of pure, and exquisitely severe and refined, fourteenth century Gothic,
with superbly carved bearings on its shields. The small detached line of
tombs on the left, untouched in its sweet colour and living weed ornament,
I would fain have painted, stone by stone: but one can never draw in front
of a church in these republican days; for all the blackguard children of
the neighbourhood come to howl, and throw stones, on the steps, and the
ball or stone play against these sculptured tombs, as a dead wall adapted
for that purpose only, is incessant in the fine days when I could have
worked.

If you enter by the door most to the left, or north, and turn immediately
to the right, on the interior of the wall of the facade is an Annunciation,
visible enough because well preserved, though in the dark, and extremely
pretty in its way,--of the decorated and ornamental school following
Giotto:--I can't guess by whom, nor does it much matter; but it is well
To look at it by way of contrast with the delicate, intense, slightly
decorated design of Memmi,--in which, when you return into the Spanish
chapel, you will feel the dependence for its effect on broad masses of
white and pale amber, where the decorative school would have had mosaic
of red, blue, and gold.

Our first business this morning must be to read and understand the
writing on the book held open by St. Thomas Aquinas, for that informs
us of the meaning of the whole picture.

It is this text from the Book of Wisdom VII. 6.

"Optavi, et datus est mihi sensus.
Invocavi, et venit in me Spiritus Sapientiae,
Et preposui illam regnis et sedibus."