[60] Rheims Cathedral, for example, was begun in 1211.  Upon its western portals is the loveliest of Northern Gothic sculpture.

[61] Antonio Filarete was commissioned, soon after 1431, by Eugenius IV., to make the great gates of S. Peter’s.  The decorative framework represents a multitude of living creatures—­snails, snakes, lizards, mice, butterflies, and birds—­half hidden in foliage, together with the best known among Greek myths, the Rape of Proserpine, Diana and Actaeon, Europa and the Bull, the Labours of Hercules, &c.  Such fables as the Fox and the Stork, the Fox and the Crow, and old stories like that of the death of AEschylus, are included in this medley.  The monument of Paul III. is placed in the choir of S. Peter’s.  Giulia Bella was the mistress of Alexander VI., and a sister of the Farnese, who owed his cardinal’s hat to her influence.  To represent her as an allegory of Truth upon her brother’s tomb might well pass for a grim satire.  The Prudence opposite is said to be a portrait of the Pope’s mother, Giovanna Gaetani.  She resembles nothing more than a duenna of the type of Martha in Goethe’s Faust.  Here, again, the allegory would point a scathing sarcasm, if we did not remember the naivete of the Renaissance.

[62] See above, Chapter II, Italian want of feeling for Gothic.

[63] Having said so much about this pulpit of S. Andrea, I am sorry that I cannot refer the English reader to any accessible representation of it.  For its sake alone, if for no other purpose, Pistoja is well worth a visit.

[64] It was long believed that he died of eating poisoned figs.

[65] See above, Footnote 16, for the original conception of this motive at Orvieto.

[66] See Il Duomo di Orvieto, descritto ed illustrato per Lodovico Luzi, pp. 330-339.

[67] See Luzi, pp. 317-328, and the first extant commission given in 1310 to Maitani, which follows, pp. 328-330.

[68] The whole series has been admirably engraved under the superintendence of Ludwig Gruener.  Special attention may be directed to the groups of angels attendant on the Creator in His last day’s work; to the “Adoration of the Shepherds,” distinguished by tender and idyllic grace:  and to the “Adoration of the Magi,” marked no less by majesty.  The dead breaking open the lids of their sarcophagi and rising to judgment are justly famous for spirited action.

[69] In Gothic sculpture of an early date the Bible narrative is literally represented.  God draws Eve from the open side of sleeping Adam.  On the facade of Orvieto this motive is less altered than refined.  The wound in Adam’s side is visible, but Eve is coming from behind his sleeping body in obedience to the beckoning hand of her Creator.  Ghiberti in the bronze gate of the Florentine Baptistery still further develops the poetic beauty of the motive.  Angels lift Eve in the air above Adam, in whose side there is now no open wound, and sustain her face to face with God, who calls her into life.  Della Quercia, on the facade of S. Petronio, confines himself to the creative act, expressed by the raised hand of the Maker, and the answering attitude of Eve; and this conception receives final treatment from Michael Angelo in the frescoes of the Sistine.