Nor is there any better spot in the world,--whencesoever your pilgrim
feet may have journeyed to it, wherein to make up so much mind as you
have in you for the making, concerning the nature of Kinghood and
Princedom generally; and of the forgeries and mockeries of both which
are too often manifested in their room. For it happens that this
Christian and this Persian King are better painted here by Giotto than
elsewhere by any one, so as to give you the best attainable conception
of the Christian and Heathen powers which have both received, in the
book which Christians profess to reverence, the same epithet as the
King of the Jews Himself; anointed, or Christos:--and as the most
perfect Christian Kinghood was exhibited in the life, partly real,
partly traditional, of St. Louis, so the most perfect Heathen Kinghood
was exemplified in the life, partly real, partly traditional, of Cyrus
of Persia, and in the laws for human government and education which had
chief force in his dynasty. And before the images of these two Kings I
think therefore it will be well that you should read the charge to
Cyrus, written by Isaiah. The second clause of it, if not all, will
here become memorable to you--literally illustrating, as it does, the
very manner of the defeat of the Zoroastrian Magi, on which Giotto
founds his Triumph of Faith. I write the leading sentences
continuously; what I omit is only their amplification, which you can
easily refer to at home.
Pages:
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88