Val d'Arno: Ten Lectures on the Tuscan Art Directly Antecedent to the Florentine Year of Victories; Given Before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1873Ruskin, John
History
Val d'Arno: Ten Lectures on the Tuscan Art Directly Antecedent to the Florentine Year of Victories; Given Before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1873
Ruskin, John
Art -- Italy -- Tuscany
239. "And so it fell out, sure enough; for incontinently the King of
England (Henry III.) because he was the King of France's relation, took
the next daughter, Eleanor, for very little money indeed; next, his
natural brother, elect King of the Romans, took the third; and, the
youngest still remaining unmarried,--says the good romeo, 'Now for this
one, I will you to have a strong man for son-in-law, who shall be thy
heir;'--and so he brought it to pass. For finding Charles, Count of
Anjou, brother of the King Louis, he said to Raymond, "'Give her now to
him, for his fate is to be the best man in the world,'--prophesying of
him. And so it was done. And after all this it came to pass, by envy
which ruins all good, that the barons of Provence became jealous of the
good romeo, and accused him to the Count of having ill-guided his goods,
and made Raymond demand account of them. Then the good romeo said,
'Count, I have served thee long, and have put thee from little state
into mighty, and for this, by false counsel of thy people, thou art
little grateful. I came into thy court a poor romeo; I have lived
honestly on thy means; now, make to be given to me my little mule and
my staff and my wallet, as I came, and I will make thee quit of all my
service.' The Count would not he should go; but for nothing would he
stay; and so he came, and so he departed, that no one ever knew whence
he had come, nor whither he went. It was the thought of many that he was
indeed a sacred spirit."
240. This pilgrim, you are to notice, is put by Dante in the orb of
justice, as a just servant; the Emperor Justinian being the image of a
just ruler. Justinian's law-making turned out well for England; but the
good romeo's match-making ended ill for it; and for Borne, and Naples
also. For Beatrice of Provence resolved to be a queen like her three
sisters, and was the prompting spirit of Charles's expedition to Italy.
She was crowned with him, Queen of Apulia and Sicily, on the day of the
Epiphany, 1265; she and her husband bringing gifts that day of magical
power enough; and Charles, as soon as the feast of coronation was over,
set out to give battle to Manfred and his Saracens. "And this Charles,"
says Villani, "was wise, and of sane counsel; and of prowess in arms,
and fierce, and much feared and redoubted by all the kings in the
world;--magnanimous and of high purposes; fearless in the carrying forth
of every great enterprise; firm in every adversity; a verifier of his
every word; speaking little,--doing much; and scarcely ever laughed,
and then but a little; sincere, and without flaw, as a religious and
catholic person; stern in justice, and fierce in look; tall and nervous
in person, olive coloured, and with a large nose, and well he appeared a
royal majesty more than other men. Much he watched, and little he slept;
and used to say that so much time as one slept, one lost; generous to
his men-at-arms, but covetous to acquire land, signory, and coin,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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