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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



but early Tuscan Renaissance. Tradition assigns 

 these concluding subjects to the hand of Luca 

 della Robbia. Of the actual hand we cannot 

 really make sure ; but the conclusion is as 

 good, in its manner, as the beginning. Only 

 it is a different manner. We lose the sense 

 of the primeval, the patriarchal, the broadly 

 permanent, and ideal ; we gain a sense of vig- 

 orous animation and contemporary reality. The 

 liberal science of grammar is the first of the new 

 series ; and in it we are invited to think neither 

 of Donatus nor Priscian, nor yet of any ideal fa- 

 ther of grammar, but simply of any schoolmaster 

 teaching little boys their elements in any Floren- 

 tine grammar-school. Into the upper angle of 

 the hexagon is fitted the top of a bookcase which 

 serves as furniture in the background ; on the 

 left sits a stern-visaged, shaven pedagogue at his 

 desk, in close cap and long, heavy gown ; on the 

 seat opposite him are two boys attentively learn- 

 ing, in the Florentine costume of the day. It is 

 an admirable piece, but of a character essentially 

 realistic, and makes us think instinctively of Vil- 

 lani's educational statistics — how in such and 

 such a year of the fourteenth century there were 

 in the primary schools of the city from 8,000 to 

 10,000 little boys and girls learning to read, and 

 in six secondary schools about 1,200 learning 

 arithmetic and algebra, and in four upper schools 

 from 550 to 600 learning grammar and logic. In 

 this case, again, it is very interesting to compare 

 the parallel subject in the great fresco at Sta. 

 Maria Novella, where a grammarian sits poring 

 over a book, and over his head the allegorical 

 representative of his science bears what seems a 

 rod in one hand and a fruit in the other, and has 

 a group of three kneeling children beside her. 

 In the next compartment a young man is pas- 

 sionately disputing with his teacher ; both are in 

 flowing robes, and the sculpture is admirably 

 spirited and accomplished. The pupil holds an 

 open text-book, and points eagerly with his finger 

 to some passage in support of his argument; the 

 teacher, having both bands raised with a still 

 more eager gesture, confutes him, it seems, out 

 of his own superior knowledge. This may rep- 

 resent a lesson either in logic or rhetoric; the 

 eagerness of the contention is perhaps more ap- 



propriate to the latter. Whichever of the two sci- 

 ences we decide for here, the other we have to 

 regard as for some reason omitted from the 

 scheme. For concerning the three remaining 

 subjects there is no doubt. In the first of these 

 (and it is one of the least happy of the series) 

 Orpheus, having a bruised and somewhat ignoble 

 visage, sits against a tree in the midst of a wood 

 and plays upon his lute ; on one side a congrega- 

 tion of birds, and on the other of beasts of the 

 forest, come drawn by the magic of his notes. 

 Next — and the meaning of the subject is equally 

 unmistakable — two Oriental sages in turbans and 

 embroidered skirts stand facing one another in 

 discussion ; one holds up two fingers of his hand, 

 the ordinary gesture of counting ; the other is 

 working with the abacus, the ordinary instrument 

 of numerical calculation. This is arithmetic ; and, 

 as the sciences of number were supposed to come 

 from the east, so these turbaned figures stand, 

 no doubt, for sages of Babylon or Chaldea. The 

 next sculpture is the last of all, and commemo-' 

 rates once more the art of music. At first sight 

 we may be puzzled by this ungainly, bearded fig- 

 ure who sits facing us, listening with his head on 

 one side, and tapping with two hammers of dif- 

 ferent sizes, one in either hand, on a small anvil. 

 The anvil and hammers are not unlike those we 

 find in representations of the goldsmith's trade ; 

 and for a father of goldsmiths we might perhaps 

 have taken this personage were it not for a paral- 

 lel figure which gives us the right clew in the 

 fresco of the Spanish Chapel. Under the personi- 

 fication of Music, in that composition, sits an old 

 man bearded like this one, only without the cap, 

 and striking on a similar anvil with two similar 

 hammers. Tradition calls that figure, with very 

 doubtful authority, Tubal-cain. In the present 

 series, however, as we have already had an ear- 

 lier Tubal-cain, tradition, again doubtfully, calls 

 this concluding figure the monk-musician Guido 

 of Arezzo. Without asserting names, the anal- 

 ogy of the Spanish Chapel, and the attentive 

 gesture of the head, make it certain that this last 

 figure is a symbol of musical invention, and that 

 the striker with the two hammers is listening to 

 the difference of the two notes he strikes. 



— Macmillari's Magazine. 



