rom the sod. In the cathedral at Berne is a happy example of the use
of these sweet flowers, as they appear at the feet of the sacred
group, and as they carry the eye into the sky by means of the feathery
branches like fern-fronds which tops the scene; but we find them
nearer home, in almost every Gothic tapestry.

It was about the end of the last Crusade when Italy began to produce
the inspired artists who broke the bonds of Byzantine traditions and
turned back to the inspiration of all art, which is Nature. Giotto,
tending his sheep, began to draw pictures of things as he saw them,
Savonarola awoke the conscience, Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio--a string
of names to conjure with--all roused the intellect. The dawn of the
Renaissance flushed Europe with the life of civilisation. But before
the wonderful development of art through the reversion to classic
lines, came a high perfection of the style called Gothic, and with
that we are pleased to deal first. It is so full of beauty to the eye
and interest to the intellect that sometimes we must be dragged away
from it to regard the softer lines of later art, with the ingratitude
and reluctance of childhood when torn from its fairy tales to read of
real people in the commonplace of every day.

We are now in the time when the perfection of production was reached
in the tapestries we call Gothic. Artists had grown more certain of
their touch in colour and design, and weavers worked with such
conscientious care as is now almost unknown, and produced a quality of
tapestry superior to that of their forebears. The Fifteenth Century
and the first few years of the Sixteenth were spent in perfecting the
style of the preceding century, and so great was the perfection
reached, that it was impossible to develop further on those lines.

It must not be supposed from their importance that Brussels and Bruges
were the sole towns of weavers. There were many high-warp looms, and
low-warp as well, in many towns in Flanders and France, and there were
also beginnings in Spain, England and Germany. Italy came later. The
superb set in the Cluny Museum in Paris, _The Lady and the Unicorn_,
than which nothing could be lovelier in poetic feeling as well as in
technique, is accorded to French looms. But as it is impossible in a
cursory survey to mention all, the two most important cities are dwelt
upon because it is from them that the greatest amount of the best
product emanated.

Tapestries could no