SCOT AGAIN AT COURT 139 



itself, as wc have seen, to tlie poet as a picturesque 

 means of presenting the famous scholar to the world, 

 not without a hidden reference to what was cer- 

 tainly one of the crowning moments of his life. 



We may suspect indeed that the fashion of Scot's 

 dress was more than simply Spanish ; for the mode 

 of Aragon at least must surely have been too familiar 

 at Frederick's court to excite so much attention. 

 The philosopher had lived long in close company 

 with the Moors of Toledo and Cordova. What he 

 wore was probably no mere fragment of Eastern 

 fashion but the complete costume of an Arabian sage. 

 The flowing robes, the close-girt waist, the pointed 

 cap, were not unknown in Sicily where there was 

 still a considerable Moorish pojDulation, yet they 

 must have sat strangely enough upon Scot when 

 once he declared himself for what he was : the 

 reverend ecclesiastic, the Master of Paris, the native 

 of the far north. 



There is a fresco on the south walP of the Spanish 

 Chapel in the cloisters of Santa Maria Novella of 

 Florence which contains a figure answering nearly 

 to this conjecture regarding Scot's appearance. It 

 is that of a man in the prime of life, slight and dark, 

 with a short brown beard trimmed to a point. He 

 wears a long close-fitting robe of a reddish colour, 

 noticeably narrow at the waist, with a falling girdle. 

 On his head is a tall red pointed cap from which the 

 ringlets of his dark hair escape on each side. He 

 stands among the converts of the Dominican preachers 

 and bends towards the spectator with an intense 

 expression and action as he tears the leaves out of a 



^ According to ecclesiastical reckoning ; the direction of the altar 

 being taken as eastward. The frontispiece reproduces part of this fresco. 



