"Bella di fronte e infino alle Calcagna,
Con un corredo nobile e civile,
In te risiede una cupola magna
E superbo di Giotto il Campanile."--_Giuseppe Moroni_.
"Round as the O of Giotto, d'ye see?
Which means as well done as a thing can be."--_Proverb_.
Many have wondered how it came to pass that Virgil lived in tradition not
as a poet but as sorcerer. But the reason for it is clear when we find
that in Florence every man who ever had a genius for anything owed it to
magic, or specially to the favour of some protecting fairy or _folletto_,
spirit or god. Is a girl musical? Giacinto or Hyacinth, the favourite
of Apollo, has given her music lessons in her dreams. For the orthodox
there are Catholic saints with a specialty, from venerable Simeon, who
looks after luck in lotteries, to the ever-blessed Antony, who attends to
everything, and Saint Anna, _nee_ Lucina, who inspires nurses. And where
the saints fail, the _folletti_, according to the witches, take their
place and do the work far better. Therefore, as I shall in another place
set forth, Dante and Michel Angelo have passed into the marvellous
mythology of goblins. With them is included Giotto, as appears by the
following legend of "The Goblin of the Bell-Tower of Giotto."