The distinction between these northern types of feminine virtue, and the figures of Alcestis, Antigone, or Iphigenia, lies deep in the spirit of the art of either country, and is carried out into its most unimportant details. We shall find in the central art of Florence at once the thoughtfulness of Greece and the gladness of England, associated under images of monastic severity peculiar to herself. And what Diana Vernon is to a French ballerine dancing the Cancan, the 'libertas' of Chartres and Westminster is to the 'liberty' of M. Victor Hugo and Mr. John Stuart Mill. LECTURE IX. THE TYRRHENE SEA. 215. We may now return to the points of necessary history, having our ideas fixed within accurate limits as to the meaning of the word Liberty; and as to the relation of the passions which separated the Guelph and Ghibelline to those of our own days. The Lombard or Guelph league consisted, after the accession of Florence, essentially of the three great cities--Milan, Bologna, and Florence; the Imperial or Ghibelline league, of Verona, Pisa, and Siena. Venice and Genoa, both nominally Guelph, are in furious contention always for sea empire while Pisa and Genoa are in contention, not so much for empire, as honour. Whether the trade of the East was to go up the Adriatic, or round by the Gulf of Genoa, was essentially a mercantile question; but whether, of the two ports in sight of each other, Pisa or Genoa was to be the Queen of the Tyrrhene Sea, was no less distinctly a personal one than which of two rival beauties shall preside at a tournament. 216. This personal rivalry, so far as it was separated from their commercial interests, was indeed mortal, but not malignant. The quarrel was to be decided to the death, but decided with honour; and each city had four observers permittedly resident in the other, to give account of all that was done there in naval invention and armament. 217. Observe, also, in the year 1251, when we quitted our history, we left Florence not only Guelph, as against the Imperial power, (that is to say, the body of her knights who favoured the Pope and Italians, in dominion over those who favoured Manfred and the Germans), but we left her also definitely with her apron thrown over her shield; and the tradesmen and craftsmen in authority over the knight, whether German or Italian, Papal or Imperial. That is in 1251. Now in these last two lectures I must try to mark the gist of the history of the next thirty years. The Thirty Years' War, this, of the middle ages, infinitely important to all ages; first observe, between Guelph and Ghibelline, ending in the humiliation of the Ghibelline; and, secondly, between Shield and Apron, or, if you like better, between Spear and Hammer, ending in the breaking of the Spear.