46. 'When it is needful.' Yes; but when is that? If instead of the towers of the Death-watch in the city, one could ruin the towers of the Death-watch of evil pride and evil treasure in men's hearts, there would be need enough for such work both in Florence and London. But the walls of those spiritual towers have still stronger 'grip' in them, and are fireproof with a vengeance. "Le mure me parean die ferro fosse, . . . e el mi dixe, il fuoco eterno Chentro laffoca, le dimostra rosse." But the towers in Florence, shattered to fragments by this ingenious engineer, and the tombs in Perugia, which his son will carve, only that they also may be so well destroyed that only a few relics remain, scattered up and down the church,--are these, also, only the iron towers, and the red-hot tombs, of the city of Dis? Let us see. 47. In order to understand the relation of the tradesmen and working men, including eminently the artist, to the general life of the thirteenth century, I must lay before you the clearest elementary charts I can of the course which the fates of Italy were now appointing for her. My first chart must be geographical. I want you to have a clearly dissected and closely fitted notion of the natural boundaries of her states, and their relations to surrounding ones. Lay hold first, firmly, of your conception of the valleys of the Po and the Arno, running counter to each other--opening east and opening west,--Venice at the end of the one, Pisa at the end of the other. 48. These two valleys--the hearts of Lombardy and Etruria--virtually contain the life of Italy. They are entirely different in character: Lombardy, essentially luxurious and worldly, at this time rude in art, but active; Etruria, religious, intensely imaginative, and inheriting refined forms of art from before the days of Porsenna. 49. South of these, in mid-Italy, you have Romagna,--the valley of the Tiber. In that valley, decayed Rome, with her lust of empire inextinguishable;--no inheritance of imaginative art, nor power of it; dragging her own ruins hourly into more fantastic ruin, and defiling her faith hourly with more fantastic guilt. South of Romagna, you have the kingdoms of Calabria and Sicily,---Magna Graecia, and Syracuse, in decay;----strange spiritual fire from the Saracenic east still lighting the volcanic land, itself laid all in ashes. 50. Conceive Italy then always in these four masses: Lombardy, Etruria, Romagna, Calabria. Now she has three great external powers to deal with: the western, France--the northern, Germany--the eastern, Arabia. On her right the Frank; on her left the Saracen; above her, the Teuton. And roughly, the French are a religious chivalry; the Germans a profane chivalry; the Saracens an infidel chivalry. What is best of each is benefiting Italy; what is worst, afflicting her. And in the time we are occupied with, all are afflicting her.