They interpret to those of us who can read them, so far as they already see and know, the things that are forever. "Charity never faileth; but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail—tongues, they shall cease—knowledge, it shall vanish."
And the one message they bear to us is the commandment of the Eternal Charity. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and thy neighbor as thyself." As thyself—no more, even the dearest of neighbors.
"Therefore let every man see that he love his wife even as himself."
No more—else she has become an idol, not a fellow-servant; a creature between us and our Master.
And they teach us that what higher creatures exist between Him and us, we are also bound to know, and to love in their place and state, as they ascend and descend on the stairs of their watch and ward.
The principal masters of this faithful religious school in painting, known to me, are Giotto, Angelico, Sandro Botticelli, Filippo Lippi, Luini, and Carpaccio; but for a central illustration of their mind, I take that piece of work by the sculptor of Quercia,[48] of which some shadow of representation, true to an available degree, is within reach of my reader.
249. This sculpture is central in every respect; being the last Florentine work in which the proper form of the Etruscan tomb is preserved, and the first in which all right Christian sentiment respecting death is embodied. It is perfectly severe in classical tradition, and perfectly frank in concession to the passions of existing life. It submits to all the laws of the past, and expresses all the hopes of the future.
Now every work of the great Christian schools expresses primarily, conquest over death; conquest not grievous, but absolute and serene; rising with the greatest of them, into rapture.
But this, as a central work, has all the peace of the Christian Eternity, but only in part its gladness. Young children wreathe round the tomb a garland of abundant flowers, but she herself, Ilaria, yet sleeps; the time is not yet come for her to be awakened out of sleep.
Her image is a simple portrait of her—how much less beautiful than she was in life, we cannot know—but as beautiful as marble can be.