The part that is sufficiently preserved for the design to be intelligible, is immediately opposite the window. In the centre, the Almighty Ruler sits, holding a globe; over his head are Faith, Hope, and Charity; on his left hand are Magnanimity and Justice; on his right, Prudence, Fortitude, and Peace, each with her several attributes. Beyond Peace, sits Diligence; above whom is Wisdom. Two scales hang, one on each side of Diligence, from which angels are distributing riches and honour to the followers of Diligence and Wisdom. On the side where Justice and Magnanimity are placed, enough of the design remains to show the punishment of Crime--the absolving of Innocence, and generous forgiveness where lenity is possible. Below these figures a procession of the citizens of Sienna appears to be moving towards the Almighty Ruler and Protector of their state. Upon the wall to the left are traced the effects of good government and public security; on one side cultivated fields, with a busy and cheerful peasantry, and hard by, a flourishing city, with persons engaged in trade and commerce, and other occupations of peace. The rest of the wall is filled up with cheerful landscape, in various parts of which the social amusements of dancing, hawking, riding, &c., are enjoyed. The opposite wall did contain a representation of all the evils of bad government, Vain Glory, War, Famine, Beggary, and Cruelty[147]. The second division of the Ethical class of pictures comprises emblems and allegories. I have already mentioned two remarkable emblematical pictures of the ancients: the Demos of Athens by Parrhasius, and Euphranor’s popular estate. To these I will add the allegories of the shield of Achilles, and the emblems so beautifully imagined on medals, coins, and gems, besides the innumerable pictures chiefly upon vases referring to the mysteries of the Pagan worship, particularly as connected with the passage of the soul from this life, through death, to another. The modern painters have also dealt largely in allegory. Not to go farther back among Christian painters than Giotto, his marriage of St. Francis with Poverty at Assisi is a striking example; and so are the figures of the Virtues and Vices, so beautifully designed by him in the chapel of the Nunziata dell’ Arena, at Padua. But passing over innumerable pictures of the kind, I will go at once to the Sistine Chapel, where Michael Angelo’s Prophets and Sybils demand, at the first view, a class apart from ordinary historical subjects, and, as moderns, to stand at the head of that class. Then follow Prophets and Sybils by Raffaelle; Peruzzi’s all but sublime Sybil at Sienna, and a thousand more, among which the Allegories of Rubens claim a distinguished place[148]; not, indeed, for refinement of thought, but for skill in composition. The third division into which I desire to break the class of Ethical pictures comprehends the higher caricature.