E. Lowest on the left side. His burial.
F. Lowest on the right side. His power after death.
Besides these six subjects, there are, on the sides of the window,
the four great Franciscan saints, St. Louis of France, St. Louis of
Toulouse, St. Clare, and St. Elizabeth of Hungary.
So that you have in the whole series this much given you to think of:
first, the law of St. Francis's conscience; then, his own adoption of
it; then, the ratification of it by the Christian Church; then, his
preaching it in life; then, his preaching it in death; and then, the
fruits of it in his disciples.
I have only been able myself to examine, or in any right sense to see,
of this code of subjects, the first, second, fourth, and the St. Louis
and Elizabeth. I will ask _you_ only to look at two more of them,
namely, St. Francis before the Soldan, midmost on your right, and St.
Louis.
The Soldan, with an ordinary opera-glass, you may see clearly enough;
and I think it will be first well to notice some technical points in it.
If the little virgin on the stairs of the temple reminded you of one
composition of Titian's, this Soldan should, I think, remind you of all
that is greatest in Titian; so forcibly, indeed, that for my own part,
if I had been told that a careful early fresco by Titian had been
recovered in Santa Croce, I could have believed both report and my own
eyes, more quickly than I have been able to admit that this is indeed
by Giotto. It is so great that--had its principles been understood-there
was in reality nothing more to be taught of art in Italy; nothing to be
invented afterwards, except Dutch effects of light.
That there is no 'effect of light' here arrived at, I beg you at once
to observe as a most important lesson. The subject is St. Francis
challenging the Soldan's Magi,--fire-worshippers--to pass with him
through the fire, which is blazing red at his feet. It is so hot that
the two Magi on the other side of the throne shield their faces. But
it is represented simply as a red mass of writhing forms of flame; and
casts no firelight whatever. There is no ruby colour on anybody's
nose: there are no black shadows under anybody's chin; there are no
Rembrandtesque gradations of gloom, or glitterings of sword-hilt and
armour.
Is this ignorance, think you, in Giotto, and pure artlessness? He was
now a man in middle life, having passed all his days in painting, and
professedly, and almost contentiously, painting things as he saw them.
Do you suppose he never saw fire cast firelight?--and he the friend of
Dante! who of all poets is the most subtle in his sense of every kind of
effect of light--though he has been thought by the public to know that
of fire only. Again and again, his ghosts wonder that there is no shadow
cast by Dante's body; and is the poet's friend, _because_ a painter,
likely, therefore, not to have known that mortal substance casts shadow,
and terrestrial flame, light? Nay, the passage in the 'Purgatorio' where
the shadows from the morning sunshine make the flames redder, reaches
the accuracy of Newtonian science; and does Giotto, think you, all the
while, see nothing of the sort?
The fact was, he saw light so intensely that he never for an instant
thought of painting it. He knew that to paint the sun was as impossible
as to stop it; and he was no trickster, trying to find out ways of
seeming to do what he did not. I can paint a rose,--yes; and I will. I
can't paint a red-hot coal; and I won't try to, nor seem to. This was
just as natural and certain a process of thinking with _him_, as the
honesty of it, and true science, were impossible to the false painters
of the sixteenth century.
Nevertheless, what his art can honestly do to make you feel as much as
he wants you to feel, about this fire, he will do; and that studiously.
That the fire be _luminous_ or not, is no matter just now. But that
the fire is _hot_, he would have you to know. Now, will you notice what
colours he has used in the whole picture. First, the blue background,
necessary to unite it with the other three subjects, is reduced to the
smallest possible space. St. Francis must be in grey, for that is his
dress; also the attendant of one of the Magi is in grey; but so warm,
that, if you saw it by itself, you would call it brown. The shadow
behind the throne, which Giotto knows he _can_ paint, and therefore
does, is grey also. The rest of the picture [Footnote: The floor has
been repainted; but though its grey is now heavy and cold, it cannot
kill the splendour of the rest.] in at least six-sevenths of its
area--is either crimson, gold, orange, purple, or white, all as warm as
Giotto could paint them; and set off by minute spaces only of intense
black,--the Soldan's fillet at the shoulders, his eyes, beard, and the
points necessary in the golden pattern behind. And the whole picture is
one glow.
A single glance round at the other subjects will convince you of the
special character in this; but you will recognize also that the four
upper subjects, in which St. Francis's life and zeal are shown, are all
in comparatively warm colours, while the two lower ones--of the death,
and the visions after it--have been kept as definitely sad and cold.
Necessarily, you might think, being full of monks' dresses. Not so. Was
there any need for Giotto to have put the priest at the foot of the dead
body, with the black banner stooped over it in the shape of a grave?
Might he not, had he chosen, in either fresco, have made the celestial
visions brighter? Might not St. Francis have appeared in the centre of a
celestial glory to the dreaming Pope, or his soul been seen of the poor
monk, rising through more radiant clouds? Look, however, how radiant, in
the small space allowed out of the blue, they are in reality. You cannot
anywhere see a lovelier piece of Giottesque colour, though here, you
have to mourn over the smallness of the piece, and its isolation. For
the face of St. Francis himself is repainted, and all the blue sky; but
the clouds and four sustaining angels are hardly retouched at all, and
their iridescent and exquisitely graceful wings are left with really
very tender and delicate care by the restorer of the sky. And no one but
Giotto or Turner could have painted them.
For in all his use of opalescent and warm colour, Giotto is exactly like
Turner, as, in his swift expressional power, he is like Gainsborough.
All the other Italian religious painters work out their expression with
toil; he only can give it with a touch. All the other great Italian
colourists see only the beauty of colour, but Giotto also its
brightness. And none of the others, except Tintoret, understood to the
full its symbolic power; but with those--Giotto and Tintoret--there is
always, not only a colour harmony, but a colour secret. It is not merely
to make the picture glow, but to remind you that St. Francis preaches
to a fire-worshipping king, that Giotto covers the wall with purple
and scarlet;--and above, in the dispute at Assisi, the angry father
is dressed in red, varying like passion; and the robe with which his
protector embraces St. Francis, blue, symbolizing the peace of Heaven,
Of course certain conventional colours were traditionally employed by
all painters; but only Giotto and Tintoret invent a symbolism of their
own for every picture. Thus in Tintoret's picture of the fall of the
manna, the figure of God the Father is entirely robed in white, contrary
to all received custom: in that of Moses striking the rock, it is
surrounded by a rainbow. Of Giotto's symbolism in colour at Assisi, I
have given account elsewhere. [Footnote: 'Fors Clavigera' for September,
1874.]
You are not to think, therefore, the difference between the colour of
the upper and lower frescos unintentional. The life of St. Francis
was always full of joy and triumph. His death, in great suffering,
weariness, and extreme humility. The tradition of him reverses that of
Elijah; living, he is seen in the chariot of fire; dying, he submits to
more than the common sorrow of death.
There is, however, much more than a difference in colour between the
upper and lower frescos. There is a difference in manner which I
cannot account for; and above all, a very singular difference in
skill,--indicating, it seems to me, that the two lower were done long
before the others, and afterwards united and harmonized with them. It
is of no interest to the general reader to pursue this question; but
one point he can notice quickly, that the lower frescos depend much on
a mere black or brown outline of the features, while the faces above
are evenly and completely painted in the most accomplished Venetian
manner:--and another, respecting the management of the draperies,
contains much interest for us.
Giotto never succeeded, to the very end of his days, in representing a
figure lying down, and at ease. It is one of the most curious points
in all his character. Just the thing which he could study from nature
without the smallest hindrance, is the thing he never can paint;
while subtleties of form and gesture, which depend absolutely on their
momentariness, and actions in which no model can stay for an instant, he
seizes with infallible accuracy.
Not only has the sleeping Pope, in the right hand lower fresco, his
head laid uncomfortably on his pillow, but all the clothes on him are in
awkward angles, even Giotto's instinct for lines of drapery failing him
altogether when he has to lay it on a reposing figure. But look at the
folds of the Soldan's robe over his knees. None could be more beautiful
or right; and it is to me wholly inconceivable that the two paintings
should be within even twenty years of each other in date--the skill in
the upper one is so supremely greater. We shall find, however, more than
mere truth in its casts of drapery, if we examine them.
They are so simply right, in the figure of the Soldan, that we do not
think of them;--we see him only, not his dress But we see dress first,
in the figures of the discomfited Magi. Very fully draped personages
these, indeed,--with trains, it appears, four yards long, and bearers of
them.
The one nearest the Soldan has done his devoir as bravely as he could;
would fain go up to the fire, but cannot; is forced to shield his face,
though he has not turned back. Giotto gives him full sweeping breadth
of fold; what dignity he can;--a man faithful to his profession, at all
events.
The next one has no such courage. Collapsed altogether, he has nothing
more to say for himself or his creed. Giotto hangs the cloak upon him,
in Ghirlandajo's fashion, as from a peg, but with ludicrous narrowness
of fold. Literally, he is a 'shut-up' Magus--closed like a fan. He turns
his head away, hopelessly. And the last Magus shows nothing but his
back, disappearing through the door.
Opposed to them, in a modern work, you would have had a St. Francis
standing as high as he could in his sandals, contemptuous, denunciatory;
magnificently showing the Magi the door. No such thing, says Giotto. A
somewhat mean man; disappointing enough in presence-even in feature;
I do not understand his gesture, pointing to his forehead--perhaps
meaning, 'my life, or my head, upon the truth of this.' The attendant
monk behind him is terror-struck; but will follow his master. The
dark Moorish servants of the Magi show no emotion--will arrange their
masters' trains as usual, and decorously sustain their retreat.
Lastly, for the Soldan himself. In a modern work, you would assuredly
have had him staring at St. Francis with his eyebrows up, or frowning
thunderously at his Magi, with them bent as far down as they would go.
Neither of these aspects does he bear, according to Giotto. A perfect
gentleman and king, he looks on his Magi with quiet eyes of decision; he
is much the noblest person in the room--though an infidel, the true hero
of the scene, far more than St. Francis. It is evidently the Soldan
whom Giotto wants you to think of mainly, in this picture of Christian
missionary work.
He does not altogether take the view of the Heathen which you would get
in an Exeter Hall meeting. Does not expatiate on their ignorance, their
blackness, or their nakedness. Does not at all think of the Florentine
Islington and Pentonville, as inhabited by persons in every respect
superior to the kings of the East; nor does he imagine every other
religion but his own to be log-worship. Probably the people who really
worship logs--whether in Persia or Pentonville--will be left to worship
logs to their hearts' content, thinks Giotto. But to those who worship
_God_, and who have obeyed the laws of heaven written in their hearts,
and numbered the stars of it visible to them,--to these, a nearer star
may rise; and a higher God be revealed.
You are to note, therefore, that Giotto's Soldan is the type of all
noblest religion and law, in countries where the name of Christ has not
been preached. There was no doubt what king or people should be chosen:
the country of the three Magi had already been indicated by the miracle
of Bethlehem; and the religion and morality of Zoroaster were the
purest, and in spirit the oldest, in the heathen world. Therefore, when
Dante, in the nineteenth and twentieth books of the Paradise, gives his
final interpretation of the law of human and divine justice in relation
to the gospel of Christ--the lower and enslaved body of the heathen
being represented by St. Philip's convert, ("Christians like these
the Ethiop shall condemn")--the noblest state of heathenism is at once
chosen, as by Giotto: "What may the _Persians_ say unto _your_ kings?"
Compare also Milton,--
"At the Soldan's chair,
Defied the best of Paynim chivalry."
And now, the time is come for you to look at Giotto's St. Louis, who is
the type of a Christian king.
You would, I suppose, never have seen it at all, unless I had dragged
you here on purpose. It was enough in the dark originally--is trebly
darkened by the modern painted glass--and dismissed to its oblivion
contentedly by Mr. Murray's "Four saints, all much restored and
repainted," and Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcasella's serene "The St. Louis
is quite new."
Now, I am the last person to call any restoration whatever, judicious.
Of all destructive manias, that of restoration is the frightfullest and
foolishest. Nevertheless, what good, in its miserable way, it can bring,
the poor art scholar must now apply his common sense to take; there is
no use, because a great work has been restored, in now passing it by
altogether, not even looking for what instruction we still may find in
its design, which will be more intelligible, if the restorer has had any
conscience at all, to the ordinary spectator, than it would have been
in the faded work. When, indeed, Mr. Murray's Guide tells you that a
_building_ has been 'magnificently restored,' you may pass the building
by in resigned despair; for _that_ means that every bit of the old
sculpture has been destroyed, and modern vulgar copies put up in its
place. But a restored picture or fresco will often be, to _you_, more
useful than a pure one; and in all probability--if an important piece
of art--it will have been spared in many places, cautiously completed
in others, and still assert itself in a mysterious way--as Leonardo's
Cenacolo does--through every phase of reproduction. [Footnote: For a
test of your feeling in the matter, having looked well at these two
lower frescos in this chapel, walk round into the next, and examine the
lower one on your left hand as you enter that. You will find in your
Murray that the frescos in this chapel "were also till lately, (1862)
covered with whitewash"; but I happen to have a long critique of this
particular picture written in the year 1845, and I see no change in it
since then. Mr. Murray's critic also tells you to observe in it that
"the daughter of Herodias playing on a violin is not unlike Perugino's
treatment of similar subjects." By which Mr. Murray's critic means that
the male musician playing on a violin, whom, without looking either at
his dress, or at the rest of the fresco, he took for the daughter
of Herodias, has a broad face. Allowing you the full benefit of this
criticism--there is still a point or two more to be observed. This is
the only fresco near the ground in which Giotto's work is untouched, at
least, by the modern restorer. So felicitously safe it is, that you may
learn from it at once and for ever, what good fresco painting
is--how quiet--how delicately clear--how little coarsely or vulgarly
attractive--how capable of the most tender light and shade, and of the
most exquisite and enduring colour.
In this latter respect, this fresco stands almost alone among the works
of Giotto; the striped curtain behind the table being wrought with a
variety and fantasy of playing colour which Paul Veronese could not
better at his best.
You will find, without difficulty, in spite of the faint tints, the
daughter of Herodias in the middle of the picture---slowly _moving_,
not dancing, to the violin music--she herself playing on a lyre. In the
farther corner of the picture, she gives St. John's head to her mother;
the face of Herodias is almost entirely faded, which may be a farther
guarantee to you of the safety of the rest. The subject of the
Apocalypse, highest on the right, is one of the most interesting mythic
pictures in Florence; nor do I know any other so completely rendering
the meaning of the scene between the woman in the wilderness, and the
Dragon enemy. But it cannot be seen from the floor level: and I have no
power of showing its beauty in words.]
But I can assure you, in the first place, that St. Louis is by no means
altogether new. I have been up at it, and found most lovely and true
colour left in many parts: the crown, which you will find, after our
mornings at the Spanish chapel, is of importance, nearly untouched;
the lines of the features and hair, though all more or less reproduced,
still of definite and notable character; and the junction throughout of
added colour so careful, that the harmony of the whole, if not delicate
with its old tenderness, is at least, in its coarser way, solemn
and unbroken. Such as the figure remains, it still possesses extreme
beauty--profoundest interest. And, as you can see it from below with
your glass, it leaves little to be desired, and may be dwelt upon with
more profit than nine out of ten of the renowned pictures of the Tribune
or the Pitti. You will enter into the spirit of it better if I first
translate for you a little piece from the Fioretti di San Francesco.
_"How St. Louis, King of France, went personally in the guise of a
pilgrim, to Perugia, to visit the holy Brother Giles._--St. Louis, King
of France, went on pilgrimage to visit the sanctuaries of the world; and
hearing the most great fame of the holiness of Brother Giles, who had
been among the first companions of St. Francis, put it in his heart, and
determined assuredly that he would visit him personally; wherefore he
came to Perugia, where was then staying the said brother. And coming to
the gate of the place of the Brothers, with few companions, and being
unknown, he asked with great earnestness for Brother Giles, telling
nothing to the porter who he was that asked. The porter, therefore, goes
to Brother Giles, and says that there is a pilgrim asking for him at
the gate. And by God it was inspired in him and revealed that it was the
King of France; whereupon quickly with great fervour he left his cell
and ran to the gate, and without any question asked, or ever having seen
each other before, kneeling down together with greatest devotion, they
embraced and kissed each other with as much familiarity as if for a long
time they had held great friendship; but all the while neither the
one nor the other spoke, but stayed, so embraced, with such signs of
charitable love, in silence. And so having remained for a great while,
they parted from one another, and St. Louis went on his way, and Brother
Giles returned to his cell. And the King being gone, one of the brethren
asked of his companion who he was, who answered that he was the King
of France. Of which the other brothers being told, were in the greatest
melancholy because Brother Giles had never said a word to him; and
murmuring at it, they said, 'Oh, Brother Giles, wherefore hadst thou so
country manners that to so holy a king, who had come from France to see
thee and hear from thee some good word, thou hast spoken nothing?'
"Answered Brother Giles: 'Dearest brothers, wonder not ye at this, that
neither I to him, nor he to me, could speak a word; for so soon as we
had embraced, the light of the divine wisdom revealed and manifested,
to me, his heart, and to him, mine; and so by divine operation we looked
each in the other's heart on what we would have said to one another, and
knew it better far than if we had spoken with the mouth, and with more
consolation, because of the defect of the human tongue, which cannot
clearly express the secrets of God, and would have been for discomfort
rather than comfort. And know, therefore, that the King parted from me
marvellously content, and comforted in his mind.'"
Of all which story, not a word, of course, is credible by any rational
person.
Certainly not: the spirit, nevertheless, which created the story, is
an entirely indisputable fact in the history of Italy and of mankind.
Whether St. Louis and Brother Giles ever knelt together in the street
of Perugia matters not a whit. That a king and a poor monk could be
conceived to have thoughts of each other which no words could speak; and
that indeed the King's tenderness and humility made such a tale credible
to the people,--this is what you have to meditate on here.
Nor is there any better spot in the world,--whencesoever your pilgrim
feet may have journeyed to it, wherein to make up so much mind as
you have in you for the making, concerning the nature of Kinghood and
Princedom generally; and of the forgeries and mockeries of both which
are too often manifested in their room. For it happens that this
Christian and this Persian King are better painted here by Giotto than
elsewhere by any one, so as to give you the best attainable conception
of the Christian and Heathen powers which have both received, in the
book which Christians profess to reverence, the same epithet as the King
of the Jews Himself; anointed, or Christos:--and as the most perfect
Christian Kinghood was exhibited in the life, partly real, partly
traditional, of St. Louis, so the most perfect Heathen Kinghood was
exemplified in the life, partly real, partly traditional, of Cyrus of
Persia, and in the laws for human government and education which had
chief force in his dynasty. And before the images of these two Kings
I think therefore it will be well that you should read the charge to
Cyrus, written by Isaiah. The second clause of it, if not all, will here
become memorable to you--literally illustrating, as it does, the very
manner of the defeat of the Zoroastrian Magi, on which Giotto founds
his Triumph of Faith. I write the leading sentences continuously; what I
omit is only their amplification, which you can easily refer to at home.
(Isaiah xliv. 24, to xlv. 13.)
"Thus saith the Lord, thy Redeemer, and he that formed thee from the
womb. I the Lord that maketh all; that stretcheth forth the heavens,
alone; that spreadeth abroad the earth, alone; _that turneth wise men
backward, and maketh their knowledge, foolish; that confirmeth the word
of his Servant, and fulfilleth the counsel of his messengers_: that
saith of Cyrus, He is my Shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure,
even saying to Jerusalem, 'thou shalt be built,' and to the temple, 'thy
foundations shall be laid."
"Thus saith the Lord to his Christ;--to Cyrus, whose right hand I have
holden, to subdue nations before him, and I will loose the loins of
Kings.
"I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight; I will
break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron;
and I will give _thee_ the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of
secret places, that thou mayest know that I the Lord, which call thee by
thy name, am the God of Israel.
"For Jacob my servant's sake, and Israel mine elect, I have even called
thee by thy name; I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me.
"I am the Lord, and there is none else; there is no God beside me. I
girded thee, though thou hast not known me. That they may know, from the
_rising of the sun_, and from the west, that there is none beside me;
I am the Lord and there is none else. _I form the light_, and create
darkness; I make peace, and create evil. I the Lord do all these things.
"I have raised him up in Righteousness, and will direct all his ways; he
shall build my city, and let go my captives, not for price nor reward,
saith the Lord of Nations."
To this last verse, add the ordinance of Cyrus in fulfilling it,
that you may understand what is meant by a King's being "raised up in
Righteousness," and notice, with respect to the picture under which you
stand, the Persian King's thought of the Jewish temple.
"In the first year of the reign of Cyrus, [Footnote: 1st Esdras vi. 24.]
King Cyrus commanded that the house of the Lord at Jerusalem should
be built again, _where they do service with perpetual fire_; (the
italicized sentence is Darius's, quoting Cyrus's decree--the decree
itself worded thus), Thus saith Cyrus, King of Persia: [Footnote: Ezra
i. 3, and 2nd Esdras ii. 3.] The Lord God of heaven hath given me all
the kingdoms of the earth, and he hath charged me to build him an house
at Jerusalem.
"Who is there among you of all his people?--his God be with him, and let
him go up to Jerusalem which is in Judah, and let the men of his place
help him with silver and with gold, and with goods and with beasts."
Between which "bringing the prisoners out of captivity" and modern
liberty, free trade, and anti-slavery eloquence, there is no small
interval.
To these two ideals of Kinghood, then, the boy has reached, since the
day he was drawing the lamb on the stone, as Cimabue passed by. You will
not find two other such, that I know of, in the west of Europe; and yet
there has been many a try at the painting of crowned heads,--and King
George III and Queen Charlotte, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, are very fine,
no doubt. Also your black-muzzled kings of Velasquez, and Vandyke's
long-haired and white-handed ones; and Rubens' riders--in those handsome
boots. Pass such shadows of them as you can summon, rapidly before your
memory--then look at this St. Louis.
His face--gentle, resolute, glacial-pure, thin-cheeked; so sharp at
the chin that the entire head is almost of the form of a knight's
shield--the hair short on the forehead, falling on each side in the old
Greek-Etruscan curves of simplest line, to the neck; I don't know if you
can see without being nearer, the difference in the arrangement of it
on the two sides-the mass of it on the right shoulder bending inwards,
while that on the left falls straight. It is one of the pretty changes
which a modern workman would never dream of--and which assures me the
restorer has followed the old lines rightly.
He wears a crown formed by an hexagonal pyramid, beaded with pearls
on the edges: and walled round, above the brow, with a vertical
fortress-parapet, as it were, rising into sharp pointed spines at the
angles: it is chasing of gold with pearl--beautiful in the remaining
work of it; the Soldan wears a crown of the same general form; the
hexagonal outline signifying all order, strength, and royal economy. We
shall see farther symbolism of this kind, soon, by Simon Memmi, in the
Spanish chapel.
I cannot tell you anything definite of the two other frescos--for I can
only examine one or two pictures in a day; and never begin with one till
I have done with another; and I had to leave Florence without looking
at these--even so far as to be quite sure of their subjects. The central
one on the left is either the twelfth subject of Assisi--St. Francis
in Ecstacy; [Footnote: "Represented" (next to St. Francis before the
Soldan, at Assisi) "as seen one night by the brethren, praying, elevated
from the ground, his hands extended like the cross, and surrounded by a
shining cloud."--_Lord Lindsay_.] or the eighteenth, the Apparition of
St. Francis at Arles; [Footnote: "St. Anthony of Padua was preaching at
a general chapter of the order, held at Arles, in 1224, when St.
Francis appeared in the midst, his arms extended, and in an attitude of
benediction."--_Lord Lindsay_.] while the lowest on the right may admit
choice between two subjects in each half of it: my own reading of them
would be--that they are the twenty-first and twenty-fifth subjects of
Assisi, the Dying Friar [Footnote: "A brother of the order, lying on his
deathbed, saw the spirit of St. Francis rising to heaven, and springing
forward, cried, 'Tarry, Father, I come with thee!' and fell back
dead."--_Lord Lindsay_.] and Vision of Pope Gregory IX.; [Footnote:
"He hesitated, before canonizing St. Francis; doubting the celestial
infliction of the stigmata. St. Francis appeared to him in a vision, and
with a severe countenance reproving his unbelief, opened his robe, and,
exposing the wound in his side, filled a vial with the blood that
flowed from it, and gave it to the Pope, who awoke and found it in his
hand."--_Lord Lindsay_.] but Crowe and Cavalcasella may be right in
their different interpretation; [Footnote: "As St. Francis was carried
on his bed of sickness to St. Maria degli Angeli, he stopped at an
hospital on the roadside, and ordering his attendants to turn his head
in the direction of Assisi, he rose in his litter and said, 'Blessed
be thou amongst cities! may the blessing of God cling to thee, oh holy
place, for by thee shall many souls be saved;' and, having said this, he
lay down and was carried on to St. Maria degli Angeli. On the evening of
the 4th of October his death was revealed at the very hour to the bishop
of Assisi on Mount Sarzana."--_Crowe and Cavalcasella._] in any case,
the meaning of the entire system of work remains unchanged, as I have
given it above.