And in the exact midst of all such transition, behold, Etruria with her Pisans--her Florentines,--receiving, resisting, and reigning over all: pillaging the Saracens of their marbles--binding the French bishops in silver chains;--shattering the towers of German tyranny into small pieces,--building with strange jewellery the belfry tower for newly-conceived Christianity;--and, in sacred picture, and sacred song, reaching the height, among nations, most passionate, and most pure. I must close my lecture without indulging myself yet, by addition of detail; requesting you, before we next meet, to fix these general outlines in your minds, so that, without disturbing their distinctness, I may trace in the sequel the relations of Italian Art to these political and religious powers; and determine with what force of passionate sympathy, or fidelity of resigned obedience, the Pisan artists, father and son, executed the indignation of Florence and fulfilled the piety of Orvieto. LECTURE III. SHIELD AND APRON. 61. I laid before you, in my last lecture, first lines of the chart of Italian history in the thirteenth century, which I hope gradually to fill with colour, and enrich, to such degree as may be sufficient for all comfortable use. But I indicated, as the more special subject of our immediate study, the nascent power of liberal thought, and liberal art, over dead tradition and rude workmanship. To-day I must ask you to examine in greater detail the exact relation of this liberal art to the illiberal elements which surrounded it. 62. You do not often hear me use that word "Liberal" in any favourable sense. I do so now, because I use it also in a very narrow and exact sense. I mean that the thirteenth century is, in Italy's year of life, her 17th of March. In the light of it, she assumes her toga virilis; and it is sacred to her god Liber. 63. To her god _Liber_,--observe: not Dionusos, still less Bacchus, but her own ancient and simple deity. And if you have read with some care the statement I gave you, with Carlyle's help, of the moment and manner of her change from savageness to dexterity, and from rudeness to refinement of life, you will hear, familiar as the lines are to you, the invocation in the first Georgic with a new sense of its meaning:-- "Vos, O clarissima mundi Lumina, labentem coelo quae ducitis annum, Liber, et alma Ceres; vestro si munere tellus Chaoniam pingui glandem mutavit arista, Poculaqu' inventis Acheloia miscuit uvis, Munera vestra cano."