The workmanship of Luca is seen in the artistic qualities of the sculpture. There was a severe simplicity in his drawing of the outline and draperies which contrasted with the more elaborate work of his followers. Luca was also a close student of nature, and drew his materials from the world about him.
[Footnote 28: At the Marriage of Cana, St. John, chapter ii., verses 3-5.]
[Footnote 29: St. John ii., verse 12, and St. Matthew, chapter xii., verse 46.]
[Footnote 30: St. John, chapter xix., verse 25.]
[Footnote 31: Wordsworth's "She was a Phantom of Delight."]
[Footnote 32: From some verses by Edith M. Thomas, "A Della Robbia Garland," printed in _The Critic_, December, 1901.]
THE MEETING OF ST. FRANCIS AND ST. DOMINICK
In the beginning of the thirteenth century two men living in different countries of Europe were struck simultaneously with the same idea. They were St. Dominick, the Spaniard, and St. Francis, the Italian, and each determined to found a new religious order.[33] Hitherto the members of religious orders had shut themselves up in the solitude of monasteries and convents. In the new plan they were to mingle freely with the people, calling themselves brothers, or friars.
The first object of the Dominicans was to be preachers, and they were called Frati Predicatori. The Franciscans took the humbler name of the Frati Minori, or lesser brothers. The members of both orders were bound by a vow of poverty to possess nothing of their own. Like the disciples whom Jesus sent out, they were to carry neither purse nor scrip, but beg their food and raiment on their way. It is for this that they are called mendicant orders.
The affairs of their orders brought both St. Dominick and St. Francis to Rome at the same time. The two men met and embraced, each seeing in the other a kindred spirit. It was proposed to unite the two bodies in one, and St. Dominick favored this plan. He had won but a few followers, and St. Francis already had many. The Brother Minor however was sure that such union would be impossible. The two men were indeed of widely contrasting characters. St. Dominick was a scholar, a man of fiery and energetic temperament. St. Francis was unlettered, but his mind was poetic and imaginative, his nature gentle and humble. St. Dominick was known as the "Hammer of the Heretics," St. Francis as the "Father of the Poor."