A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W X Z

Stones of Venice [introductions]

J >> John Ruskin >> Stones of Venice [introductions]




_First side_. A caricature of Arion on his dolphin; he wears a cap
ending in a long proboscis-like horn, and plays a violin with a curious
twitch of the bow and wag of the head, very graphically expressed, but
still without anything approaching to the power of Northern grotesque.
His dolphin has a goodly row of teeth, and the waves beat over his back.

_Second side_. A human figure, with curly hair and the legs of a
bear; the paws laid, with great sculptural skill, upon the foliage. It
plays a violin, shaped like a guitar, with a bent double-stringed bow.

_Third side_. A figure with a serpent's tail and a monstrous head,
founded on a Negro type, hollow-cheeked, large-lipped, and wearing a cap
made of a serpent's skin, holding a fir-cone in its hand.

_Fourth side_. A monstrous figure, terminating below in a tortoise.
It is devouring a gourd, which it grasps greedily with both hands; it
wears a cap ending in a hoofed leg.

_Fifth side_. A centaur wearing a crested helmet, and holding a
curved sword.

_Sixth side_. A knight, riding a headless horse, and wearing a
chain armor, with a triangular shield flung behind his back, and a
two-edged sword.

_Seventh side_. A figure like that on the fifth, wearing a round
helmet, and with the legs and tail of a horse. He bears a long mace with
a top like a fir-cone.

_Eighth side_. A figure with curly hair, and an acorn in its hand,
ending below in a fish.

SECTION LVII. NINTH CAPITAL. _First side_. Faith. She has her left
hand on her breast, and the cross on her right. Inscribed "FIDES OPTIMA
IN DEO." The Faith of Giotto holds the cross in her right hand; in her
left, a scroll with the Apostles' Creed. She treads upon cabalistic
books, and has a key suspended to her waist. Spenser's Faith (Fidelia)
is still more spiritual and noble:

"She was araied all in lilly white,
And in her right hand bore a cup of gold,
With wine and water fild up to the hight,
In which a serpent did himselfe enfold,
That horrour made to all that did behold;
But she no whitt did chaunge her constant mood:
And in her other hand she fast did hold
A booke, that was both signd and seald with blood;
Wherein darke things were writt, hard to be understood."

SECTION LVIII. _Second side_. Fortitude. A long-bearded man [Samson?]
tearing open a lion's jaw. The inscription is illegible, and the somewhat
vulgar personification appears to belong rather to Courage than
Fortitude. On the Renaissance copy it is inscribed "FORTITUDO SUM
VIRILIS." The Latin word has, perhaps, been received by the sculptor as
merely signifying "Strength," the rest of the perfect idea of this virtue
having been given in "Constantia" previously. But both these Venetian
symbols together do not at all approach the idea of Fortitude as given
generally by Giotto and the Pisan sculptors; clothed with a lion's skin,
knotted about her neck, and falling to her feet in deep folds; drawing
back her right hand, with the sword pointed towards her enemy; and
slightly retired behind her immovable shield, which, with Giotto, is
square, and rested on the ground like a tower, covering her up to above
her shoulders; bearing on it a lion, and with broken heads of javelins
deeply infixed.

Among the Greeks, this is, of course, one of the principal virtues; apt,
however, in their ordinary conception of it to degenerate into mere
manliness or courage.

SECTION LIX. _Third side_. Temperance; bearing a pitcher of water
and a cup. Inscription, illegible here, and on the Renaissance copy
nearly so, "TEMPERANTIA SUM" (INOM' L'S)? Only left. In this somewhat
vulgar and most frequent conception of this virtue (afterwards
continually repeated, as by Sir Joshua in his window at New-College)
temperance is confused with mere abstinence, the opposite of Gula, or
gluttony; whereas the Greek Temperance, a truly cardinal virtue, is the
moderator of _all_ the passions, and so represented by Giotto, who
has placed a bridle upon her lips, and a sword in her hand, the hilt of
which she is binding to the scabbard. In his system, she is opposed
among the vices, not by Gula or Gluttony, but by Ira, Anger. So also the
Temperance of Spenser, or Sir Guyon, but with mingling of much
sternness:

"A goodly knight, all armd in harnesse meete,
That from his head no place appeared to his feete,
His carriage was full comely and upright;
His countenance demure and temperate;
But yett so sterne and terrible in sight,
That cheard his friendes, and did his foes amate."

The Temperance of the Greeks, [Greek: sophrosunae] involves the idea
of Prudence, and is a most noble virtue, yet properly marked by Plato as
inferior to sacred enthusiasm, though necessary for its government. He
opposes it, under the name "Mortal Temperance" or "the Temperance which
is of men," to divine madness, [Greek: mania,] or inspiration; but he
most justly and nobly expresses the general idea of it under the term
[Greek: ubris], which, in the "Phaedrus," is divided into various
intemperances with respect to various objects, and set forth under the
image of a black, vicious, diseased and furious horse, yoked by the side
of Prudence or Wisdom (set forth under the figure of a white horse with a
crested and noble head, like that which we have among the Elgin Marbles)
to the chariot of the Soul. The system of Aristotle, as above stated, is
throughout a mere complicated blunder, supported by sophistry, the
laboriously developed mistake of Temperance for the essence of the
virtues which it guides. Temperance in the mediaeval systems is generally
opposed by Anger, or by Folly, or Gluttony: but her proper opposite is
Spenser's Acrasia, the principal enemy of Sir Guyon, at whose gates we
find the subordinate vice "Excesse," as the introduction to Intemperance;
a graceful and feminine image, necessary to illustrate the more dangerous
forms of subtle intemperance, as opposed to the brutal "Gluttony" in the
first book. She presses grapes into a cup, because of the words of St.
Paul, "Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess;" but always delicately,

"Into her cup she scruzd with daintie breach
Of her fine fingers, without fowle empeach,
That so faire winepresse made the wine more sweet."

The reader will, I trust, pardon these frequent extracts from Spenser,
for it is nearly as necessary to point out the profound divinity and
philosophy of our great English poet, as the beauty of the Ducal Palace.

SECTION LX. _Fourth side_. Humility; with a veil upon her head,
carrying a lamp in her lap. Inscribed in the copy, "HUMILITAS HABITAT IN
ME."

This virtue is of course a peculiarly Christian one, hardly recognized
in the Pagan systems, though carefully impressed upon the Greeks in
early life in a manner which at this day it would be well if we were to
imitate, and, together with an almost feminine modesty, giving an
exquisite grace to the conduct and bearing of the well-educated Greek
youth. It is, of course, one of the leading virtues in all the monkish
systems, but I have not any notes of the manner of its representation.

SECTION LXI. _Fifth side_. Charity. A woman with her lap full of
loaves (?), giving one to a child, who stretches his arm out for it
across a broad gap in the leafage of the capital.

Again very far inferior to the Giottesque rendering of this virtue. In
the Arena Chapel she is distinguished from all the other virtues by
having a circular glory round her head, and a cross of fire; she is
crowned with flowers, presents with her right hand a vase of corn and
fruit, and with her left receives treasure from Christ, who appears
above her, to provide her with the means of continual offices of
beneficence, while she tramples under foot the treasures of the earth.

The peculiar beauty of most of the Italian conceptions of Charity, is in
the subjection of mere munificence to the glowing of her love, always
represented by flames; here in the form of a cross round her head; in
Orcagna's shrine at Florence, issuing from a censer in her hand; and,
with Dante, inflaming her whole form, so that, in a furnace of clear
fire, she could not have been discerned.

Spenser represents her as a mother surrounded by happy children, an idea
afterwards grievously hackneyed and vulgarized by English painters and
sculptors.

SECTION LXII. _Sixth side_. Justice. Crowned, and with sword.
Inscribed in the copy, "REX SUM JUSTICIE."

This idea was afterwards much amplified and adorned in the only good
capital of the Renaissance series, under the Judgment angle. Giotto has
also given his whole strength to the painting of this virtue,
representing her as enthroned under a noble Gothic canopy, holding
scales, not by the beam, but one in each hand; a beautiful idea, showing
that the equality of the scales of Justice is not owing to natural laws,
but to her own immediate weighing the opposed causes in her own hands.
In one scale is an executioner beheading a criminal; in the other an
angel crowning a man who seems (in Selvatico's plate) to have been
working at a desk or table.

Beneath her feet is a small predella, representing various persons
riding securely in the woods, and others dancing to the sound of music.

Spenser's Justice, Sir Artegall, is the hero of an entire book, and the
betrothed knight of Britomart, or chastity.

SECTION LXIII. _Seventh side_. Prudence. A man with a book and a
pair of compasses, wearing the noble cap, hanging down towards the
shoulder, and bound in a fillet round the brow, which occurs so
frequently during the fourteenth century in Italy in the portraits of
men occupied in any civil capacity.

This virtue is, as we have seen, conceived under very different degrees
of dignity, from mere worldly prudence up to heavenly wisdom, being
opposed sometimes by Stultitia, sometimes by Ignorantia. I do not find,
in any of the representations of her, that her truly distinctive
character, namely, _forethought_, is enough insisted upon: Giotto
expresses her vigilance and just measurement or estimate of all things
by painting her as Janus-headed, and gazing into a convex mirror, with
compasses in her right hand; the convex mirror showing her power of
looking at many things in small compass. But forethought or
anticipation, by which, independently of greater or less natural
capacities, one man becomes more _prudent_ than another, is never
enough considered or symbolized.

The idea of this virtue oscillates, in the Greek systems, between
Temperance and Heavenly Wisdom.

SECTION LXIV. _Eighth side_. Hope. A figure full of devotional
expression, holding up its hands as in prayer, and looking to a hand
which is extended towards it out of sunbeams. In the Renaissance copy
this hand does not appear.

Of all the virtues, this is the most distinctively Christian (it could
not, of course, enter definitely into any Pagan scheme); and above all
others, it seems to me the _testing_ virtue,--that by the possession of
which we may most certainly determine whether we are Christians or not;
for many men have charity, that is to say, general kindness of heart, or
even a kind of faith, who have not any habitual _hope_ of, or longing
for, heaven. The Hope of Giotto is represented as winged, rising in the
air, while an angel holds a crown before her. I do not know if Spenser
was the first to introduce our marine virtue, leaning on an anchor, a
symbol as inaccurate as it is vulgar: for, in the first place, anchors
are not for men, but for ships; and in the second, anchorage is the
characteristic not of Hope, but of Faith. Faith is dependent, but Hope is
aspirant. Spenser, however, introduces Hope twice,--the first time as the
Virtue with the anchor; but afterwards fallacious Hope, far more
beautifully, in the Masque of Cupid:

"She always smyld, and in her hand did hold
An holy-water sprinckle, dipt in deowe."

SECTION LXV. TENTH CAPITAL. _First side_. Luxury (the opposite of
chastity, as above explained). A woman with a jewelled chain across her
forehead, smiling as she looks into a mirror, exposing her breast by
drawing down her dress with one hand. Inscribed "LUXURIA SUM IMENSA."

These subordinate forms of vice are not met with so frequently in art as
those of the opposite virtues, but in Spenser we find them all. His
Luxury rides upon a goat:

"In a greene gowne he clothed was full faire,
Which underneath did hide his filthinesse,
And in his hand a burning heart he bare."

But, in fact, the proper and comprehensive expression of this vice is
the Cupid of the ancients; and there is not any minor circumstance more
indicative of the _intense_ difference between the mediaeval and
the Renaissance spirit, than the mode in which this god is represented.

I have above said, that all great European art is rooted in the
thirteenth century; and it seems to me that there is a kind of central
year about which we may consider the energy of the middle ages to be
gathered; a kind of focus of time which, by what is to my mind a most
touching and impressive Divine appointment, has been marked for us by
the greatest writer of the middle ages, in the first words he utters;
namely, the year 1300, the "mezzo del cammin" of the life of Dante. Now,
therefore, to Giotto, the contemporary of Dante, and who drew Dante's
still existing portrait in this very year, 1300, we may always look for
the central mediaeval idea in any subject: and observe how he represents
Cupid; as one of three, a terrible trinity, his companions being Satan
and Death; and he himself "a lean scarecrow, with bow, quiver, and
fillet, and feet ending in claws," [Footnote: Lord Lindsay, vol. ii.
letter iv.] thrust down into Hell by Penance, from the presence of
Purity and Fortitude. Spenser, who has been so often noticed as
furnishing the exactly intermediate type of conception between the
mediaeval and the Renaissance, indeed represents Cupid under the form of
a beautiful winged god, and riding on a lion, but still no plaything of
the Graces, but full of terror:

"With that the darts which his right hand did straine
Full dreadfully he shooke, that all did quake,
And clapt on hye his coloured winges twaine,
That all his many it afraide did make."

His many, that is to say, his company; and observe what a company it is.
Before him go Fancy, Desire, Doubt, Danger, Fear, Fallacious Hope,
Dissemblance, Suspicion, Grief, Fury, Displeasure, Despite, and Cruelty.
After him, Reproach, Repentance, Shame,

"Unquiet Care, and fond Unthriftyhead,
Lewd Losse of Time, and Sorrow seeming dead,
Inconstant Chaunge, and false Disloyalty,
Consuming Riotise, and guilty Dread
Of heavenly vengeaunce; faint Infirmity,
Vile Poverty, and lastly Death with infamy."

Compare these two pictures of Cupid with the Love-god of the
Renaissance, as he is represented to this day, confused with angels, in
every faded form of ornament and allegory, in our furniture, our
literature, and our minds.

SECTION LXVI. _Second side_. Gluttony. A woman in a turban, with a
jewelled cup in her right hand. In her left, the clawed limb of a bird,
which she is gnawing. Inscribed "GULA SINE ORDINE SUM."

Spenser's Gluttony is more than usually fine:

"His belly was upblownt with luxury,
And eke with fatnesse swollen were his eyne,
And like a crane his necke was long and fyne,
Wherewith he swallowed up excessive feast,
For want whereof poore people oft did pyne."

He rides upon a swine, and is clad in vine-leaves, with a garland of
ivy. Compare the account of Excesse, above, as opposed to Temperance.

SECTION LXVII. _Third side_. Pride. A knight, with a heavy and
stupid face, holding a sword with three edges: his armor covered with
ornaments in the form of roses, and with two ears attached to his
helmet. The inscription indecipherable, all but "SUPERBIA."

Spenser has analyzed this vice with great care. He first represents it
as the Pride of life; that is to say, the pride which runs in a deep
under-current through all the thoughts and acts of men. As such, it is a
feminine vice, directly opposed to Holiness, and mistress of a castle
called the House of Pryde, and her chariot is driven by Satan, with a
team of beasts, ridden by the mortal sins. In the throne chamber of her
palace she is thus described:

"So proud she shyned in her princely state,
Looking to Heaven, for Earth she did disdayne;
And sitting high, for lowly she did hate:
Lo, underneath her scornefull feete was layne
A dreadfull dragon with an hideous trayne;
And in her hand she held a mirrhour bright,
Wherein her face she often vewed fayne."

The giant Orgoglio is a baser species of pride, born of the Earth and
Eolus; that is to say, of sensual and vain conceits. His foster-father
and the keeper of his castle is Ignorance. (Book I. canto viii.)

Finally, Disdain is introduced, in other places, as the form of pride
which vents itself in insult to others.

SECTION LXVIII. _Fourth side_. Anger. A woman tearing her dress open at
her breast. Inscription here undecipherable; but in the Renaissance Copy
it IS "IRA CRUDELIS EST IN ME."

Giotto represents this vice under the same symbol; but it is the weakest
of all the figures in the Arena Chapel. The "Wrath" of Spenser rides
upon a lion, brandishing a firebrand, his garments stained with blood.
Rage, or Furor, occurs subordinately in other places. It appears to me
very strange that neither Giotto nor Spenser should have given any
representation of the _restrained_ Anger, which is infinitely the
most terrible; both of them make him violent.

SECTION LXIX. _Fifth side_. Avarice. An old woman with a veil over
her forehead, and a bag of money in each hand. A figure very marvellous
for power of expression. The throat is all made up of sinews with skinny
channels deep between them, strained as by anxiety, and wasted by
famine; the features hunger-bitten, the eyes hollow, the look glaring
and intense, yet without the slightest caricature. Inscribed in the
Renaissance copy, "AVARITIA IMPLETOR."

Spenser's Avarice (the vice) is much feebler than this; but the god
Mammon and his kingdom have been described by him with his usual power.
Note the position of the house of Richesse:

"Betwixt them both was but a little stride,
That did the House of Richesse from Hell-mouth divide."

It is curious that most moralists confuse avarice with covetousness,
although they are vices totally different in their operation on the
human heart, and on the frame of society. The love of money, the sin of
Judas and Ananias, is indeed the root of all evil in the hardening of
the heart; but "covetousness, which is idolatry," the sin of Ahab, that
is, the inordinate desire of some seen or recognized good,--thus
destroying peace of mind,--is probably productive of much more misery in
heart, and error in conduct, than avarice itself, only covetousness is
not so inconsistent with Christianity: for covetousness may partly
proceed from vividness of the affections and hopes, as in David, and be
consistent with much charity; not so avarice.

SECTION LXX. _Sixth side_. Idleness. Accidia. A figure much broken
away, having had its arms round two branches of trees.

I do not know why Idleness should be represented as among trees, unless,
in the Italy of the fourteenth century, forest country was considered as
desert, and therefore the domain of Idleness. Spenser fastens this vice
especially upon the clergy,--

"Upon a slouthfull asse he chose to ryde,
Arayd in habit blacke, and amis thin,
Like to an holy monck, the service to begin.
And in his hand his portesse still he bare,
That much was worne, but therein little redd."

And he properly makes him the leader of the train of the vices:

"May seem the wayne was very evil ledd,
When such an one had guiding of the way."

Observe that subtle touch of truth in the "wearing" of the portesse,
indicating the abuse of books by idle readers, so thoroughly
characteristic of unwilling studentship from the schoolboy upwards.

SECTION LXXI. _Seventh side_. Vanity. She is smiling complacently
as she looks into a mirror in her lap. Her robe is embroidered with
roses, and roses form her crown. Undecipherable.

There is some confusion in the expression of this vice, between pride in
the personal appearance and lightness of purpose. The word Vanitas
generally, I think, bears, in the mediaeval period, the sense given it
in Scripture. "Let not him that is deceived trust in Vanity, for Vanity
shall be his recompense." "Vanity of Vanities." "The Lord knoweth the
thoughts of the wise, that they are vain." It is difficult to find this
sin,--which, after Pride, is the most universal, perhaps the most fatal,
of all, fretting the whole depth of our humanity into storm "to waft a
feather or to drown a fly,"--definitely expressed in art. Even Spenser,
I think, has only partially expressed it under the figure of Phaedria,
more properly Idle Mirth, in the second book. The idea is, however,
entirely worked out in the Vanity Fair of the "Pilgrim's Progress."

SECTION LXXII. _Eighth side_. Envy. One of the noblest pieces of
expression in the series. She is pointing malignantly with her finger; a
serpent is wreathed about her head like a cap, another forms the girdle
of her waist, and a dragon rests in her lap.

Giotto has, however, represented her, with still greater subtlety, as
having her fingers terminating in claws, and raising her right hand with
an expression partly of impotent regret, partly of involuntary grasping;
a serpent, issuing from her mouth, is about to bite her between the
eyes; she has long membranous ears, horns on her head, and flames
consuming her body. The Envy of Spenser is only inferior to that of
Giotto, because the idea of folly and quickness of hearing is not
suggested by the size of the ear: in other respects it is even finer,
joining the idea of fury, in the wolf on which he rides, with that of
corruption on his lips, and of discoloration or distortion in the whole
mind:

"Malicious Envy rode
Upon a ravenous wolfe, and still did chaw
Between his cankred teeth avenemous tode
That all the poison ran about his jaw.
_And in a kirtle of discolourd say
He clothed was, ypaynted full of eies_,
And in his bosome secretly there lay
An hatefull snake, the which his taile uptyes
In many folds, and mortali sting implyes."

He has developed the idea in more detail, and still more loathsomely, in
the twelfth canto of the fifth book.

SECTION LXXIII. ELEVENTH CAPITAL. Its decoration is composed of eight
birds, arranged as shown in Plate V. of the "Seven Lamps," which,
however, was sketched from the Renaissance copy. These birds are all
varied in form and action, but not so as to require special description.

SECTION LXXIV. TWELFTH CAPITAL. This has been very interesting, but is
grievously defaced, four of its figures being entirely broken away, and
the character of two others quite undecipherable. It is fortunate that
it has been copied in the thirty-third capital of the Renaissance
series, from which we are able to identify the lost figures.

_First side_. Misery. A man with a wan face, seemingly pleading with a
child who has its hands crossed on its breast. There is a buckle at his
own breast in the shape of a cloven heart. Inscribed "MISERIA."

The intention of this figure is not altogether apparent, as it is by no
means treated as a vice; the distress seeming real, and like that of a
parent in poverty mourning over his child. Yet it seems placed here as
in direct opposition to the virtue of Cheerfulness, which follows next
in order; rather, however, I believe, with the intention of illustrating
human life, than the character of the vice which, as we have seen, Dante
placed in the circle of hell. The word in that case would, I think, have
been "Tristitia," the "unholy Griefe" of Spenser--

"All in sable sorrowfully clad,
Downe hanging his dull head with heavy chere:

* * * * *

A pair of pincers in his hand he had,
With which he pinched people to the heart."

He has farther amplified the idea under another figure in the fifth
canto of the fourth book:

"His name was Care; a blacksmith by his trade,
That neither day nor night from working spared;
But to small purpose yron wedges made:
Those be unquiet thoughts that carefull minds invade.

Rude was his garment, and to rags all rent,
Ne better had he, ne for better cared;
With blistered hands among the cinders brent."

It is to be noticed, however, that in the Renaissance copy this figure
is stated to be, not Miseria, but "Misericordia." The contraction is a
very moderate one, Misericordia being in old MS. written always as
"Mia." If this reading be right, the figure is placed here rather as the
companion, than the opposite, of Cheerfulness; unless, indeed, it is
intended to unite the idea of Mercy and Compassion with that of Sacred
Sorrow.

SECTION LXXV. _Second side_. Cheerfulness. A woman with long flowing
hair, crowned with roses, playing on a tambourine, and with open lips, as
singing. Inscribed "ALACRITAS."

Copyright (c) 2007. famouswriterz.com. All rights reserved.