Page:Val d'Arno (Ruskin, 1890).djvu/191

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VII.—MARBLE RAMPANT.
159

further that the Captain of Florence, in this war, was a 'Conrad of Suabia,' and that she gave him, beside her own flag, one with only the word 'Libertas' inscribed on it.

I told you that the first stroke of the bell on the Tower of the Lion began the carillon for European civil and religious liberty. But perhaps, even in the fourteenth century, Florence did not understand, by that word, altogether the same policy which is now preached in France, Italy, and England.

What she did understand by it we will try to ascertain in the course of next lecture.