Is it possible that the patron saints of cities should mould the
temper of the people to their own likeness? S. George, the chivalrous,
is champion of Ferrara. His is the marble group above the Cathedral
porch, so feudal in its medieval pomp. He and S. Michael are painted
in fresco over the south portcullis of the Castle. His lustrous armour
gleams with Giorgionesque brilliancy from Dossi's masterpiece in
the Pinacoteca. That Ferrara, the only place in Italy where chivalry
struck any root, should have had S. George for patron, is at any rate
significant.
The best preserved relic of princely feudal life in Italy is
this Castello of the Este family, with its sombre moat, chained
drawbridges, doleful dungeons, and unnumbered tragedies, each one of
which may be compared with Parisina's history. I do not want to dwell
on these things now. It is enough to remember the Castello, built of
ruddiest brick, time-mellowed with how many centuries of sun and soft
sea-air, as it appeared upon the close of one tempestuous day. Just
before evening the rain-clouds parted and the sun flamed out across
the misty Lombard plain. The Castello burned like a hero's funeral
pyre, and round its high-built turrets swallows circled in the warm
blue air. On the moat slept shadows, mixed with flowers of sunset,
tossed from pinnacle and gable. Then the sky changed. A roof of
thunder-cloud spread overhead with the rapidity of tempest. The dying
sun gathered his last strength against it, fretting those steel-blue
arches with crimson; and all the fierce light, thrown from vault to
vault of cloud, was reflected back as from a shield, and cast in
blots and patches on the buildings. The Castle towered up rosy-red
and shadowy sombre, enshrined, embosomed in those purple clouds; and
momently ran lightning forks like rapiers through the growing mass.
Everything around, meanwhile, was quiet in the grass-grown streets.
The only sound was a high, clear boy's voice chanting an opera tune.