* * * * * ... Volgi gli occhi in giue; Buon ti sarà, per alleggiar la via, Veder lo letto delle piante tue. * * * * * Si vid’ io li, ma di miglior sembianza Secondo l’ artificio, figurato Quanto per via di fuor dal monte avanza. * * * * * Qual di pennel fu maestro o di stile, Che ritraesse l’ombre e i tratti, ch’ ivi Mirar farieno ogn’ ingegno sottile? Morti li morti, e i vivi parean vivi. Non vede me’ di me chi vide il vero, Quant’ io calcai fin che chinato givi. _“La Divina Commedia” di Dante Alighieri, Il Purgatorio_, Canto xii. L. 13–15, 22–24, 64–69. THE PAVEMENT MASTERS OF SIENA CHAPTER I HISTORY OF THE PAVEMENT One might have supposed that when Dante wrote the lines here quoted, he was describing the wonderful pavement that still adorns the Duomo of Siena. But this, we know, cannot be, since it was not until more than thirty years after Dante’s death that the plans for a greatly enlarged Duomo were abandoned, and the Sienese set themselves to adorn the building in the shape that we see it now. Moreover, as we shall presently see, no records of _ornamental_ work done upon the floor exist earlier than 1369. We may, however, I think, fairly turn the proposition the other way, and fancy that the pavement designers had Dante’s wonderfully descriptive verses in their minds, when they planned such a work. Their subjects and his differ vastly; and in the two hundred years that passed, ere it was in any sense completed, many variations took place in the original design, if complete design there ever was. Still we may feel, on entering that glorious temple, as if we were really treading the first parapet of Purgatory, as pictured by him. Although the order in which the stories meet our eyes does not in the least agree with the chronology of their execution, a sense of fitness in position seems to run through them, even from the great West Door itself. Hermes Trismegistus presenting to his disciples the Poemander, meets us on the very threshold of the Nave, supported in either aisle by the majestic figures of the ten Sibyls; and seems to lead the way, through half-pagan symbolical designs, to where, surrounded by the histories of Hebrew heroes and prophets, the mystery of the Atoning Sacrifice of Christ, the Very God, the Centre of all Faith and Prophecy is, before the High Altar itself, symbolized by the Sacrifice of Isaac. But this suggestion must not be pressed too far, because, as I have already remarked, and as the accompanying plan will show, many variations, for which at first sight the reason is not very obvious, have from time to time crept in. For general purposes, however, the student of the floor may fairly start with some such complete conception.