Page:Val d'Arno (Ruskin, 1890).djvu/186

154 May Alexander died, and the Cardinals, after three months' disputing, elected the suppliant Patriarch to be Pope himself.

182. A man with all the fire of France in him, all the faith, and all the insolence; incapable of doubting a single article of his creed, or relaxing one tittle of his authority; destitute alike of reason and of pity; and absolutely merciless either to an infidel or an enemy. The young Prince Manfred, bastard son of Frederick II., now representing the main power of the German empire, was both; and against him the Pope brought into Italy a religious French knight, of character absolutely like his own, Charles of Anjou.

183. The young Manfred, now about twenty years old, was as good a soldier as he was a bad Christian; and there was no safety for Urban at Rome. The Pope seated himself on a worthy throne for a thirteenth-century St. Peter. Fancy the rock of Edinburgh Castle, as steep on all sides as it is to the west, and as long as the Old Town; and you have the rock of Orvieto.

184. Here, enthroned against the gates of hell, in unassailable fortitude and unfaltering