You are to note, therefore, that Giotto's Soldan is the type of all
noblest religion and law, in countries where the name of Christ has not
been preached. There was no doubt what king or people should be chosen:
the country of the three Magi had already been indicated by the miracle
of Bethlehem; and the religion and morality of Zoroaster were the
purest, and in spirit the oldest, in the heathen world. Therefore, when
Dante, in the nineteenth and twentieth books of the Paradise, gives his
final interpretation of the law of human and divine justice in relation
to the gospel of Christ--the lower and enslaved body of the heathen
being represented by St. Philip's convert, ("Christians like these the
Ethiop shall condemn")--the noblest state of heathenism is at once
chosen, as by Giotto: "What may the _Persians_ say unto _your_ kings?"
Compare also Milton,--
"At the Soldan's chair,
Defied the best of Paynim chivalry."
And now, the time is come for you to look at Giotto's St. Louis, who is
the type of a Christian king.
You would, I suppose, never have seen it at all, unless I had dragged
you here on purpose. It was enough in the dark originally--is trebly
darkened by the modern painted glass--and dismissed to its oblivion
contentedly by Mr. Murray's "Four saints, all much restored and
repainted," and Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcasella's serene "The St. Louis
is quite new.
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