ly in the watches of the night,
when it is given to the powers of Darkness to prevail. And the worthy
man's fears were not unreasonable, for in those days the Demons had good
cause to hate the Painters, who robbed them of more souls with a single
picture than a good little Preaching Friar could do in thirty sermons.
No doubt the Monk, to instil a soul-saving horror in the hearts of the
faithful, would describe to the utmost of his powers "that day of wrath,
that day of mourning," which is to reduce the universe to ashes, _teste
David et Sibylla_, borrowing his deepest voice and bellowing through his
hands to imitate the Archangel's last trump. But there! it was "all
sound and fury, signifying nothing," whereas a painting displayed on a
Chapel wall or in the Cloister, showing Jesus Christ sitting on the
Great White Throne to judge the living and the dead, spoke unceasingly
to the eyes of sinners, and through the eyes chastened such as had
sinned by the eyes or otherwise.

It was in the days when cunning masters were depicting at Santa-Croce in
Florence and the Campo Santo of Pisa the mysteries of Divine Justice.
These works were drawn according to the account in verse which Dante
Alighieri, a man very learned in Theology and in Canon Law, wrote in
days gone by of his journey to Hell and Purgatory and Paradise, whither
by the singular great merits of his lady, he was able to make his way
alive. So everything in these paintings was instructive and true, and we
may say surely less profit is to be had of reading the most full and
ample Chronicle than from contemplating such representative, works of
art. Moreover, the Florentine masters took heed to paint, under the
shade of orange groves, on the flower-starred turf, fair ladies and
gallant knights, with Death lying in wait for them with his scythe,
while they were discoursing of love to the sound of lutes and viols.
Nothing was better fitted to convert carnal-minded sinners who quaff
forgetfulness of God on the lips of women. To rebuke the covetous, the
painter would show to the life the Devils pouring molten gold down the
throat of Bishop or Abbess, who had commissioned some work from him and
then scamped his pay.

This is why the Demons in those days were bitter enemies of the
painters, and above all of the Florentine painters, who surpassed all
the rest in subtlety of wit. Chiefly they reproached them with
representing them under a hideous guise, with the heads of bird a