384 THE STONES OF VENICE

He rides upon a tiger, and in his hand is a bow, bent:

“And many arrows under his right side,...

Headed with flint, and feathers bloody dide.”¹

The horror and the truth of this are beyond everything that I know, out of the pages of Inspiration. Note the heading of the arrows with flint, because sharper and more subtle in the edge than steel, and because steel might consume away with rust, but flint not; and consider in the whole description how the wasting away of body and soul together, and the coldness of the heart, which unholy fire has consumed into ashes, and the loss of all power, and the kindling of all terrible impatience, and the implanting of thorny and inextricable griefs are set forth by the various images, the belt of brake, the tiger steed, and the light helmet, girding the head with death.

§ 63. Perhaps the most interesting series of the Virtues expressed in Italian art are those above mentioned of Simon Memmi in the Spanish chapel at Florence, of Ambrogio di Lorenzo in the Palazzo Pubblico of Siena,² of Orcagna in Or San Michele at Florence, of Giotto at Padua and Assisi, in mosaic on the central cupola of St. Mark’s, and in sculpture on the pillars of the Ducal Palace. The first two series are carefully described by Lord Lindsay; both are too complicated for comparison with the more simple series of the Ducal Palace:

¹ [Faerie Queene, book ii. canto xi. 21, 22.]

² [In all previous editions, and in the MS., “Pisa”-an obvious slip of the pen for Siena. The reference is to the celebrated frescoes by Ambrogio Lorenzetti (1337) in the Palazzo Pubblico of that city, representing Good and Bad Government. A beautiful figure impersonating Siena is shown with Wisdom over her head; at her side is Justice. A throng of citizens pass toward Good Government, represented as a grave and reverend Seignior, enthroned between Magnanimity, Temperance, Justice, Prudence, Fortitude, and Peace. The Virtues in the Spanish Chapel are described in Mornings in Florence, § 85. Those by Orcagna are in white marble in his celebrated tabernacle executed between 1348 and 1359; the tabernacle is noticed in the Review of Lord Lindsay’s “Christian Art,” § 62 (Vol. XII.). The Virtues in mosaic on the central cupola of St. Mark’s are described in St. Mark’s Rest, §§, 127-131. There is also a sculptured series of Virtues on one of the archivolts of the main door; see note on p. 316, above, and the reference there given. Another series of Virtues, which Ruskin afterwards analysed and described, is on the Cathedral of Amiens: see The Bible of Amiens, ch. iv. (“Interpretations”).]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]