The _Normans_, or the men of the north, were as fond of these brilliant standards as the nations of the Mediterranean. When they sailed on a warlike expedition, or when they celebrated a victory over pirates, they covered their vessels with flags. The poet Benoît de Sainte-More tells us that it was in this fashion, covered with seven hundred banners of different colours, that Rollo brought his fleet back up the Seine to Meulan. The Middle Ages made use of all kinds of fanciful decorations for their vessels; during the Renaissance, this taste was renewed and was an improvement both upon the customs of antiquity, whence it drew its inspirations, and on those of the thirteenth century, which it seemed anxious to forget (Fig. 95). “A galley,” says the learned M. Jal, “was in those days a species of jewel, and was handed over for embellishment to the hands of genius as a piece of metal was given to Benvenuto Cellini.” Sculptors, painters, and poets combined their talents to adorn a ship’s stern. No more striking example of this artistic refinement in naval ornamentation could be well quoted than that of the Spanish galley which was constructed in 1568 by order of Philip II. for his brother, Don Juan of Austria, to whom he had confided the command of the fleet intended to fight the barbarous Moorish States of Africa. The vessel’s cutwater was painted white and emblazoned with the royal arms of Spain, and with the personal ones of Don Juan. The prince being a Knight of the Golden Fleece, and the adventurous expedition on which he was bound being likely to be attended with as many perils as that of the Argonauts, the history of Jason and of the good ship Argo was represented in coloured sculpture on the stern above the rudder. This pictured poem was accompanied with four symbolical statues--Prudence, Temperance, Power, and Justice, above which floated angels carrying the symbols of the theological virtues. On one side of the poop might be seen Mars the Avenger, Mercury the Eloquent, and Ulysses stopping his ears against the seductions of the Sirens; on the other, Pallas, Alexander the Great, Argus, and Diana. Between these were inserted pictures, which conveyed either a moral lesson for the benefit of the young admiral, or a delicate eulogium on Charles V., his father, or on Philip II., his brother. All these emblems were _chefs-d’œuvre_ of drawing and sculpture, which the brilliancy of their gold, azure, and vermilion settings tended to enhance. [Illustration: Fig. 95.--Man-of-War of the Sixteenth Century.--Drawn by William Barendsz and engraved by Visscher, from the Collection of Engravings in the National Library of Paris.]