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A canopy of crimson velvet, surmounted by the ducal crown and by the "Humilitas" of the Valseccas, concealed the columns of the Cathedral porch and fell in royal folds about the featureless porphyry lions who had seen so many successive rulers ascend the steps between their outstretched paws.
He picked it up and found that it was a silver coat-of-arms, such as are attached to the blinders and saddles of a carriage-harness. His curiosity was aroused, and holding the light closer he recognised the ducal crown of Pianura surmounting the "Humilitas" of the Valseccas.
Odo returned with a faint sneer. Gamba flushed to the temples, but the retort died on his lips. "Your Highness," he said, scarce above a whisper, "the gates are guarded; but the word for tonight is 'Humilitas." He knelt and kissed Odo's hand. Then he rose and passed out of the room... Before dawn the Duke left the palace. The high emotions of the night had ebbed.
Don Gervaso's words came back to him with deepening significance, and he thought how truly the old chaplain's prayer had been fulfilled. Honour and power had come to him, and they had abased him to the dust. The "Humilitas" of his fathers, woven, carved and painted on every side, pursued him with an ironical reminder of his impotence.
Let me give some examples. Not long ago, I went to one of the shrines of education, the Sorbonne in Paris. Two paintings adorn the chapel walls, not of saints or martyrs, nor of apostles or prophets, perhaps I should say of both saints and prophets, Labor and Humilitas, Industry and Modesty.
The sight started a new train of feeling, and Gamba, perceiving it, said quietly: "But this is no time to speak of such things." A moment later the carriage had passed under the great battlemented gates, with their Etruscan bas-reliefs, and the motto of the house of Valsecca Humilitas surmounted by the ducal escutcheon.
Among the other celebrated nuns and saints of the fourteenth century may be mentioned the Blessed Marina, who founded the cloister of Saint Matthew at Spoleta; the Blessed Cantuccia, a Benedictine abbess; and the Holy Humilitas, abbess of the Order of Vallombrosa at Florence; but none of them compare in pious works or in worldly reputation with the wise and hard-working Catherine of Siena.
Humility; with a veil upon her head, carrying a lamp in her lap. Inscribed in the copy, "HUMILITAS HABITAT IN ME."
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