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392 THE STONES OF VENICE
mouth, and passing the yoke over the head of a Franciscan monk kneeling at his feet.”*
Obedience holds a less principal place in Spenser. We have seen her above [§ 59] associated with the other peculiar virtues of womanhood.
§ 75. Seventh side. Infidelity. A man in a turban, with a small image in his hand, or the image of a child. Of the inscription nothing but “INFIDELITATE * * *” and some fragmentary letters, “ILI, CERO,” remain.1
By Giotto Infidelity is most nobly symbolised as a woman helmeted, the helmet having a broad rim which keeps the light from her eyes. She is covered with a heavy drapery, stands infirmly as if about to fall, is bound by a cord round her neck to an image which she carries in her hand, and has flames bursting forth at her feet.
In Spenser, Infidelity is the Saracen knight Sans Foy,-
“Full large of limbe and every joint
He was, and cared not for God or man a point.”2
For the part which he sustains in the contest with Godly Fear, or the Red-cross Knight, see Appendix 2, Vol. III.
§ 76. Eighth side. Modesty; bearing a pitcher. (In the Renaissance copy, a vase like a coffee-pot.) Inscribed
“MODESTIA ROBUOBTIN.”3
I do not find this virtue in any of the Italian series, except that of Venice. In Spenser she is of course one of those attendant on Womanhood, but occurs as one of the tenants of the Heart of Man, thus portrayed in the second book:
“Straunge was her tyre, and all her garments blew,
Close rowned about her tuckt with many a plight:
Upon her first the bird which shonneth vew.
*Lord Lindsay, vol. ii. p. 226.
1 [Perhaps, “infidelitate nulla gero.” Giotto’s “Infidelity” is in the Arena Chapel.]
2 [Book i. canto ii. 12.]
3 [Modestiâ robur obtineo-“By modesty I obtain strength.”]
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[Version 0.04: March 2008]
