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 God, 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 Institutes 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.