These
_may_ be opposed to religion, when religion becomes fantastic; but they
_must_ be opposed to war, when war becomes unjust. And if, perchance,
fantastic religion and unjust war happen to go hand in hand, your Greek
artist is likely to use his hammer against them spitefully enough.
45. His hammer, or his Greek fire. Hear now this example of the
engineering ingenuities of our Pisan papa, in his younger days.
"The Florentines having begun, in Niccola's time, to throw down many
towers, which had been built in a barbarous manner through the whole
city; either that the people might be less hurt, by their means, in the
fights that often took place between the Guelphs and Ghibellines, or
else that there might be greater security for the State, it appeared to
them that it would be very difficult to ruin the Tower of the Death-
watch, which was in the place of St. John, because it had its walls
built with such a grip in them that the stones could not be stirred
with the pickaxe, and also because it was of the loftiest; whereupon
Nicholas, causing the tower to be cut, at the foot of it, all the
length of one of its sides; and closing up the cut, as he made it, with
short (wooden) under-props, about a yard long, and setting fire to
them, when the props were burned, the tower fell, and broke itself
nearly all to pieces: which was held a thing so ingenious and so useful
for such affairs, that it has since passed into a custom, so that when
it is needful, in this easiest manner, any edifice may be thrown down.
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