ze_--the Great Ladies of
Florence.

"And the image holding the scales is called _la Giustizia_, but it really
represents the Matrona, or Queen of the Fate, who of old exercised such
strict justice with her scales in Florence."

* * * * *

This is, I am confident, a tradition of great antiquity, for all its
elements are of a very ancient or singularly witch-like nature. In it
the _fate_ are found in their most natural form, as _fates_, weighing
justice and dealing out rewards and punishments. Justice herself appears
naively and amusingly to the witches as Queen of the _Fate_, who are
indeed all spirits who have been good witches in a previous life.

What is most mystical and peculiarly classic Italian is the belief that
the earth on which a human being has trod can be used wherewith to
conjure him. This subject is treated elsewhere in my "Etruscan Roman
Traditions."

The great stone at the base of the column was a kind of palladium of the
city of Florence. There are brief notices of it in many works. It would
be curious if it still exists somewhere and can be identified.

"A great palladium, whose virtues lie
In undefined remote antiquity;
A god unformed, who sleeps within a stone,
Which sculptor's hand as yet has never known;
Brought in past ages from some unknown shore;
Our fathers worshipped it--we know no more."

LEGENDS OF OR' SAN MICHELE

"The spirit of Antiquity, enshrined
In sumptuous buildings, vocal in sweet song,
In pictures speaking with heroic tongue,
And with devout solemnities entwined."

--WORDSWORTH, "_Bruges_."

Or' San Michele is a very beautiful church in the Italian Gothic style in
the Via Calzaioli. It was originally a market or stable below and a barn
or granary above, whence some derive its name from _Horreum Sancti
Michaelis_, and others from the Italian _Orto_, a garden, a term also
applied to a church-congregation. "The statues and decorations on the
exterior are among the best productions of the Florentine school of
sculpture." As that of Saint Eloy or San Eligio, the blacksmith, with
great pincers at an anvil, in a sculpture representing a horse being
shod, is the most conspicuous on the facade, the people have naturally
concluded that the church was originally a stable or smithy. The legend
of the place is as follows: