Another class of ideas, no less illustrative of mediaevalism, can be studied in the Palazzo Pubblico at Siena.  There, on the walls of the Sala della Pace or de’ Nove, may be seen the frescoes whereby Ambrogio Lorenzetti expressed theories of society and government peculiar to his age.[143] The panels are three in number.  In the first the painter has delineated the Commune of Siena by an imperial male figure in the prime of life, throned on a judgment-seat, holding a sceptre in his right hand and a medallion of Justice in his left.[144] He wears no coronet, but a burgher’s cap; and beneath his footstool are the Roman twins, suckled by the she-wolf.[145] Above his head in the air float Faith, Charity, and Hope—­the Christian virtues; while Justice, Temperance, Magnanimity, Prudence, Fortitude, and Peace, six women, crowned, and with appropriate emblems, are enthroned beside him.  The majestic giant of the Commune towers above them all in bulk and stature, as though to indicate the people’s sovereignty.  The virtues are his assessors and inspirers—­he is King.  Beneath the dais occupied by these supreme personages, are ranged on either hand mailed and visored cavaliers, mounted on chargers, the guardians of the State.  All the citizens in their degrees advance toward the throne, carrying between them, pair by pair, a rope received from the hands of Concord; while some who have transgressed her laws, are being brought with bound hands to the judgment-seat.  Concord herself, being less the virtue of the government than of the governed, is seated on a line with the burghers in a place apart beneath the throne of Civil Justice, who is allegorised as the dispenser of rewards and punishments, as well as controller of the armed force and the purse of the community.  The whole of this elaborate allegory suffers by the language of description.  Those who have seen it, and who are familiar with Sienese chronicles, feel that, artistically laboured as the painter’s work may be, every figure had a passionate and intense meaning for him[146].  His picture is the epitome of government conducted by a sovereign people.  Nor can we fail to be struck with the beauty of some details.  The pale earnest faces of the horsemen are eminently chivalrous, with knightly honour written on their calm and fearless features.  Peace, reclining at ease upon her pillow, is a lovely woman in loose raiment, her hair wreathed with blossoms, in her hand an olive branch, her feet reposing upon casque and shield.  She is like a painted statue, making us wonder whether the artist had not copied her from the “Aphrodite” of Lysippus, ere the Sienese destroyed this statue in their dread of paganism[147].