en
to make statues that were perfectly beautiful, that was obvious; but it
did not make his own figures one tittle less hideous, for he felt them
now to be absolutely hideous. One wintry day, as he was roaming amongst
the fallen pillars and arches, thickly covered with myrtle and ilex, of
the desolate region beyond what had once been the Forum and was now the
cattle-market, there came across Domenico's mind, while he watched a
snake twisting in the grass, the remembrance of a certain anecdote about
a Greek painter, to whom Hercules had shown himself in a vision. He had
heard it, without taking any notice, two years before, from the young
scholar who read Cicero at table for Messer Neri Altoviti; and although
he had thought of it several times, it had never struck him except as
one of the usual impudent displays of learning of the parasitic tribe
of humanists.

But at this moment the remembrance of this fact came as a great light
into Domenico's soul. For what were these statues save the idols of the
heathens; and what wonder they should be divinely beautiful, when those
who made them might see the gods in visions?

This explanation, which to us must sound far-fetched and fantastic,
knowing, as we do, the real reason that made a people of athletes into a
people of sculptors, savoured of no strangeness to a man of the Middle
Ages. Visions of superhuman creatures were among the most undisputed
articles of his belief, and among the commonest subjects of his art. Had
not the Blessed Virgin appeared to St. Bernard, the Saviour among His
cherubim to St. Francis--the very stones shown at La Vernia where it
had happened--the Divine Bridegroom to Catherine of Siena? Had not St.
Anthony of Padua held the Divine Child in his arms? And all not so long
ago? Besides, every year there was some nun or monk claiming to have
conversed with Christ and His court; and the heavens were opening quite
frequently in the walls of cells and the clefts of hermitages. And did
not Dante relate a journey into Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise? It was
perfectly natural that what was constantly happening to holy men and
women nowadays should have happened in Pagan times also; and what men
could so well have deserved a visit from gods as those who spent their
lives faithfully portraying them? The story of Parrhasius and his vision
was familiar ground to a man accustomed to see, in all corners of Italy,
portraits of the Saviour painted by St. Luke, or finish