But it is
notable enough to the passing traveller, to find himself shut into a
narrow road between high stone dykes which he can neither see over nor
climb over, (I always deliberately pitch them down myself, wherever I need
a gap,) instead of on a broad road between low grey walls with all the moor
beyond--and the power of leaping over when he chooses in innocent trespass
for herb, or view, or splinter of grey rock.] when the neglected walls by
the roadside tumble down, benevolently repair the same, with better
stonework, _outside_ always of the fallen heaps;--which, the wall
being thus built _on_ what was the public road, absorb themselves,
with help of moss and time, into the heaving swells of the rocky field-and
behold, gain of a couple of feet--along so much of the road as needs
repairing operations.
This then, is the first of the Christian sciences: division of land
rightly, and the general law of measuring between wisely-held compass
points. The type of mensuration, circle in square, on his desk, I use
for my first exercise in the laws of Fesole.
21. _Sculpture_.
The first piece of the closing series on the north side of the
Campanile, of which some general points must be first noted, before any
special examination.
The two initial ones, Sculpture and Painting, are by tradition the only
ones attributed to Giotto's own hand. The fifth, Song, is known, and
recognizable in its magnificence, to be by Luca della Robbia.
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