Mornings in Florence Part 9

VII. ARITHMETIC. Having built your house, young people, and understanding the light of heaven, and the measures of earth, you may marry--and can't do better. And here is now your conclusive science, which you will have to apply, all your days, to all your affairs.

The Science of Number. Infinite in solemnity of use in Italy at this time; including, of course, whatever was known of the higher abstract mathematics and mysteries of numbers, but reverenced especially in its vital necessity to the prosperity of families and kingdoms, and first fully so understood here in commercial Florence.

Her hand lifted, with two fingers bent, two straight, solemnly enforcing on your attention her primal law--Two and two are--four, you observe,--not five, as those accursed usurers think.

Under her, Pythagoras.

Above, medallion of king, with sceptre and globe, counting money. Have you ever chanced to read carefully Carlyle's account of the foundation of the existing Prussian empire, in economy?

You can, at all events, consider with yourself a little, what empire this queen of the terrestrial sciences must hold over the rest, if they are to be put to good use; or what depth and breadth of application there is in the brief parables of the counted cost of Power, and number of Armies.

To give a very minor, but characteristic, instance. I have always felt that with my intense love of the Alps, I ought to have been able to make a drawing of Chamouni, or the vale of Cluse, which should give people more pleasure than a photograph; but I always wanted to do it as I saw it, and engrave pine for pine, and crag for crag, like Albert Durer.

I broke my strength down for many a year, always tiring of my work, or finding the leaves drop off, or the snow come on, before I had well begun what I meant to do. If I had only _counted_ my pines first, and calculated the number of hours necessary to do them in the manner of Durer, I should have saved the available drawing time of some five years, spent in vain effort.

But Turner counted his pines, and did all that could be done for them, and rested content with that.

So in all the affairs of life, the arithmetical part of the business is the dominant one. How many and how much have we? How many and how much do we want? How constantly does n.o.ble Arithmetic of the finite lose itself in base Avarice of the Infinite, and in blind imagination of it!

In counting of minutes, is our arithmetic ever solicitous enough?

In counting our days, is she ever severe enough? How we shrink from putting, in their decades, the diminished store of them! And if we ever pray the solemn prayer that we may be taught to number them, do we even try to do it after praying?

_Technical Points_.--The Pythagoras almost entirely genuine. The upper figures, from this inclusive to the outer wall, I have not been able to examine thoroughly, my scaffolding not extending beyond the Geometry.

Here then we have the sum of sciences,--seven, according to the Florentine mind--necessary to the secular education of man and woman. Of these the modern average respectable English gentleman and gentlewoman know usually only a little of the last, and entirely hate the prudent applications of that: being unacquainted, except as they chance here and there to pick up a broken piece of information, with either grammar, rhetoric, music, [Footnote: Being able to play the piano and admire Mendelssohn is not knowing music.] astronomy, or geometry; and are not only unacquainted with logic, or the use of reason, themselves, but instinctively antagonistic to its use by anybody else.

We are now to read the series of the Divine sciences, beginning at the opposite side, next the window.

VIII. CIVIL LAW. Civil, or 'of citizens,' not only as distinguished from Ecclesiastical, but from Local law. She is the universal Justice of the peaceful relations of men throughout the world, therefore holds the globe, with its _three_ quarters, white, as being justly governed, in her left hand.

She is also the law of eternal equity, not erring statute; therefore holds her sword _level_ across her breast. She is the foundation of all other divine science. To know anything whatever about G.o.d, you must begin by being Just.

Dressed in red, which in these frescoes is always a sign of power, or zeal; but her face very calm, gentle and beautiful. Her hair bound close, and crowned by the royal circlet of gold, with pure thirteenth century strawberry leaf ornament.

Under her, the Emperor Justinian, in blue, with conical mitre of white and gold; the face in profile, very beautiful. The imperial staff in his right hand, the Inst.i.tutes in his left.

Medallion, a figure, apparently in distress, appealing for justice.

(Trajan's suppliant widow?)

_Technical Points_.--The three divisions of the globe in her hand were originally inscribed ASIA, AFRICA, EUROPE. The restorer has ingeniously changed AF into AME--RICA. Faces, both of the science and emperor, little retouched, nor any of the rest altered.

IX. CHRISTIAN LAW. After the justice which rules men, comes that which rules the Church of Christ. The distinction is not between secular law, and ecclesiastical authority, but between the equity of humanity, and the law of Christian discipline.

In full, straight-falling, golden robe, with white mantle over it; a church in her left hand; her right raised, with the forefinger lifted; (indicating heavenly source of all Christian law? or warning?)

Head-dress, a white veil floating into folds in the air. You will find nothing in these frescoes without significance; and as the escaping hair of Geometry indicates the infinite conditions of lines of the higher orders, so the floating veil here indicates that the higher relations of Christian justice are indefinable. So her golden mantle indicates that it is a glorious and excellent justice beyond that which unchristian men conceive; while the severely falling lines of the folds, which form a kind of gabled niche for the head of the Pope beneath, correspond with the strictness of true Church discipline firmer as well as more luminous statute.

Beneath, Pope Clement V., in red, lifting his hand, not in the position of benediction, but, I suppose, of injunction,--only the forefinger straight, the second a little bent, the two last quite. Note the strict level of the book; and the vertical directness of the key.

The medallion puzzles me. It looks like a figure counting money.

_Technical Points_.--Fairly well preserved; but the face of the science retouched: the grotesquely false perspective of the Pope's tiara, one of the most curiously nave examples of the entirely ignorant feeling after merely scientific truth of form which still characterized Italian art.

Type of church interesting in its extreme simplicity; no idea of transept, campanile, or dome.

X. PRACTICAL THEOLOGY. The beginning of the knowledge of G.o.d being Human Justice, and its elements defined by Christian Law, the application of the law so defined follows, first with respect to man, then with respect to G.o.d.

"Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's--and to G.o.d the things that are G.o.d's."

We have therefore now two sciences, one of our duty--to men, the other to their Maker.

This is the first: duty to men. She holds a circular medallion, representing Christ preaching on the Mount, and points with her right hand to the earth.

The sermon on the Mount is perfectly expressed by the craggy pinnacle in front of Christ, and the high dark horizon. There is curious evidence throughout all these frescos of Simon Memmi's having read the Gospels with a quite clear understanding of their innermost meaning.

I have called this science Practical Theology:--the instructive knowledge, that is to say, of what G.o.d would have us do, personally, in any given human relation: and the speaking His Gospel therefore by act.

"Let your light so shine before men."

She wears a green dress, like Music her hair in the Arabian arch, with jewelled diadem.

Under David. Medallion, Almsgiving. Beneath her, Peter Lombard,

_Technical Points_.--It is curious that while the instinct of perspective was not strong enough to enable any painter at this time to foreshorten a foot, it yet suggested to them the expression of elevation by raising the horizon.

I have not examined the retouching. The hair and diadem at least are genuine, the face is dignified and compa.s.sionate, and much on the old lines.

XI. DEVOTIONAL THEOLOGY.--Giving glory to G.o.d, or, more accurately, whatever feelings He desires us to have towards Him, whether of affection or awe.

This is the science or method of _devotion_ for Christians universally, just as the Practical Theology is their science or method of _action_.

In blue and red: a narrow black rod still traceable in the left hand; I am not sure of its meaning. ("Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me?") The other hand open in admiration, like Astronomy's; but Devotion's is held at her breast. Her head very characteristic of Memmi, with upturned eyes, and Arab arch in hair. Under her, Dionysius the Areopagite--mending his pen! But I am doubtful of Lord Lindsay's identification of this figure, and the action is curiously common and meaningless. It may have meant that meditative theology is essentially a writer, not a preacher.

The medallion, on the other hand, is as ingenious. A mother lifting her hands in delight at her child's beginning to take notice.

Under St. Paul.

_Technical Points_.--Both figures very genuine, the lower one almost entirely so. The painting of the red book is quite exemplary in fresco style.

XII. DOGMATIC THEOLOGY.--After action and worship, thought becoming too wide and difficult, the need of dogma becomes felt; the a.s.sertion, that is, within limited range, of the things that are to be believed.

Since whatever pride and folly pollute Christian scholarship naturally delight in dogma, the science itself cannot but be in a kind of disgrace among sensible men: nevertheless it would be difficult to overvalue the peace and security which have been given to humble persons by forms of creed; and it is evident that either there is no such thing as theology, or some of its knowledge must be thus, if not expressible, at least reducible within certain limits of expression, so as to be protected from misinterpretation.

In red,--again the sign of power,--crowned with a black (once golden?) triple crown, emblematic of the Trinity. The left hand holding a scoop for winnowing corn; the other points upwards. "Prove all things--hold fast that which is good, or of G.o.d."

Beneath her, Boethius. Under St. Mark. Medallion, female figure, laying hands on breast.

_Technical Points_.--The Boethius entirely genuine, and the painting of his black book, as of the red one beside it, again worth notice, showing how pleasant and interesting the commonest things become, when well painted.

I have not examined the upper figure.