249. Through all the tempestuous winter which during the period of
history we have been reviewing, weakened, in their war with the opposed
rocks of religious or knightly pride, the waves of the Tuscan Sea,
there has been slow increase of the Favonian power which is to bring
fruitfulness to the rock, peace to the wave. The new element which is
introduced in the thirteenth century, and perfects for a little time the
work of Christianity, at least in some few chosen souls, is the law of
Order and Charity, of intellectual and moral virtue, which it now became
the function of every great artist to teach, and of every true citizen
to maintain.
250. I have placed on your table one of the earliest existing engravings
by a Florentine hand, representing the conception which the national
mind formed of this spirit of order and tranquillity, "Cosmico," or the
Equity of Kosmos, not by senseless attraction, but by spiritual thought
and law. He stands pointing with his left hand to the earth, set only
with tufts of grass; in his right hand he holds the ordered system of
the universe--heaven and earth in one orb;--the heaven made cosmic by
the courses of its stars; the earth cosmic by
[Illustration: PLATE IX.--THE CHARGE TO ADAM. MODERN ITALIAN. ]
the seats of authority and fellowship,--castles on the hills and cities
in the plain.
251. The tufts of grass under the feet of this figure will appear
to you, at first, grotesquely formal. But they are only the simplest
expression, in such herbage, of the subjection of all vegetative force
to this law of order, equity, or symmetry, which, made by the Greek the
principal method of his current vegetative sculpture, subdues it, in the
hand of Cora or Triptolemus, into the merely triple sceptre, or animates
it, in Florence, to the likeness of the Fleur-de-lys.
252. I have already stated to you that if any definite flower is meant
by these triple groups of leaves, which take their authoritatively
typical form in the crowns of the Cretan and Laciuian Hera, it is
not the violet, but the purple iris; or sometimes, as in Pindar's
description of the birth of Ismus, the yellow water-flag, which you
know so well in spring, by the banks of your Oxford streams. [1] But,
in general, it means simply the springing of beautiful and orderly
vegetation in fields upon which the dew falls pure. It is the
expression, therefore, of peace on the redeemed and cultivated earth,
and of the pleasure of heaven in the uncareful happiness of men clothed
without labour, and fed without fear.
[Footnote 1: In the catalogues of the collection of drawings in this
room, and in my "Queen of the Air" you will find all that I would ask
you to notice about the various names and kinds of the flower, and their
symbolic use.--Note only, with respect to our present purpose, that
while the true white lily is placed in the hands of the Angel of the
Annunciation even by Florentine artists, in their general design,
the fleur-de-lys is given to him by Giovaiini Pisano on the façade of
Orvieto; and that the flower in the crown-circlets of European kings
answers, as I stated to you in my lecture on the Corona, to the
Narcissus fillet of early Greece; the crown of abundance and rejoicing.]
253. In the passage, so often read by us, which announces the advent of
Christianity as the dawn of peace on earth, we habitually neglect great
part of the promise, owing to the false translation of the second clause
of the sentence. I cannot understand how it should be still needful to
point out to you here in Oxford that neither the Greek words [Greek:
*"en anthriopois evdokia,"*] nor those of the vulgate, "in terra pax
hominibus bonæ voluntatis," in the slightest degree justify our English
words, "goodwill to men."
Of God's goodwill to men, and to all creatures, for ever, there needed
no proclamation by angels. But that men should be able to please
_Him_,--that their wills should be made holy, and they should not only
possess peace in themselves, but be able to give joy to their God,
in the sense in which He afterwards is pleased with His own baptized
Son;--this was a new thing for Angels to declare, and for shepherds to
believe.
254. And the error was made yet more fatal by its repetition in a
passage of parallel importance,--the thanksgiving, namely, offered by
Christ, that His Father, while He had hidden what it was best to know,
not from the wise and prudent, but from some among the wise and prudent,
and had revealed it unto babes; not 'for so it seemed good' in His
sight, but 'that there might be well pleasing in His sight,'--namely,
that the wise and simple might equally live in the necessary knowledge,
and enjoyed presence, of God. And if, having accurately read these vital
passages, you then as carefully consider the tenour of the two songs of
human joy in the birth of Christ, the Magnificat, and the Nunc dimittis,
you will find the theme of both to be, not the newness of blessing, but
the equity which disappoints the cruelty and humbles the strength of
men; which scatters the proud in the imagination of their hearts; which
fills the hungry with good things; and is not only the glory of Israel,
but the light of the Gentiles.
255. As I have been writing these paragraphs, I have been checking
myself almost at every word,--wondering, Will they be restless on their
seats at this, and thinking all the while that they did not come here
to be lectured on Divinity? You may have been a little impatient,--how
could it well be otherwise? Had I been explaining points of anatomy,
and showing you how you bent your necks and straightened your legs, you
would have thought me quite in my proper function; because then, when
you went with a party of connoisseurs through the Vatican, you could
point out to them the insertion of the clavicle in the Apollo Belvidere;
and in the Sistine Chapel the perfectly accurate delineation of the
tibia in the legs of Christ. Doubtless; but you know I am lecturing at
present on the goffi, and not on Michael Angelo; and the goffi are
very careless about clavicles and shin-bones; so that if, after being
lectured on anatomy, you went into the Campo Santo of Pisa, you would
simply find nothing to look at, except three tolerably well-drawn
skeletons. But if after being lectured on theology, you go into the
Campo Santo of Pisa, you will find not a little to look at, and to
remember.
256. For a single instance, you know Michael Angelo is admitted to have
been so far indebted to these goffi as to borrow from the one to whose
study of mortality I have just referred, Orcagna, the gesture of his
Christ in the Judgment, He borrowed, however, accurately speaking,
the position only, not the gesture; nor the meaning of it. [1] You all
remember the action of Michael Angelo's Christ,--the right hand raised
as if in violence of reprobation; and the left closed across His breast,
as refusing all mercy. The action is one which appeals to persons
of very ordinary sensations, and is very naturally adopted by the
Renaissance painter, both for its popular effect, and its
capabilities for the exhibition of his surgical science. But the old
painter-theologian, though indeed he showed the right hand of Christ
lifted, and the left hand laid across His breast, had another meaning
in the actions. The fingers of the left hand are folded, in both the
figures; but in Michael Angelo's as if putting aside an appeal; in
Orcagna's, the fingers are bent to draw back the drapery from the
right side. The right hand is raised by Michael Angelo as in anger;
by Orcagna, only to show the wounded palm. And as, to the believing
disciples, He showed them His hands and His side, so that they were
glad,--so, to the unbelievers, at their judgment, He shows the wounds in
hand and side. They shall look on Him whom they pierced.
[Footnote: I found all this in M. Didron's Iconographie, above quoted; I
had never noticed the difference between the two figures myself.]
257. And thus, as we follow our proposed examination of the arts of the
Christian centuries, our understanding of their work will be absolutely
limited by the degree of our sympathy with the religion which our
fathers have bequeathed to us. You cannot interpret classic marbles
without knowing and loving your Pindar and Æschylus, neither can you
interpret Christian pictures without knowing and loving your Isaiah and
Matthew. And I shall have continually to examine texts of the one as
I would verses of the other; nor must you retract yourselves from
the labour in suspicion that I desire to betray your scepticism, or
undermine your positivism, because I recommend to you the accurate study
of books which have hitherto been the light of the world.
258. The change, then, in the minds of their readers at this date,
which rendered it possible for them to comprehend the full purport of
Christianity, was in the rise of the new desire for equity and rest,
amidst what had hitherto been mere lust for spoil, and joy in battle.
The necessity for justice was felt in the now extending commerce; the
desire of rest in the now pleasant and fitly furnished habitation; and
the energy which formerly could only be satisfied in strife, now found
enough both of provocation and antagonism in the invention of art, and
the forces of nature. I have in this course of lectures endeavoured to
fasten your attention on the Florentine Revolution of 1250, because its
date is so easily memorable, and it involves the principles of every
subsequent one, so as to lay at once the foundations of whatever
greatness Florence afterwards achieved by her mercantile and civic
power. But I must not close even this slight sketch of the central
history of Val d'Aruo without requesting you, as you find time, to
associate in your minds, with this first revolution, the effects of two
which followed it, being indeed necessary parts of it, in the latter
half of the century.
259. Remember then that the first, in 1250, is embryonic; and the
significance of it is simply the establishment of order, and justice
against violence and iniquity. It is equally against the power of
knights and priests, so far as either are unjust,--not otherwise.
When Manfred fell at Benevento, his lieutenant, the Count Guido Novello,
was in command of Florence. He was just, but weak; and endeavoured
to temporize with the Guelphs. His effort ought to be notable to you,
because it was one of the wisest and most far-sighted ever made in
Italy; but it failed for want of resolution, as the gentlest and best
men are too apt to fail. He brought from Bologna two knights of the
order--then recently established--of joyful brethren; afterwards too
fatally corrupted, but at this time pure in purpose. They constituted
an order of chivalry which was to maintain peace, obey the Church, and
succour widows and orphans; but to be bound by no monastic vows. Of
these two knights, he chose one Guelph, the other Ghibelline; and under
their balanced power Gruido hoped to rank the forces of the civil,
manufacturing, and trading classes, divided into twelve corporations of
higher and lower arts. [1] But the moment this beautiful arrangement was
made, all parties--Guelph, Ghibelline, and popular,--turned unanimously
against Count Guido Novello. The benevolent but irresolute captain
indeed gathered his men into the square of the Trinity; but the people
barricaded the streets issuing from it; and Guido, heartless, and
unwilling for civil warfare, left the city with his Germans in good
order. And so ended the incursion of the infidel Tedeschi for this time.
The Florentines then dismissed the merry brothers whom the Tedeschi had
set over them, and besought help from Orvieto and Charles of Anjou; who
sent them Guy de Montfort and eight hundred French riders; the blessing
of whose presence thus, at their own request, was granted them on Easter
Day, 1267.
[Footnote: The seven higher arts were, Lawyers, Physicians, Bankers,
Merchants of Foreign Goods, Wool Manufacturers, Silk Manufacturers,
Furriers. The five lower arts were, Retail Sellers of Cloth, Butchers,
Shoemakers, Masons and Carpenters, Smiths.]
On Candlemas, if you recollect, 1251, they open their gates to the
Germans; and on Easter, 1267, to the French.
260. Remember, then, this revolution, as coming between the battles of
Welcome and Tagliacozzo; and that it expresses the lower revolutionary
temper of the trades, with English and French assistance. Its
immediate result was the appointment of five hundred and sixty
lawyers, woolcombers, and butchers, to deliberate upon all State
questions,--under which happy ordinances you will do well, in your own
reading, to leave Florence, that you may watch, for a while, darling
little Pisa, all on fire for the young Conradin. She sent ten vessels
across the Gulf of Genoa to fetch him; received his cavalry in her
plain of Sarzana; and putting five thousand of her own best sailors into
thirty ships, sent them to do what they could, all down the coast of
Italy. Down they went; startling Gaeta with an attack as they passed;
found Charles of Anjou's French and Sicilian fleet at Messina, fought
it, beat it, and burned twenty-seven of its ships.
261. Meantime, the Florentines prospered as they might with their
religious-democratic constitution,--until the death, in the odour of
sanctity, of Charles of Anjou, and of that Pope Martin IV. whose tomb
was destroyed with Urban's at Perugia. Martin died, as you may remember,
of eating Bolsena eels,--that being his share in the miracles of the
lake; and you will do well to remember at the same time, that the price
of the lake eels was three soldi a pound; and that Niccola of Pisa
worked at Siena for six soldi a day, and his son Giovanni for four.
262. And as I must in this place bid farewell, for a time, to Niccola
and to his son, let me remind you of the large commission which the
former received on the occasion of the battle of Tagliacozzo, and
its subsequent massacres, when the victor, Charles, having to his own
satisfaction exterminated the seed of infidelity, resolves, both in
thanksgiving, and for the sake of the souls of the slain knights for
whom some hope might yet be religiously entertained, to found an abbey
on the battle-field. In which purpose he sent for Niccola to Naples, and
made him build on the field of Tagliacozzo, a church and abbey of the
richest; and caused to be buried therein the infinite number of the
bodies of those who died in that battle day; ordering farther, that,
by many monks, prayer should be made for their souls, night and day.
In which fabric the king was so pleased with Niccola's work that he
rewarded and honoured him highly.
263. Do you not begin to wonder a little more what manner of man this
Nicholas was, who so obediently throws down the towers which offend the
Ghibelliues, and so skilfully puts up the pinnacles which please the
Guelphs? A passive power, seemingly, he;--plastic in the hands of any
one who will employ him to build, or to throw down. On what exists of
evidence, demonstrably in these years here is the strongest brain of
Italy, thus for six shilling a day doing what it is bid.
264. I take farewell of him then, for a little time, ratifying to you,
as far as my knowledge permits, the words of my first master in Italian
art, Lord Lindsay.
"In comparing the advent of Niccola Pisano to that of the sun at his
rising, I am conscious of no exaggeration; on the contrary, it is the
only simile by which I can hope to give you an adequate impression of
his brilliancy and power relatively to the age in which he flourished.
Those sons of Erebus, the American Indians, fresh from their traditional
subterranean world, and gazing for the first time on the gradual
dawning of the day in the East, could not have been more dazzled, more
astounded, when the sun actually appeared, than the popes and podestas,
friars and freemasons must have been in the thirteenth century, when
from among the Biduinos, Bonannos, and Antealmis of the twelfth, Niccola
emerged in his glory, sovereign and supreme, a fount of light, diffusing
warmth and radiance over Christendom. It might be too much to parallel
him in actual genius with Dante and Shakspeare; they stand alone and
unapproachable, each on his distinct pinnacle of the temple of Christian
song; and yet neither of them can boast such extent and durability
of influence, for whatever of highest excellence has been achieved in
sculpture and painting, not in Italy only, but throughout Europe, has
been in obedience to the impulse he primarily gave, and in following up
the principle which he first struck out.
"His latter days were spent in repose at Pisa, but the precise year of
his death is uncertain; Vasari fixes it in 1275; it could not have been
much later. He was buried in the Campo Santo. Of his personal character
we, alas! know nothing; even Shakspeare is less a stranger to us. But
that it was noble, simple, and consistent, and free from the petty
foibles that too frequently beset genius, may be fairly presumed from
the works he has left behind him, and from the eloquent silence of
tradition."
265. Of the circumstances of Niccola Pisano's death, or the ceremonials
practised at it, we are thus left in ignorance.
The more exemplary death of Charles of Aujou took place on the 7th of
January, then, 1285; leaving the throne of Naples to a boy of twelve;
and that of Sicily, to a Prince of Spain. Various discord, between
French, Spanish, and Calabrese vices, thenceforward paralyzes South
Italy, and Florence becomes the leading power of the Guelph faction.
She had been inflamed and pacified through continual paroxysms of civil
quarrel during the decline of Charles's power; but, throughout, the
influence of the nobles declines, by reason of their own folly and
insolence; while the people, though with no small degree of folly and
insolence on their own side, keep hold of their main idea of justice.
In the meantime, similar assertions of law against violence, and the
nobility of useful occupation, as compared with that of idle rapine,
take place in Bologna, Siena, and even at Rome, where Bologna sends her
senator, Branca Leone, (short for Branca-di-Leone, Lion's Grip,) whose
inflexible and rightly guarded reign of terror to all evil and thievish
persons, noble or other, is one of the few passages of history during
the middle ages, in which the real power of civic virtue may be seen
exercised without warping by party spirit, or weakness of vanity or
fear.
266. And at last, led by a noble, Giano della Bella, the people of
Florence write and establish their final condemnation of noblesse
living by rapine, those 'Ordinamenti della Giustizia,' which practically
excluded all idle persons from government, and determined that the
priors, or leaders of the State, should be priors, or leaders of its
arts and productive labour; that its head 'podesta' or 'power' should be
the standard-bearer of justice; and its council or parliament composed
of charitable men, or good men: "boni viri," in the sense from which the
French formed their noun 'bonte.'
The entire governing body was thus composed, first, of the Podestas,
standard-bearer of justice; then of his military captain; then of
his lictor, or executor; then of the twelve priors of arts and
liberties--properly, deliberators on the daily occupations, interests,
and pleasures of the body politic;--and, finally, of the parliament of
"kind men," whose business was to determine what kindness could be shown
to other states, by way of foreign policy.
267. So perfect a type of national government has only once been reached
in the history of the human race. And in spite of the seeds of evil in
its own impatience, and in the gradually increasing worldliness of the
mercantile body; in spite of the hostility of the angry soldier, and
the malignity of the sensual priest, this government gave to Europe the
entire cycle of Christian art, properly so called, and every highest
Master of labour, architectural, scriptural, or pictorial, practised
in true understanding of the faith of Christ;--Orcagna, Giotto,
Brunelleschi, Lionardo, Luini as his pupil, Lippi, Luca, Angelico,
Botticelli, and Michael Angelo.
268. I have named two men, in this group, whose names are more familiar
to your ears than any others, Angelico and Michael Angelo;--who yet are
absent from my list of those whose works I wish you to study, being
both extravagant in their enthusiasm,--the one for the nobleness of the
spirit, and the other for that of the flesh. I name them now, because
the gifts each had were exclusively Florentine; in whatever they have
become to the mind of Europe since, they are utterly children of the Val
d'Arno.
269. You are accustomed, too carelessly, to think of Angelico as a
child of the Church, rather than of Florence. He was born in l387,--just
eleven years, that is to say, after the revolt of Florence _against_ the
Church, and ten after the endeavour of the Church to recover her power
by the massacres of Faenza and Cesena. A French and English army of
pillaging riders were on the other side of the Alps,--six thousand
strong; the Pope sent for it; Robert Cardinal of Geneva brought it into
Italy. The Florentines fortified their Apennines against it; but it took
winter quarters at Cesena, where the Cardinal of Geneva massacred five
thousand persons in a day, and the children and sucklings were literally
dashed against the stones.
270. That was the school which the Christian Church had prepared for
their brother Angelica. But Fèsole, secluding him in the shade of her
mount of Olives, and Florence revealing to him the true voice of his
Master, in the temple of St. Mary of the Flower, taught him his lesson
of peace on earth, and permitted him his visions of rapture in heaven.
And when the massacre of Cesena was found to have been in vain, and the
Church was compelled to treat with the revolted cities who had united to
mourn for her victories, Florence sent her a living saint, Catherine of
Siena, for her political Ambassador.
271. Of Michael Angelo I need not tell you: of the others, we will read
the lives, and think over them one by one; the great fact which I
have written this course of lectures to enforce upon your minds is the
dependence of all the arts on the virtue of the State, and its kindly
order.
The absolute mind and state of Florence, for the seventy years of her
glory, from 1280 to 1350, you find quite simply and literally described
in the ll2th Psalm, of which I read you the descriptive verses, in the
words in which they sang it, from this typically perfect manuscript of
the time:--
Gloria et divitie in domo ejus, justitia ejus manet in seculum seculi.
Exortum est in tenebris lumen reotis, misericors, et miserator, et
Justus. Jocundus homo, qui miseretur, et commodat: disponet sermones suos in
judicio. Dispersit, dedit pauperibus; justitia ejus manet in seculum seculi;
cornu ejus exaltabitur in gloria.
I translate simply, praying you to note as the true one, the _literal_
meaning of every word:--
Glory and riches are in his house. His justice remains for ever.
Light is risen in darkness for the straightforward people.
He is merciful in heart, merciful in deed, and just.
A jocund man; who is merciful, and lends.
He will dispose his words in judgment.
He hath dispersed. He hath given to the poor. His justice remain!
for ever. His horn shall be exalted in glory.
272. With vacillating, but steadily prevailing effort, the Florentines
maintained this life and character for full half a century.
You will please now look at my staff of the year 1300, [Footnote: Page
33 in my second lecture on Engraving.] adding the names of Dante and
Orcagna, having each their separate masterful or prophetic function.
That is Florence's contribution to the intellectual work of the world
during these years of justice. Now, the promise of Christianity is given
with lesson from the fleur-de-lys: Seek ye first the royalty of God, and
His justice, "and all these things," material wealth, "shall be added
unto you." It is a perfectly clear, perfectly literal,--never failing
and never unfulfilled promise. There is no instance in the whole cycle
of history of its not being accomplished,--fulfilled to the uttermost,
with full measure, pressed down, and running over.
273. Now hear what Florence was, and what wealth she had got by her
justice. In the year 1330, before she fell, she had within her walls
a hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants, of whom all the
men--(laity)--between the ages of fifteen and seventy, were ready at
an instant to go out to war, under their banners, in number twenty-four
thousand. The army of her entire territory was eighty thousand; and
within it she counted fifteen hundred noble, families, every one
absolutely submissive to her gonfalier of justice. She had within her
walls a hundred and ten churches, seven priories, and thirty hospitals
for the sick and poor; of foreign guests, on the average, fifteen
hundred, constantly. From eight to ten thousand children were taught to
read in her schools. The town was surrounded by some fifty square miles
of uninterrupted garden, of olive, corn, vine, lily, and rose.
And the monetary existence of England and France depended upon her
wealth. Two of her bankers alone had lent Edward III. of England five
millions of money (in sterling value of this present hour).
274. On the 10th of March, 1337, she was first accused, with truth, of
selfish breach of treaties. On the l0th of April, all her merchants in
France were imprisoned by Philip Valois; and presently afterwards Edward
of England failed, quite in your modern style, for his five millions.
These money losses would have been nothing to her; but on the 7th
of August, the captain of her army, Pietro de' Rossi of Parma, the
unquestioned best knight in Italy, received a chance spear-stroke before
Monselice, and died next day. He was the Bayard of Italy; and greater
than Bayard, because living in a nobler time. He never had failed in
any military enterprise, nor ever stained success with cruelty or
shame. Even the German troops under him loved him without bounds. To his
companions he gave gifts with such largesse, that his horse and armour
were all that at any time he called his own. Beautiful and pure as Sir
Galahad, all that was brightest in womanhood watched and honoured him.
And thus, 8th August, 1337, he went to his own place.--To-day I trace
the fall of Florence no more.
I will review the points I wish you to remember; and briefly meet, so
far as I can, the questions which I think should occur to you.
275. I have named Edward III. as our heroic type of Franchise. And yet
I have but a minute ago spoken of him as 'failing' in quite your modern
manner. I must correct my expression:--he had no intent of failing when
he borrowed; and did not spend his money on himself. Nevertheless, I
gave him as an example of frankness; but by no means of honesty. He is
simply the boldest and royalest of Free Riders; the campaign of Crecy
is, throughout, a mere pillaging foray. And the first point I wish
you to notice is the difference in the pecuniary results of living by
robbery, like Edward III., or by agriculture and just commerce, like the
town of Florence. That Florence can lend five millions to the King of
England, and loose them with little care, is the result of her olive
gardens and her honesty. Now hear the financial phenomena attending
military exploits, and a life of pillage.
276. I give you them in this precise year, 1338, in which the King of
England failed to the Florentines.
"He obtained from the prelates, barons, and knights of the
[Illustration: PLATE X.--THE NATIVITY. GIOVANNI PISANO. ]
shires, one half of their wool for this year--a very valuable and
extraordinary grant. He seized all the tin "(above-ground, you mean Mr.
Henry!)" in Cornwall and Devonshire, took possession of the lands of all
priories alien, and of the money, jewels, and valuable effects of the
Lombard merchants. He demanded certain quantities of bread, corn, oats,
and bacon, from each county; borrowed their silver plate from many
abbeys, as well as great sums of money both abroad and at home; and
pawned his crown for fifty thousand florins." [1]
[Footnote 1: Henry's "History of England," book iv., chap. i.]
He pawns his queen's jewels next year; and finally summons all the
gentlemen of England who had forty pounds a year, to come and receive
the honour of knighthood, or pay to be excused!
277. II. The failures of Edward, or of twenty Edwards, would have
done Florence no harm, had she remained true to herself, and to her
neighbouring states. Her merchants only fall by their own increasing
avarice; and above all by the mercantile form of pillage, usury. The
idea that money could beget money, though more absurd than alchemy, had
yet an apparently practical and irresistibly tempting confirmation in
the wealth of villains, and the success of fools. Alchemy, in its
day, led to pure chemistry; and calmly yielded to the science it had
fostered. But all wholesome indignation against usurers was prevented,
in the Christian mind, by wicked and cruel religious hatred of the race
of Christ. In the end, Shakspeare himself, in his fierce effort against
the madness, suffered himself to miss his mark by making his usurer a
Jew: the Franciscan institution of the Mount of Pity failed before
the lust of Lombardy, and the logic of Augsburg; and, to this day, the
worship of the Immaculate Virginity of Money, mother of the Omnipotence
of Money, is the Protestant form of Madonna worship.
278. III. The usurer's fang, and the debtor's shame, might both have
been trodden down under the feet of Italy, had her knights and her
workmen remained true to each other. But the brotherhoods of Italy were
not of Cain to Abel--but of Cain to Cain. Every man's sword was against
his fellow. Pisa sank before Genoa at Meloria, the Italian Ægos-Potamos;
Genoa before Venice in the war of Chiozza, the Italian siege of
Syracuse. Florence sent her Brunelleschi to divert the waves of
Serchio against the walls of Lucca; Lucca her Castruccio, to hold mock
tournaments before the gates of vanquished Florence. The weak modern
Italian reviles or bewails the acts of foreign races, as if his destiny
had depended upon these; let him at least assume the pride, and bear the
grief, of remembering that, among all the virgin cities of his country,
there has not been one which would not ally herself with a stranger, to
effect a sister's ruin.
279. Lastly. The impartiality with which I have stated the acts, so
far as known to me, and impulses, so far as discernible by me, of
the contending Church and Empire, cannot but give offence, or provoke
suspicion, in the minds of those among you who are accustomed to hear
the cause of Religion supported by eager disciples, or attacked by
confessed enemies. My confession of hostility would be open, if I were
an enemy indeed; but I have never possessed the knowledge, and have long
ago been cured of the pride, which makes men fervent in witness for the
Church's virtue, or insolent in declamation against her errors. The
will of Heaven, which grants the grace and ordains the diversities of
Religion, needs no defence, and sustains no defeat, by the humours of
men; and our first business in relation to it is to silence our wishes,
and to calm our fears. If, in such modest and disciplined temper, you
arrange your increasing knowledge of the history of mankind, you will
have no final difficulty in distinguishing the operation of the Master's
law from the consequences of the disobedience to it which He permits;
nor will you respect the law less, because, accepting only the obedience
of love, it neither hastily punishes, nor pompously rewards, with what
men think reward or chastisement. Not always under the feet of Korah the
earth is rent; not always at the call of Elijah the clouds gather; but
the guarding mountains for ever stand round about Jerusalem; and the
rain, miraculous evermore, makes green the fields for the evil and the
good.
280. And if you will fix your minds only on the conditions of human
life which the Giver of it demands, "He hath shown thee, oh man, what is
good, and what doth thy Lord require of thee, but to do justice, and to
love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God," you will find that such
obedience is always acknowledged by temporal blessing. If, turning from
the manifest miseries of cruel ambition, and manifest wanderings
of insolent belief, you summon to your thoughts rather the state of
unrecorded multitudes, who laboured in silence, and adored in humility,
widely as the snows of Christendom brought memory of the Birth of
Christ, or her spring sunshine, of His Resurrection, you may know that
the promise of the Bethlehem angels has been literally fulfilled; and
will pray that your English fields, joyfully as the banks of Arno, may
still dedicate their pure lilies to St. Mary of the Flower.