THE FLEUR-DE-LYS 157 



Twenty-seven years later he was canonized, and 

 Giotto painted his portrait in Santa Croce. 

 Mr Gardner comments on this fresco: 

 * St Louis the King (one whom Dante does 

 not seem to have held in honour), a splendid 

 figure, calm and noble, in one hand the sceptre 

 and in the other the Franciscan cord, his royal 

 robe besprinkled with the golden lily of France 

 over the armour of the warrior of the Cross, his 

 face absorbed in celestial contemplation. He is 

 the Christian realization of the Platonic 

 philosopher king; "St Louis," says Walter 

 Pater, " precisely because his whole being was 

 full of heavenly vision, in self-banishment from 

 it for a while, led and ruled the French people 

 so magnanimously alike in peace and war." 

 Opposite him is St Louis of Toulouse, with the 

 royal crown at his feet; below are St Elizabeth 

 of Hungary, with her lap full of flowers, and, 

 opposite to her, St Clare, of whom Dante's Pic- 

 carda tells so sweetly in the Paradiso — that lady 

 on high whom, "perfected life and lofty merit 

 doth enheaven.' " ' Saint Clare carries a lily. 

 In the Prado there is a Holy Trinity by C. 



' Edmund G. Gardner, Florence. 



