Italian
code of criminal laws known as the "Digesto Nuovo" was bound in red, to
signify that a bloody death awaited thieves and murderers.
Blue
on a man's dress indicated wisdom and high and magnanimous thoughts; on
a woman's dress, jealousy in love, politeness, and vigilance. Friday
and Venus were represented by blue, and the celestial-hued sapphire was
the stone in which this color appeared in all its beauty. Blue was a
fit symbol of the age of childhood, but it is less easy to understand
the choice of the goat as the animal associated with the color. The
significant number was six. Natural science, the contemplation of the
heavens and of the heavenly bodies, and the study of stellar influences
were all typified by blue.
Green
signified for men joyousness, transitory hope, and the decline of
friendship; for women, unfounded ambition, childish delight, and
change. The early verdure of spring might be regarded as at once a
symbol of hope and of eventual disappointment, for it must soon pass
away. Mercury, and "Wednesday, the day of Mercury, were both typified
by green, the sly fox being selected as the animal is sympathy with the
wily god. The typical green stone is the emerald, youth is the age of
man represented by the color, and five the magic number expressing it.
In ancient times green was used in the case of those who died in the
flower of youth, an emerald being sometimes placed on the index-finger
of the corpse, as a sign that the light of hope was spent, for the
lower part of the torches used in religious ceremonies was marked with
green. Fulvius Pellegrinus relates 'that, in the tomb of Tullia, the
dearly-beloved daughter of Cicero, there was found an emerald, the most
beautiful that had ever been seen. This passed into the hands of the
Marchesana di Mantova, Isabella Gonzaga
