The entire governing body was thus composed, first, of the Podestas, standard-bearer of justice; then of his military captain; then of his lictor, or executor; then of the twelve priors of arts and liberties--properly, deliberators on the daily occupations, interests, and pleasures of the body politic;--and, finally, of the parliament of "kind men," whose business was to determine what kindness could be shown to other states, by way of foreign policy.
267. So perfect a type of national government has only once been reached in the history of the human race. And in spite of the seeds of evil in its own impatience, and in the gradually increasing worldliness of the mercantile body; in spite of the hostility of the angry soldier, and the malignity of the sensual priest, this government gave to Europe the entire cycle of Christian art, properly so called, and every highest Master of labour, architectural, scriptural, or pictorial, practised in true understanding of the faith of Christ;--Orcagna, Giotto, Brunelleschi, Lionardo, Luini as his pupil, Lippi, Luca, Angelico, Botticelli, and Michael Angelo.
268. I have named two men, in this group, whose names are more familiar to your ears than any others, Angelico and Michael Angelo;--who yet are absent from my list of those whose works I wish you to study, being both extravagant in their enthusiasm,--the one for the nobleness of the spirit, and the other for that of the flesh. I name them now, because the gifts each had were exclusively Florentine; in whatever they have become to the mind of Europe since, they are utterly children of the Val d'Arno.
269. You are accustomed, too carelessly, to think of Angelico as a child of the Church, rather than of Florence. He was born in l387,--just eleven years, that is to say, after the revolt of Florence _against_ the Church, and ten after the endeavour of the Church to recover her power by the massacres of Faenza and Cesena. A French and English army of pillaging riders were on the other side of the Alps,--six thousand strong; the Pope sent for it; Robert Cardinal of Geneva brought it into Italy. The Florentines fortified their Apennines against it; but it took winter quarters at Cesena, where the Cardinal of Geneva massacred five thousand persons in a day, and the children and sucklings were literally dashed against the stones.