VIII. THE DUCAL PALACE 397

upon the Greeks in early life¹ in a manner which at this day it would be well if we were to imitate, and, together with an almost feminine modesty, giving an exquisite grace to the conduct and bearing of the well-educated Greek youth. It is, of course, one of the leading virtues in all the monkish systems, but I have not any notes of the manner of its representation.²

§ 82. Fifth side. Charity. A woman with her lap full of loaves (?), giving one to a child, who stretches his arm out for it across a broad gap in the leafage of the capital.

Again very far inferior to the Giottesque rendering of this virtue. In the Arena Chapel³ she is distinguished from all the other virtues by having a circular glory round her head, and a cross of fire; she is crowned with flowers, presents with her right hand a vase of corn and fruit, and with her left receives treasure from Christ, who appears above her, to provide her with the means of continual offices of beneficence, while she tramples under foot the treasures of the earth.

The peculiar beauty of most of the Italian conceptions of Charity is in the subjection of mere munificence to the glowing of her love, always represented by flames; here in the form of a cross, round her head; in Orcagna’s shrine at Florence, issuing from a censer in her hand; and, with Dante, inflaming her whole form, so that, in a furnace of clear fire, she could not have been discerned.⁴

Spenser represents her as a mother surrounded by happy children,⁵ an idea afterwards grievously hackneyed and vulgarised by English painters and sculptors.

§ 83. Sixth side. Justice. Crowned, and with sword. Inscribed in the copy “REX SUM JUSTICIE.”

¹ [See, for instance, Aristophanes, Clouds, 961 seq., and for the Spartans, Xenophon, Rep. Lac. 3, 5.]

² [At Amiens Humility is represented with a shield with dove: see The Bible of Amiens, 12A in the list of Virtues and Vices.]

³ [For an illustration of this fresco see Fors Clavigera, Letter 7. The cross of fire is not now discernible; but the fresco must have faded, for Lord Lindsay speaks of “three flames of fire lambent round her head” (ii. 196).]

⁴ [See above, § 56.]

⁵ [Book i. canto x. 30, 31.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]