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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



more expressive of movement and the delight in 

 movement than the backward drift of his hair 

 aud short cloak, and the urging gesture of his 

 raised right arm. The twelfth sculpture takes us 

 within-doors again, and shows us, two women at 

 the loom, one seated and the other standing- 

 Here is the type of an industry which meant 

 more to Florentines than to any other people. 

 The weaving of fine cloths was one of the earliest 

 and chief sources of the prosperity of the city. 

 Not only the flocks of Tuscany and the Apennines 

 sent their fleeces to be made up in the looms of 

 Florence, but woolen fabrics were sent thither 

 from all parts of Europe to have the last finish 

 put upon them, and to be either reexported or 

 retailed by Florentine traders. Of the seven 

 trade guilds or arts, which were called the seven 

 greater in the city, two, and those among the 

 wealthiest and most powerful, were concerned in 

 this industry. One of these was the guild called 

 Calimala, otherwise the guild of mercatanti (mer- 

 chants), the word merchant being used for dealers 

 in cloth from France and Flanders. The second 

 weaving guild was called specifically the guild 

 della Lana, of wool ; and it was to the piety of 

 this body that Florence owed the existence of her 

 Campanile herself. The guild had come forward 

 at a time when the cathedral works had lan- 

 guished for some years, and had offered to defray 

 the costs of its completion ; and it was in pur. 

 suance of that offer that Giotto had been ap- 

 pointed to the task. 



Next after the type of this great Florentine 

 industry comes a subject not quite so plainly to 

 be interpreted. An enthroned figure sits aloft in 

 the midst ; beneath his throne, on his left side, 

 kneel two bareheaded patriarchs or elders, to 

 whom he delivers what look like tables of the 

 law ; on the other side two more elders, wearing 

 caps upon their heads, gaze up at him from 

 within two several compartments of a kind of 

 tabernacle; over these he holds up his right 

 hand in benediction. In this noble group it is 

 not hard to appreciate the expressive dignity of 

 the personages, and the grace as well as power of 

 the sculptor in the draperies that fall, with a per- 

 fect natural flow, over the knees of the enthroned 

 and about the ankles of the front kneeling figure. 

 But it is harder to recognize the precise signifi- 

 cation of the subject. It is evidently some type 

 of divine law and law-giving; the enthroned fig- 

 ure within the almond-shaped canopy is evidently 

 God the Father ; and we may suppose that with 

 his left hand it is the tables of the ten command- 

 ments that he is delivering. The Mosaic law be- 



ing symbolized on this side, the robed and flat- 

 capped personages within the canopies on his 

 other hand would be doctors standing for the 

 two branches, civil and canonical, of Christian 

 law. This great twofold division of civil and 

 church law is constantly brought before us by 

 mediaeval art ; for instance, in the scheme of the 

 great fresco which we have already mentioned, 

 each branch is separately symbolized in the fig- 

 ure of a woman, and for the historical representa- 

 tive of canon law stands Pope Clement VI., for 

 that of civil law Justinian. 



The hero of the next subject is again the 

 usual patriarchal type of the human race, but 

 disguised this time in a strange vesture, and bent 

 upon a hazardous enterprise. He wears a close- 

 fitting suit of feathers, and has fitted to his shoul- 

 ders an immense pair of wings, which he manages 

 by means of straps on the inside of each wing, 

 through which he passes his hands — in this prac- 

 tical, this working way is everything thought out. 

 He gazes, with his head thrown back, confidently 

 skyward as he leans forward to begin his flight ; 

 under his feet we see an adze and other discarded 

 tools of his labor. Here, it seems, the designer 

 has gone to pagan legend to find for the builders 

 of Babel a companion in presumption. The rash 

 artisan can be no other than Daedalus. This sub- 

 ject is the last on the south face of the building. 

 First on the east face follows an enterprise only 

 one degree less daring. The first navigators put 

 to sea in the first boat ; and what a sense of peril 

 and awe, what solemn tempting of the unknown 

 and the mysterious, the sculptor has expressed in 

 the looks and action of these mariners — two of 

 them rowing, or rather pushing ; for, as the 

 carved ripple indicates, they face toward the 

 boat's bow, and keep an anxious lookout ahead ; 

 while the third and eldest steers in the stern with 

 a great oar for rudder. Next, now that man has 

 learned to search the stars and to obey laws, to 

 weave and ride, to tempt the elements of air and 

 water, he turns to a pursuit which we should 

 have looked for long before — and in Florence of 

 all places — the pursuit of war. Perhaps, how- 

 ever, there may be a reason in the present juxta- 

 position, and war may be purposely made the 

 sequel of commerce, emigration, and colonization. 

 Here, at any rate, lies a murdered man on his 

 back, his limbs stiff with death, his right hand 

 clutching the soil, his head, with its h'air flung 

 abroad, fallen back in a hollow of the ground. 

 Beside him stands his murderer, lifting sullen 

 looks askance like one who would defy the re- 

 morse within him. One hand is set stubbornly 



