1. Vert; a lion rampant, proper.
2. Argent; a lion rampant, gules.
3. Azure; a lion rampant, argent.
E. Sesto of the Cathedral gates.
1. Azure; a lion (passant?) or.
2. Or; a dragon, vert.
3. Argent; a lion rampant,
azure, crowned, or.
F. Sesto of St. Peter's gates.
1. Or; two keys, gules.
2. An Italian (or more definitely
a Greek and Etruscan bearing;
I do not know how to
blazon it;) concentric bands,
argent and sable. This is
one of the remains of the
Greek expressions of storm;
hail, or the Trinacrian limbs,
being put on the giant's
shields also. It is connected
besides with the Cretan
labyrinth, and the circles of
the Inferno.
3. Parted per fesse, gules and
vai (I don't know if vai
means grey--not a proper
heraldic colour--or vaire).
106. Of course Hubert of Lucca did not determine these bearings, but
took them as he found them, and appointed them for standards; [1] he did
the same for all the country parishes, and ordered them to come into
the city at need. "And in this manner the old people of Florence ordered
itself; and for more strength of the people, they ordered and began to
build the palace which is behind the Badia,--that is to say, the one
which is of dressed stone, with the tower; for before there was no
palace of the commune in Florence, but the signory abode sometimes in
one part of the town, sometimes in another.
[Footnote 1: We will examine afterwards the heraldry of the trades,
chap, xi., Villani.]
107. "And as the people had now taken state and signory on themselves,
they ordered, for greater strength of the people, that all the towers of
Florence--and there were many 180 feet high [1]--should be cut down to
75 feet, and no more; and so it was done, and with the stones of them
they walled the city on the other side Arno."
[Footnote: 120 braccia.]
108. That last sentence is a significant one. Here is the central
expression of the true burgess or townsman temper,--resolute maintenance
of fortified peace. These are the walls which modern republicanism
throws down, to make boulevards over their ruins.
109. Such new order being taken, Florence remained quiet for full two
months. On the 13th of December, in the same year, died the Emperor
Frederick II.; news of his death did not reach Florence till the 7th
January, 1251. It had chanced, according to Villani, that on the actual
day of his death, his Florentine vice-regent, Rinieri of Montemerlo, was
killed by a piece of the vaulting [1] of his room falling on him as he
slept. And when the people heard of the Emperor's death, "which was most
useful and needful for Holy Church, and for our commune," they took
the fall of the roof on his lieutenant as an omen of the extinction
of Imperial authority, and resolved to bring home all their Guelphic
exiles, and that the Ghibellines should be forced to make peace with
them. Which was done, and the peace really lasted for full six months;
when, a quarrel chancing with Ghibelline Pistoja, the Florentines, under
a Milanese podesta, fought their first properly communal and commercial
battle, with great slaughter of Pistojese. Naturally enough, but very
unwisely, the Florentine Ghibellines declined to take part in this
battle; whereupon the people, returning flushed with victory, drove them
all out, and established pure Guelph government in Florence, changing at
the same time the flag of the city from gules, a lily argent, to argent,
a lily gules; but the most ancient bearing of all, simply parted
per pale, argent and gules, remained always on their carroccio of
battle,--"Non si muto mai."
[Footnote 1: "Una volta ch' era sopra la camera."]
110. "Non si muto mai." Villani did not know how true his words were.
That old shield of Florence, parted per pale, argent and gules, (or
our own Saxon Oswald's, parted per pale, or and purpure,) are heraldry
changeless in sign; declaring the necessary balance, in ruling men, of
the Rational and Imaginative powers; pure Alp, and glowing cloud.
Church and State--Pope and Emperor--Clergy and Laity,--all these are
partial, accidental--too often, criminal--oppositions; but the bodily
and spiritual elements, seemingly adverse, remain in everlasting
harmony,
Not less the new bearing of the shield, the red fleur-de-lys, has
another meaning. It is red, not as ecclesiastical, but as free. Not of
Guelph against Ghibelline, but of Labourer against Knight. No more his
serf, but his minister. His duty no more 'servitium,' but 'ministerium,'
'mestier.' We learn the power of word after word, as of sign after sign,
as we follow the traces of this nascent art. I have sketched for you
this lily from the base of the tower of Giotto. You may judge by the
subjects of the sculpture beside it that it was built just in this fit
of commercial triumph; for all the outer bas-reliefs are of trades.
111. Draw that red lily then, and fix it in your minds as the sign
of the great change in the temper of Florence, and in her laws, in
mid-thirteenth century; and remember also, when you go to Florence and
see that mighty tower of the Palazzo Vecchio (noble still, in spite of
the calamitous and accursed restorations which have smoothed its
rugged outline, and effaced with modern vulgarisms its lovely
sculpture)--terminating the shadowy perspectives of the Uffizii, or
dominant over the city seen from Fésole or Bellosguardo,--that, as the
tower of Giotto is the notablest monument in the world of the Religion
of Europe, so, on this tower of the Palazzo Vecchio, first shook
itself to the winds the Lily standard of her liberal,--because
honest,--commerce.