would be to describe how the religious,
social, and philosophical conceptions of the fourteenth century found
complete expression in form and colour. By means of allegory and pictured
scene they drew the portrait of the Middle Age in Italy, performing
jointly and in combination with the followers of Niccola Pisano what
Dante had done singly by his poetry.

It has often been remarked that the drama of the life beyond this
world--its prologue in the courts of death, the tragedy of judgment, and
the final state of bliss or misery prepared for souls--preoccupied the
mind of the Italians at the close of the Middle Ages. Every city had its
pictorial representation of the "Dies Irae;" and within this framework the
artist was free to set forth his philosophy of human nature, adding such
touches of satire or admonition as suited his own temper or the
circumstances of the place for which he worked. Dante's poem has
immortalised this moment of Italian consciousness, when the belief in
another world was used to intensify the emotions of this life--when the
inscrutable darkness toward which men travel became for them a black and
polished mirror reflecting with terrible luminousness the events of the
present and the past. So familiar had the Italians become with the theme
of death artistically treated, that they did not shrink from acted
pageants of the tragedy of Hell. Giovanni Villani tells us that in 1304
the companies and clubs of pleasure, formed for making festival throughout
the town of Florence on the 1st of May, contended with each other for the
prize of novelty and rarity in sports provided for the people. "Among the
rest, the Borgo S. Friano had it cried about the streets, that whoso
wished for news from the other world, should find himself on Mayday on the
bridge Carraja or the neighbouring banks of Arno. And in Arno they
contrived stages upon boats and various small craft, and made the
semblance and figure of Hell there with flames and other pains and
torments, with men dressed as demons horrible to see; and others had the
shape of naked souls; and these they gave unto those divers tortures with
exceeding great crying and groaning and confusion, the which seemed
hateful and appalling unto eyes and ears. The novelty of the sport drew
many citizens, and the bridge Carraja, then of wood, was so crowded that
it brake in several places and fell with the folk upon it, whereby were
many killed and drowned, and many were disable