APPENDIX 121

neck to an image which she carries in her hand, and has flames, bursting forth at her feet.”-Stones of Venice, vol. ii. ch. viii. § 75 (Vol. X. p. 392).

Lord Lindsay’s account is as follows:-

“A man (how just the satire!) standing totteringly beside a fire, typical of heresy or hell, and supporting in his right hand a female figure (Idolatry?) who holds a tree in her right hand and a cord (the emblem of subjection) in her left, the cord being passed round his neck.”-Christian Art (vol. ii. p. 196).¹

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INJUSTICE²

(Frontispiece to Fors Clavigera, Letter 10)

“The figure used by Giotto, with the particular intention of representing unjust government, is represented at the gate of an embattled castle in a forest, between rocks, while various deeds of violence are committed at his feet.”-Stones of Venice, vol. ii. ch. viii. § 101 (Vol. X. p. 409).

“I have given you another of Giotto’s pictures, this month, his imagination of Injustice, which he had seen done in his time, as we in ours; and I am sorry to observe that his Injustice lives in a battlemented castle and in a mountain country, it appears; the gate of it between rocks, and in the midst of a wood; but in Giotto’s time woods were too many, and towns too few. Also, Injustice has indeed very ugly talons to his fingers, like Envy; and an ugly quadruple hook to his lance, and other ominous resemblances to the ‘hooked bird,’ the falcon, which both knights and ladies too much delighted in. Nevertheless Giotto’s main idea about him is, clearly, that he ‘sits in the gate’ pacifically with a cloak thrown over his chain armour (you can just see the links of it appear at his throat), and a plain citizen’s cap for a helmet, and his sword sheathed, while all robbery and violence have way in the wild places round him,-he heedless.

“Which is, indeed, the depth of Injustice: not the harm you do, but that you permit to be done,-hooking perhaps here and there something to you with your clawed weapon meanwhile. The baronial type exists still, I fear, in such manner, here and there, in spite of improving centuries.” (Fors Clavigera, Letter 10.)

This fresco is again noticed by Ruskin:-

“There are two kinds of military building. One the robber’s castle, or stronghold, out of which he issues to pillage; the other, the honest man’s

¹ [Only a few words of the inscription are legible: “Infidelis claudicat | ydola ... spernit qui se predicat | visu trahit ydolatria ...” It will be noticed that the little figure of idolatry holds forth a tree; for tree-worship, see Vol. XIX. p. 367.]

² [Lord Lindsay’s account is: “A giant (so figured in proportion to the trees and shrubs in front of him) seated under the battlemented portal of his castle; his hands armed with talons-holding a sword and a long rake like those with which they pull driftwood out of the rivers in Italy. Below, in a small compartment, similar to the one on the opposite wall, a lady is dismounted from her horse and stripped by robbers.”-Christian Art (vol. ii. p. 196).]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]