APPENDIX 117

Lord Lindsay’s account is somewhat different, as he speaks of the figure as “adjusting the scales.”¹ He says:-

“Seated on a Gothic throne, and adjusting the scales of a balance before her-a little angel, bending from one scale, offers a crown to a just man; an executioner, in the opposite scale, armed with a sword, beheads an oppressor. Scenes of hunting, dancing, etc., are represented in a small composition below, indicating that the enjoyment of life is the fruit of the equal enforcement of law.”-Christian Art (vol. ii. p. 196).²

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FAITH

“The Faith of Giotto holds the cross in her right hand; in her left, a scroll with the Apostles’ Creed.³ She treads upon cabalistic books, and has a key suspended to her waist. Spenser’s Fidelia is still more spiritual and noble:-

‘She was araied all in lilly white,

And in her right hand bore a cup of gold,

With wine and water fild up to the hight,

In which a serpent did himselfe enfold,

That horrour made to all that did behold;

But she no whitt did chaunge her constant mood:

And in her other hand she fast did hold

A booke, that was both signd and seald with blood

Wherein darke things were writt, hard to be understood.’”

-Stones of Venice, vol. ii. ch. viii. § 78 (Vol. X. p. 394).]

Lord Lindsay says:-

“A matronly figure, crowned with a mitre, her robe tattered, in token of ‘evangelical poverty,’ the keys of heaven hanging from her girdle-holding the Creed in one hand, and trampling upon idols” (vol. ii. p. 196).

¹ [In the fresco, as it now appears, there is a cross-bar with strings or chains by which it is connected with the trays in the hands of Justice. It has, however, been suggested that these are the additions of a prosaic restorer. “Giotto clearly intended to represent Justice herself weighing the right and wrong, and assigning reward and punishment: the trays are poised in her hands, but she is herself the balance; her face has a distant look, because she is estimating the relation of the weights. The representation of the idea would be far less forcible if it were supposed that the crossbar and strings formed part of the original design. These present, further, the appearance of later additions, and involve certain obvious absurdities of a practical kind.... From what does it hang?” (see, further, Basil de Selincourt, Giotto, 1905, p. 157).]

² [Most of the inscription under “Justice” is legible. It reads: “Equa lance cuncta librat | perfecta iusticia; | coronando bonos, vibrat | ensem contra vicia | cuncta. Gaudet et libertate; | ipsa si regnaverit, | agit cum iocundidate. | Quousque quo volverit | miles probus tunc venatur, | cantatur, venditur; | mercator it. ...”]

³ [The opening words only-“Credo in Deum Patrem omnipotentem, creatorem cœli et terræ, et in Iesum Christum filium Dei unigenitum.” In the original fresco or a large photograph the cabalistic signs are clearly seen on the covers of the books at her feet.-ED. 1899.]

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