The pavement of the nave and aisles is a preparation, in some sort, for the rest. In the nave is first Hermes Mercurius Trismegistus, "Contemporaneus Moysi," with two disciples--symbolical of the mystical wisdom of the Ancients, "when sages looked to Egypt for their lore." It was executed in 1488 from the designs of Giovanni di Stefano. Next comes Siena herself, represented by the _Lupa_ suckling the Twins, surrounded with the heraldic beasts of the allied cities; this was originally executed in 1373, and (unlike the rest of the pavement) in mosaic, but the present piece is a modern copy. She is followed--in token of what her chroniclers call her perpetual fidelity to the Caesarian Monarchy--by a wheel with the Imperial Eagle in the centre, of the same year. Then follow two allegories of human life, under the sway of Fortune, "who hath the goods of the world so in her clutch." The first is the so-called _Storia della Fortuna_, designed by Pinturicchio in 1505.[79] Fortune has landed ten of her subjects on the shore of a solitary island mountain, the paths of which are stony, and where reptiles lurk and crawl. Some run steadfastly on to seek wisdom; one sinks down to rest by the way, wearied already of the quest; one gazes longingly back, another shakes his fist at his mistress. "But she is blessed and heareth not that," as Dante has it, as she spreads her sail to catch the breeze, and steps off again into her storm-shattered bark to fetch new votaries. Above all change and alien influence, in the flowery garden that crowns the mountain like Dante's Earthly Paradise, sits Wisdom enthroned, with palm and book; on her right Socrates receives the palm, on her left Crates is casting jewels into the sea; the obvious meaning being that wisdom can be reached only by pursuit of knowledge and contempt of riches. The second, an allegory of ambition, a modern copy of a work originally executed in 1372, shows a crowned king enthroned on the summit of Fortune's wheel; clinging desperately to the sides of the wheel are men struggling up to take his place or falling from it, while in the corners the sages of antiquity moralise upon the scene. On the pavement of the aisles are the ten Sibyls, inspired prophetesses of the Incarnation and Redemption among the pagans and gentiles. They were laid down in 1482 and 1483, under the rectorship of Alberto Aringhieri, to whose care so much of the beautiful decoration of the Duomo is due; but they have all been restored. In the right aisle we see the Delphic Sibyl, designed and executed by Giuliano di Biagio and Vito di Marco; the Cumaean Sibyl, ascribed to Luigi di Ruggiero and Vito di Marco;[80] the Cuman Sibyl, with the golden bough and the famous Virgilian prophecy, designed and executed by Giovanni di Stefano; the Erythraean Sibyl, designed and executed, also signed, by Antonio Federighi; the Persian Sibyl, which appears to be mainly the work of Urbano da Cortona. In the left aisle are: the Libyan Sibyl, designed by