The reputations achieved by these and other thirteenth-century astrologers in Italy, belonging to such different ranks of life, show what an immense importance was attached to their art by the general public. Yet we shall be greatly mistaken if we think that it was only to acquire skill in this fascinating pursuit that men thronged to hear Cecco lecture, or pored over Latin manuscripts. The intense ardour for knowledge which marks this period made them eager to understand the world around them and the sky above their heads. [Illustration: ASTRONOMY. _From a fresco in the Spanish Chapel of Santa Maria Novella, Florence._ [_To face p. 217._}] It would be a shame, writes one, to live in a house and not know how it is built or what shape it has, never to examine the walls, and floors, and ceilings, nor to consider the use of the wooden beams used in its construction. In like manner we should not be content without understanding the form and structure of the Universe in which we live. Man, with his upright attitude and his head held high, unlike the animals, was designed by his Creator to look and listen, to know and comprehend this marvellous Universe, and especially that noblest part of it above him, the heavens and their wonderful movements. For thus alone can he learn to know God Himself, the great Architect of the World. In writing thus, Ristoro, the monk of Arezzo, was not only echoing the thoughts of Plato and Cicero, he was expressing the feeling for astronomy as a noble and elevating study which was general among thoughtful men of his time. It was expressed also in contemporary art. Visitors to the “Spanish Chapel” in the cloisters of a Florentine church will remember seeing on the frescoed walls the figure of Astronomy as she was personified in Tuscany in the fourteenth century. She sits among her peers, the sciences of the Trivium and Quadrivium, the only one who wears a crown; her fair hair frames a spiritual face, one hand is lifted heavenwards, the other holds a celestial sphere, on which the broad band of the zodiac crosses the “equator of the day.” At her feet sits a kingly figure in flowing robes, also crowned, and with a face of singular beauty and refinement; he gazes up into the skies with a rapt expression, and on his knee is a book in which he writes what he sees. This nameless figure was identified doubtfully by Ruskin as Zoroaster, who was considered by many as the inventor of astrology, but surely it can be no other than Ptolemy with his _Almagest_. For Ptolemy, the prince of astronomers, was often and naturally confused with the royal race who had patronized astronomy at Alexandria; as for instance by Omons, a thirteenth-century writer, who says in his _Image du Monde_ that “Ptolemy king of Egypt” wrote the _Almagest_. The curious mode of dressing the hair and beard may have been thought by the artist to represent an ancient Egyptian fashion.