relaxing one tittle of his authority; destitute alike of reason and of +pity; and absolutely merciless either to an infidel, or an enemy. The +young Prince Manfred, bastard son of Frederick II., now representing +the main power of the German empire, was both; and against him the Pope +brought into Italy a religious French knight, of character absolutely +like his own, Charles of Anjou. + +183. The young Manfred, now about twenty years old, was as good a +soldier as he was a bad Christian; and there was no safety for Urban +at Rome. The Pope seated himself on a worthy throne for a +thirteenth-century St. Peter. Fancy the rock of Edinburgh Castle, as +steep on all sides as it is to the west; and as long as the Old Town; +and you have the rock of Orvieto. + +184. Here, enthroned against the gates of hell, in unassailable +fortitude, and unfaltering faith, sat Urban; the righteousness of his +cause presently to be avouched by miracle, notablest among those of the +Roman Church. Twelve miles east of his rock, beyond the range of low +Apennine, shone the quiet lake, the Loch Leven of Italy, from whose +island the daughter of Theodoric needed not to escape--Fate seeking her +there; and in a little chapel on its shore a Bohemian priest, infected +with Northern infidelity, was brought back to his allegiance by seeing +the blood drop from the wafer in his hand. And the Catholic Church +recorded this heavenly testimony to her chief mystery, in the Festa of +the Corpus Domini, and the Fabric of Orvieto. + +185. And sending was made for John, and for all good labourers in +marble; but Urban never saw a stone of the great cathedral laid. His +citation of Manfred to appear in his presence to answer for his heresy, +was fixed against the posts of the doors of the old Duomo. But Urban had +dug the foundation of the pile to purpose, and when he died at Perugia, +still breathed, from his grave, calamity to Manfred, and made from it +glory to the Church. He had secured the election of a French successor; +from the rock of Orvieto the spirit of Urban led the French chivalry, +when Charles of Anjou saw the day of battle come, so long desired. +Manfred's Saracens, with their arrows, broke his first line; the Pope's +legate blessed the second, and gave them absolution of all their sins, +for their service to the Church. They charged for Orvieto with their +old cry of 'Mont-Joie, Chevaliers!' and before night, while Urban lay +sleeping in his carved tomb at Perugia, the body of Manfred lay only +recognizable by those who loved him, naked among the slain. + +186. Time wore on and on. The Suabian power ceased in Italy; between +white and red there was now no more contest;--the matron of the Church, +scarlet-robed, reigned, ruthless, on her seven hills. Time wore on; and, +a hundred years later, now no more the power of the kings, but the power +of the people,--rose against her. St. Michael, from the corn market,--Or +San Michele,--the commercial strength of Florence, on a question of free +trade in corn. And note, for a little bye piece of botany, that in +Val d'Arno lilies grow among the corn instead of poppies. The purple +gladiolus glows through all its green fields in early spring. + +187. A question of free trade in corn, then, arose between Florence and +Rome. The Pope's legate in Bologna stopped the supply of polenta, the +Florentines depending on that to eat with their own oil. Very wicked, +you think, of the Pope's legate, acting thus against quasi-Protestant +Florence? Yes; just as wicked as the--not quasi-Protestants--but +intensely positive Protestants, of Zurich, who tried to convert the +Catholic forest-cantons by refusing them salt. Christendom has been +greatly troubled about bread and salt: the then Protestant Pope, +Zuinglius, was killed at the battle of Keppel, and the Catholic cantons +therefore remain Catholic to this day; while the consequences of this +piece of protectionist economy at Bologna are equally interesting and +direct. + +188. The legate of Bologna, not content with stopping the supplies of +maize to Florence, sent our own John Hawkwood, on the 24th June, 1375, +to burn all the maize the Florentines had got growing; and the abbot +of Montemaggiore sent a troop of Perugian religious gentlemen-riders +to ravage similarly the territory of Siena. Whereupon, at Florence, the +Gonfalonier of Justice, Aloesio Aldobrandini, rose in the Council of +Ancients and proposed, as an enterprise worthy of Florentine generosity, +the freedom of all the peoples who groaned under the tyranny of the +Church. And Florence, Siena, Pisa, Lucca, and Arezzo,--all the great +cities of Etruria, the root of religion in Italy,--joined against the +tyranny of religion. Strangely, this Etrurian league is not now to +restore Tarquin to Rome, but to drive the Roman Tarquin into exile. The +story of Lucretia had been repeated in Perugia; but the Umbrian Lucretia +had died, not by suicide, but by falling on the pavement from the window +through which she tried to escape. And the Umbrian Sextus was the Abbot +of Montemaggiore's nephew. + +189. Florence raised her fleur-de-lys standard: and, in ten days, eighty +cities of Romagua were free, out of the number of whose names I +will read you only these--Urbino, Foligno, Spoleto, Narni, Camerino, +Toscanella, Perugia, Orvieto. + +And while the wind and the rain still beat the body of Manfred, by the +shores of the Rio Verde, the body of Pope Urban was torn from its tomb, +and not one stone of the carved work thereof left upon another. 190. I +will only ask you to-day to notice farther that the Captain of Florence, +in this war, was a 'Conrad of Suabia,' and that she gave him, beside her +own flag, one with only the word 'Libertas' inscribed on it. + +I told you that the first stroke of the bell on the Tower of the +Lion began the carillon for European civil and religious liberty. But +perhaps, even in the fourteenth century, Florence did not understand, by +that word, altogether the same policy which is now preached in France, +Italy, and England. + +What she did understand by it, we will try to ascertain in the course of +next lecture. + + + + + LECTURE VIII. + + FRANCHISE. + + 191. In my first lecture of this course, you remember that I showed +you the Lion of St. Mark's with Niccola Pisano's, calling the one +an evangelical-preacher lion, and the other a real, and naturally +affectionate, lioness. + +And the one I showed you as Byzantine, the other as Gothic. + +So that I thus called the Greek art pious, and the Gothic profane. + +Whereas in nearly all our ordinary modes of thought, and in all my own +general references to either art, we assume Greek or classic work to be +profane, and Gothic, pious, or religious. + +192. Very short reflection, if steady and clear, will both show you how +confused our ideas are usually on this subject, and how definite they +may within certain limits become. + +First of all, don't confuse piety with Christianity. There are pious +Greeks and impious Greeks; pious Turks and impious Turks; pious +Christians and impious Christians; pious modern infidels and impious +modern infidels. In case you do not quite know what piety really means, +we will try to know better in next lecture; for the present, understand +that I mean distinctly to call Greek art, in the true sense of the word, +pious, and Gothic, as opposed to it, profane. + +193. But when I oppose these two words, Gothic and Greek, don't run away +with the notion that I necessarily mean to oppose _Christian_ and Greek. +You must not confuse Gothic blood in a man's veins, with Christian +feeling in a man's breast. There are unconverted and converted Goths; +unconverted and converted Greeks. The Greek and Gothic temper is equally +opposed, where the name of Christ has never been uttered by either, or +when every other name is equally detested by both. + +I want you to-day to examine with me that essential difference between +Greek and Gothic temper, irrespective of creed, to which I have referred +in my preface to the last edition of the "Stones of Venice," saying that +the Byzantines gave law to Norman license. And I must therefore ask your +patience while I clear your minds from some too prevalent errors as to +the meaning of those two words, law and license. + +194. There is perhaps no more curious proof of the disorder which +impatient and impertinent science is introducing into classical thought +and language, than the title chosen by the Duke of Argyll for his +interesting study of Natural History--'The Reign of Law.' Law cannot +reign. If a natural law, it admits no disobedience, and has nothing to +put right. If a human one, it can compel no obedience, and has no power +to prevent wrong. A king only can reign;--a person, that is to say, who, +conscious of natural law, enforces human law so far as it is just. + +195. Kinghood is equally necessary in Greek dynasty, and in Gothic. +Theseus is every inch a king, as well as Edward III. But the laws which +they have to enforce on their own and their companions' humanity are +opposed to each other as much as their dispositions are. + +The function of a Greek king was to enforce labour. + +That of a Gothic king, to restrain rage. + +The laws of Greece determine the wise methods of labour; and the laws of +France determine the wise restraints of passion. + +For the sins of Greece are in Indolence, and its pleasures; and the sins +of France are in fury, and its pleasures. + +196. You are now again surprised, probably, at hearing me oppose France +typically to Greece. More strictly, I might oppose only a part of +France,--Normandy. But it is better to say, France, [1] as embracing the +seat of the established Norman power in the Island of our Lady; and the +province in which it was crowned,--Champagne. + +[Footnote 1: "Normandie, la franche." "France, la solue;" (chanson de +Roland). One of my good pupils referred me to this ancient and glorious +French song.] + +France is everlastingly, by birth, name, and nature, the country of the +Franks, or free persons; and the first source of European frankness, +or franchise. The Latin for franchise is libertas. But the modern or +Cockney-English word liberty,--Mr. John Stuart Mill's,--is not +the equivalent of libertas; and the modern or Cockney-French word +liberte,--M. Victor Hugo's,--is not the equivalent of franchise. + +197. The Latin for franchise, I have said, is libertas; the Greek is +[Greek: *eleupheria*]. In the thoughts of all three nations, the idea +is precisely the same, and the word used for the idea by each nation +therefore accurately translates the word of the other: [Greek: +*eleupheria*]--libertas--franchise--reciprocally translate each other. +Leonidas is characteristically [Greek: *eleupheros*] among Greeks; +Publicola, characteristically liber, among Romans; Edward III. and the +Black Prince, characteristically frank among French. And that common +idea, which the words express, as all the careful scholars among you +will know, is, with all the three nations, mainly of deliverance from +the slavery of passion. To be [Greek: *eleupheros*], liber, or franc, +is first to have learned how to rule our own passions; and then, certain +that our own conduct is right, to persist in that conduct against +all resistance, whether of counter-opinion, counter pain, or +counter-pleasure. To be defiant alike of the mob's thought, of the +adversary's threat, and the harlot's temptation,--this is in the meaning +of every great nation to be free; and the one condition upon which that +freedom can be obtained is pronounced to you in a single verse of the +119th Psalm, "I will walk at liberty, for I seek Thy precepts." + +198. Thy precepts:--Law, observe, being dominant over the Gothic as over +the Greek king, but a quite different law. Edward III. feeling no anger +against the Sieur de Ribaumont, and crowning him with his own pearl +chaplet, is obeying the law of love, _restraining_ anger; but Theseus, +slaying the Minotaur, is obeying the law of justice, and _enforcing_ +anger. + +The one is acting under the law of the charity, [Greek: *charis*] or +grace of God; the other under the law of His judgment. The two together +fulfil His [Greek: *krisis*] and [Greek: *agapae*]. + +199. Therefore the Greek dynasties are finally expressed in the +kinghoods of Minos, Rhadamanthus, and Aeacus, who judge infallibly, and +divide arithmetically. But the dynasty of the Gothic king is in equity +and compassion, and his arithmetic is in largesse, + + "Whose moste joy was, I wis, + When that she gave, and said, Have this." + + +So that, to put it in shortest terms of all, Greek law is of Stasy, and +Gothic of Ecstasy; there is no limit to the freedom of the Gothic hand +or heart, and the children are most in the delight and the glory of +liberty when they most seek their Father's precepts. + +200. The two lines I have just quoted are, as you probably remember, +from Chaucer's translation of the French Romance of the Rose, out +of which I before quoted to you the description of the virtue +of Debonnairete. Now that Debonnairete of the Painted Chamber of +Westminster is the typical figure used by the French sculptors and +painters for 'franchise,' frankness, or Frenchness; but in the Painted +Chamber, Debonnairete, high breeding, 'out of goodnestedness,' or +gentleness, is used, as an English king's English, of the Norman +franchise. Here, then, is our own royalty,--let us call it Englishness, +the grace of our proper kinghood;--and here is French royalty, the grace +of French kinghood--Frenchness, rudely but sufficiently drawn by M. +Didron from the porch of Chartres. She has the crown of fleur-de-lys, +and William the Norman's shield. + +201. Now this grace of high birth, the grace of his or her Most Gracious +Majesty, has her name at Chartres written beside her, in Latin. Had it +been in Greek, it would have been [Greek: *elevtheria*]. Being in Latin, +what do you think it must be necessarily?--Of course, Libertas. Now M. +Didron is quite the best writer on art that I know,--full of sense and +intelligence; but of course, as a modern Frenchman,--one of a nation for +whom the Latin and Gothic ideas of libertas have entirely vanished,--he +is not on his guard against the trap here laid for him. He looks at +the word libertas through his spectacles;--can't understand, being a +thoroughly good antiquary, [1] how such a virtue, or privilege, could +honestly be carved with approval in the twelfth century;--rubs his +spectacles; rubs the inscription, to make sure of its every letter; +stamps it, to make surer still;--and at last, though in a greatly +bewildered state of mind, remains convinced that here is a sculpture of +'La Liberte' in the twelfth century. "C'est bien la liberte!" "On lit +parfaitement libertas." + +[Footnote 1: Historical antiquary; not art-antiquary I must limitedly +say, however. He has made a grotesque mess of his account of the Ducal +Palace of Venice, through his ignorance of the technical characters of +sculpture.] + +202. Not so, my good M. Didron!--a very different personage, this; +of whom more, presently, though the letters of her name are indeed so +plainly, 'Libertas, at non liberalitas,' liberalitas being the Latin for +largesse, not for franchise. + +This, then, is the opposition between the Greek and Gothic dynasties, in +their passionate or vital nature; in the _animal_ and _inbred_ part +of them;--Classic and romantic, Static and exstatic. But now, what +opposition is there between their divine natures? Between Theseus +and Edward III., as warriors, we now know the difference; but between +Theseus and Edward III, as theologians; as dreaming and discerning +creatures, as didactic kings,--engraving letters with the point of the +sword, instead of thrusting men through with it,--changing the club into +the ferula, and becoming schoolmasters as well as kings; what is, thus, +the difference between them? + +Theologians I called them. Philologians would be a better word,--lovers +of the [Greek: *Logos*], or Word, by which the heavens and earth were +made. What logos, _about_ this Logos, have they learned, or can they +teach? + +203. I showed you, in my first lecture, the Byzantine Greek lion, as +descended by true unblemished line from the Nemean Greek; but with this +difference: Heracles kills the beast, and makes a helmet and cloak of +his skin; the Greek St. Mark converts the beast, and makes an evangelist +of him. + +Is not that a greater difference, think you, than one of mere decadence? + +This 'maniera goffa e sproporzionata' of Vasari is not, then, merely the +wasting away of former leonine strength into thin rigidities of death? +There is another change going on at the same time,--body perhaps +subjecting itself to spirit. + +I will not teaze you with farther questions. The facts are simple +enough. Theseus and Heracles have their religion, sincere and +sufficient,--a religion of lion-killers, minotaur-killers, very +curious and rude; Eleusinian mystery mingled in it, inscrutable to us +now,--partly always so, even to them. + +204. Well; the Greek nation, in process of time, loses its +manliness,--becomes Graeculus instead of Greek. But though effeminate +and feeble, it inherits all the subtlety of its art, all the cunning of +its mystery; and it is converted to a more spiritual religion. Nor is +it altogether degraded, even by the diminution of its animal energy. +Certain spiritual phenomena are possible to the weak, which are hidden +from the strong;--nay, the monk may, in his order of being, possess +strength denied to the warrior. Is it altogether, think you, by +blundering, or by disproportion in intellect or in body, that Theseus +becomes St. Athanase? For that is the kind of change which takes place, +from the days of the great King of Athens, to those of the great Bishop +of Alexandria, in the thought and theology, or, summarily, in the spirit +of the Greek. + +Now we have learned indeed the difference between the Gothic knight and +the Greek knight; but what will be the difference between the Gothic +saint and Greek saint? + +Franchise of body against constancy of body. + +Franchise of thought, then, against constancy of thought. + +Edward III. against Theseus. + +And the Frank of Assisi against St. Athanase. + +205. Utter franchise, utter gentleness in theological thought. Instead +of, 'This is the faith, which except a man believe faithfully, he +cannot be saved,' 'This is the love, which if a bird or an insect keep +faithfully, _it_ shall be saved.' + +Gentlemen, you have at present arrived at a phase of natural science in +which, rejecting alike the theology of the Byzantine, and the affection +of the Frank, you can only contemplate a bird as flying under the reign +of law, and a cricket as singing under the compulsion of caloric. + +I do not know whether you yet feel that the position of your boat on +the river also depends entirely on the reign of law, or whether, as your +churches and concert-rooms are privileged in the possession of organs +blown by steam, you are learning yourselves to sing by gas, and expect +the Dies Irae to the announced by a steam-trumpet. But I can very +positively assure you that, in my poor domain of imitative art, not all +the mechanical or gaseous forces of the world, nor all the laws of +the universe, will enable you either to see a colour, or draw a line, +without that singular force anciently called the soul, which it was the +function of the Greek to discipline in the duty of the servants of God, +and of the Goth to lead into the liberty of His children. + +206. But in one respect I wish you were more conscious of the existence +of law than you appear to be. The difference which I have pointed out +to you as existing between these great nations, exists also between two +orders of intelligence among men, of which the one is usually called +Classic, the other Romantic. Without entering into any of the fine +distinctions between these two sects, this broad one is to be observed +as constant: that the writers and painters of the Classic school set +down nothing but what is known to be true, and set it down in the +perfectest manner possible in their way, and are thenceforward +authorities from whom there is no appeal. Romantic writers and painters, +on the contrary, express themselves under the impulse of passions which +may indeed lead them to the discovery of new truths, or to the more +delightful arrangement or presentment of things already known: but +their work, however brilliant or lovely, remains imperfect, and without +authority. It is not possible, of course, to separate these two orders +of men trenchantly: a classic writer may sometimes, whatever his +care, admit an error, and a romantic one may reach perfection through +enthusiasm. But, practically, you may separate the two for your study +and your education; and, during your youth, the business of us your +masters is to enforce on you the reading, for school work, only of +classical books: and to see that your minds are both informed of +the indisputable facts they contain, and accustomed to act with the +infallible accuracy of which they set the example. + +207. I have not time to make the calculation, but I suppose that the +daily literature by which we now are principally nourished, is so large +in issue that though St. John's "even the world itself could not +contain the books which should be written" may be still hyperbole, it +is nevertheless literally true that the world might be _wrapped_ in the +books which are written; and that the sheets of paper covered with type +on any given subject, interesting to the modern mind, (say the prospects +of the Claimant,) issued in the form of English morning papers during a +single year, would be enough literally to pack the world in. + +208. Now I will read you fifty-two lines of a classical author, which, +once well read and understood, contain more truth than has been told you +all this year by this whole globe's compass of print. + +Fifty-two lines, of which you will recognize some as hackneyed, and see +little to admire in others. But it is not possible to put the statements +they contain into better English, nor to invalidate one syllable of the +statements they contain. [1] + +[Footnote 1: 'The Deserted Village,' line 251 to 302.] + +209. Even those, and there may be many here, who would dispute the truth +of the passage, will admit its exquisite distinctness and construction. +If it be untrue, that is merely because I have not been taught by +my modern education to recognize a classical author; but whatever my +mistakes, or yours, may be, there _are_ certain truths long known to +all rational men, and indisputable. You may add to them, but you cannot +diminish them. And it is the business of a University to determine what +books of this kind exist, and to enforce the understanding of them. + +210. The classical and romantic arts which we have now under examination +therefore consist,--the first, in that which represented, under whatever +symbols, truths respecting the history of men, which it is proper +that all should know; while the second owes its interest to passionate +impulse or incident. This distinction holds in all ages, but the +distinction between the franchise of Northern, and the constancy of +Byzantine, art, depends partly on the unsystematic play of emotion in +the one, and the appointed sequence of known fact or determined judgment +in the other. + +You will find in the beginning of M. Didron's book, already quoted, +an admirable analysis of what may be called the classic sequence of +Christian theology, as written in the sculpture of the Cathedral of +Chartres. You will find in the treatment of the facade of Orvieto the +beginning of the development of passionate romance,--the one being grave +sermon writing; the other, cheerful romance or novel writing: so that +the one requires you to think, the other only to feel or perceive; the +one is always a parable with a meaning, the other only a story with an +impression. + +211. And here I get at a result concerning Greek art, which is very +sweeping and wide indeed. That it is all parable, but Gothic, as +distinct from it, literal. So absolutely does this hold, that it reaches +down to our modern school of landscape. You know I have always told you +Turner belonged to the Greek school. Precisely as the stream of blood +coming from under the throne of judgment in the Byzantine mosaic of +Torcello is a sign of condemnation, his scarlet clouds are used by +Turner as a sign of death; and just as on an Egyptian tomb the genius +of death lays the sun down behind the horizon, so in his Cephalus and +Procris, the last rays of the sun withdraw from the forest as the nymph +expires. + +And yet, observe, both the classic and romantic teaching may be equally +earnest, only different in manner. But from classic art, unless you +understand it, you may get nothing; from romantic art, even if you don't +understand it, you get at least delight. + +212. I cannot show the difference more completely or fortunately than +by comparing Sir Walter Scott's type of libertas, with the franchise of +Chartres Cathedral, or Debonnairete of the Painted Chamber. + +At Chartres, and Westminster, the high birth is shown by the crown; the +strong bright life by the flowing hair; the fortitude by the conqueror's +shield; and the truth by the bright openness of the face: + + "She was not brown, nor dull of hue, + But white as snowe, fallen newe." + + +All these are symbols, which, if you cannot read, the image is to you +only an uninteresting stiff figure. But Sir Walter's Franchise, Diana +Vernon, interests you at once in personal aspect and character. She is +no symbol to you; but if you acquaint yourself with her perfectly, +you find her utter frankness, governed by a superb self-command; her +spotless truth, refined by tenderness; her fiery enthusiasm, subdued by +dignity; and her fearless liberty, incapable of doing wrong, joining to +fulfil to you, in sight and presence, what the Greek could only teach by +signs. + +213. I have before noticed--though I am not sure that you have yet +believed my statement of it--the significance of Sir Walter's as +of Shakspeare's names; Diana 'Vernon, semper viret,' gives you the +conditions of purity and youthful strength or spring which imply the +highest state of libertas. By corruption of the idea of purity, you get +the modern heroines of London Journal--or perhaps we may more fitly call +it 'Cockney-daily'--literature. You have one of them in perfection, for +instance, in Mr. Charles Reade's 'Griffith Gaunt'--"Lithe, and vigorous, +and one with her great white gelding;" and liable to be entirely changed +in her mind about the destinies of her life by a quarter of an hour's +conversation with a gentleman unexpectedly handsome; the hero also being +a person who looks at people whom he dislikes, with eyes "like a dog's +in the dark;" and both hero and heroine having souls and intellects also +precisely corresponding to those of a dog's in the dark, which is indeed +the essential picture of the practical English national mind at this +moment,--happy if it remains doggish,--Circe not usually being content +with changing people into dogs only. For the Diana Vernon of the Greek +is Artemis Laphria, who is friendly to the dog; not to the swine. Do you +see, by the way, how perfectly the image is carried out by Sir Walter +in putting his Diana on the border country? "Yonder blue hill is in +Scotland," she says to her cousin,--not in the least thinking less of +him for having been concerned, it may be, in one of Bob Roy's forays. +And so gradually you get the idea of Norman franchise carried out in the +free-rider or free-booter; not safe from degradation on that side +also; but by no means of swinish temper, or foraging, as at present the +British speculative public, only with the snout. + +214. Finally, in the most soft and domestic form of virtue, you have +Wordsworth's ideal: + + "Her household motions light and free, + And steps of virgin liberty." + + +The distinction between these northern types of feminine virtue, and the +figures of Alcestis, Antigone, or Iphigenia, lies deep in the spirit of +the art of either country, and is carried out into its most unimportant +details. We shall find in the central art of Florence at once the +thoughtfulness of Greece and the gladness of England, associated under +images of monastic severity peculiar to herself. + +And what Diana Vernon is to a French ballerine dancing the Cancan, the +'libertas' of Chartres and Westminster is to the 'liberty' of M. Victor +Hugo and Mr. John Stuart Mill. + + + + + LECTURE IX. + + THE TYRRHENE SEA. + +215. We may now return to the points of necessary history, having +our ideas fixed within accurate limits as to the meaning of the word +Liberty; and as to the relation of the passions which separated the +Guelph and Ghibelline to those of our own days. + +The Lombard or Guelph league consisted, after the accession of Florence, +essentially of the three great cities--Milan, Bologna, and Florence; the +Imperial or Ghibelline league, of Verona, Pisa, and Siena. Venice and +Genoa, both nominally Guelph, are in furious contention always for sea +empire while Pisa and Genoa are in contention, not so much for empire, +as honour. Whether the trade of the East was to go up the Adriatic, or +round by the Gulf of Genoa, was essentially a mercantile question; but +whether, of the two ports in sight of each other, Pisa or Genoa was to +be the Queen of the Tyrrhene Sea, was no less distinctly a personal one +than which of two rival beauties shall preside at a tournament. + +216. This personal rivalry, so far as it was separated from their +commercial interests, was indeed mortal, but not malignant. The quarrel +was to be decided to the death, but decided with honour; and each city +had four observers permittedly resident in the other, to give account of +all that was done there in naval invention and armament. + +217. Observe, also, in the year 1251, when we quitted our history, we +left Florence not only Guelph, as against the Imperial power, (that is +to say, the body of her knights who favoured the Pope and Italians, in +dominion over those who favoured Manfred and the Germans), but we left +her also definitely with her apron thrown over her shield; and the +tradesmen and craftsmen in authority over the knight, whether German or +Italian, Papal or Imperial. + +That is in 1251. Now in these last two lectures I must try to mark the +gist of the history of the next thirty years. The Thirty Years' War, +this, of the middle ages, infinitely important to all ages; first +observe, between Guelph and Ghibelline, ending in the humiliation of +the Ghibelline; and, secondly, between Shield and Apron, or, if you like +better, between Spear and Hammer, ending in the breaking of the Spear. + +218. The first decision of battle, I say, is that between Guelph and +Ghibelline, headed by two men of precisely oppposite characters, +Charles of Anjou and Manfred of Suabia. That I may be able to define +the opposition of their characters intelligibly, I must first ask your +attention to some points of general scholarship. I said in my last +lecture that, in this one, it would be needful for us to consider what +piety was, if we happened not to know; or worse than that, it may be, +not instinctively to feel. Such want of feeling is indeed not likely in +you, being English-bred; yet as it is the modern cant to consider all +such sentiment as useless, or even shameful, we shall be in several ways +advantaged by some examination of its nature. Of all classical writers, +Horace is the one with whom English gentlemen have on the average most +sympathy; and I believe, therefore, we shall most simply and easily get +at our point by examining the piety of Horace. + +219. You are perhaps, for the moment, surprised, whatever might have +been admitted of AEneas, to hear Horace spoken of as a pious person. But +of course when your attention is turned to the matter you will recollect +many lines in which the word 'pietas' occurs, of which you have only +hitherto failed to allow the force because you supposed Horace did not +mean what he said. + +220. But Horace always and altogether means what he says. It is just +because--whatever his faults may have been--he was not a hypocrite, that +English gentlemen are so fond of him. "Here is a frank fellow, anyhow," +they say, "and a witty one." Wise men know that he is also wise. True +men know that he is also true. But pious men, for want of attention, do +not always know that he is pious. + +One great obstacle to your understanding of him is your having been +forced to construct Latin verses, with introduction of the word +'Jupiter' always, at need, when you were at a loss for a dactyl. You +always feel as if Horace only used it also when he wanted a dactyl. + +221. Get quit of that notion wholly. All immortal writers speak out of +their hearts. Horace spoke out of the abundance of his heart, and tells +you precisely what he is, as frankly as Montaigne. Note then, first, +how modest he is: "Ne parva Tyrrhenum per aequor, vela darem;--Operosa +parvus, carmina fingo." Trust him in such words; he absolutely means +them; knows thoroughly that he cannot sail the Tyrrhene Sea,--knows that +he cannot float on the winds of Matinum,--can only murmur in the sunny +hollows of it among the heath. + +But note, secondly, his pride: "Exegi monumentum sere perennius." He is +not the least afraid to say that. He did it; knew he had done it; said +he had done it; and feared no charge of arrogance. + +222. Note thirdly, then, his piety, and accept his assured speech of it: +"Dis pietas mea, et Musa, cordi est." He is perfectly certain of that +also; serenely tells you so; and you had better believe him. Well for +you, if you can believe him; for to believe him, you must understand +him first; and I can tell you, you won't arrive at that understanding +by looking out the word 'pietas' in your White-and-Riddle. If you do +you will find those tiresome contractions, Etym. Dub., stop your inquiry +very briefly, as you go back; if you go forward, through the Italian +pieta, you will arrive presently in another group of ideas, and end in +misericordia, mercy, and pity. You must not depend on the form of the +word; you must find out what it stands for in Horace's mind, and in +Virgil's. More than race to the Roman; more than power to the statesman; +yet helpless beside the grave,--"Non, Torquate, genus, non te facundia, +non te, Restitvet pietas." + +Nay, also what it stands for as an attribute, not only of men, but of +gods; nor of those only as merciful, but also as avenging. Against AEneas +himself, Dido invokes the waves of the Tyrrhene Sea, "si quid pia numina +possunt." Be assured there is no getting at the matter by dictionary +or context. To know what love means, you must love; to know what piety +means, you must be pious. + +223. Perhaps you dislike the word, now, from its vulgar use. You may +have another if you choose, a metaphorical one,--close enough it seems +to Christianity, and yet still absolutely distinct from it,--[Greek: +*christos*]. Suppose, as you watch the white bloom of the olives of Val +d'Arno and Val di Nievole, which modern piety and economy suppose +were grown by God only to supply you with fine Lucca oil, you were to +consider, instead, what answer you could make to the Socratio question, +[Greek: *pothen un tis tovto to chrisma labot*]. [1] + +[Footnote 1: Xem. Conviv., ii.] + +224. I spoke to you first of Horace's modesty. All piety begins in +modesty. You must feel that you are a very little creature, and that you +had better do as you are bid. You will then begin to think what you +are bid to do, and who bids it. And you will find, unless you are very +unhappy indeed, that there is always a quite clear notion of right +and wrong in your minds, which you can either obey or disobey, at your +pleasure. Obey it simply and resolutely; it will become clearer to you +every day: and in obedience to it, you will find a sense of being in +harmony with nature, and at peace with God, and all His creatures. You +will not understand how the peace comes, nor even in what it consists. +It is the peace that passes understanding;--it is just as visionary and +imaginative as love is, and just as real, and just as necessary to the +life of man. It is the only source of true cheerfulness, and of true +common sense; and whether you believe the Bible, or don't,--or believe +the Koran, or don't--or believe the Vedas, or don't--it will enable you +to believe in God, and please Him, and be such a part of the [Greek: +*eudokia*] of the universe as your nature fits you to be, in His sight, +faithful in awe to the powers that are above you, and gracious in regard +to the creatures that are around. + +225. I will take leave on this head to read one more piece of Carlyle, +bearing much on present matters. "I hope also they will attack +earnestly, and at length extinguish and eradicate, this idle habit of +'accounting for the moral sense,' as they phrase it. A most singular +problem;--instead of bending every thought to have more, and ever more, +of 'moral sense,' and therewith to irradiate your own poor soul, and all +its work, into something of divineness, as the one thing needful to you +in this world! A very futile problem that other, my friends; futile, +idle, and far worse; leading to what moral ruin, you little dream of! +The moral sense, thank God, is a thing you never will 'account for;' +that, if you could think of it, is the perennial miracle of man; in all +times, visibly connecting poor transitory man, here on this bewildered +earth, with his Maker who is eternal in the heavens. By no greatest +happiness principle, greatest nobleness principle, or any principle +whatever, will you make that in the least clearer than it already +is;--forbear, I say, or you may darken it away from you altogether! +'Two things,' says the memorable Kant, deepest and most logical of +metaphysical thinkers, 'two things strike me dumb: the infinite starry +heavens; and the sense of right and wrong in man.' Visible infinites, +both; say nothing of them; don't try to 'account for them;' for you can +say nothing wise." + +226. Very briefly, I must touch one or two further relative conditions +in this natural history of the soul. I have asked you to take the +metaphorical, but distinct, word '[Greek: *chrisma*]' rather than +the direct but obscure one 'piety'; mainly because the Master of your +religion chose the metaphorical epithet for the perpetual one of His own +life and person. + +But if you will spend a thoughtful hour or two in reading the scripture, +which pious Greeks read, not indeed on daintily printed paper, but +on daintily painted clay,--if you will examine, that is to say, the +scriptures of the Athenian religion, on their Pan-Athenaic vases, in +their faithful days, you will find that the gift of the literal [Greek: +*chrisma*], or anointing oil, to the victor in the kingly and visible +contest of life, is signed always with the image of that spirit or +goddess of the air who was the source of their invisible life. And let +me, before quitting this part of my subject, give you one piece of what +you will find useful counsel. If ever from the right apothecary, or +[Greek: muropolaes]', you get any of that [Greek: *chrisma*],--don't be +careful, when you set it by, of looking for dead dragons or dead dogs in +it. But look out for the dead flies. + +227. Again; remember, I only quote St. Paul as I quote Xenophon to you; +but I expect you to get some good from both. As I want you to think what +Xenophon means by '[Greek: *manteia*],' so I want you to consider also +what St. Paul means by '[Greek: *prophetia*].' He tells you to prove all +things,--to hold fast what is good, and not to despise 'prophesyings.' + +228. Now it is quite literally probable, that this world, having now for +some five hundred years absolutely refused to do as it is plainly bid by +every prophet that ever spoke in any nation, and having reduced itself +therefore to Saul's condition, when he was answered neither by Urim +nor by prophets, may be now, while you sit there, receiving necromantic +answers from the witch of Endor. But with that possibility you have no +concern. There is a prophetic power in your own hearts, known to the +Greeks, known to the Jews, known to the Apostles, and knowable by you. +If it is now silent to you, do not despise it by tranquillity under that +privation; if it speaks to you, do not despise it by disobedience. + +229. Now in this broad definition of Pietas, as reverence to sentimental +law, you will find I am supported by all classical authority and use of +this word. For the particular meaning of which I am next about to use +the word Religion, there is no such general authority, nor can there be, +for any limited or accurate meaning of it. The best authors use the +word in various senses; and you must interpret each writer by his +own context. I have myself continually used the term vaguely. I shall +endeavour, henceforward, to use it under limitations which, willing +always to accept, I shall only transgress by carelessness, or compliance +with some particular use of the word by others. The power in the word, +then, which I wish you now to notice, is in its employment with respect +to doctrinal divisions. You do not say that one man is of one piety, +and another of another; but you do, that one man is of one religion, and +another of another. + +230. The religion of any man is thus properly to be interpreted, as the +feeling which binds him, irrationally, to the fulfilment of duties, or +acceptance of beliefs, peculiar to a certain company of which he forms +a member, as distinct from the rest of the world. 'Which binds him +_irrationally_,' I say;--by a feeling, at all events, apart from reason, +and often superior to it; such as that which brings back the bee to its +hive, and the bird to her nest. + +A man's religion is the form of mental rest, or dwelling-place, which, +partly, his fathers have gained or built for him, and partly, by due +reverence to former custom, he has built for himself; consisting of +whatever imperfect knowledge may have been granted, up to that time, in +the land of his birth, of the Divine character, presence, and dealings; +modified by the circumstances of surrounding life. + +It may be, that sudden accession of new knowledge may compel him to cast +his former idols to the moles and to the bats. But it must be some very +miraculous interposition indeed which can justify him in quitting +the religion of his forefathers; and, assuredly, it must be an unwise +interposition which provokes him to insult it. + +231. On the other hand, the value of religious ceremonial, and the +virtue of religious truth, consist in the meek fulfilment of the one as +the fond habit of a family; and the meek acceptance of the other, as +the narrow knowledge of a child. And both are destroyed at once, and the +ceremonial or doctrinal prejudice becomes only an occasion of sin, if +they make us either wise in our own conceit, or violent in our methods +of proselytism. Of those who will compass sea and land to make one +proselyte, it is too generally true that they are themselves the +children of hell, and make their proselytes twofold more so. + +232. And now I am able to state to you, in terms so accurately defined +that you cannot misunderstand them, that we are about to study the +results in Italy of the victory of an impious Christian over a pious +Infidel, in a contest which, if indeed principalities of evil spirit are +ever permitted to rule over the darkness of this world, was assuredly +by them wholly provoked, and by them finally decided. The war was not +actually ended until the battle of Tagliacozzo, fought in August, 1268; +but you need not recollect that irregular date, or remember it only as +three years after the great battle of Welcome, Benevento; which was the +decisive one. Recollect, therefore, securely: + + 1250. The First Trades Revolt in Florence. + 1260. Battle of the Arbia. + 1265. Battle of Welcome. + + +Then between the battle of Welcome and of Tagliacozzo, (which you might +almost English in the real meaning of it as the battle of Hart's Death: +'cozzo' is a butt or thrust with the horn, and you may well think of the +young Conradin as a wild hart or stag of the hills)--between those two +battles, in 1266, comes the second and central revolt of the trades in +Florence, of which I have to speak in next lecture. + +233. The two German princes who perished in these two battles--Manfred +of Tarentum, and his nephew and ward Conradin--are the natural son, +and the legitimate grandson of Frederick II.: they are also the last +assertors of the infidel German power in south Italy against the Church; +and in alliance with the Saracens; such alliance having been maintained +faithfully ever since Frederick II.'s triumphal entry into Jerusalem, +and cornation as its king. Not only a great number of Manfred's forts +were commanded by Saracen governors, but he had them also appointed over +civil tribunals. My own impression is that he found the Saracens more +just and trustworthy than the Christians; but it is proper to remember +the allegations of the Church against the whole Suabian family; namely, +that Manfred had smothered his father Frederick under cushions at +Ferentino; and that, of Frederick's sons, Conrad had poisoned Henry, +and Manfred had poisoned Conrad. You will, however, I believe, find the +Prince Manfred one of the purest representatives of northern chivalry. +Against his nephew, educated in all knightly accomplishment by his +mother, Elizabeth of Bavaria, nothing could be alleged by his enemies, +even when resolved on his death, but the splendour of his spirit and the +brightness of his youth. + +234. Of the character of their enemy, Charles of Anjou, there will +remain on your minds, after careful examination of his conduct, only +the doubt whether I am justified in speaking of him as Christian against +Infidel. But you will cease to doubt this when you have entirely entered +into the conditions of this nascent Christianity of the thirteenth +century. You will find that while men who desire to be virtuous receive +it as the mother of virtues, men who desire to be criminal receive it +as the forgiver of crimes; and that therefore, between Ghibelline or +Infidel cruelty, and Guelph or Christian cruelty, there is always this +difference,--that the Infidel cruelty is done in hot blood, and the +Christian's in cold. I hope (in future lectures on the architecture of +Pisa) to illustrate to you the opposition between the Ghibelline Conti, +counts, and the Guelphic Visconti, viscounts or "against counts," which +issues, for one thing, in that, by all men blamed as too deliberate, +death of the Count Ugolino della Gherardesca. The Count Ugolino was +a traitor, who entirely deserved death; but another Count of Pisa, +entirely faithful to the Ghibelline cause, was put to death by Charles +of Anjou, not only in cold blood, but with resolute infliction of +Ugolino's utmost grief;--not in the dungeon, but in the full light of +day--his son being first put to death before his eyes. And among the +pieces of heraldry most significant in the middle ages, the asp on the +shield of the Guelphic viscounts is to be much remembered by you as a +sign of this merciless cruelty of mistaken religion; mistaken, but not +in the least hypocritical. It has perfect confidence in itself, and +can answer with serenity for all its deeds. The serenity of heart never +appears in the guilty Infidels; they die in despair or gloom, greatly +satisfactory to adverse religious minds. + +235. The French Pope, then, Urban of Troyes, had sent for Charles of +Anjou; who would not have answered his call, even with all the strength +of Anjou and Provence, had not Scylla of the Tyrrhene Sea been on his +side. Pisa, with eighty galleys (the Sicilian fleet added to her own), +watched and defended the coasts of Rome. An irresistible storm drove her +fleet to shelter; and Charles, in a single ship, reached the mouth of +the Tiber, and found lodgings at Rome in the convent of St. Paul. His +wife meanwhile spent her dowry in increasing his land army, and led it +across the Alps. How he had got his wife, and her dowry, we must hear in +Villani's words, as nearly as I can give their force in English, only, +instead of the English word pilgrim, I shall use the Italian 'romeo' for +the sake both of all English Juliets, and that you may better understand +the close of the sixth canto of the Paradise. + +236. "Now the Count Raymond Berenger had for his inheritance all +Provence on this side Rhone; and he was a wise and courteous signor, +and of noble state, and virtuous; and in his time they did honourable +things; and to his court came by custom all the gentlemen of Provence, +and France, and Catalonia, for his courtesy and noble state; and there +they made many cobbled verses, and Provencal songs of great sentences." + +237. I must stop to tell you that 'cobbled' or 'coupled' verses mean +rhymes, as opposed to the dull method of Latin verse; for we have now +got an ear for jingle, and know that dove rhymes to love. Also, "songs +of great sentences" mean didactic songs, containing much in little, +(like the new didactic Christian painting,) of which an example (though +of a later time) will give you a better idea than any description. + + "Vraye foy de necessite, + Non tant seulement d'equite, + Nous fait de Dieu sept choses croire: + C'est sa doulce nativite, + Son baptesme d'humilite, + Et sa mort, digne de memoire: + Son descens en la chartre noire, + Et sa resurrection, voire; + S'ascencion d'auctorite, + La venue judicatoire, + Ou ly bons seront mis en gloire, + Et ly mals en adversite." + + +238. "And while they were making these cobbled verses and harmonious +creeds, there came a romeo to court, returning from the shrine of St. +James." I must stop again just to say that he ought to have been +called a pellegrino, not a romeo, for the three kinds of wanderers +are,--Palmer, one who goes to the Holy Land; Pilgrim, one who goes to +Spain; and Romeo, one who goes to Rome. Probably this romeo had been to +both. "He stopped at Count Raymond's court, and was so wise and worthy +(valoroso), and so won the Count's grace, that he made him his master +and guide in all things. Who also, maintaining himself in honest and +religious customs of life, in a little time, by his industry and good +sense, doubled the Count's revenues three times over, maintaining always +a great and honoured court. Now the Count had four daughters, and no +son; and by the sense and provision of the good romeo--(I can do no +better than translate 'procaccio' provision, but it is only a makeshift +for the word derived from procax, meaning the general talent of prudent +impudence, in getting forward; 'forwardness,' has a good deal of the +true sense, only diluted;)--well, by the sense and--progressive +faculty, shall we say?--of the good pilgrim, he first married the eldest +daughter, by means of money, to the good King Louis of France, saying to +the Count, 'Let me alone,--Lascia-mi-fare--and never mind the expense, +for if you marry the first one well, I'll marry you all the others +cheaper, for her relationship." + +239. "And so it fell out, sure enough; for incontinently the King of +England (Henry III.) because he was the King of France's relation, took +the next daughter, Eleanor, for very little money indeed; next, his +natural brother, elect King of the Romans, took the third; and, the +youngest still remaining unmarried,--says the good romeo, 'Now for this +one, I will you to have a strong man for son-in-law, who shall be thy +heir;'--and so he brought it to pass. For finding Charles, Count of +Anjou, brother of the King Louis, he said to Raymond, "'Give her now to +him, for his fate is to be the best man in the world,'--prophesying of +him. And so it was done. And after all this it came to pass, by envy +which ruins all good, that the barons of Provence became jealous of the +good romeo, and accused him to the Count of having ill-guided his goods, +and made Raymond demand account of them. Then the good romeo said, +'Count, I have served thee long, and have put thee from little state +into mighty, and for this, by false counsel of thy people, thou art +little grateful. I came into thy court a poor romeo; I have lived +honestly on thy means; now, make to be given to me my little mule and +my staff and my wallet, as I came, and I will make thee quit of all my +service.' The Count would not he should go; but for nothing would he +stay; and so he came, and so he departed, that no one ever knew whence +he had come, nor whither he went. It was the thought of many that he was +indeed a sacred spirit." + +240. This pilgrim, you are to notice, is put by Dante in the orb of +justice, as a just servant; the Emperor Justinian being the image of a +just ruler. Justinian's law-making turned out well for England; but the +good romeo's match-making ended ill for it; and for Borne, and Naples +also. For Beatrice of Provence resolved to be a queen like her three +sisters, and was the prompting spirit of Charles's expedition to Italy. +She was crowned with him, Queen of Apulia and Sicily, on the day of the +Epiphany, 1265; she and her husband bringing gifts that day of magical +power enough; and Charles, as soon as the feast of coronation was over, +set out to give battle to Manfred and his Saracens. "And this Charles," +says Villani, "was wise, and of sane counsel; and of prowess in arms, +and fierce, and much feared and redoubted by all the kings in the +world;--magnanimous and of high purposes; fearless in the carrying forth +of every great enterprise; firm in every adversity; a verifier of his +every word; speaking little,--doing much; and scarcely ever laughed, +and then but a little; sincere, and without flaw, as a religious and +catholic person; stern in justice, and fierce in look; tall and nervous +in person, olive coloured, and with a large nose, and well he appeared a +royal majesty more than other men. Much he watched, and little he slept; +and used to say that so much time as one slept, one lost; generous to +his men-at-arms, but covetous to acquire land, signory, and coin, +come how it would, to furnish his enterprises and wars: in courtiers, +servants of pleasure, or jocular persons, he delighted never." + +241. To this newly crowned and resolute king, riding south from Rome, +Manfred, from his vale of Nocera under Mount St. Augelo, sends to offer +conditions of peace. Jehu the son of Nimshi is not swifter of answer +to Ahaziah's messenger than the fiery Christian king, in his 'What hast +thou to do with peace?' Charles answers the messengers with his own +lips: "Tell the Sultan of Nocera, this day I will put him in hell, or he +shall put me in paradise." + +242. Do not think it the speech of a hypocrite. Charles was as fully +prepared for death that day as ever Scotch Covenanter fighting for his +Holy League; and as sure that death would find him, if it found, only +to glorify and bless. Balfour of Burley against Claverhouse is not more +convinced in heart that he draws the sword of the Lord and of Gideon. +But all the knightly pride of Claverhouse himself is knit together, in +Charles, with fearless faith, and religious wrath. "This Saracen scum, +led by a bastard German,--traitor to his creed, usurper among his +race,--dares it look me, a Christian knight, a prince of the house of +France, in the eyes? Tell the Sultan of Nocera, to-day I put him in +hell, or he puts me in paradise." + +They are not passionate words neither; any more than hypocritical ones. +They are measured, resolute, and the fewest possible. He never wasted +words, nor showed his mind, but when he meant it should be known. + +243. The messenger returned, thus answered; and the French king rode +on with his host. Manfred met him in the plain of Grandella, before +Benevento. I have translated the name of the fortress 'Welcome.' It was +altered, as you may remember, from Maleventum, for better omen; +perhaps, originally, only [Greek: *maloeis*]--a rock full of wild +goats?--associating it thus with the meaning of Tagliacozzo. + +244. Charles divided his army into four companies. The captain of his +own was our English Guy de Montfort, on whom rested the power and the +fate of his grandfather, the pursuer of the Waldensian shepherds among +the rocks of the wild goats. The last, and it is said the goodliest, +troop was of the exiled Guelphs of Florence, under Guido Guerra, whose +name you already know. "These," said Manfred, as he watched them ride +into their ranks, "cannot lose to-day." He meant that if he himself was +the victor, he would restore these exiles to their city. The event +of the battle was decided by the treachery of the Count of Caserta, +Manfred's brother-in-law. At the end of the day only a few knights +remained with him, whom he led in the last charge. As he helmed himself, +the crest fell from his helmet. "Hoc est signum Dei," he said,--so +accepting what he saw to be the purpose of the Ruler of all things; +not claiming God as his friend. not asking anything of Him, as if His +purpose could be changed; not fearing Him as an enemy; but accepting +simply His sign that the appointed day of death was come. He rode into +the battle armed like a nameless soldier, and lay unknown among the +dead. + +245. And in him died all southern Italy. Never, after that day's +treachery, did her nobles rise, or her people prosper. + +Of the finding of the body of Manfred, and its casting forth, accursed, +you may read, if you will, the story in Dante. I trace for you +to-day rapidly only the acts of Charles after this victory, and its +consummation, three years later, by the defeat of Conradin. + +The town of Benevento had offered no resistance to Charles, but he +gave it up to pillage, and massacred its inhabitants. The slaughter, +indiscriminate, continued for eight days; the women and children were +slain with the men, being of Saracen blood. Manfred's wife, Sybil of +Epirus, his children, and all his barons, died, or were put to death, +in the prisons of Provence. With the young Conrad, all the faithful +Ghibel-line knights of Pisa were put to death. The son of Frederick of +Antioch, who drove the Guelphs from Florence, had his eyes torn out, and +was hanged, he being the last child of the house of Suabia. Twenty-four +of the barons of Calabria were executed at Gallipoli, and at +Home. Charles cut off the feet of those who had fought for Conrad; +then--fearful lest they should be pitied--shut them into a house +of wood, and burned them. His lieutenant in Sicily, William of the +Standard, besieged the town of Augusta, which defended itself with some +fortitude, but was betrayed, and all its inhabitants, (who must have +been more than three thousand, for there were a thousand able to bear +arms,) massacred in cold blood; the last of them searched for in their +hiding-places, when the streets were empty, dragged to the sea-shore, +then beheaded, and their bodies thrown into the sea. Throughout Calabria +the Christian judges of Charles thus forgave his enemies. And the +Mohammedan power and heresy ended in Italy, and she became secure in her +Catholic creed. + +246. Not altogether secure under French dominion. After fourteen years +of misery, Sicily sang her angry vespers, and a Calabrian admiral burnt +the fleet of Charles before his eyes, where Scylla rules her barking +Salamis. But the French king died in prayerful peace, receiving the +sacrament with these words of perfectly honest faith, as he reviewed his +past life: "Lord God, as I truly believe that you are my Saviour, so I +pray you to have mercy on my soul; and as I truly made the conquest of +Sicily more to serve the Holy Church than for my own covetousness, so I +pray you to pardon my sins." + +247. You are to note the two clauses of this prayer. He prays absolute +mercy, on account of his faith in Christ; but remission of purgatory, in +proportion to the quantity of good work he has done, or meant to do, +as against evil. You are so much wiser in these days, you think, not +believing in purgatory; and so much more benevolent,--not massacring +women and children. But we must not be too proud of not believing in +purgatory, unless we are quite sure of our real desire to be purified: +and as to our not massacring children, it is true that an English +gentleman will not now himself willingly put a knife into the throat +either of a child or a lamb; but he will kill any quantity of children +by disease in order to increase his rents, as unconcernedly as he +will eat any quantity of mutton. And as to absolute massacre, I do not +suppose a child feels so much pain in being killed as a full-grown man, +and its life is of less value to it. No pain either of body or thought +through which you could put an infant, would be comparable to that of +a good son, or a faithful lover, dying slowly of a painful wound at a +distance from a family dependent upon him, or a mistress devoted to him. +But the victories of Charles, and the massacres, taken in sum, would not +give a muster-roll of more than twenty thousand dead; men, women, and +children counted all together. On the plains of France, since I first +began to speak to you on the subject of the arts of peace, at least five +hundred thousand men, in the prime of life, have been massacred by +the folly of one Christian emperor, the insolence of another, and the +mingling of mean rapacity with meaner vanity, which Christian nations +now call 'patriotism.' + +248. But that the Crusaders, (whether led by St. Louis or by his +brother,) who habitually lived by robbery, and might be swiftly enraged +to murder, were still too savage to conceive the spirit or the character +of this Christ whose cross they wear, I have again and again alleged to +you; not, I imagine, without question from many who have been accustomed +to look to these earlier ages as authoritative in doctrine, if not in +example. We alike err in supposing them more spiritual or more dark, +than our own. They had not yet attained to the knowledge which we have +despised, nor dispersed from their faith the shadows with which we have +again overclouded ours. + +Their passions, tumultuous and merciless as the Tyrrhene Sea, raged +indeed with the danger, but also with the uses, of naturally appointed +storm; while ours, pacific in corruption, languish in vague maremma of +misguided pools; and are pestilential most surely as they retire. + + + + + LECTURE X. + + FLEUR DE LYS. + + 249. Through all the tempestuous winter which during the period of +history we have been reviewing, weakened, in their war with the opposed +rocks of religious or knightly pride, the waves of the Tuscan Sea, +there has been slow increase of the Favonian power which is to bring +fruitfulness to the rock, peace to the wave. The new element which is +introduced in the thirteenth century, and perfects for a little time the +work of Christianity, at least in some few chosen souls, is the law of +Order and Charity, of intellectual and moral virtue, which it now became +the function of every great artist to teach, and of every true citizen +to maintain. + +250. I have placed on your table one of the earliest existing engravings +by a Florentine hand, representing the conception which the national +mind formed of this spirit of order and tranquillity, "Cosmico," or the +Equity of Kosmos, not by senseless attraction, but by spiritual thought +and law. He stands pointing with his left hand to the earth, set only +with tufts of grass; in his right hand he holds the ordered system of +the universe--heaven and earth in one orb;--the heaven made cosmic by +the courses of its stars; the earth cosmic by + +[Illustration: PLATE IX.--THE CHARGE TO ADAM. MODERN ITALIAN. ] + +the seats of authority and fellowship,--castles on the hills and cities +in the plain. + +251. The tufts of grass under the feet of this figure will appear +to you, at first, grotesquely formal. But they are only the simplest +expression, in such herbage, of the subjection of all vegetative force +to this law of order, equity, or symmetry, which, made by the Greek the +principal method of his current vegetative sculpture, subdues it, in the +hand of Cora or Triptolemus, into the merely triple sceptre, or animates +it, in Florence, to the likeness of the Fleur-de-lys. + +252. I have already stated to you that if any definite flower is meant +by these triple groups of leaves, which take their authoritatively +typical form in the crowns of the Cretan and Laciuian Hera, it is +not the violet, but the purple iris; or sometimes, as in Pindar's +description of the birth of Ismus, the yellow water-flag, which you +know so well in spring, by the banks of your Oxford streams. [1] But, +in general, it means simply the springing of beautiful and orderly +vegetation in fields upon which the dew falls pure. It is the +expression, therefore, of peace on the redeemed and cultivated earth, +and of the pleasure of heaven in the uncareful happiness of men clothed +without labour, and fed without fear. + +[Footnote 1: In the catalogues of the collection of drawings in this +room, and in my "Queen of the Air" you will find all that I would ask +you to notice about the various names and kinds of the flower, and their +symbolic use.--Note only, with respect to our present purpose, that +while the true white lily is placed in the hands of the Angel of the +Annunciation even by Florentine artists, in their general design, +the fleur-de-lys is given to him by Giovaiini Pisano on the facade of +Orvieto; and that the flower in the crown-circlets of European kings +answers, as I stated to you in my lecture on the Corona, to the +Narcissus fillet of early Greece; the crown of abundance and rejoicing.] + +253. In the passage, so often read by us, which announces the advent of +Christianity as the dawn of peace on earth, we habitually neglect great +part of the promise, owing to the false translation of the second clause +of the sentence. I cannot understand how it should be still needful to +point out to you here in Oxford that neither the Greek words [Greek: +*"en anthriopois evdokia,"*] nor those of the vulgate, "in terra pax +hominibus bonae voluntatis," in the slightest degree justify our English +words, "goodwill to men." + +Of God's goodwill to men, and to all creatures, for ever, there needed +no proclamation by angels. But that men should be able to please +_Him_,--that their wills should be made holy, and they should not only +possess peace in themselves, but be able to give joy to their God, +in the sense in which He afterwards is pleased with His own baptized +Son;--this was a new thing for Angels to declare, and for shepherds to +believe. + +254. And the error was made yet more fatal by its repetition in a +passage of parallel importance,--the thanksgiving, namely, offered by +Christ, that His Father, while He had hidden what it was best to know, +not from the wise and prudent, but from some among the wise and prudent, +and had revealed it unto babes; not 'for so it seemed good' in His +sight, but 'that there might be well pleasing in His sight,'--namely, +that the wise and simple might equally live in the necessary knowledge, +and enjoyed presence, of God. And if, having accurately read these vital +passages, you then as carefully consider the tenour of the two songs of +human joy in the birth of Christ, the Magnificat, and the Nunc dimittis, +you will find the theme of both to be, not the newness of blessing, but +the equity which disappoints the cruelty and humbles the strength of +men; which scatters the proud in the imagination of their hearts; which +fills the hungry with good things; and is not only the glory of Israel, +but the light of the Gentiles. + +255. As I have been writing these paragraphs, I have been checking +myself almost at every word,--wondering, Will they be restless on their +seats at this, and thinking all the while that they did not come here +to be lectured on Divinity? You may have been a little impatient,--how +could it well be otherwise? Had I been explaining points of anatomy, +and showing you how you bent your necks and straightened your legs, you +would have thought me quite in my proper function; because then, when +you went with a party of connoisseurs through the Vatican, you could +point out to them the insertion of the clavicle in the Apollo Belvidere; +and in the Sistine Chapel the perfectly accurate delineation of the +tibia in the legs of Christ. Doubtless; but you know I am lecturing at +present on the goffi, and not on Michael Angelo; and the goffi are +very careless about clavicles and shin-bones; so that if, after being +lectured on anatomy, you went into the Campo Santo of Pisa, you would +simply find nothing to look at, except three tolerably well-drawn +skeletons. But if after being lectured on theology, you go into the +Campo Santo of Pisa, you will find not a little to look at, and to +remember. + +256. For a single instance, you know Michael Angelo is admitted to have +been so far indebted to these goffi as to borrow from the one to whose +study of mortality I have just referred, Orcagna, the gesture of his +Christ in the Judgment, He borrowed, however, accurately speaking, +the position only, not the gesture; nor the meaning of it. [1] You all +remember the action of Michael Angelo's Christ,--the right hand raised +as if in violence of reprobation; and the left closed across His breast, +as refusing all mercy. The action is one which appeals to persons +of very ordinary sensations, and is very naturally adopted by the +Renaissance painter, both for its popular effect, and its +capabilities for the exhibition of his surgical science. But the old +painter-theologian, though indeed he showed the right hand of Christ +lifted, and the left hand laid across His breast, had another meaning +in the actions. The fingers of the left hand are folded, in both the +figures; but in Michael Angelo's as if putting aside an appeal; in +Orcagna's, the fingers are bent to draw back the drapery from the +right side. The right hand is raised by Michael Angelo as in anger; +by Orcagna, only to show the wounded palm. And as, to the believing +disciples, He showed them His hands and His side, so that they were +glad,--so, to the unbelievers, at their judgment, He shows the wounds in +hand and side. They shall look on Him whom they pierced. + +[Footnote: I found all this in M. Didron's Iconographie, above quoted; I +had never noticed the difference between the two figures myself.] + +257. And thus, as we follow our proposed examination of the arts of the +Christian centuries, our understanding of their work will be absolutely +limited by the degree of our sympathy with the religion which our +fathers have bequeathed to us. You cannot interpret classic marbles +without knowing and loving your Pindar and AEschylus, neither can you +interpret Christian pictures without knowing and loving your Isaiah and +Matthew. And I shall have continually to examine texts of the one as +I would verses of the other; nor must you retract yourselves from +the labour in suspicion that I desire to betray your scepticism, or +undermine your positivism, because I recommend to you the accurate study +of books which have hitherto been the light of the world. + +258. The change, then, in the minds of their readers at this date, +which rendered it possible for them to comprehend the full purport of +Christianity, was in the rise of the new desire for equity and rest, +amidst what had hitherto been mere lust for spoil, and joy in battle. +The necessity for justice was felt in the now extending commerce; the +desire of rest in the now pleasant and fitly furnished habitation; and +the energy which formerly could only be satisfied in strife, now found +enough both of provocation and antagonism in the invention of art, and +the forces of nature. I have in this course of lectures endeavoured to +fasten your attention on the Florentine Revolution of 1250, because its +date is so easily memorable, and it involves the principles of every +subsequent one, so as to lay at once the foundations of whatever +greatness Florence afterwards achieved by her mercantile and civic +power. But I must not close even this slight sketch of the central +history of Val d'Aruo without requesting you, as you find time, to +associate in your minds, with this first revolution, the effects of two +which followed it, being indeed necessary parts of it, in the latter +half of the century. + +259. Remember then that the first, in 1250, is embryonic; and the +significance of it is simply the establishment of order, and justice +against violence and iniquity. It is equally against the power of +knights and priests, so far as either are unjust,--not otherwise. + +When Manfred fell at Benevento, his lieutenant, the Count Guido Novello, +was in command of Florence. He was just, but weak; and endeavoured +to temporize with the Guelphs. His effort ought to be notable to you, +because it was one of the wisest and most far-sighted ever made in +Italy; but it failed for want of resolution, as the gentlest and best +men are too apt to fail. He brought from Bologna two knights of the +order--then recently established--of joyful brethren; afterwards too +fatally corrupted, but at this time pure in purpose. They constituted +an order of chivalry which was to maintain peace, obey the Church, and +succour widows and orphans; but to be bound by no monastic vows. Of +these two knights, he chose one Guelph, the other Ghibelline; and under +their balanced power Gruido hoped to rank the forces of the civil, +manufacturing, and trading classes, divided into twelve corporations of +higher and lower arts. [1] But the moment this beautiful arrangement was +made, all parties--Guelph, Ghibelline, and popular,--turned unanimously +against Count Guido Novello. The benevolent but irresolute captain +indeed gathered his men into the square of the Trinity; but the people +barricaded the streets issuing from it; and Guido, heartless, and +unwilling for civil warfare, left the city with his Germans in good +order. And so ended the incursion of the infidel Tedeschi for this time. +The Florentines then dismissed the merry brothers whom the Tedeschi had +set over them, and besought help from Orvieto and Charles of Anjou; who +sent them Guy de Montfort and eight hundred French riders; the blessing +of whose presence thus, at their own request, was granted them on Easter +Day, 1267. + +[Footnote: The seven higher arts were, Lawyers, Physicians, Bankers, +Merchants of Foreign Goods, Wool Manufacturers, Silk Manufacturers, +Furriers. The five lower arts were, Retail Sellers of Cloth, Butchers, +Shoemakers, Masons and Carpenters, Smiths.] + +On Candlemas, if you recollect, 1251, they open their gates to the +Germans; and on Easter, 1267, to the French. + +260. Remember, then, this revolution, as coming between the battles of +Welcome and Tagliacozzo; and that it expresses the lower revolutionary +temper of the trades, with English and French assistance. Its +immediate result was the appointment of five hundred and sixty +lawyers, woolcombers, and butchers, to deliberate upon all State +questions,--under which happy ordinances you will do well, in your own +reading, to leave Florence, that you may watch, for a while, darling +little Pisa, all on fire for the young Conradin. She sent ten vessels +across the Gulf of Genoa to fetch him; received his cavalry in her +plain of Sarzana; and putting five thousand of her own best sailors into +thirty ships, sent them to do what they could, all down the coast of +Italy. Down they went; startling Gaeta with an attack as they passed; +found Charles of Anjou's French and Sicilian fleet at Messina, fought +it, beat it, and burned twenty-seven of its ships. + +261. Meantime, the Florentines prospered as they might with their +religious-democratic constitution,--until the death, in the odour of +sanctity, of Charles of Anjou, and of that Pope Martin IV. whose tomb +was destroyed with Urban's at Perugia. Martin died, as you may remember, +of eating Bolsena eels,--that being his share in the miracles of the +lake; and you will do well to remember at the same time, that the price +of the lake eels was three soldi a pound; and that Niccola of Pisa +worked at Siena for six soldi a day, and his son Giovanni for four. + +262. And as I must in this place bid farewell, for a time, to Niccola +and to his son, let me remind you of the large commission which the +former received on the occasion of the battle of Tagliacozzo, and +its subsequent massacres, when the victor, Charles, having to his own +satisfaction exterminated the seed of infidelity, resolves, both in +thanksgiving, and for the sake of the souls of the slain knights for +whom some hope might yet be religiously entertained, to found an abbey +on the battle-field. In which purpose he sent for Niccola to Naples, and +made him build on the field of Tagliacozzo, a church and abbey of the +richest; and caused to be buried therein the infinite number of the +bodies of those who died in that battle day; ordering farther, that, +by many monks, prayer should be made for their souls, night and day. +In which fabric the king was so pleased with Niccola's work that he +rewarded and honoured him highly. + +263. Do you not begin to wonder a little more what manner of man this +Nicholas was, who so obediently throws down the towers which offend the +Ghibelliues, and so skilfully puts up the pinnacles which please the +Guelphs? A passive power, seemingly, he;--plastic in the hands of any +one who will employ him to build, or to throw down. On what exists of +evidence, demonstrably in these years here is the strongest brain of +Italy, thus for six shilling a day doing what it is bid. + +264. I take farewell of him then, for a little time, ratifying to you, +as far as my knowledge permits, the words of my first master in Italian +art, Lord Lindsay. + +"In comparing the advent of Niccola Pisano to that of the sun at his +rising, I am conscious of no exaggeration; on the contrary, it is the +only simile by which I can hope to give you an adequate impression of +his brilliancy and power relatively to the age in which he flourished. +Those sons of Erebus, the American Indians, fresh from their traditional +subterranean world, and gazing for the first time on the gradual +dawning of the day in the East, could not have been more dazzled, more +astounded, when the sun actually appeared, than the popes and podestas, +friars and freemasons must have been in the thirteenth century, when +from among the Biduinos, Bonannos, and Antealmis of the twelfth, Niccola +emerged in his glory, sovereign and supreme, a fount of light, diffusing +warmth and radiance over Christendom. It might be too much to parallel +him in actual genius with Dante and Shakspeare; they stand alone and +unapproachable, each on his distinct pinnacle of the temple of Christian +song; and yet neither of them can boast such extent and durability +of influence, for whatever of highest excellence has been achieved in +sculpture and painting, not in Italy only, but throughout Europe, has +been in obedience to the impulse he primarily gave, and in following up +the principle which he first struck out. + +"His latter days were spent in repose at Pisa, but the precise year of +his death is uncertain; Vasari fixes it in 1275; it could not have been +much later. He was buried in the Campo Santo. Of his personal character +we, alas! know nothing; even Shakspeare is less a stranger to us. But +that it was noble, simple, and consistent, and free from the petty +foibles that too frequently beset genius, may be fairly presumed from +the works he has left behind him, and from the eloquent silence of +tradition." + +265. Of the circumstances of Niccola Pisano's death, or the ceremonials +practised at it, we are thus left in ignorance. + +The more exemplary death of Charles of Aujou took place on the 7th of +January, then, 1285; leaving the throne of Naples to a boy of twelve; +and that of Sicily, to a Prince of Spain. Various discord, between +French, Spanish, and Calabrese vices, thenceforward paralyzes South +Italy, and Florence becomes the leading power of the Guelph faction. +She had been inflamed and pacified through continual paroxysms of civil +quarrel during the decline of Charles's power; but, throughout, the +influence of the nobles declines, by reason of their own folly and +insolence; while the people, though with no small degree of folly and +insolence on their own side, keep hold of their main idea of justice. +In the meantime, similar assertions of law against violence, and the +nobility of useful occupation, as compared with that of idle rapine, +take place in Bologna, Siena, and even at Rome, where Bologna sends her +senator, Branca Leone, (short for Branca-di-Leone, Lion's Grip,) whose +inflexible and rightly guarded reign of terror to all evil and thievish +persons, noble or other, is one of the few passages of history during +the middle ages, in which the real power of civic virtue may be seen +exercised without warping by party spirit, or weakness of vanity or +fear. + +266. And at last, led by a noble, Giano della Bella, the people of +Florence write and establish their final condemnation of noblesse +living by rapine, those 'Ordinamenti della Giustizia,' which practically +excluded all idle persons from government, and determined that the +priors, or leaders of the State, should be priors, or leaders of its +arts and productive labour; that its head 'podesta' or 'power' should be +the standard-bearer of justice; and its council or parliament composed +of charitable men, or good men: "boni viri," in the sense from which the +French formed their noun 'bonte.' + +The entire governing body was thus composed, first, of the Podestas, +standard-bearer of justice; then of his military captain; then of +his lictor, or executor; then of the twelve priors of arts and +liberties--properly, deliberators on the daily occupations, interests, +and pleasures of the body politic;--and, finally, of the parliament of +"kind men," whose business was to determine what kindness could be shown +to other states, by way of foreign policy. + +267. So perfect a type of national government has only once been reached +in the history of the human race. And in spite of the seeds of evil in +its own impatience, and in the gradually increasing worldliness of the +mercantile body; in spite of the hostility of the angry soldier, and +the malignity of the sensual priest, this government gave to Europe the +entire cycle of Christian art, properly so called, and every highest +Master of labour, architectural, scriptural, or pictorial, practised +in true understanding of the faith of Christ;--Orcagna, Giotto, +Brunelleschi, Lionardo, Luini as his pupil, Lippi, Luca, Angelico, +Botticelli, and Michael Angelo. + +268. I have named two men, in this group, whose names are more familiar +to your ears than any others, Angelico and Michael Angelo;--who yet are +absent from my list of those whose works I wish you to study, being +both extravagant in their enthusiasm,--the one for the nobleness of the +spirit, and the other for that of the flesh. I name them now, because +the gifts each had were exclusively Florentine; in whatever they have +become to the mind of Europe since, they are utterly children of the Val +d'Arno. + +269. You are accustomed, too carelessly, to think of Angelico as a +child of the Church, rather than of Florence. He was born in l387,--just +eleven years, that is to say, after the revolt of Florence _against_ the +Church, and ten after the endeavour of the Church to recover her power +by the massacres of Faenza and Cesena. A French and English army of +pillaging riders were on the other side of the Alps,--six thousand +strong; the Pope sent for it; Robert Cardinal of Geneva brought it into +Italy. The Florentines fortified their Apennines against it; but it took +winter quarters at Cesena, where the Cardinal of Geneva massacred five +thousand persons in a day, and the children and sucklings were literally +dashed against the stones. + +270. That was the school which the Christian Church had prepared for +their brother Angelica. But Fesole, secluding him in the shade of her +mount of Olives, and Florence revealing to him the true voice of his +Master, in the temple of St. Mary of the Flower, taught him his lesson +of peace on earth, and permitted him his visions of rapture in heaven. +And when the massacre of Cesena was found to have been in vain, and the +Church was compelled to treat with the revolted cities who had united to +mourn for her victories, Florence sent her a living saint, Catherine of +Siena, for her political Ambassador. + +271. Of Michael Angelo I need not tell you: of the others, we will read +the lives, and think over them one by one; the great fact which I +have written this course of lectures to enforce upon your minds is the +dependence of all the arts on the virtue of the State, and its kindly +order. + +The absolute mind and state of Florence, for the seventy years of her +glory, from 1280 to 1350, you find quite simply and literally described +in the ll2th Psalm, of which I read you the descriptive verses, in the +words in which they sang it, from this typically perfect manuscript of +the time:-- + + Gloria et divitie in domo ejus, justitia ejus manet in seculum seculi. + Exortum est in tenebris lumen reotis, misericors, et miserator, et +Justus. Jocundus homo, qui miseretur, et commodat: disponet sermones suos in +judicio. Dispersit, dedit pauperibus; justitia ejus manet in seculum seculi; + cornu ejus exaltabitur in gloria. + + +I translate simply, praying you to note as the true one, the _literal_ +meaning of every word:-- + + Glory and riches are in his house. His justice remains for ever. + Light is risen in darkness for the straightforward people. + He is merciful in heart, merciful in deed, and just. + A jocund man; who is merciful, and lends. + He will dispose his words in judgment. + He hath dispersed. He hath given to the poor. His justice remain! + for ever. His horn shall be exalted in glory. + + +272. With vacillating, but steadily prevailing effort, the Florentines +maintained this life and character for full half a century. + +You will please now look at my staff of the year 1300, [Footnote: Page +33 in my second lecture on Engraving.] adding the names of Dante and +Orcagna, having each their separate masterful or prophetic function. + +That is Florence's contribution to the intellectual work of the world +during these years of justice. Now, the promise of Christianity is given +with lesson from the fleur-de-lys: Seek ye first the royalty of God, and +His justice, "and all these things," material wealth, "shall be added +unto you." It is a perfectly clear, perfectly literal,--never failing +and never unfulfilled promise. There is no instance in the whole cycle +of history of its not being accomplished,--fulfilled to the uttermost, +with full measure, pressed down, and running over. + +273. Now hear what Florence was, and what wealth she had got by her +justice. In the year 1330, before she fell, she had within her walls +a hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants, of whom all the +men--(laity)--between the ages of fifteen and seventy, were ready at +an instant to go out to war, under their banners, in number twenty-four +thousand. The army of her entire territory was eighty thousand; and +within it she counted fifteen hundred noble, families, every one +absolutely submissive to her gonfalier of justice. She had within her +walls a hundred and ten churches, seven priories, and thirty hospitals +for the sick and poor; of foreign guests, on the average, fifteen +hundred, constantly. From eight to ten thousand children were taught to +read in her schools. The town was surrounded by some fifty square miles +of uninterrupted garden, of olive, corn, vine, lily, and rose. + +And the monetary existence of England and France depended upon her +wealth. Two of her bankers alone had lent Edward III. of England five +millions of money (in sterling value of this present hour). + +274. On the 10th of March, 1337, she was first accused, with truth, of +selfish breach of treaties. On the l0th of April, all her merchants in +France were imprisoned by Philip Valois; and presently afterwards Edward +of England failed, quite in your modern style, for his five millions. +These money losses would have been nothing to her; but on the 7th +of August, the captain of her army, Pietro de' Rossi of Parma, the +unquestioned best knight in Italy, received a chance spear-stroke before +Monselice, and died next day. He was the Bayard of Italy; and greater +than Bayard, because living in a nobler time. He never had failed in +any military enterprise, nor ever stained success with cruelty or +shame. Even the German troops under him loved him without bounds. To his +companions he gave gifts with such largesse, that his horse and armour +were all that at any time he called his own. Beautiful and pure as Sir +Galahad, all that was brightest in womanhood watched and honoured him. + +And thus, 8th August, 1337, he went to his own place.--To-day I trace +the fall of Florence no more. + +I will review the points I wish you to remember; and briefly meet, so +far as I can, the questions which I think should occur to you. + +275. I have named Edward III. as our heroic type of Franchise. And yet +I have but a minute ago spoken of him as 'failing' in quite your modern +manner. I must correct my expression:--he had no intent of failing when +he borrowed; and did not spend his money on himself. Nevertheless, I +gave him as an example of frankness; but by no means of honesty. He is +simply the boldest and royalest of Free Riders; the campaign of Crecy +is, throughout, a mere pillaging foray. And the first point I wish +you to notice is the difference in the pecuniary results of living by +robbery, like Edward III., or by agriculture and just commerce, like the +town of Florence. That Florence can lend five millions to the King of +England, and loose them with little care, is the result of her olive +gardens and her honesty. Now hear the financial phenomena attending +military exploits, and a life of pillage. + +276. I give you them in this precise year, 1338, in which the King of +England failed to the Florentines. + +"He obtained from the prelates, barons, and knights of the + +[Illustration: PLATE X.--THE NATIVITY. GIOVANNI PISANO. ] + +shires, one half of their wool for this year--a very valuable and +extraordinary grant. He seized all the tin "(above-ground, you mean Mr. +Henry!)" in Cornwall and Devonshire, took possession of the lands of all +priories alien, and of the money, jewels, and valuable effects of the +Lombard merchants. He demanded certain quantities of bread, corn, oats, +and bacon, from each county; borrowed their silver plate from many +abbeys, as well as great sums of money both abroad and at home; and +pawned his crown for fifty thousand florins." [1] + +[Footnote 1: Henry's "History of England," book iv., chap. i.] + +He pawns his queen's jewels next year; and finally summons all the +gentlemen of England who had forty pounds a year, to come and receive +the honour of knighthood, or pay to be excused! + +277. II. The failures of Edward, or of twenty Edwards, would have +done Florence no harm, had she remained true to herself, and to her +neighbouring states. Her merchants only fall by their own increasing +avarice; and above all by the mercantile form of pillage, usury. The +idea that money could beget money, though more absurd than alchemy, had +yet an apparently practical and irresistibly tempting confirmation in +the wealth of villains, and the success of fools. Alchemy, in its +day, led to pure chemistry; and calmly yielded to the science it had +fostered. But all wholesome indignation against usurers was prevented, +in the Christian mind, by wicked and cruel religious hatred of the race +of Christ. In the end, Shakspeare himself, in his fierce effort against +the madness, suffered himself to miss his mark by making his usurer a +Jew: the Franciscan institution of the Mount of Pity failed before +the lust of Lombardy, and the logic of Augsburg; and, to this day, the +worship of the Immaculate Virginity of Money, mother of the Omnipotence +of Money, is the Protestant form of Madonna worship. + +278. III. The usurer's fang, and the debtor's shame, might both have +been trodden down under the feet of Italy, had her knights and her +workmen remained true to each other. But the brotherhoods of Italy were +not of Cain to Abel--but of Cain to Cain. Every man's sword was against +his fellow. Pisa sank before Genoa at Meloria, the Italian AEgos-Potamos; +Genoa before Venice in the war of Chiozza, the Italian siege of +Syracuse. Florence sent her Brunelleschi to divert the waves of +Serchio against the walls of Lucca; Lucca her Castruccio, to hold mock +tournaments before the gates of vanquished Florence. The weak modern +Italian reviles or bewails the acts of foreign races, as if his destiny +had depended upon these; let him at least assume the pride, and bear the +grief, of remembering that, among all the virgin cities of his country, +there has not been one which would not ally herself with a stranger, to +effect a sister's ruin. + +279. Lastly. The impartiality with which I have stated the acts, so +far as known to me, and impulses, so far as discernible by me, of +the contending Church and Empire, cannot but give offence, or provoke +suspicion, in the minds of those among you who are accustomed to hear +the cause of Religion supported by eager disciples, or attacked by +confessed enemies. My confession of hostility would be open, if I were +an enemy indeed; but I have never possessed the knowledge, and have long +ago been cured of the pride, which makes men fervent in witness for the +Church's virtue, or insolent in declamation against her errors. The +will of Heaven, which grants the grace and ordains the diversities of +Religion, needs no defence, and sustains no defeat, by the humours of +men; and our first business in relation to it is to silence our wishes, +and to calm our fears. If, in such modest and disciplined temper, you +arrange your increasing knowledge of the history of mankind, you will +have no final difficulty in distinguishing the operation of the Master's +law from the consequences of the disobedience to it which He permits; +nor will you respect the law less, because, accepting only the obedience +of love, it neither hastily punishes, nor pompously rewards, with what +men think reward or chastisement. Not always under the feet of Korah the +earth is rent; not always at the call of Elijah the clouds gather; but +the guarding mountains for ever stand round about Jerusalem; and the +rain, miraculous evermore, makes green the fields for the evil and the +good. + +280. And if you will fix your minds only on the conditions of human +life which the Giver of it demands, "He hath shown thee, oh man, what is +good, and what doth thy Lord require of thee, but to do justice, and to +love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God," you will find that such +obedience is always acknowledged by temporal blessing. If, turning from +the manifest miseries of cruel ambition, and manifest wanderings +of insolent belief, you summon to your thoughts rather the state of +unrecorded multitudes, who laboured in silence, and adored in humility, +widely as the snows of Christendom brought memory of the Birth of +Christ, or her spring sunshine, of His Resurrection, you may know that +the promise of the Bethlehem angels has been literally fulfilled; and +will pray that your English fields, joyfully as the banks of Arno, may +still dedicate their pure lilies to St. Mary of the Flower. + + + + + APPENDIX. + + (NOTES ON THE PLATES ILLUSTRATING THIS VOLUME.) + +In the delivery of the preceding Lectures, some account was given of the +theologic design of the sculptures by Giovanni Pisano at Orvieto, which +I intended to have printed separately, and in more complete form, in +this Appendix. But my strength does not now admit of my fulfilling the +half of my intentions, and I find myself, at present, tired, and so +dead in feeling, that I have no quickness in interpretation, or skill in +description of emotional work. I must content myself, therefore, for the +time, with a short statement of the points which I wish the reader to +observe in the Plates, and which were left unnoticed in the text. + +The frontispiece is the best copy I can get, in permanent materials, +of a photograph of the course of the Arno, through Pisa, before the old +banks were destroyed. Two arches of the Ponte-a-Mare which was carried +away in the inundation of 1870, are seen in the distance; the church +of La Spina, in its original position overhanging the river; and the +buttressed and rugged walls of the mediaeval shore. Never more, any of +these, to be seen in reality, by living eyes. + +PLATE I.--A small portion of a photograph of Nicolo Pisano's Adoration +of the Magi, on the pulpit of the Pisan Baptistery. The intensely Greek +character of the heads, and the severely impetuous chiselling (learned +from Late Roman rapid work), which drives the lines of the drapery +nearly straight, may be seen better in a fragment of this limited +measure than in the crowded massing of the entire subject. But it may +be observed also that there is both a thoughtfulness and a tenderness +in the features, whether of the Virgin or the attendant angel, which +already indicate an aim beyond that of Greek art. + +PLATE II--The Pulpit of the Baptistery (of which the preceding +plate represents a portion). I have only given this general view for +convenience of reference. Beautiful photographs of the subject on a +large scale are easily attainable. + +PLATE III.--The Fountain of Perugia. Executed from a sketch by Mr. +Arthur Severn. The perspective of the steps is not quite true; we both +tried to get it right, but found that it would be a day or two's work, +to little purpose, and so let them go at hazard. The inlaid pattern +behind is part of the older wall of the cathedral; the late door is of +course inserted. + +PLATE IV., LETTER E.--From Norman Bible in the British Museum; showing +the moral temper which regulated common ornamentation in the twelfth +century. + +PLATE V.--Door of the Baptistery at Pisa. The reader must note that, +although these plates are necessarily, in fineness of detail, inferior +to the photographs from which they are taken, they have the inestimable +advantage of permanence, and will not fade away into spectres when +the book is old. I am greatly puzzled by the richness of the current +ornamentation on the main pillars, as opposed to the general severity of +design. I never can understand how the men who indulged in this flowing +luxury of foliage were so stern in their masonry and figure-draperies. + +PLATE VI.--Part of the lintel of the door represented on Plate V., +enlarged. I intended, in the Lecture on Marble Couchant, to have +insisted, at some length, on the decoration of the lintel and +side-posts, as one of the most important phases of mystic ecclesiastical +sculpture. But I find the materials furnished by Lucca, Pisa, and +Florence, for such an essay are far too rich to be examined cursorily; +the treatment even of this single lintel could scarcely be enough +explained in the close of the Lecture. I must dwell on some points of it +now. + +Look back to Section 175 in "Aratra Pentelici," giving statement of the +four kinds of relief in sculpture. The uppermost of these plinths is +of the kind I have called 'round relief'; you might strike it out on a +coin. The lower is 'foliate relief'; it looks almost as if the figures +had been cut out of one layer of marble, and laid against another behind +it. + +The uppermost, at the distance of my diagram, or in nature itself, would +scarcely be distinguished at a careless glance from an egg-and-arrow +moulding. You could not have a more simple or forcible illustration +of my statement in the first chapter of "Aratra," that the essential +business of sculpture is to produce a series of agreeable bosses or +rounded surfaces; to which, if possible, some meaning may afterwards +be attached. In the present instance, every egg becomes an angel, or +evangelist, and every arrow a lily, or a wing. [1] The whole is in the +most exquisitely finished Byzantine style. + +[Footnote: In the contemporary south door of the Duomo of Genoa, the +Greek moulding is used without any such transformation.] + +I am not sure of being right in my interpretation of the meaning of +these figures; but I think there can be little question about it. There +are eleven altogether; the three central, Christ with His mother and St. +Joseph; then, two evangelists, with two alternate angels, on each side. +Each of these angels carries a rod, with a fleur-de-lys termination; +their wings decorate the intermediate ridges (formed, in a pure Greek +moulding, by the arrows); and, behind the heads of all the figures, +there is now a circular recess; once filled, I doubt not, by a plate of +gold. The Christ, and the Evangelists, all carry books, of which each +has a mosaic, or intaglio ornament, in the shape of a cross. I could +not show you a more severe or perfectly representative piece of +_architectural_ sculpture. + +The heads of the eleven figures are as simply decorative as the ball +flowers are in our English Gothic tracery; the slight irregularity +produced by different gesture and character giving precisely the sort of +change which a good designer wishes to see in the parts of a consecutive +ornament. + +The moulding closes at each extremity with a palm-tree, correspondent in +execution with those on coins of Syracuse; for the rest, the interest +of it consists only in these slight variations of attitude by which +the figures express wonder or concern at some event going on in their +presence. They are looking down; and I do not doubt, are intended to be +the heavenly witnesses of the story engraved on the stone below,--The +Life and Death of the Baptist. + +The lower stone on which this is related, is a model of skill in +Fiction, properly so called. In Fictile art, in Fictile history, it is +equally exemplary. 'Feigning' or 'affecting' in the most exquisite way +by fastening intensely on the principal points. + +Ask yourselves what are the principal points to be insisted on, in the +story of the Baptist. + +He came, "preaching the Baptism of Repentance for the remission of +sins." That is his Advice, or Order-preaching. + +And he came, "to bear witness of the Light." "Behold the Lamb of God, +which taketh away the sins of the world." That is his declaration, or +revelation-preaching. + +And the end of his own life is in the practice of this preaching--if you +will think of it--under curious difficulties in both kinds. Difficulties +in putting away sin--difficulties in obtaining sight. The first half of +the stone begins with the apocalyptic preaching. Christ, represented +as in youth, is set under two trees, in the wilderness. St. John is +scarcely at first seen; he is only the guide, scarcely the teacher, of +the crowd of peoples, nations, and languages, whom he leads, pointing +them to the Christ. Without doubt, all these figures have separate +meaning. I am too ignorant to interpret it; but observe generally, they +are the thoughtful and wise of the earth, not its ruffians or rogues. +This is not, by any means, a general amnesty to blackguards, and an +apocalypse to brutes, which St. John is preaching. These are quite the +best people he can find to call, or advise. You see many of them carry +rolls of paper in their hands, as he does himself. In comparison +with the books of the upper cornice, these have special meaning, as +throughout Byzantine design. + + "Adverte quod patriarchae et prophetse pinguntur cum rotulis + in manibus; quidam vero apostoli cum libris, et quidam + cum rotulis. Nempe quia ante Christi adventum fides figurative + ostendebatur, et quoad multa, in se implicita erat. Ad + quod ostendendum patriarchse et prophetae pinguntur cum rotulis, + per quos quasi qusedam imperfecta cognitio design atur; + quia vero apostoli a Christo perfecte edocti suut, ideo libris, + per quos designatur perfecta cognitio, uti possunt." + + + WILLIAM DURANDUS, quoted by Didron, p. 305. + + +PLATE VII.--Next to this subject of the preaching comes the Baptism: and +then, the circumstances of St. John's death. First, his declaration to +Herod, "It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother's wife:" on +which he is seized and carried to prison:--next, Herod's feast,--the +consultation between daughter and mother, "What shall I ask?"--the +martyrdom, and burial by the disciples. The notable point in the +treatment of all these subjects is the quiet and mystic Byzantine +dwelling on thought rather than action. In a northern sculpture of this +subject, the daughter of Herodias would have been assuredly dancing; and +most probably, casting a somersault. With the Byzantine, the debate in +her mind is the only subject of interest, and he carves above, the evil +angels, laying their hands on the heads, first of Herod and Herodias, +and then of Herodias and her daughter. + +PLATE VIII.--The issuing of commandment not to eat of the tree of +knowledge. (Orvieto Cathedral.) + +This, with Plates X. and XII., will give a sufficiently clear conception +to any reader who has a knowledge of sculpture, of the principles of +Giovanni Pisano's design. I have thought it well worth while to publish +opposite two of them, facsimiles of the engravings which profess to +represent them in Gruiier's monograph [1] of the Orvieto sculptures; for +these outlines will, once for all, and better than any words, show my +pupils what is the real virue of mediaeval work,--the power which we +medievalists rejoice in it for. Precisely the qualities which are +_not_ in the modern drawings, are the essential virtues of the early +sculpture. If you like the Gruner outlines best, you need not trouble +yourself to go to Orvieto, or anywhere else in Italy. Sculpture, such as +those outlines represent, can be supplied to you by the acre, to order, +in any modern academician's atelier. But if you like the strange, rude, +quaint, Gothic realities (for these photographs are, up to a certain +point, a vision of the reality) best; then, don't study mediaeval art +under the direction of modern illustrators. Look at it--for however +short a time, where you can find it--veritable and untouched, however +mouldered or shattered. And abhor, as you would the mimicry of your best +friend's manners by a fool, all restorations and improving copies. For +remember, none but fools think they can restore--none, but worse fools, +that they can improve. + +[Footnote: The drawings are by some Italian draughtsman, whose name it +is no business of mine to notice.] + +Examine these outlines, then, with extreme care, and point by point. The +things which they have refused or lost, are the things you have to love, +in Giovanni Pisano. + +I will merely begin the task of examination, to show you how to set +about it. Take the head of the commanding Christ. Although inclined +forward from the shoulders in the advancing motion of the whole body, +the head itself is not stooped; but held entirely upright, the line of +forehead sloping backwards. The command is given in calm authority; +not in mean anxiety. But this was not expressive enough for the +copyist,--"How much better _I_ can show what is meant!" thinks he. So he +puts the line of forehead and nose upright; projects the brow out of its +straight line; and the expression then becomes,--"Now, be very careful, +and mind what I say." Perhaps you like this 'improved' action better? +Be it so; only, it is not Giovanni Pisano's design; but the modern +Italian's. + +Next, take the head of Eve. It is much missed in the photograph--nearly +all the finest lines lost--but enough is got to show Giovanni's mind. + +It appears, he liked long-headed people, with sharp chins and straight +noses. It might be very wrong of him; but that was his taste. So much +so, indeed, that Adam and Eve have, + +[Illustration: PLATE XI.--THE NATIVITY. MODERN ITALIAN.] + +both of them, heads not much shorter than one-sixth of their entire +height. + +Your modern Academy pupil, of course, cannot tolerate this monstrosity. +He indulgently corrects Giovanni, and Adam and Eve have entirely +orthodox one-eighth heads, by rule of schools. + +But how of Eve's sharp-cut nose and pointed chin, thin lips, and look +of quiet but rather surprised attention--not specially reverent, but +looking keenly out from under her eyelids, like a careful servant +receiving an order? + +Well--those are all Giovanni's own notions;--not the least classical, +nor scientific, nor even like a pretty, sentimental modern woman. Like +a Florentine woman--in Giovanni's time--it may be; at all events, very +certainly, what Giovanni thought proper to carve. + +Now examine your modern edition. An entirely proper Greco-Roman academy +plaster bust, with a proper nose, and proper mouth, and a round chin, +and an expression of the most solemn reverence; always, of course, of a +classical description. Very fine, perhaps. But not Giovanni. + +After Eve's head, let us look at her feet. Giovanni has his own positive +notions about those also. Thin and bony, to excess, the right, undercut +all along, so that the profile looks as thin as the mere elongated +line on an Etruscan vase; and the right showing the five toes all +well separate, nearly straight, and the larger ones almost as long as +fingers! the shin bone above carried up in as severe and sharp a curve +as the edge of a sword. + +Now examine the modern copy. Beautiful little fleshy, Venus-de'-Medici +feet and toes--no undercutting to the right foot,--the left having the +great-toe properly laid over the second, according to the ordinances of +schools and shoes, and a well-developed academic and operatic calf and +leg. Again charming, of course. But only according to Mr. Gibson or Mr. +Power--not according to Giovanni. + +Farther, and finally, note the delight with which Giovanni has dwelt, +though without exaggeration, on the muscles of the breast and ribs in +the Adam; while he has subdued all away into virginal severity in Eve. +And then note, and with conclusive admiration, how in the exact and only +place where the poor modern fool's anatomical knowledge should have been +shown, the wretch loses his hold of it! How he has entirely missed and +effaced the grand Greek pectoral muscles of Giovanni's Adam, but has +studiously added what mean fleshliness he could to the Eve; and marked +with black spots the nipple and navel, where Giovanni left only the +severe marble in pure light. + +These instances are enough to enable you to detect the insolent changes +in the design of Giovanni made by the modern Academy-student in so far +as they relate to form absolute. I must farther, for a few moments, +request your attention to the alterations made in the light and shade. + +You may perhaps remember some of the passages. They occur frequently, +both in my inaugural lectures, and in "Aratra Pentelici," in which +I have pointed out the essential connection between the schools of +sculpture and those of chiaroscuro. I have always spoken of the Greek, +or essentially sculpture-loving schools, as chiaroscurist; always of +the Gothic, or colour-loving schools, as non-chiaroscurist. And in one +place, (I have not my books here, and cannot refer to it,) I have even +defined sculpture as light-and-shade drawing with the chisel. Therefore, +the next point you have to look to, after the absolute characters of +form, is the mode in which the sculptor has placed his shadows, both +to express these, and to force the eye to the points of his composition +which he wants looked at. You cannot possibly see a more instructive +piece of work, in these respects, than Giovanni's design of the +Nativity, Plate X. So far as I yet know Christian art, this is the +central type of the treatment of the subject; it has all the intensity +and passion of the earliest schools, together with a grace of repose +which even in Ghiberti's beautiful Nativity, founded upon it, has +scarcely been increased, but rather lost in languor. The motive of the +design is the frequent one among all the early masters; the Madonna +lifts the covering from the cradle to show the Child to one of the +servants, who starts forward adoring. All the light and shade is +disposed + + [Illustration: PLATE XII.--THE ANNUNCIATION AND VISITATION.] + +to fix the eye on these main actions. First, one intense deeply-cut mass +of shadow, under the pointed arch, to throw out the head and lifted hand +of the Virgin. A vulgar sculptor would have cut all black behind the +head; Giovanni begins with full shadow; then subdues it with drapery +absolutely quiet in fall; then lays his fullest possible light on the +head, the hand, and the edge of the lifted veil. + +He has undercut his Madonna's profile, being his main aim, too +delicately for time to spare; happily the deep-cut brow is left, and the +exquisitely refined line above, of the veil and hair. The rest of the +work is uninjured, and the sharpest edges of light are still secure. You +may note how the passionate action of the servant is given by the deep +shadows under and above her arm, relieving its curves in all their +length, and by the recess of shade under the cheek and chin, which lifts +the face. + +Now take your modern student's copy, and look how _he_ has placed his +lights and shades. You see, they go as nearly as possible exactly where +Giovanni's _don't_. First, pure white under this Gothic arch, where +Giovanni has put his fullest dark. Secondly, just where Giovanni has +used his whole art of chiselling, to soften his stone away, and show +the wreaths of the Madonna's hair lifting her veil behind, the accursed +modern blockhead carves his shadow straight down, because he thinks that +will be more in the style of Michael Angelo. Then he takes the shadows +away from behind the profile, and from under the chin, and from under +the arm, and puts in two grand square blocks of dark at the ends of +the cradle, that you may be safe to look at that, instead of the Child. +Next, he takes it all away from under the servant's arms, and lays it +all behind above the calf of her leg. Then, not having wit enough to +notice Giovanni's undulating surface beneath the drapery of the bed +on the left, he limits it with a hard parallel-sided bar of shade, and +insists on the vertical fold under the Madonna's arm, which Giovanni +has purposely cut flat that it may not interfere with the arm above; +finally, the modern animal has missed the only pieces of womanly form +which Giovanni admitted, the rounded right arm and softly revealed +breast; and absolutely removed, as if it were no part of the +composition, the horizontal incision at the base of all--out of which +the first folds of the drapery rise. + +I cannot give you any better example, than this modern Academy-work, of +the total ignorance of the very first meaning of the word 'Sculpture' +into which the popular schools of existing art are plunged. I will +not insist, now, on the uselessness, or worse, of their endeavours to +represent the older art, and of the necessary futility of their judgment +of it. The conclusions to which I wish to lead you on these points will +be the subject of future lectures, being of too great importance for +examination here. But you cannot spend your time in more profitable +study than by examining and comparing, touch for touch, the treatment +of light and shadow in the figures of the Christ and sequent angels, in +Plates VIII. and IX., as we have partly examined those of the subject +before us; and in thus assuring yourself of the uselessness of trusting +to any ordinary modern copyists, for anything more than the rudest chart +or map--and even that inaccurately surveyed--of ancient design. + +The last plate given in this volume contains the two lovely subjects of +the Annunciation and Visitation, which, being higher from the ground, +are better preserved than the groups represented in the other plates. +They will be found to justify, in subtlety of chiselling, the title I +gave to Giovanni, of the Canova of the thirteenth century. + +I am obliged to leave without notice, at present, the branch of ivy, +given in illustration of the term 'marble rampant,' at the base of Plate +VIII. The foliage of Orvieto can only be rightly described in connection +with the great scheme of leaf-ornamentation which ascended from the +ivy of the Homeric period in the sculptures of Cyprus, to the roses of +Botticelli, and laurels of Bellini and Titian. + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Val d'Arno, by John Ruskin + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VAL D'ARNO *** + +***** This file should be named 8523.txt or 8523.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/8/5/2/8523/ + +Produced by Tiffany Vergon, ckirschner and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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