nd intense meaning for him[146]. His picture is the epitome of
government conducted by a sovereign people. Nor can we fail to be struck
with the beauty of some details. The pale earnest faces of the horsemen
are eminently chivalrous, with knightly honour written on their calm and
fearless features. Peace, reclining at ease upon her pillow, is a lovely
woman in loose raiment, her hair wreathed with blossoms, in her hand an
olive branch, her feet reposing upon casque and shield. She is like a
painted statue, making us wonder whether the artist had not copied her
from the "Aphrodite" of Lysippus, ere the Sienese destroyed this statue in
their dread of paganism[147].

In the other two panels of this hall Ambrogio Lorenzetti painted the
contrast of good and bad government, harmony and discord. A city full of
brawls and bloodshed is set in opposition to one where the dance and viol
do not cease. Merchants are plundered as they issue from the gates on one
side; on the other, trains of sumpter mules are securely winding along
mountain paths. Tyranny, with all the vices for his council and with
Terror for prime minister, presides over the ill-governed town. The
burghers of the happy commune follow trade or pleasure, as they list; a
beautiful winged genius, inscribed "Securitas," floats above their
citadel. It should be added that in both these pictures the architecture
is the same; for the painter has designed to teach how different may be
the state of one and the same city according to its form of government.
Such then were the vivid images whereby Ambrogio Lorenzetti expressed the
mediaeval curse of discord, and the ideal of a righteous rule. It is only
necessary to read the "Diario Sanese" of Allegretto Allegretti in order to
see that he drew no fancy picture. The torchlight procession of burghers
swearing amity by couples in the cathedral there described, receives exact
pictorial illustration in the fresco of the Sala della Pace[148]. Siena,
by her bloody factions and her passionate peacemakings, expressed in
daily action what the painter had depicted on her palace walls.

The method of treatment adopted for these chapters has obliged me to give
priority to Florence, and to speak of the two Lorenzetti, Pietro in the
Pisan Campo Santo and Ambrogio in the Sala della Pace at Siena, as though
they were followers of Giotto; so true is it that the main currents of
Tuscan art were governed by Florentine influences, and that Giotto's