Beneath her, Aristotle,—intense keenness of search in his half-closed eyes.
Medallion above, (less expressive than usual) a man writing, with his head stooped.
The whole under Isaiah, in the line of Prophets.
Technical Points.—The only parts of this figure which have suffered seriously in repainting are the leaves of the rod, and the scorpion. I have no idea, as I said above, what the background once was; it is now a mere mess of scrabbled grey, carried over the vestiges, still with care much redeemable, of the richly ornamental extremity of the rod, which was a cluster of green leaves on a black ground. But the scorpion is indecipherably injured, most of it confused repainting, mixed with the white of the dress, the double sting emphatic enough still, but not on the first lines.
The Aristotle is very genuine throughout, except his hat, and I think that must be pretty nearly on the old lines, through I cannot trace them. They are good lines, new or old.
IV. MUSIC. After you have learned to reason, young people, of course you will be very grave, if not dull, you think. No, says Simon Memmi. By no means anything of the kind. After learning to reason, you will learn to sing; for you will want to. There is so much reason for singing in the sweet world, when one thinks rightly of it. None for grumbling, provided always you have entered in at the strait gate. You will sing all along the road then, in a little while, in a manner pleasant for other people to hear.
This figure has been one of the loveliest in the series, an extreme refinement and tender severity being aimed at throughout. She is crowned, not with laurel, but with small leaves,—I am not sure what they are, being too much injured: the face thin, abstracted, wistful; the lips not far open in their low singing; the hair rippling softly on the shoulders. She plays on a small organ, richly ornamented with Gothic tracery, the down slope of it set with crockets like those of Santa Maria del Fiore. Simon Memmi means that all music must be "sacred." Not that you are never to sing anything but hymns, but that whatever is rightly called music, or work of the Muses, is divine in help and healing.
The actions of both hands are singularly sweet. The right is one of the loveliest things I ever saw done in painting. She is keeping down one note only, with her third finger, seen under the raised fourth: the thumb, just passing under; all the curves of the fingers exquisite, and the pale light and shade of the rosy flesh relieved against the ivory white and brown of the notes. Only the thumb and end of the forefinger are seen of the left hand, but they indicate enough its light pressure on the bellows. Fortunately, all these portions of the fresco are absolutely intact.
Underneath, Tubal-Cain. Not Jubal, as you would expect. Jubal is the inventor of musical instruments. Tubal-Cain, thought the old Florentines, invented harmony. They, the best smiths in the world, knew the differences in tones of hammer strokes on anvil. Curiously enough, the only piece of true part-singing, done beautifully and joyfully, which I have heard this year in Italy, (being south of Alps exactly six months, and ranging from Genoa to Palermo) was out of a busy smithy at Perugia. Of bestial howling, and entirely frantic vomiting up of hopelessly damned souls through their still carnal throats, I have heard more than, please God, I will ever endure the hearing of again in one of His summers.
You think Tubal-Cain very ugly? Yes. Much like a shaggy baboon: not accidentally, but with most scientific understanding of baboon character. Men must have looked like that, before they had invented harmony, or felt that one note differed from another, says, and knows Simon Memmi. Darwinism, like all widely popular and widely mischievous fallacies, has many a curious gleam and grain of truth in its tissue.