flowing hair bound with a narrow fillet, and a three-edged sword in her gauntleted right hand, drawn back sternly behind her thigh, while in her left, she bears high the shield of the Scalas. “Close to this monument is another, the stateliest and most sumptuous of the three; it first arrests the eye of the stranger, and long detains it--a many pinnacled pile, surrounded by niches with statues of the warrior saints. “It is beautiful, for it still belongs to the noble time, the latter part of the fourteenth century; but its work is coarser than that of the other, and its pride may well prepare us to learn that it was built for himself, in his own life-time, by the man whose statue crowns it, Can Signorio della Scala. Now observe, for this is infinitely significant. Can Mastino II. was feeble and wicked, and began the ruin of his house; his sarcophagus is the first which bears upon it the image of a Virtue, but he lays claim only to Fortitude. Can Signorio was twice a fratricide, the last time when he lay upon his death-bed: his tomb bears upon its gables the images of six Virtues--Faith, Hope, Charity, Prudence, and (I believe) Justice and Fortitude.”[47] Not far from “le Arche degli Scaligeri,” and going towards the Piazza Indipendenza is a beautiful example of an old house, dating perhaps from the year 1000. Though it is in a dreadful state of neglect and dirt (it is now used for stabling humble vehicles and ponies), the beauty of the brickwork and of different styles of arches--some round, some pointed--is very apparent. The old wooden forked battlements are very uncommon and interesting; and a legend which says that the house was once that of Romeo is so apposite we would fain believe it to be true even while knowing it to be altogether impossible. CHAPTER IX _Via Cappello_--_San Fermo_--_Museo Civico and Picture Gallery_ From out the active stirring Piazza delle Erbe runs the narrow quiet street of the Via Cappello. The tramway which traverses all Verona from the Porta Nuova to the Porta Vescovo passes at a foot’s pace along it, and almost touches an old mediæval house that tradition points out as the house of the Capulets, and where Juliet is said to have lived and loved. A tablet[48] over the door records the legend, though no romance attaches to the use to which the house is now put--a stable for carriers and their vans--and probably few who pass under the archway ever think of the ill-starred lovers or consider their story as aught but a myth.