_Operare est orare_ was its principle. As a result of that
teaching that labor is practical prayer, that the worker should labor
not simply for a wage, but for perfection, men with untiring energy
straining for finer and better work came to make the best things their
minds could conceive, their taste could plan, their hands could fashion.
Bell-making in Dante's day attained such perfection that the form and
composition of bells have ever since been imitated. Workers of precious
metals produced such wonderful chalices that succeeding generations have
never equalled the ancient model. The masonry of medievalism has secrets
of construction lost to our age. Mechanical engineering solved without
the use of steel girders problems in the structural work of cathedrals,
palaces, fortresses and bridges that causes open-eyed astonishment in
the twentieth century. Wood carving as seen in many medieval chairs,
tables, and choir equipment is of design so exquisite and of finish of
detail so artistic that it is the despair of the cabinet makers of our
age.
The beauty of the thirteenth century needlework made into chasubles,
copes, albs, stoles, altar covers,--triumphs of artistic excellence, is
seen in the typical example of the Cope of Ascoli for which Mr.
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