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diff --git a/7227.txt b/7227.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2542762 --- /dev/null +++ b/7227.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4818 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mornings in Florence, by John Ruskin + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Mornings in Florence + +Author: John Ruskin + + +Release Date: January, 2005 [EBook #7227] +This file was first posted on March 28, 2003 +Last Updated: May 21, 2013 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MORNINGS IN FLORENCE *** + + + + +Produced by Michelle Shephard, Eric Eldred, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + + + + + +MORNINGS IN FLORENCE + + +By John Ruskin, M.A. + + + + +MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. + + + + +THE FIRST MORNING. + +SANTA CROCE. + + +If there is one artist, more than another, whose work it is desirable +that you should examine in Florence, supposing that you care for old art +at all, it is Giotto. You can, indeed, also see work of his at Assisi; +but it is not likely you will stop there, to any purpose. At Padua there +is much; but only of one period. At Florence, which is his birthplace, +you can see pictures by him of every date, and every kind. But you had +surely better see, first, what is of his best time and of the best kind. +He painted very small pictures and very large--painted from the age of +twelve to sixty--painted some subjects carelessly which he had little +interest in--some carefully with all his heart. You would surely like, +and it would certainly be wise, to see him first in his strong and +earnest work,--to see a painting by him, if possible, of large size, and +wrought with his full strength, and of a subject pleasing to him. And if +it were, also, a subject interesting to yourself,--better still. + +Now, if indeed you are interested in old art, you cannot but know the +power of the thirteenth century. You know that the character of it was +concentrated in, and to the full expressed by, its best king, St. Louis. +You know St. Louis was a Franciscan, and that the Franciscans, for whom +Giotto was continually painting under Dante's advice, were prouder of +him than of any other of their royal brethren or sisters. If Giotto ever +would imagine anybody with care and delight, it would be St. Louis, if +it chanced that anywhere he had St. Louis to paint. + +Also, you know that he was appointed to build the Campanile of the +Duomo, because he was then the best master of sculpture, painting, and +architecture in Florence, and supposed to be without superior in the +world. [Footnote: "Cum in universe orbe non reperiri dicatur quenquam +qui sufficientior sit in his et aliis multis artibus magistro Giotto +Bondonis de Florentia, pictore, et accipiendus sit in patria, velut +magnus magister."--(Decree of his appointment, quoted by Lord Lindsay, +vol. ii., p. 247.)] + +And that this commission was given him late in life, (of course he could +not have designed the Campanile when he was a boy;) so therefore, if you +find any of his figures painted under pure campanile architecture, and +the architecture by his hand, you know, without other evidence, that the +painting must be of his strongest time. + +So if one wanted to find anything of his to begin with, especially, and +could choose what it should be, one would say, "A fresco, life size, +with campanile architecture behind it, painted in an important place; +and if one might choose one's subject, perhaps the most interesting +saint of all saints--for him to do for us--would be St. Louis." + +Wait then for an entirely bright morning; rise with the sun, and go +to Santa Croce, with a good opera-glass in your pocket, with which you +shall for once, at any rate, see an opus; and, if you have time, several +opera. Walk straight to the chapel on the right of the choir ("k" in +your Murray's guide). When you first get into it, you will see nothing +but a modern window of glaring glass, with a red-hot cardinal in +one pane--which piece of modern manufacture takes away at least +seven-eighths of the light (little enough before) by which you might +have seen what is worth sight. Wait patiently till you get used to the +gloom. Then, guarding your eyes from the accursed modern window as best +you may, take your opera-glass and look to the right, at the uppermost +of the two figures beside it. It is St. Louis, under campanile +architecture, painted by--Giotto? or the last Florentine painter who +wanted a job--over Giotto? That is the first question you have to +determine; as you will have henceforward, in every case in which you +look at a fresco. + +Sometimes there will be no question at all. These two grey frescos at +the bottom of the walls on the right and left, for instance, have +been entirely got up for your better satisfaction, in the last year or +two--over Giotto's half-effaced lines. But that St. Louis? Re-painted or +not, it is a lovely thing,--there can be no question about that; and +we must look at it, after some preliminary knowledge gained, not +inattentively. + +Your Murray's Guide tells you that this chapel of the Bardi della +Liberta, in which you stand, is covered with frescos by Giotto; that +they were whitewashed, and only laid bare in 1853; that they were +painted between 1296 and 1304; that they represent scenes in the life +of St. Francis; and that on each side of the window are paintings of St. +Louis of Toulouse, St. Louis king of France, St. Elizabeth, of +Hungary, and St. Claire,--"all much restored and repainted." Under such +recommendation, the frescos are not likely to be much sought after; and +accordingly, as I was at work in the chapel this morning, Sunday, 6th +September, 1874, two nice-looking Englishmen, under guard of their valet +de place, passed the chapel without so much as looking in. + +You will perhaps stay a little longer in it with me, good reader, and +find out gradually where you are. Namely, in the most interesting and +perfect little Gothic chapel in all Italy--so far as I know or can hear. +There is no other of the great time which has all its frescos in their +place. The Arena, though far larger, is of earlier date--not pure +Gothic, nor showing Giotto's full force. The lower chapel at Assisi is +not Gothic at all, and is still only of Giotto's middle time. You have +here, developed Gothic, with Giotto in his consummate strength, and +nothing lost, in form, of the complete design. + +By restoration--judicious restoration, as Mr. Murray usually calls +it--there is no saying how much you have lost, Putting the question of +restoration out of your mind, however, for a while, think where you are, +and what you have got to look at. + +You are in the chapel next the high altar of the great Franciscan church +of Florence. A few hundred yards west of you, within ten minutes' walk, +is the Baptistery of Florence. And five minutes' walk west of that is +the great Dominican church of Florence, Santa Maria Novella. + +Get this little bit of geography, and architectural fact, well into your +mind. There is the little octagon Baptistery in the middle; here, ten +minutes' walk east of it, the Franciscan church of the Holy Cross; +there, five minutes walk west of it, the Dominican church of St. Mary. + +Now, that little octagon Baptistery stood where it now stands (and was +finished, though the roof has been altered since) in the eighth century. +It is the central building of Etrurian Christianity,--of European +Christianity. + +From the day it was finished, Christianity went on doing her best, in +Etruria and elsewhere, for four hundred years,--and her best seemed to +have come to very little,--when there rose up two men who vowed to God +it should come to more. And they made it come to more, forthwith; of +which the immediate sign in Florence was that she resolved to have a +fine new cross-shaped cathedral instead of her quaint old little octagon +one; and a tower beside it that should beat Babel:--which two buildings +you have also within sight. + +But your business is not at present with them; but with these two +earlier churches of Holy Cross and St. Mary. The two men who were the +effectual builders of these were the two great religious Powers and +Reformers of the thirteenth century;--St. Francis, who taught Christian +men how they should behave, and St. Dominic, who taught Christian men +what they should think. In brief, one the Apostle of Works; the other of +Faith. Each sent his little company of disciples to teach and to preach +in Florence: St. Francis in 1212; St. Dominic in 1220. + +The little companies were settled--one, ten minutes' walk east of the +old Baptistery; the other five minutes' walk west of it. And after they +had stayed quietly in such lodgings as were given them, preaching and +teaching through most of the century; and had got Florence, as it were, +heated through, she burst out into Christian poetry and architecture, +of which you have heard much talk:--burst into bloom of Arnolfo, Giotto, +Dante, Orcagna, and the like persons, whose works you profess to have +come to Florence that you may see and understand. + +Florence then, thus heated through, first helped her teachers to build +finer churches. The Dominicans, or White Friars the Teachers of Faith, +began their church of St. Mary's in 1279. The Franciscans, or Black +Friars, the teachers of Works, laid the first stone of this church of +the Holy Cross in 1294. And the whole city laid the foundations of its +new cathedral in 1298. The Dominicans designed their own building; but +for the Franciscans and the town worked the first great master of +Gothic art, Arnolfo; with Giotto at his side, and Dante looking on, and +whispering sometimes a word to both. + +And here you stand beside the high altar of the Franciscans' church, +under a vault of Arnolfo's building, with at least some of Giotto's +colour on it still fresh; and in front of you, over the little altar, is +the only reportedly authentic portrait of St. Francis, taken from life +by Giotto's master. Yet I can hardly blame my two English friends for +never looking in. Except in the early morning light, not one touch of +all this art can be seen. And in any light, unless you understand the +relations of Giotto to St. Francis, and of St. Francis to humanity, it +will be of little interest. + +Observe, then, the special character of Giotto among the great painters +of Italy is his being a practical person. Whatever other men dreamed +of, he did. He could work in mosaic; he could work in marble; he could +paint; and he could build; and all thoroughly: a man of supreme faculty, +supreme common sense. Accordingly, he ranges himself at once among the +disciples of the Apostle of Works, and spends most of his time in the +same apostleship. + +Now the gospel of Works, according to St. Francis, lay in three +things. You must work without money, and be poor. You must work without +pleasure, and be chaste. You must work according to orders, and be +obedient. + +Those are St. Francis's three articles of Italian opera. By which grew +the many pretty things you have come to see here. + +And now if you will take your opera-glass and look up to the roof above +Arnolfo's building, you will see it is a pretty Gothic cross vault, in +four quarters, each with a circular medallion, painted by Giotto. That +over the altar has the picture of St. Francis himself. The three others, +of his Commanding Angels. In front of him, over the entrance arch, +Poverty. On his right hand, Obedience. On his left, Chastity. + +Poverty, in a red patched dress, with grey wings, and a square nimbus of +glory above her head, is flying from a black hound, whose head is seen +at the corner of the medallion. + +Chastity, veiled, is imprisoned in a tower, while angels watch her. + +Obedience bears a yoke on her shoulders, and lays her hand on a book. + +Now, this same quatrefoil, of St. Francis and his three Commanding +Angels, was also painted, but much more elaborately, by Giotto, on +the cross vault of the lower church of Assisi, and it is a question of +interest which of the two roofs was painted first. + +Your Murray's Guide tells you the frescos in this chapel were painted +between 1296 and 1304. But as they represent, among other personages, +St. Louis of Toulouse, who was not canonized till 1317, that statement +is not altogether tenable. Also, as the first stone of the church was +only laid in 1294, when Giotto was a youth of eighteen, it is little +likely that either it would have been ready to be painted, or he ready +with his scheme of practical divinity, two years later. + +Farther, Arnolfo, the builder of the main body of the church, died in +1310. And as St. Louis of Toulouse was not a saint till seven years +afterwards, and the frescos therefore beside the window not painted +in Arnolfo's day, it becomes another question whether Arnolfo left the +chapels or the church at all, in their present form. + +On which point--now that I have shown you where Giotto's St. Louis is--I +will ask you to think awhile, until you are interested; and then I +will try to satisfy your curiosity. There fore, please leave the little +chapel for the moment, and walk down the nave, till you come to two +sepulchral slabs near the west end, and then look about you and see what +sort of a church Santa Croce is. + +Without looking about you at all, you may find, in your Murray, the +useful information that it is a church which "consists of a very wide +nave and lateral aisles, separated by seven fine pointed arches." And as +you will be--under ordinary conditions of tourist hurry--glad to learn +so much, _without_ looking, it is little likely to occur to you that +this nave and two rich aisles required also, for your complete present +comfort, walls at both ends, and a roof on the top. It is just +possible, indeed, you may have been struck, on entering, by the curious +disposition of painted glass at the east end;--more remotely possible +that, in returning down the nave, you may this moment have noticed the +extremely small circular window at the west end; but the chances are +a thousand to one that, after being pulled from tomb to tomb round +the aisles and chapels, you should take so extraordinary an additional +amount of pains as to look up at the roof,--unless you do it now, +quietly. It will have had its effect upon you, even if you don't, +without your knowledge. You will return home with a general impression +that Santa Croce is, somehow, the ugliest Gothic church you ever were +in. Well, that is really so; and now, will you take the pains to see +why? + +There are two features, on which, more than on any others, the grace and +delight of a fine Gothic building depends; one is the springing of its +vaultings, the other the proportion and fantasy of its traceries. +_This_ church of Santa Croce has no vaultings at all, but the roof of +a farm-house barn. And its windows are all of the same pattern,--the +exceedingly prosaic one of two pointed arches, with a round hole above, +between them. + +And to make the simplicity of the roof more conspicuous, the aisles are +successive sheds, built at every arch. In the aisles of the Campo Santo +of Pisco, the unbroken flat roof leaves the eye free to look to the +traceries; but here, a succession of up-and-down sloping beam and lath +gives the impression of a line of stabling rather than a church aisle. +And lastly, while, in fine Gothic buildings, the entire perspective +concludes itself gloriously in the high and distant apse, here the nave +is cut across sharply by a line of ten chapels, the apse being only a +tall recess in the midst of them, so that, strictly speaking, the church +is not of the form of a cross, but of a letter T. + +Can this clumsy and ungraceful arrangement be indeed the design of the +renowned Arnolfo? + +Yes, this is purest Arnolfo-Gothic; not beautiful by any means; but +deserving, nevertheless, our thoughtfullest examination. We will trace +its complete character another day; just now we are only concerned with +this pre-Christian form of the letter T, insisted upon in the lines of +chapels. + +Respecting which you are to observe, that the first Christian churches +in the catacombs took the form of a blunt cross naturally; a square +chamber having a vaulted recess on each side; then the Byzantine +churches were structurally built in the form of an equal cross; while +the heraldic and other ornamental equal-armed crosses are partly signs +of glory and victory, partly of light, and divine spiritual presence. +[Footnote: See, on this subject generally, Mr. R. St. J. Tyrwhitt's +"Art-Teaching of the Primitive Church." S. P. B. K., 1874.] + +But the Franciscans and Dominicans saw in the cross no sign of triumph, +but of trial.[Footnote: I have never obtained time for any right study +of early Christian church-discipline,--nor am I sure to how many other +causes, the choice of the form of the basilica may be occasionally +attributed, or by what other communities it may be made. Symbolism, +for instance, has most power with the Franciscans, and convenience for +preaching with the Dominicans; but in all cases, and in all places, +the transition from the close tribune to the brightly-lighted apse, +indicates the change in Christian feeling between regarding a church as +a place for public judgment or teaching, or a place for private prayer +and congregational praise. The following passage from the Dean of +Westminster's perfect history of his Abbey ought to be read also in the +Florentine church:--"The nearest approach to Westminster Abbey in this +aspect is the church of Santa Croce at Florence. There, as here, the +present destination of the building was no part of the original design, +but was the result of various converging causes. As the church of one +of the two great preaching orders, it had a nave large beyond all +proportion to its choir. That order being the Franciscan, bound by vows +of poverty, the simplicity of the worship preserved the whole +space clear from any adventitious ornaments. The popularity of the +Franciscans, especially in a convent hallowed by a visit from St. +Francis himself, drew to it not only the chief civic festivals, but also +the numerous families who gave alms to the friars, and whose connection +with their church was, for this reason, in turn encouraged by them. +In those graves, piled with standards und achievements of the noble +families of Florence, were successively interred--not because of their +eminence, but as members or friends of those families--some of the most +illustrious personages of the fifteenth century. Thus it came to pass, +as if by accident, that in the vault of the Buonarotti was laid Michael +Angelo; in the vault of the Viviani the preceptor of one of their +house, Galileo. From those two burials the church gradually be same the +recognized shrine of Italian genius."] The wounds of their Master were +to be their inheritance. So their first aim was to make what image to +the cross their church might present, distinctly that of the actual +instrument of death. + +And they did this most effectually by using the form of the letter T, +that of the Furca or Gibbet,--not the sign of peace. + +Also, their churches were meant for use; not show, nor +self-glorification, nor town-glorification. They wanted places for +preaching, prayer, sacrifice, burial; and had no intention of showing +how high they could build towers, or how widely they could arch vaults. +Strong walls, and the roof of a barn,--these your Franciscan asks of +his Arnolfo. These Arnolfo gives,--thoroughly and wisely built; the +successions of gable roof being a new device for strength, much praised +in its day. + +This stern humor did not last long. Arnolfo himself had other notions; +much more Cimabue and Giotto; most of all, Nature and Heaven. Something +else had to be taught about Christ than that He was wounded to death. +Nevertheless, look how grand this stern form would be, restored to its +simplicity. It is not the old church which is in itself unimpressive. +It is the old church defaced by Vasari, by Michael Angelo, and by modern +Florence. See those huge tombs on your right hand and left, at the sides +of the aisles, with their alternate gable and round tops, and their +paltriest of all possible sculpture, trying to be grand by bigness, and +pathetic by expense. Tear them all down in your imagination; fancy the +vast hall with its massive pillars,--not painted calomel-pill colour, as +now, but of their native stone, with a rough, true wood for roof,--and +a people praying beneath them, strong in abiding, and pure in life, as +their rocks and olive forests That was Arnolfo's Santa Croce. Nor did +his work remain long without grace. + +That very line of chapels in which we found our St. Louis shows signs +of change in temper. _They_ have no pent-house roofs, but true Gothic +vaults: we found our four-square type of Franciscan Law on one of them. + +It is probable, then, that these chapels may be later than the +rest--even in their stonework. In their decoration, they are so, +assuredly; belonging already to the time when the story of St. Francis +was becoming a passionate tradition, told and painted everywhere with +delight. + +And that high recess, taking the place of apse, in the centre,--see how +noble it is in the coloured shade surrounding and joining the glow of +its windows, though their form be so simple. You are not to be amused +here by patterns in balanced stone, as a French or English architect +would amuse you, says Arnolfo. "You are to read and think, under these +severe walls of mine; immortal hands will write upon them." We will go +back, therefore, into this line of manuscript chapels presently; but +first, look at the two sepulchral slabs by which you are standing. That +farther of the two from the west end is one of the most beautiful pieces +of fourteenth century sculpture in this world; and it contains simple +elements of excellence, by your understanding of which you may test your +power of understanding the more difficult ones you will have to deal +with presently. + +It represents an old man, in the high deeply-folded cap worn by scholars +and gentlemen in Florence from 1300--1500, lying dead, with a book +in his breast, over which his hands are folded. At his feet is this +inscription: "Temporibus hic suis phylosophye atq. medicine culmen fuit +Galileus de Galileis olim Bonajutis qui etiam summo in magistratu miro +quodam modo rempublicam dilexit, cujus sancte memorie bene acte vite pie +benedictus filius hunc tumulum patri sibi suisq. posteris edidit." + +Mr. Murray tells you that the effigies "in low relief" (alas, yes, +low enough now--worn mostly into flat stones, with a trace only of the +deeper lines left, but originally in very bold relief,) with which the +floor of Santa Croce is inlaid, of which this by which you stand is +characteristic, are "interesting from the costume," but that, "except +in the case of John Ketterick, Bishop of St. David's, few of the other +names have any interest beyond the walls of Florence." As, however, you +are at present within the walls of Florence, you may perhaps condescend +to take some interest in this ancestor or relation of the Galileo whom +Florence indeed left to be externally interesting, and would not allow +to enter in her walls. + +[Footnote: "Seven years a prisoner at the city gate, + Let in but his grave-clothes." + _Rogers' "Italy_."] + +I am not sure if I rightly place or construe the phrase in the above +inscription, "cujus sancte memorie bene acte;" but, in main purport, the +legend runs thus: "This Galileo of the Galilei was, in his times, the +head of philosophy and medicine; who also in the highest magistracy +loved the republic marvellously; whose son, blessed in inheritance of +his holy memory and well-passed and pious life, appointed this tomb for +his father, for himself, and for his posterity." + +There is no date; but the slab immediately behind it, nearer the western +door, is of the same style, but of later and inferior work, and bears +date--I forget now of what early year in the fifteenth century. + +But Florence was still in her pride; and you may observe, in this +epitaph, on what it was based. That her philosophy was studied _together +with useful arts,_ and as a part of them; that the masters in these +became naturally the masters in public affairs; that in such magistracy, +they loved the State, and neither cringed to it nor robbed it; that the +sons honoured their fathers, and received their fathers' honour as the +most blessed inheritance. Remember the phrase "vite pie bene dictus +filius," to be compared with the "nos nequiores" of the declining days +of all states,--chiefly now in Florence, France and England. + +Thus much for the local interest of name. Next for the universal +interest of the art of this tomb. + +It is the crowning virtue of all great art that, however little is left +of it by the injuries of time, that little will be lovely. As long as +you can see anything, you can see--almost all;--so much the hand of the +master will suggest of his soul. + +And here you are well quit, for once, of restoration. No one cares +for this sculpture; and if Florence would only thus put all her +old sculpture and painting under her feet, and simply use them for +gravestones and oilcloth, she would be more merciful to them than she is +now. Here, at least, what little is left is true. + +And, if you look long, you will find it is not so little. That worn face +is still a perfect portrait of the old man, though like one struck out +at a venture, with a few rough touches of a master's chisel. And that +falling drapery of his cap is, in its few lines, faultless, and subtle +beyond description. + +And now, here is a simple but most useful test of your capacity for +understanding Florentine sculpture or painting. If you can see that the +lines of that cap are both right, and lovely; that the choice of the +folds is exquisite in its ornamental relations of line; and that the +softness and ease of them is complete,--though only sketched with a +few dark touches,--then you can understand Giotto's drawing, and +Botticelli's;--Donatello's carving and Luca's. But if you see nothing +in _this_ sculpture, you will see nothing in theirs, _of_ theirs. Where +they choose to imitate flesh, or silk, or to play any vulgar modern +trick with marble--(and they often do)--whatever, in a word, is French, +or American, or Cockney, in their work, you can see; but what is +Florentine, and for ever great--unless you can see also the beauty of +this old man in his citizen's cap,--you will see never. + +There is more in this sculpture, however, than its simple portraiture +and noble drapery. The old man lies on a piece of embroidered carpet; +and, protected by the higher relief, many of the finer lines of this +are almost uninjured; in particular, its exquisitely-wrought fringe and +tassels are nearly perfect. And if you will kneel down and look long +at the tassels of the cushion under the head, and the way they fill the +angles of the stone, you will,--or may--know, from this example alone, +what noble decorative sculpture is, and was, and must be, from the days +of earliest Greece to those of latest Italy. + +"Exquisitely sculptured fringe!" and you have just been abusing +sculptors who play tricks with marble! Yes, and you cannot find a better +example, in all the museums of Europe, of the work of a man who does +_not_ play tricks with it--than this tomb. Try to understand the +difference: it is a point of quite cardinal importance to all your +future study of sculpture. + +I _told_ you, observe, that the old Galileo was lying on a piece of +embroidered carpet. I don't think, if I had not told you, that you would +have found it out for yourself. It is not so like a carpet as all that +comes to. + +But had it been a modern trick-sculpture, the moment you came to the +tomb you would have said, "Dear me! how wonderfully that carpet is +done,--it doesn't look like stone in the least--one longs to take it up +and beat it, to get the dust off." + +Now whenever you feel inclined to speak so of a sculptured drapery, +be assured, without more ado, the sculpture is base, and bad. You will +merely waste your time and corrupt your taste by looking at it. Nothing +is so easy as to imitate drapery in marble. You may cast a piece +any day; and carve it with such subtlety that the marble shall be +an absolute image of the folds. But that is not sculpture. That is +mechanical manufacture. + +No great sculptor, from the beginning of art to the end of it, has ever +carved, or ever will, a deceptive drapery. He has neither time nor will +to do it. His mason's lad may do that if he likes. A man who can carve +a limb or a face never finishes inferior parts, but either with a hasty +and scornful chisel, or with such grave and strict selection of their +lines as you know at once to be imaginative, not imitative. + +But if, as in this case, he wants to oppose the simplicity of his +central subject with a rich background,--a labyrinth of ornamental lines +to relieve the severity of expressive ones,--he will carve you a carpet, +or a tree, or a rose thicket, with their fringes and leaves and thorns, +elaborated as richly as natural ones; but always for the sake of the +ornamental form, never of the imitation; yet, seizing the natural +character in the lines he gives, with twenty times the precision and +clearness of sight that the mere imitator has. Examine the tassels of +the cushion, and the way they blend with the fringe, thoroughly; you +cannot possibly see finer ornamental sculpture. Then, look at the same +tassels in the same place of the slab next the west end of the church, +and you will see a scholar's rude imitation of a master's hand, though +in a fine school. (Notice, however, the folds of the drapery at the feet +of this figure: they are cut so as to show the hem of the robe within as +well as without, and are fine.) Then, as you go back to Giotto's chapel, +keep to the left, and just beyond the north door in the aisle is the +much celebrated tomb of C. Marsuppini, by Desiderio of Settignano. It +is very fine of its kind; but there the drapery is chiefly done to cheat +you, and chased delicately to show how finely the sculptor could chisel +it. It is wholly vulgar and mean in cast of fold. Under your feet, as +you look at it, you will tread another tomb of the fine time, which, +looking last at, you will recognize the difference between the false and +true art, as far as there is capacity in you at present to do so. And if +you really and honestly like the low-lying stones, and see more beauty +in them, you have also the power of enjoying Giotto, into whose chapel +we will return to-morrow;--not to-day, for the light must have left it +by this time; and now that you have been looking at these sculptures on +the floor you had better traverse nave and aisle across and across; and +get some idea of that sacred field of stone. In the north transept you +will find a beautiful knight, the finest in chiselling of all these +tombs, except one by the same hand in the south aisle just where it +enters the south transept. + +Examine the lines of the Gothic niches traced above them; and what +is left of arabesque on their armour. They are far more beautiful and +tender in chivalric conception than Donatello's St. George, which is +merely a piece of vigorous naturalism founded on these older tombs. If +you will drive in the evening to the Chartreuse in Val d'Ema, you may +see there an uninjured example of this slab-tomb by Donatello himself; +very beautiful; but not so perfect as the earlier ones on which it is +founded. And you may see some fading light and shade of monastic life, +among which if you stay till the fireflies come out in the twilight, and +thus get to sleep when you come home, you will be better prepared for +to-morrow morning's walk--if you will take another with me--than if you +go to a party, to talk sentiment about Italy, and hear the last news +from London and New York. + + + + +THE SECOND MORNING. + +THE GOLDEN GATE. + + +To-day, as early as you please, and at all events before doing anything +else, let us go to Giotto's own parish-church, Santa Maria Novella. If, +walking from the Strozzi Palace, you look on your right for the "Way of +the Beautiful Ladies," it will take you quickly there. + +Do not let anything in the way of acquaintance, sacristan, or chance +sight, stop you in doing what I tell you. Walk straight up to the +church, into the apse of it;--(you may let your eyes rest, as you walk, +on the glow of its glass, only mind the step, half way;)--and lift the +curtain; and go in behind the grand marble altar, giving anybody who +follows you anything they want, to hold their tongues, or go away. + +You know, most probably, already, that the frescos on each side of you +are Ghirlandajo's. You have been told they are very fine, and if you +know anything of painting, you know the portraits in them are so. +Nevertheless, somehow, you don't really enjoy these frescos, nor come +often here, do you? + +The reason of which is, that if you are a nice person, they are not nice +enough for you; and if a vulgar person, not vulgar enough. But if you +are a nice person, I want you to look carefully, to-day, at the two +lowest, next the windows, for a few minutes, that you may better feel +the art you are really to study, by its contrast with these. + +On your left hand is represented the birth of the Virgin, On your right, +her meeting with Elizabeth. + +You can't easily see better pieces--nowhere more pompous pieces--of +flat goldsmiths' work. Ghirlandajo was to the end of his life a mere +goldsmith, with a gift of portraiture. And here he has done his best, +and has put a long wall in wonderful perspective, and the whole city of +Florence behind Elizabeth's house in the hill country; and a splendid +bas-relief, in the style of Luca della Robbia, in St. Anne's bedroom; +and he has carved all the pilasters, and embroidered all the dresses, +and flourished and trumpeted into every corner; and it is all done, +within just a point, as well as it can be done; and quite as well as +Ghirlandajo could do it. But the point in which it _just_ misses +being as well as it can be done, is the vital point. And it is all +simply--good for nothing. + +Extricate yourself from the goldsmith's rubbish of it, and look full +at the Salutation. You will say, perhaps, at first, "What grand and +graceful figures!" Are you sure they are graceful? Look again and you +will see their draperies hang from them exactly as they would from two +clothes-pegs. Now, fine drapery, really well drawn, as it hangs from a +clothes-peg, is always rather impressive, especially if it be disposed +in large breadths and deep folds; but that is the only grace of their +figures. + +Secondly. Look at the Madonna, carefully. You will find she is not the +least meek--only stupid,--as all the other women in the picture are. + +"St. Elizabeth, you think, is nice"? Yes; "and she says, 'Whence is +this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?' really with +a great deal of serious feeling?" Yes, with a great deal. Well, you have +looked enough at those two. Now--just for another minute--look at the +birth of the Virgin. "A most graceful group, (your Murray's Guide tells +you,) in the attendant servants." Extremely so. Also, the one holding +the child is rather pretty. Also, the servant pouring out the water does +it from a great height, without splashing, most cleverly. Also, the lady +coming to ask for St. Anne, and see the baby, walks majestically and +is very finely dressed. And as for that bas-relief in the style of Luca +della Robbia, you might really almost think it _was_ Luca! The very best +plated goods, Master Ghirlandajo, no doubt--always on hand at your shop. + +Well, now you must ask for the Sacristan, who is civil and nice enough, +and get him to let you into the green cloister, and then go into the +less cloister opening out of it on the right, as you go down the steps; +and you must ask for the tomb of the Marcheza Stiozzi Ridolfi; and in +the recess behind the Marcheza's tomb--very close to the ground, and +in excellent light, if the day is fine--you will see two small frescos, +only about four feet wide each, in odd-shaped bits of wall--quarters of +circles; representing--that on the left, the Meeting of Joachim and Anna +at the Golden Gate; and that on the right, the Birth of the Virgin. + +No flourish of trumpets here, at any rate, you think! No gold on the +gate; and, for the birth of the Virgin--is this all! Goodness!--nothing +to be seen, whatever, of bas-reliefs, nor fine dresses, nor graceful +pourings out of water, nor processions of visitors? + +No. There's but one thing you can see, here, which you didn't in +Ghirlandajo's fresco, unless you were very clever and looked hard for +it--the Baby! And you are never likely to see a more true piece of +Giotto's work in this world. + +A round-faced, small-eyed little thing, tied up in a bundle! + +Yes, Giotto was of opinion she must have appeared really not much +else than that. But look at the servant who has just finished dressing +her;--awe-struck, full of love and wonder, putting her hand softly on +the child's head, who has never cried. The nurse, who has just taken +her, is--the nurse, and no more: tidy in the extreme, and greatly proud +and pleased: but would be as much so with any other child. + +Ghirlandajo's St. Anne (I ought to have told you to notice that,--you +can afterwards) is sitting strongly up in bed, watching, if not +directing, all that is going on. Giotto's lying down on the pillow, +leans her face on her hand; partly exhausted, partly in deep thought. +She knows that all will be well done for the child, either by the +servants, or God; she need not look after anything. + +At the foot of the bed is the midwife, and a servant who has brought +drink for St. Anne. The servant stops, seeing her so quiet; asking the +midwife, Shall I give it her now? The midwife, her hands lifted under +her robe, in the attitude of thanksgiving, (with Giotto distinguishable +always, though one doesn't know how, from that of prayer,) answers, with +her look, "Let be--she does not want anything." + +At the door a single acquaintance is coming in, to see the child. Of +ornament, there is only the entirely simple outline of the vase which +the servant carries; of colour, two or three masses of sober red, and +pure white, with brown and gray. + +That is all. And if you can be pleased with this, you can see Florence. +But if not, by all means amuse yourself there, if you find it amusing, +as long as you like; you can never see it. + +But if indeed you are pleased, ever so little, with this fresco, think +what that pleasure means. I brought you, on purpose, round, through the +richest overture, and farrago of tweedledum and tweedledee, I could find +in Florence; and here is a tune of four notes, on a shepherd's pipe, +played by the picture of nobody; and yet you like it! You know what +music is, then. Here is another little tune, by the same player, and +sweeter. I let you hear the simplest first. + +The fresco on the left hand, with the bright blue sky, and the rosy +figures! Why, anybody might like that! + +Yes; but, alas, all the blue sky is repainted. It _was_ blue always, +however, and bright too; and I dare say, when the fresco was first done, +anybody _did_ like it. + +You know the story of Joachim and Anna, I hope? Not that I do, myself, +quite in the ins and outs; and if you don't I'm not going to keep you +waiting while I tell it. All you need know, and you scarcely, before +this fresco, need know so much, is, that here are an old husband and old +wife, meeting again by surprise, after losing each other, and being each +in great fear;--meeting at the place where they were told by God each to +go, without knowing what was to happen there. + +"So they rushed into one another's arms, and kissed each other." + +No, says Giotto,--not that. + +"They advanced to meet, in a manner conformable to the strictest laws of +composition; and with their draperies cast into folds which no one until +Raphael could have arranged better." + +No, says Giotto,--not that. + +St. Anne has moved quickest; her dress just falls into folds sloping +backwards enough to tell you so much. She has caught St. Joachim by his +mantle, and draws him to her, softly, by that. St. Joachim lays his hand +under her arm, seeing she is like to faint, and holds her up. They do +not kiss each other--only look into each other's eyes. And God's angel +lays his hand on their heads. + +Behind them, there are two rough figures, busied with their own +affairs,--two of Joachim's shepherds; one, bare headed, the other +wearing the wide Florentine cap with the falling point behind, which is +exactly like the tube of a larkspur or violet; both carrying game, and +talking to each other about--Greasy Joan and her pot, or the like. Not +at all the sort of persons whom you would have thought in harmony with +the scene;--by the laws of the drama, according to Racine or Voltaire. + +No, but according to Shakespeare, or Giotto, these are just the kind of +persons likely to be there: as much as the angel is likely to be there +also, though you will be told nowadays that Giotto was absurd for +putting _him_ into the sky, of which an apothecary can always produce +the similar blue, in a bottle. And now that you have had Shakespeare, +and sundry other men of head and heart, following the track of this +shepherd lad, _you_ can forgive him his grotesques in the corner. But +that he should have forgiven them to himself, after the training he had, +this is the wonder! _We_ have seen simple pictures enough in our +day; and therefore we think that of course shepherd boys will sketch +shepherds: what wonder is there in that? + +I can show you how in _this_ shepherd boy it was very wonderful indeed, +if you will walk for five minutes back into the church with me, and up +into the chapel at the end of the south transept,--at least if the day +is bright, and you get the Sacristan to undraw the window-curtain in the +transept itself. For then the light of it will be enough to show you the +entirely authentic and most renowned work of Giotto's master; and you +will see through what schooling the lad had gone. + +A good and brave master he was, if ever boy had one; and, as you will +find when you know really who the great men are, the master is half +their life; and well they know it--always naming themselves from their +master, rather than their families. See then what kind of work Giotto +had been first put to. There is, literally, not a square inch of all +that panel--some ten feet high by six or seven wide--which is not +wrought in gold and colour with the fineness of a Greek manuscript. +There is not such an elaborate piece of ornamentation in the first +page of any Gothic king's missal, as you will find in that Madonna's +throne;--the Madonna herself is meant to be grave and noble only; and to +be attended only by angels. + +And here is this saucy imp of a lad declares his people must do without +gold, and without thrones; nay, that the Golden Gate itself shall have +no gilding that St. Joachim and St. Anne shall have only one angel +between them: and their servants shall have their joke, and nobody say +them nay! + +It is most wonderful; and would have been impossible, had Cimabue been +a common man, though ever so great in his own way. Nor could I in any of +my former thinking understand how it was, till I saw Cimabue's own work +at Assisi; in which he shows himself, at heart, as independent of +his gold as Giotto,--even more intense, capable of higher things than +Giotto, though of none, perhaps, so keen or sweet. But to this day, +among all the Mater Dolorosas of Christianity, Cimabue's at Assisi is +the noblest; nor did any painter after him add one link to the chain of +thought with which he summed the creation of the earth, and preached its +redemption. + +He evidently never checked the boy, from the first day he found him. +Showed him all he knew: talked with him of many things he felt himself +unable to paint: made him a workman and a gentleman,--above all, a +Christian,--yet left him--a shepherd. And Heaven had made him such a +painter, that, at his height, the words of his epitaph are in nowise +overwrought: "Ille ego sum, per quem pictura extincta revixit." + +A word or two, now, about the repainting by which _this_ pictura +extincta has been revived to meet existing taste. The sky is entirely +daubed over with fresh blue; yet it leaves with unusual care the +original outline of the descending angel, and of the white clouds about +his body. This idea of the angel laying his hands on the two heads--(as +a bishop at Confirmation does, in a hurry; and I've seen one sweep four +together, like Arnold de Winkelied),--partly in blessing, partly as a +symbol of their being brought together to the same place by God,--was +afterwards repeated again and again: there is one beautiful little echo +of it among the old pictures in the schools of Oxford. This is the first +occurrence of it that I know in pure Italian painting; but the idea is +Etruscan-Greek, and is used by the Etruscan sculptors of the door of the +Baptistery of Pisa, of the _evil_ angel, who "lays the heads together" +of two very different persons from these--Herodias and her daughter. + +Joachim, and the shepherd with the larkspur cap, are both quite safe; +the other shepherd a little reinforced; the black bunches of grass, +hanging about are retouches. They were once bunches of plants drawn +with perfect delicacy and care; you may see one left, faint, with +heart-shaped leaves, on the highest ridge of rock above the shepherds. +The whole landscape is, however, quite undecipherably changed and +spoiled. + +You will be apt to think at first, that if anything has been restored, +surely the ugly shepherd's uglier feet have. No, not at all. Restored +feet are always drawn with entirely orthodox and academical toes, like +the Apollo Belvidere's. You would have admired them very much. These are +Giotto's own doing, every bit; and a precious business he has had of +it, trying again and again--in vain. Even hands were difficult enough to +him, at this time; but feet, and bare legs! Well, he'll have a try, he +thinks, and gets really a fair line at last, when you are close to it; +but, laying the light on the ground afterwards, he dare not touch this +precious and dear-bought outline. Stops all round it, a quarter of an +inch off, [Footnote: Perhaps it is only the restorer's white on the +ground that stops; but I think a restorer would never have been so +wise, but have gone right up to the outline, and spoiled all.] with such +effect as you see. But if you want to know what sort of legs and feet he +_can_ draw, look at our _lambs_, in the corner of the fresco under the +arch on your left! + +And there is one on your right, though more repainted--the little Virgin +presenting herself at the Temple,--about which I could also say much. +The stooping figure, kissing the hem of her robe without her knowing, +is, as far as I remember, first in this fresco; the origin, itself, of +the main design in all the others you know so well; (and with its steps, +by the way, in better perspective already than most of them). + +"_This_ the original one!" you will be inclined to exclaim, if you have +any general knowledge of the subsequent art. "_This_ Giotto! why it's a +cheap rechauffe of Titian!" No, my friend. The boy who tried so hard +to draw those steps in perspective had been carried down others, to +his grave, two hundred years before Titian ran alone at Cadore. But, as +surely as Venice looks on the sea, Titian looked upon this, and caught +the reflected light of it forever. + +What kind of boy is this, think you, who can make Titian his +copyist,--Dante his friend? What new power is here which is to change +the heart of Italy?--can you see it, feel it, writing before you these +words on the faded wall? + +"You shall see things--as they Are." + +"And the least with the greatest, because God made them." + +"And the greatest with the least, because God made _you_, and gave you +eyes and a heart." + +I. You shall see things--as they are. So easy a matter that, you think? +So much more difficult and sublime to paint grand processions and golden +thrones, than St. Anne faint on her pillow, and her servant at pause? + +Easy or not, it is all the sight that is required of you in this +world,--to see things, and men, and yourself,--as they are. + +II. And the least with the greatest, because God made them,--shepherd, +and flock, and grass of the field, no less than the Golden Gate. + +III. But also the golden gate of Heaven itself, open, and the angels of +God coming down from it. + +These three things Giotto taught, and men believed, in his day. Of +which Faith you shall next see brighter work; only before we leave the +cloister, I want to sum for you one or two of the instant and evident +technical changes produced in the school of Florence by this teaching. + +One of quite the first results of Giotto's simply looking at things as +they were, was his finding out that a red thing was red, and a brown +thing brown, and a white thing white--all over. + +The Greeks had painted anything anyhow,--gods black, horses red, lips +and cheeks white; and when the Etruscan vase expanded into a Cimabue +picture, or a Tafi mosaic, still,--except that the Madonna was to have +a blue dress, and everything else as much gold on it as could be +managed,--there was very little advance in notions of colour. Suddenly, +Giotto threw aside all the glitter, and all the conventionalism; and +declared that he saw the sky blue, the tablecloth white, and angels, +when he dreamed of them, rosy. And he simply founded the schools of +colour in Italy--Venetian and all, as I will show you to-morrow morning, +if it is fine. And what is more, nobody discovered much about colour +after him. + +But a deeper result of his resolve to look at things as they were, was +his getting so heartily interested in them that he couldn't miss their +decisive _moment_. There is a decisive instant in all matters; and +if you look languidly, you are sure to miss it. Nature seems always, +somehow, trying to make you miss it. "I will see that through," you must +say, "with out turning my head"; or you won't see the trick of it at +all. And the most significant thing in all his work, you will find +hereafter, is his choice of moments. I will give you at once two +instances in a picture which, for other reasons, you should quickly +compare with these frescos. Return by the Via delle Belle Donne; keep +the Casa Strozzi on your right; and go straight on, through the market. +The Florentines think themselves so civilized, forsooth, for building +a nuovo Lung-Arno, and three manufactory chimneys opposite it: and yet +sell butchers' meat, dripping red, peaches, and anchovies, side by side: +it is a sight to be seen. Much more, Luca della Robbia's Madonna in the +circle above the chapel door. Never pass near the market without looking +at it; and glance from the vegetables underneath to Luca's leaves and +lilies, that you may see how honestly he was trying to make his clay +like the garden-stuff. But to-day, you may pass quickly on to the +Uffizii, which will be just open; and when you enter the great gallery, +turn to the right, and there, the first picture you come at will be No. +6, Giotto's "Agony in the garden." + +I used to think it so dull that I could not believe it was Giotto's. +That is partly from its dead colour, which is the boy's way of telling +you it is night:--more from the subject being one quite beyond his age, +and which he felt no pleasure in trying at. You may see he was still +a boy, for he not only cannot draw feet yet, in the least, and +scrupulously hides them therefore; but is very hard put to it for the +hands, being obliged to draw them mostly in the same position,--all the +four fingers together. But in the careful bunches of grass and weeds you +will see what the fresco foregrounds were before they got spoiled; and +there are some things he can understand already, even about that Agony, +thinking of it in his own fixed way. Some things,--not altogether to be +explained by the old symbol of the angel with the cup. He will try if +he cannot explain them better in those two little pictures below; which +nobody ever looks at; the great Roman sarcophagus being put in front of +them, and the light glancing on the new varnish so that you must twist +about like a lizard to see anything. Nevertheless, you may make out what +Giotto meant. + +"The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?" In what +was its bitterness?--thought the boy. "Crucifixion?--Well, it hurts, +doubtless; but the thieves had to bear it too, and many poor human +wretches have to bear worse on our battlefields. But"--and he thinks, +and thinks, and then he paints his two little pictures for the predella. + +They represent, of course, the sequence of the time in Gethsemane; but +see what choice the youth made of his moments, having two panels +to fill. Plenty of choice for him--in pain. The Flagellation--the +Mocking--the Bearing of the Cross;--all habitually given by the +Margheritones, and their school, as extremes of pain. + +"No," thinks Giotto. "There was worse than all that. Many a good man has +been mocked, spitefully entreated, spitted on, slain. But who was ever +so betrayed? Who ever saw such a sword thrust in his mother's heart?" + +He paints, first, the laying hands on Him in the garden, but with only +two principal figures,--Judas and Peter, of course; Judas and Peter were +always principal in the old Byzantine composition,--Judas giving the +kiss--Peter cutting off the servant's ear. But the two are here, not +merely principal, but almost alone in sight, all the other figures +thrown back; and Peter is not at all concerned about the servant, or +his struggle with him. He has got him down,--but looks back suddenly at +Judas giving the kiss. What!--_you_ are the traitor, then--you! + +"Yes," says Giotto; "and you, also, in an hour more." + +The other picture is more deeply felt, still. It is of Christ brought +to the foot of the cross. There is no wringing of hands or lamenting +crowd--no haggard signs of fainting or pain in His body. Scourging or +fainting, feeble knee and torn wound,--he thinks scorn of all that, +this shepherd-boy. One executioner is hammering the wedges of the cross +harder down. The other--not ungently--is taking Christ's red robe off +His shoulders. And St. John, a few yards off, is keeping his mother from +coming nearer. She looks _down_, not at Christ; but tries to come. + +And now you may go on for your day's seeings through the rest of the +gallery, if you will--Fornarina, and the wonderful cobbler, and all the +rest of it. I don't want you any more till to-morrow morning. + +But if, meantime, you will sit down,--say, before Sandro Botticelli's +"Fortitude," which I shall want you to look at, one of these days; (No. +1299, innermost room from the Tribune,) and there read this following +piece of one of my Oxford lectures on the relation of Cimabue to Giotto, +you will be better prepared for our work to-morrow morning in Santa +Croce; and may find something to consider of, in the room you are in. +Where, by the way, observe that No. 1288 is a most true early Lionardo, +of extreme interest: and the savants who doubt it are--never mind what; +but sit down at present at the feet of Fortitude, and read. + +Those of my readers who have been unfortunate enough to interest +themselves in that most profitless of studies--the philosophy of +art--have been at various times teased or amused by disputes respecting +the relative dignity of the contemplative and dramatic schools. + +Contemplative, of course, being the term attached to the system of +painting things only for the sake of their own niceness--a lady because +she is pretty, or a lion because he is strong: and the dramatic school +being that which cannot be satisfied unless it sees something going on: +which can't paint a pretty lady unless she is being made love to, or +being murdered; and can't paint a stag or a lion unless they are being +hunted, or shot, or the one eating the other. + +You have always heard me--or, if not, will expect by the very tone of +this sentence to hear me, now, on the whole recommend you to prefer +the Contemplative school. But the comparison is always an imperfect and +unjust one, unless quite other terms are introduced. + +The real greatness or smallness of schools is not in their preference +of inactivity to action, nor of action to inactivity. It is in their +preference of worthy things to unworthy, in rest; and of kind action to +unkind, in business. + +A Dutchman can be just as solemnly and entirely contemplative of a +lemon pip and a cheese paring, as an Italian of the Virgin in Glory. +An English squire has pictures, purely contemplative, of his favorite +horse--and a Parisian lady, pictures, purely contemplative, of the back +and front of the last dress proposed to her in La Mode Artistique. All +these works belong to the same school of silent admiration;--the vital +question concerning them is, "What do you admire?" + +Now therefore, when you hear me so often saying that the Northern +races--Norman and Lombard,--are active, or dramatic, in their art; and +that the Southern races--Greek and Arabian,--are contemplative, you +ought instantly to ask farther, Active in what? Contemplative of what? +And the answer is, The active art--Lombardic,--rejoices in hunting and +fighting; the contemplative art--Byzantine,--contemplates the mysteries +of the Christian faith. + +And at first, on such answer, one would be apt at once to conclude--All +grossness must be in the Lombard; all good in the Byzantine. But again +we should be wrong,--and extremely wrong. For the hunting and fighting +did practically produce strong, and often virtuous, men; while the +perpetual and inactive contemplation of what it was impossible to +understand, did not on the whole render the contemplative persons, +stronger, wiser, or even more amiable. So that, in the twelfth century, +while the Northern art was only in need of direction, the Southern was +in need of life. The North was indeed spending its valour and virtue +on ignoble objects; but the South disgracing the noblest objects by its +want of valour and virtue. + +Central stood Etruscan Florence--her root in the earth, bound with +iron and brass--wet with the dew of heaven. Agriculture in occupation, +religious in thought, she accepted, like good ground, the good; refused, +like the Rock of Fesole, the evil; directed the industry of the Northman +into the arts of peace; kindled the dreams of the Byzantine with the +fire of charity. Child of her peace, and exponent of her passion, her +Cimabue became the interpreter to mankind of the meaning of the Birth of +Christ. + +We hear constantly, and think naturally, of him as of a man whose +peculiar genius in painting suddenly reformed its principles; who +suddenly painted, out of his own gifted imagination, beautiful instead +of rude pictures; and taught his scholar Giotto to carry on the impulse; +which we suppose thenceforward to have enlarged the resources and +bettered the achievements of painting continually, up to our own +time,--when the triumphs of art having been completed, and its uses +ended, something higher is offered to the ambition of mankind; and Watt +and Faraday initiate the Age of Manufacture and Science, as Cimabue and +Giotto instituted that of Art and Imagination. + +In this conception of the History of Mental and Physical culture, we +much overrate the influence, though we cannot overrate the power, of the +men by whom the change seems to have been effected. We cannot overrate +their power,--for the greatest men of any age, those who become its +leaders when there is a great march to be begun, are indeed separated +from the average intellects of their day by a distance which is +immeasurable in any ordinary terms of wonder. + +But we far overrate their influence; because the apparently sudden +result of their labour or invention is only the manifested fruit of the +toil and thought of many who preceded them, and of whose names we have +never heard. The skill of Cimabue cannot be extolled too highly; but no +Madonna by his hand could ever have rejoiced the soul of Italy, unless +for a thousand years before, many a nameless Greek and nameless Goth had +adorned the traditions, and lived in the love, of the Virgin. + +In like manner, it is impossible to overrate the sagacity, patience, or +precision, of the masters in modern mechanical and scientific discovery. +But their sudden triumph, and the unbalancing of all the world by their +words, may not in any wise be attributed to their own power, or even +to that of the facts they have ascertained. They owe their habits and +methods of industry to the paternal example, no less than the inherited +energy, of men who long ago prosecuted the truths of nature, through the +rage of war, and the adversity of superstition; and the universal and +overwhelming consequences of the facts which their followers have +now proclaimed, indicate only the crisis of a rapture produced by the +offering of new objects of curiosity to nations who had nothing to look +at; and of the amusement of novel motion and action to nations who had +nothing to do. + +Nothing to look at! That is indeed--you will find, if you consider of +it--our sorrowful case. The vast extent of the advertising frescos +of London, daily refreshed into brighter and larger frescos by its +billstickers, cannot somehow sufficiently entertain the popular eyes. +The great Mrs. Allen, with her flowing hair, and equally flowing +promises, palls upon repetition, and that Madonna of the nineteenth +century smiles in vain above many a borgo unrejoiced; even the +excitement of the shop-window, with its unattainable splendours, or too +easily attainable impostures, cannot maintain itself in the wearying +mind of the populace, and I find my charitable friends inviting +the children, whom the streets educate only into vicious misery, to +entertainments of scientific vision, in microscope or magic lantern; +thus giving them something to look at, such as it is;--fleas mostly; and +the stomachs of various vermin; and people with their heads cut off and +set on again;--still _something_, to look at. + +The fame of Cimabue rests, and justly, on a similar charity. He gave the +populace of his day something to look at; and satisfied their curiosity +with science of something they had long desired to know. We have +continually imagined in our carelessness, that his triumph consisted +only in a new pictorial skill; recent critical writers, unable to +comprehend how any street populace could take pleasure in painting, have +ended by denying his triumph altogether, and insisted that he gave +no joy to Florence; and that the "Joyful quarter" was accidentally so +named--or at least from no other festivity than that of the procession +attending Charles of Anjou. I proved to you, in a former lecture, +that the old tradition was true, and the delight of the people +unquestionable. But that delight was not merely in the revelation of an +art they had not known how to practise; it was delight in the revelation +of a Madonna whom they had not known how to love. + +Again; what was revelation to _them_--we suppose farther and as +unwisely, to have been only art in _him_; that in better laying of +colours,--in better tracing of perspectives--in recovery of principles, +of classic composition--he had manufactured, as our Gothic Firms now +manufacture to order, a Madonna--in whom he believed no more than they. + +Not so. First of the Florentines, first of European men--he attained +in thought, and saw with spiritual eyes, exercised to discern good +from evil,--the face of her who was blessed among women; and with his +following hand, made visible the Magnificat of his heart. + +He magnified the Maid; and Florence rejoiced in her Queen. But it was +left for Giotto to make the queenship better beloved, in its sweet +humiliation. + +You had the Etruscan stock in Florence--Christian, or at least +semi-Christian; the statue of Mars still in its streets, but with its +central temple built for Baptism in the name of Christ. It was a race +living by agriculture; gentle, thoughtful, and exquisitely fine in +handiwork. The straw bonnet of Tuscany--the Leghorn--is pure Etruscan +art, young ladies:--only plaited gold of God's harvest, instead of the +plaited gold of His earth. + +You had then the Norman and Lombard races coming down on this: kings, +and hunters--splendid in war--insatiable of action. You had the Greek +and Arabian races flowing from the east, bringing with them the law of +the City, and the dream of the Desert. + +Cimabue--Etruscan born, gave, we saw, the life of the Norman to the +tradition of the Greek: eager action to holy contemplation. And what +more is left for his favourite shepherd boy Giotto to do, than this, +except to paint with ever-increasing skill? We fancy he only surpassed +Cimabue--eclipsed by greater brightness. + +Not so. The sudden and new applause of Italy would never have been won +by mere increase of the already-kindled light. Giotto had wholly another +work to do. The meeting of the Norman race with the Byzantine is +not merely that of action with repose--not merely that of war with +religion,--it is the meeting of _domestic_ life with _monastic_, and of +practical household sense with unpractical Desert insanity. + +I have no other word to use than this last. I use it reverently, meaning +a very noble thing; I do not know how far I ought to say--even a divine +thing. Decide that for yourselves. Compare the Northern farmer with St. +Francis; the palm hardened by stubbing Thornaby waste, with the palm +softened by the imagination of the wounds of Christ. To my own thoughts, +both are divine; decide that for yourselves; but assuredly, and without +possibility of other decision, one is, humanly speaking, healthy; the +other _un_healthy; one sane, the other--insane. + +To reconcile Drama with Dream, Cimabue's task was comparatively an easy +one. But to reconcile Sense with--I still use even this following word +reverently--Nonsense, is not so easy; and he who did it first,--no +wonder he has a name in the world. + +I must lean, however, still more distinctly on the word "domestic." For +it is not Rationalism and commercial competition--Mr. Stuart Mill's" +other career for woman than that of wife and mother "--which are +reconcilable, by Giotto, or by anybody else, with divine vision. But +household wisdom, labour of love, toil upon earth according to the law +of Heaven--these are reconcilable, in one code of glory, with revelation +in cave or island, with the endurance of desolate and loveless days, +with the repose of folded hands that wait Heaven's time. + +Domestic and monastic. He was the first of Italians--the first of +Christians--who _equally_ knew the virtue of both lives; and who was +able to show it in the sight of men of all ranks,--from the prince to +the shepherd; and of all powers,--from the wisest philosopher to the +simplest child. + +For, note the way in which the new gift of painting, bequeathed to +him by his great master, strengthened his hands. Before Cimabue, no +beautiful rendering of human form was possible; and the rude or formal +types of the Lombard and Byzantine, though they would serve in the +tumult of the chase, or as the recognized symbols of creed, could not +represent personal and domestic character. Faces with goggling eyes and +rigid lips might be endured with ready help of imagination, for gods, +angels, saints, or hunters--or for anybody else in scenes of recognized +legend, but would not serve for pleasant portraiture of one's own +self--or of the incidents of gentle, actual life. And even Cimabue did +not venture to leave the sphere of conventionally reverenced dignity. He +still painted--though beautifully--only the Madonna, and the St. Joseph, +and the Christ. These he made living,--Florence asked no more: and +"Credette Cimabue nella pintura tener lo campo." + +But Giotto came from the field, and saw with his simple eyes a +lowlier worth. And he painted--the Madonna, and St. Joseph, and +the Christ,--yes, by all means if you choose to call them so, but +essentially,--Mamma, Papa, and the Baby. And all Italy threw up its +cap,--"Ora ha Giotto il grido." + +For he defines, explains, and exalts, every sweet incident of human +nature; and makes dear to daily life every mystic imagination of natures +greater than our own. He reconciles, while he intensifies, every virtue +of domestic and monastic thought. He makes the simplest household duties +sacred, and the highest religious passions serviceable and just. + + + + +THE THIRD MORNING. + +BEFORE THE SOLDAN. + + +I promised some note of Sandro's Fortitude, before whom I asked you to +sit and read the end of my last letter; and I've lost my own notes about +her, and forget, now, whether she has a sword, or a mace;--it does not +matter. What is chiefly notable in her is--that you would not, if you +had to guess who she was, take her for Fortitude at all. Everybody +else's Fortitudes announce themselves clearly and proudly. They have +tower-like shields, and lion-like helmets--and stand firm astride on +their legs,--and are confidently ready for all comers. Yes;--that is +your common Fortitude. Very grand, though common. But not the highest, +by any means. + +Ready for all comers, and a match for them,--thinks the universal +Fortitude;--no thanks to her for standing so steady, then! + +But Botticelli's Fortitude is no match, it may be, for any that are +coming. Worn, somewhat; and not a little weary, instead of standing +ready for all comers, she is sitting,--apparently in reverie, her +fingers playing restlessly and idly--nay, I think--even nervously, about +the hilt of her sword. + +For her battle is not to begin to-day; nor did it begin yesterday. Many +a morn and eve have passed since it began--and now--is this to be the +ending day of it? And if this--by what manner of end? + +That is what Sandro's Fortitude is thinking. And the playing fingers +about the sword-hilt would fain let it fall, if it might be: and yet, +how swiftly and gladly will they close on it, when the far-off trumpet +blows, which she will hear through all her reverie! + +There is yet another picture of Sandro's here, which you must look +at before going back to Giotto: the small Judith in the room next the +Tribune, as you return from this outer one. It is just under Lionardo's +Medusa. She is returning to the camp of her Israel, followed by her maid +carrying the head of Holofernes. And she walks in one of Botticelli's +light dancing actions, her drapery all on flutter, and her hand, like +Fortitude's, light on the sword-hilt, but daintily--not nervously, the +little finger laid over the cross of it. + +And at the first glance--you will think the figure merely a piece of +fifteenth-century affectation. 'Judith, indeed!--say rather the daughter +of Herodias, at her mincingest.' + +Well, yes--Botticelli _is_ affected, in the way that all men in that +century necessarily were. Much euphuism, much studied grace of manner, +much formal assertion of scholarship, mingling with his force of +imagination. And he likes twisting the fingers of hands about, just as +Correggio does. But he never does it like Correggio, without cause. + +Look at Judith again,--at her face, not her drapery,--and remember that +when a man is base at the heart, he blights his virtues into weaknesses; +but when he is true at the heart, he sanctifies his weaknesses into +virtues. It is a weakness of Botticelli's, this love of dancing motion +and waved drapery; but why has he given it full flight here? + +Do you happen to know anything about Judith yourself, except that she +cut off Holofernes' head; and has been made the high light of about a +million of vile pictures ever since, in which the painters thought they +could surely attract the public to the double show of an execution, +and a pretty woman,--especially with the added pleasure of hinting at +previously ignoble sin? + +When you go home to-day, take the pains to write out for yourself, in +the connection I here place them, the verses underneath numbered from +the book of Judith; you will probably think of their meaning more +carefully as you write. + +Begin thus: + +"Now at that time, Judith heard thereof, which was the daughter of +Merari, ... the son of Simeon, the son of Israel." And then write out, +consecutively, these pieces-- + +Chapt. viii., verses 2 to 8. (Always inclusive,) and read the whole +chapter. + +Chapt. ix., verses 1 and 5 to 7, beginning this piece with the previous +sentence, "Oh God, oh my God, hear me also, a widow." + +Chapt. ix., verses 11 to 14. Chapter x., verses 1 to 5. Chapter xiii., +verses 6 to 10. Chapter xv., verses 11 to 13. Chapter xvi., verses 1 +to 6. Chapter xvi., verses 11 to 15. Chapter xvi., verses 18 and 19. +Chapter xvi., verses 23 to 25. + +Now, as in many other cases of noble history, apocryphal and other, I do +not in the least care how far the literal facts are true. The conception +of facts, and the idea of Jewish womanhood, are there, grand and real as +a marble statue,--possession for all ages. And you will feel, after you +have read this piece of history, or epic poetry, with honourable care, +that there is somewhat more to be thought of and pictured in Judith, +than painters have mostly found it in them to show you; that she is not +merely the Jewish Delilah to the Assyrian Samson; but the mightiest, +purest, brightest type of high passion in severe womanhood offered to +our human memory. Sandro's picture is but slight; but it is true to her, +and the only one I know that is; and after writing out these verses, you +will see why he gives her that swift, peaceful motion, while you read +in her face, only sweet solemnity of dreaming thought. "My people +delivered, and by my hand; and God has been gracious to His handmaid!" +The triumph of Miriam over a fallen host, the fire of exulting mortal +life in an immortal hour, the purity and severity of a guardian +angel--all are here; and as her servant follows, carrying indeed the +head, but invisible--(a mere thing to be carried--no more to be so much +as thought of)--she looks only at her mistress, with intense, servile, +watchful love. Faithful, not in these days of fear only, but hitherto in +all her life, and afterwards forever. + +After you have seen it enough, look also for a little while at +Angelico's Marriage and Death of the Virgin, in the same room; you may +afterwards associate the three pictures always together in your mind. +And, looking at nothing else to-day in the Uffizi, let us go back to +Giotto's chapel. + +We must begin with this work on our left hand, the Death of St. Francis; +for it is the key to all the rest. Let us hear first what Mr. Crowe +directs us to think of it. "In the composition of this scene, Giotto +produced a masterpiece, which served as a model but too often feebly +imitated by his successors. Good arrangement, variety of character and +expression in the heads, unity and harmony in the whole, make this an +exceptional work of its kind. As a composition, worthy of the fourteenth +century, Ghirlandajo and Benedetto da Majano both imitated, without +being able to improve it. No painter ever produced its equal except +Raphael; nor could a better be created except in so far as regards +improvement in the mere rendering of form." + +To these inspiring observations by the rapturous Crowe, more cautious +Cavalcasella [Footnote: I venture to attribute the wiser note to Signor +Cavalcasella because I have every reason to put real confidence in his +judgment. But it was impossible for any man, engaged as he is, to go +over all the ground covered by so extensive a piece of critical work +as these three volumes contain, with effective attention.] appends a +refrigerating note, saying, "The St. Francis in the glory is new, but +the angels are in part preserved. The rest has all been more or less +retouched; and no judgment can be given as to the colour of this--or any +other (!)--of these works." + +You are, therefore--instructed reader--called upon to admire a piece of +art which no painter ever produced the equal of except Raphael; but it +is unhappily deficient, according to Crowe, in the "mere rendering of +form"; and, according to Signor Cavalcasella, "no opinion can be given +as to its colour." + +Warned thus of the extensive places where the ice is dangerous, and +forbidden to look here either for form or colour, you are to admire "the +variety of character and expression in the heads." I do not myself know +how these are to be given without form or colour; but there appears to +me, in my innocence, to be only one head in the whole picture, drawn up +and down in different positions. + +The "unity and harmony" of the whole--which make this an exceptional +work of its kind--mean, I suppose, its general look of having been +painted out of a scavenger's cart; and so we are reduced to the last +article of our creed according to Crowe,-- + +"In the composition of this scene Giotto produced a masterpiece." + +Well, possibly. The question is, What you mean by 'composition.' Which, +putting modern criticism now out of our way, I will ask the reader to +think, in front of this wreck of Giotto, with some care. + +Was it, in the first place, to Giotto, think you, the "composition of +a scene," or the conception of a fact? You probably, if a fashionable +person, have seen the apotheosis of Margaret in Faust? You know what +care is taken, nightly, in the composition of that scene,--how the +draperies are arranged for it; the lights turned off, and on; the +fiddlestrings taxed for their utmost tenderness; the bassoons exhorted +to a grievous solemnity. + +You don't believe, however, that any real soul of a Margaret ever +appeared to any mortal in that manner? + +_Here_ is an apotheosis also. Composed!--yes; figures high on the right +and left, low in the middle, etc., etc., etc. + +But the important questions seem to me, Was there ever a St. +Francis?--_did_ he ever receive stigmata?--_did_his soul go up to +heaven--did any monk see it rising--and did Giotto mean to tell us so? +If you will be good enough to settle these few small points in your mind +first, the "composition" will take a wholly different aspect to you, +according to your answer. + +Nor does it seem doubtful to me what your answer, after investigation +made, must be. + +There assuredly was a St. Francis, whose life and works you had better +study than either to-day's Galignani, or whatever, this year, may supply +the place of the Tichborne case, in public interest. + +His reception of the stigmata is, perhaps, a marvellous instance of +the power of imagination over physical conditions; perhaps an equally +marvellous instance of the swift change of metaphor into tradition; but +assuredly, and beyond dispute, one of the most influential, significant, +and instructive traditions possessed by the Church of Christ. And, that, +if ever soul rose to heaven from the dead body, his soul did so rise, is +equally sure. + +And, finally, Giotto believed that all he was called on to represent, +concerning St. Francis, really had taken place, just as surely as you, +if you are a Christian, believe that Christ died and rose again; and he +represents it with all fidelity and passion: but, as I just now said, he +is a man of supreme common sense;--has as much humour and clearness +of sight as Chaucer, and as much dislike of falsehood in clergy, or in +professedly pious people: and in his gravest moments he will still see +and say truly that what is fat, is fat--and what is lean, lean--and what +is hollow, empty. + +His great point, however, in this fresco, is the assertion of the +reality of the stigmata against all question. There is not only one St. +Thomas to be convinced; there are five;--one to each wound. Of these, +four are intent only on satisfying their curiosity, and are peering or +probing; one only kisses the hand he has lifted. The rest of the picture +never was much more than a grey drawing of a noble burial service; of +all concerned in which, one monk, only, is worthy to see the soul taken +up to heaven; and he is evidently just the monk whom nobody in the +convent thought anything of. (His face is all repainted; but one can +gather this much, or little, out of it, yet.) + +Of the composition, or "unity and harmony of the whole," as a burial +service, we may better judge after we have looked at the brighter +picture of St. Francis's Birth--birth spiritual, that is to say, to his +native heaven; the uppermost, namely, of the three subjects on this side +of the chapel. It is entirely characteristic of Giotto; much of it by +his hand--all of it beautiful. All important matters to be known of +Giotto you may know from this fresco. + +'But we can't see it, even with our opera-glasses, but all foreshortened +and spoiled. What is the use of lecturing us on this?' + +That is precisely the first point which is essentially Giottesque in +it; its being so out of the way! It is this which makes it a perfect +specimen of the master. I will tell you next something about a work of +his which you can see perfectly, just behind you on the opposite side of +the wall; but that you have half to break your neck to look at this one, +is the very first thing I want you to feel. + +It is a characteristic--(as far as I know, quite a universal one)--of +the greatest masters, that they never expect you to look at them; seem +always rather surprised if you want to; and not overpleased. Tell them +you are going to hang their picture at the upper end of the table at the +next great City dinner, and that Mr. So and So will make a speech about +it; you produce no impression upon them whatever, or an unfavourable +one. The chances are ten to one they send you the most rubbishy thing +they can find in their lumber-room. But send for one of them in a hurry, +and tell him the rats have gnawed a nasty hole behind the parlor +door, and you want it plastered and painted over;--and he does you a +masterpiece which the world will peep behind your door to look at for +ever. + +I have no time to tell you why this is so; nor do I know why, +altogether; but so it is. + +Giotto, then, is sent for, to paint this high chapel: I am not sure if +he chose his own subjects from the life of St. Francis: I think so,--but +of course can't reason on the guess securely. At all events, he would +have much of his own way in the matter. + +Now you must observe that painting a Gothic chapel rightly is just the +same thing as painting a Greek vase rightly. The chapel is merely the +vase turned upside-down, and outside-in. The principles of decoration +are exactly the same. Your decoration is to be proportioned to the size +of your vase; to be together delightful when you look at the cup, or +chapel, as a whole; to be various and entertaining when you turn the cup +round; (you turn _yourself_ round in the chapel;) and to bend its heads +and necks of figures about, as it best can, over the hollows, and ins +and outs, so that anyhow, whether too long or too short-possible or +impossible--they may be living, and full of grace. You will also please +take it on my word today--in another morning walk you shall have proof +of it--that Giotto was a pure Etruscan-Greek of the thirteenth century: +converted indeed to worship St. Francis instead of Heracles; but as far +as vase-painting goes, precisely the Etruscan he was before. This is +nothing else than a large, beautiful, coloured Etruscan vase you have +got, inverted over your heads like a diving-bell.' [Footnote: I observe +that recent criticism is engaged in proving all Etruscan vases to be of +late manufacture, in imitation of archaic Greek. And I therefore +must briefly anticipate a statement which I shall have to enforce in +following letters. Etruscan art remains in its own Italian valleys, +of the Arno and upper Tiber, in one unbroken series of work, from +the seventh century before Christ, to this hour, when the country +whitewasher still scratches his plaster in Etruscan patterns. All +Florentine work of the finest kind--Luca della Robbia's, Ghiberti's, +Donatello's, Filippo Lippi's, Botticelli's, Fra Angelico's--is +absolutely pure Etruscan, merely changing its subjects, and representing +the Virgin instead of Athena, and Christ instead of Jupiter. Every line +of the Florentine chisel in the fifteenth century is based on national +principles of art which existed in the seventh century before Christ; +and Angelico, in his convent of St. Dominic, at the foot of the hill of +Fesole, is as true an Etruscan as the builder who laid the rude stones +of the wall along its crest--of which modern civilization has used the +only arch that remained for cheap building stone. Luckily, I sketched it +in 1845. but alas, too carelessly,--never conceiving of the brutalities +of modern Italy as possible.] + +Accordingly, after the quatrefoil ornamentation of the top of the bell, +you get two spaces at the sides under arches, very difficult to +cramp one's picture into, if it is to be a picture only; but entirely +provocative of our old Etruscan instinct of ornament. And, spurred by +the difficulty, and pleased by the national character of it, we put +our best work into these arches, utterly neglectful of the public +below,--who will see the white and red and blue spaces, at any rate, +which is all they will want to see, thinks Giotto, if he ever looks down +from his scaffold. + +Take the highest compartment, then, on the left, looking towards the +window. It was wholly impossible to get the arch filled with figures, +unless they stood on each other's heads; so Giotto ekes it out with a +piece of fine architecture. Raphael, in the Sposalizio, does the same, +for pleasure. + +Then he puts two dainty little white figures, bending, on each flank, +to stop up his corners. But he puts the taller inside on the right, +and outside on the left. And he puts his Greek chorus of observant and +moralizing persons on each side of his main action. + +Then he puts one Choragus--or leader of chorus, supporting the main +action--on each side. Then he puts the main action in the middle--which +is a quarrel about that white bone of contention in the centre. Choragus +on the right, who sees that the bishop is going to have the best of it, +backs him serenely. Choragus on the left, who sees that his impetuous +friend is going to get the worst of it, is pulling him back, and trying +to keep him quiet. The subject of the picture, which, after you are +quite sure it is good as a decoration, but not till then, you may be +allowed to understand, is the following. One of St. Francis's three +great virtues being Obedience, he begins his spiritual life by +quarreling with his father. He, I suppose in modern terms I should say, +commercially invests some of his father's goods in charity. His father +objects to that investment; on which St. Francis runs away, taking what +he can find about the house along with him. His father follows to claim +his property, but finds it is all gone, already; and that St. Francis +has made friends with the Bishop of Assisi. His father flies into an +indecent passion, and declares he will disinherit him; on which +St. Francis then and there takes all his clothes off, throws them +frantically in his father's face, and says he has nothing more to +do with clothes or father. The good Bishop, in tears of admiration, +embraces St. Francis, and covers him with his own mantle. + +I have read the picture to you as, if Mr. Spurgeon knew anything about +art, Mr. Spurgeon would read it,--that is to say, from the plain, common +sense, Protestant side. If you are content with that view of it, you +may leave the chapel, and, as far as any study of history is concerned, +Florence also; for you can never know anything either about Giotto, or +her. + +Yet do not be afraid of my re-reading it to you from the mystic, +nonsensical, and Papistical side. I am going to read it to you--if after +many and many a year of thought, I am able--as Giotto meant it; Giotto +being, as far as we know, then the man of strongest brain and hand in +Florence; the best friend of the best religious poet of the world; and +widely differing, as his friend did also, in his views of the world, +from either Mr. Spurgeon, or Pius IX. + +The first duty of a child is to obey its father and mother; as the first +duty of a citizen to obey the laws of his state. And this duty is so +strict that I believe the only limits to it are those fixed by Isaac and +Iphigenia. On the other hand, the father and mother have also a fixed +duty to the child--not to provoke it to wrath. I have never heard this +text explained to fathers and mothers from the pulpit, which is curious. +For it appears to me that God will expect the parents to understand +their duty to their children, better even than children can be expected +to know their duty to their parents. + +But farther. A _child's_ duty is to obey its parents. It is never said +anywhere in the Bible, and never was yet said in any good or wise book, +that a man's, or woman's, is. _When,_ precisely, a child becomes a man +or a woman, it can no more be said, than when it should first stand on +its legs. But a time assuredly comes when it should. In great states, +children are always trying to remain children, and the parents wanting +to make men and women of them. In vile states, the children are always +wanting to be men and women, and the parents to keep them children. +It may be--and happy the house in which it is so--that the father's at +least equal intellect, and older experience, may remain to the end of +his life a law to his children, not of force, but of perfect guidance, +with perfect love. Rarely it is so; not often possible. It is as natural +for the old to be prejudiced as for the young to be presumptuous; and, +in the change of centuries, each generation has something to judge of +for itself. + +But this scene, on which Giotto has dwelt with so great force, +represents, not the child's assertion of his independence, but his +adoption of another Father. + +You must not confuse the desire of this boy of Assisi to obey God +rather than man, with the desire of your young cockney Hopeful to have a +latch-key, and a separate allowance. + +No point of duty has been more miserably warped and perverted by false +priests, in all churches, than this duty of the young to choose whom +they will serve. But the duty itself does not the less exist; and if +there be any truth in Christianity at all, there will come, for all true +disciples, a time when they have to take that saying to heart, "He that +loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me." + +'_Loveth_'--observe. There is no talk of disobeying fathers or mothers +whom you do not love, or of running away from a home where you would +rather not stay. But to leave the home which is your peace, and to be at +enmity with those who are most dear to you,--this, if there be meaning +in Christ's words, one day or other will be demanded of His true +followers. + +And there is meaning in Christ's words. Whatever misuse may have been +made of them,--whatever false prophets--and Heaven knows there have +been many--have called the young children to them, not to bless, but to +curse, the assured fact remains, that if you will obey God, there will +come a moment when the voice of man will be raised, with all its holiest +natural authority, against you. The friend and the wise adviser--the +brother and the sister--the father and the master--the entire voice of +your prudent and keen-sighted acquaintance--the entire weight of the +scornful stupidity of the vulgar world--for _once_, they will be against +you, all at one. You have to obey God rather than man. The human race, +with all its wisdom and love, all its indignation and folly, on one +side,--God alone on the other. You have to choose. + +That is the meaning of St. Francis's renouncing his inheritance; and +it is the beginning of Giotto's gospel of Works. Unless this hardest +of deeds be done first,--this inheritance of mammon and the world cast +away,--all other deeds are useless. You cannot serve, cannot obey, God +and mammon. No charities, no obediences, no self-denials, are of any +use, while you are still at heart in conformity with the world. You +go to church, because the world goes. You keep Sunday, because your +neighbours keep it. But you dress ridiculously, because your neighbours +ask it; and you dare not do a rough piece of work, because your +neighbours despise it. You must renounce your neighbour, in his riches +and pride, and remember him in his distress. That is St. Francis's +'disobedience.' + +And now you can understand the relation of subjects throughout the +chapel, and Giotto's choice of them. + +The roof has the symbols of the three virtues of labour--Poverty, +Chastity, Obedience. + +A. Highest on the left side, looking to the window. The life of St. +Francis begins in his renunciation of the world. + +B. Highest on the right side. His new life is approved and ordained by +the authority of the church. + +C. Central on the left side. He preaches to his own disciples. + +D. Central on the right side. He preaches to the heathen. + +E. Lowest on the left side. His burial. + +F. Lowest on the right side. His power after death. + +Besides these six subjects, there are, on the sides of the window, +the four great Franciscan saints, St. Louis of France, St. Louis of +Toulouse, St. Clare, and St. Elizabeth of Hungary. + +So that you have in the whole series this much given you to think of: +first, the law of St. Francis's conscience; then, his own adoption of +it; then, the ratification of it by the Christian Church; then, his +preaching it in life; then, his preaching it in death; and then, the +fruits of it in his disciples. + +I have only been able myself to examine, or in any right sense to see, +of this code of subjects, the first, second, fourth, and the St. Louis +and Elizabeth. I will ask _you_ only to look at two more of them, +namely, St. Francis before the Soldan, midmost on your right, and St. +Louis. + +The Soldan, with an ordinary opera-glass, you may see clearly enough; +and I think it will be first well to notice some technical points in it. + +If the little virgin on the stairs of the temple reminded you of one +composition of Titian's, this Soldan should, I think, remind you of all +that is greatest in Titian; so forcibly, indeed, that for my own part, +if I had been told that a careful early fresco by Titian had been +recovered in Santa Croce, I could have believed both report and my own +eyes, more quickly than I have been able to admit that this is indeed +by Giotto. It is so great that--had its principles been understood-there +was in reality nothing more to be taught of art in Italy; nothing to be +invented afterwards, except Dutch effects of light. + +That there is no 'effect of light' here arrived at, I beg you at once +to observe as a most important lesson. The subject is St. Francis +challenging the Soldan's Magi,--fire-worshippers--to pass with him +through the fire, which is blazing red at his feet. It is so hot that +the two Magi on the other side of the throne shield their faces. But +it is represented simply as a red mass of writhing forms of flame; and +casts no firelight whatever. There is no ruby colour on anybody's +nose: there are no black shadows under anybody's chin; there are no +Rembrandtesque gradations of gloom, or glitterings of sword-hilt and +armour. + +Is this ignorance, think you, in Giotto, and pure artlessness? He was +now a man in middle life, having passed all his days in painting, and +professedly, and almost contentiously, painting things as he saw them. +Do you suppose he never saw fire cast firelight?--and he the friend of +Dante! who of all poets is the most subtle in his sense of every kind of +effect of light--though he has been thought by the public to know that +of fire only. Again and again, his ghosts wonder that there is no shadow +cast by Dante's body; and is the poet's friend, _because_ a painter, +likely, therefore, not to have known that mortal substance casts shadow, +and terrestrial flame, light? Nay, the passage in the 'Purgatorio' where +the shadows from the morning sunshine make the flames redder, reaches +the accuracy of Newtonian science; and does Giotto, think you, all the +while, see nothing of the sort? + +The fact was, he saw light so intensely that he never for an instant +thought of painting it. He knew that to paint the sun was as impossible +as to stop it; and he was no trickster, trying to find out ways of +seeming to do what he did not. I can paint a rose,--yes; and I will. I +can't paint a red-hot coal; and I won't try to, nor seem to. This was +just as natural and certain a process of thinking with _him_, as the +honesty of it, and true science, were impossible to the false painters +of the sixteenth century. + +Nevertheless, what his art can honestly do to make you feel as much as +he wants you to feel, about this fire, he will do; and that studiously. +That the fire be _luminous_ or not, is no matter just now. But that +the fire is _hot_, he would have you to know. Now, will you notice what +colours he has used in the whole picture. First, the blue background, +necessary to unite it with the other three subjects, is reduced to the +smallest possible space. St. Francis must be in grey, for that is his +dress; also the attendant of one of the Magi is in grey; but so warm, +that, if you saw it by itself, you would call it brown. The shadow +behind the throne, which Giotto knows he _can_ paint, and therefore +does, is grey also. The rest of the picture [Footnote: The floor has +been repainted; but though its grey is now heavy and cold, it cannot +kill the splendour of the rest.] in at least six-sevenths of its +area--is either crimson, gold, orange, purple, or white, all as warm as +Giotto could paint them; and set off by minute spaces only of intense +black,--the Soldan's fillet at the shoulders, his eyes, beard, and the +points necessary in the golden pattern behind. And the whole picture is +one glow. + +A single glance round at the other subjects will convince you of the +special character in this; but you will recognize also that the four +upper subjects, in which St. Francis's life and zeal are shown, are all +in comparatively warm colours, while the two lower ones--of the death, +and the visions after it--have been kept as definitely sad and cold. + +Necessarily, you might think, being full of monks' dresses. Not so. Was +there any need for Giotto to have put the priest at the foot of the dead +body, with the black banner stooped over it in the shape of a grave? +Might he not, had he chosen, in either fresco, have made the celestial +visions brighter? Might not St. Francis have appeared in the centre of a +celestial glory to the dreaming Pope, or his soul been seen of the poor +monk, rising through more radiant clouds? Look, however, how radiant, in +the small space allowed out of the blue, they are in reality. You cannot +anywhere see a lovelier piece of Giottesque colour, though here, you +have to mourn over the smallness of the piece, and its isolation. For +the face of St. Francis himself is repainted, and all the blue sky; but +the clouds and four sustaining angels are hardly retouched at all, and +their iridescent and exquisitely graceful wings are left with really +very tender and delicate care by the restorer of the sky. And no one but +Giotto or Turner could have painted them. + +For in all his use of opalescent and warm colour, Giotto is exactly like +Turner, as, in his swift expressional power, he is like Gainsborough. +All the other Italian religious painters work out their expression with +toil; he only can give it with a touch. All the other great Italian +colourists see only the beauty of colour, but Giotto also its +brightness. And none of the others, except Tintoret, understood to the +full its symbolic power; but with those--Giotto and Tintoret--there is +always, not only a colour harmony, but a colour secret. It is not merely +to make the picture glow, but to remind you that St. Francis preaches +to a fire-worshipping king, that Giotto covers the wall with purple +and scarlet;--and above, in the dispute at Assisi, the angry father +is dressed in red, varying like passion; and the robe with which his +protector embraces St. Francis, blue, symbolizing the peace of Heaven, +Of course certain conventional colours were traditionally employed by +all painters; but only Giotto and Tintoret invent a symbolism of their +own for every picture. Thus in Tintoret's picture of the fall of the +manna, the figure of God the Father is entirely robed in white, contrary +to all received custom: in that of Moses striking the rock, it is +surrounded by a rainbow. Of Giotto's symbolism in colour at Assisi, I +have given account elsewhere. [Footnote: 'Fors Clavigera' for September, +1874.] + +You are not to think, therefore, the difference between the colour of +the upper and lower frescos unintentional. The life of St. Francis +was always full of joy and triumph. His death, in great suffering, +weariness, and extreme humility. The tradition of him reverses that of +Elijah; living, he is seen in the chariot of fire; dying, he submits to +more than the common sorrow of death. + +There is, however, much more than a difference in colour between the +upper and lower frescos. There is a difference in manner which I +cannot account for; and above all, a very singular difference in +skill,--indicating, it seems to me, that the two lower were done long +before the others, and afterwards united and harmonized with them. It +is of no interest to the general reader to pursue this question; but +one point he can notice quickly, that the lower frescos depend much on +a mere black or brown outline of the features, while the faces above +are evenly and completely painted in the most accomplished Venetian +manner:--and another, respecting the management of the draperies, +contains much interest for us. + +Giotto never succeeded, to the very end of his days, in representing a +figure lying down, and at ease. It is one of the most curious points +in all his character. Just the thing which he could study from nature +without the smallest hindrance, is the thing he never can paint; +while subtleties of form and gesture, which depend absolutely on their +momentariness, and actions in which no model can stay for an instant, he +seizes with infallible accuracy. + +Not only has the sleeping Pope, in the right hand lower fresco, his +head laid uncomfortably on his pillow, but all the clothes on him are in +awkward angles, even Giotto's instinct for lines of drapery failing him +altogether when he has to lay it on a reposing figure. But look at the +folds of the Soldan's robe over his knees. None could be more beautiful +or right; and it is to me wholly inconceivable that the two paintings +should be within even twenty years of each other in date--the skill in +the upper one is so supremely greater. We shall find, however, more than +mere truth in its casts of drapery, if we examine them. + +They are so simply right, in the figure of the Soldan, that we do not +think of them;--we see him only, not his dress But we see dress first, +in the figures of the discomfited Magi. Very fully draped personages +these, indeed,--with trains, it appears, four yards long, and bearers of +them. + +The one nearest the Soldan has done his devoir as bravely as he could; +would fain go up to the fire, but cannot; is forced to shield his face, +though he has not turned back. Giotto gives him full sweeping breadth +of fold; what dignity he can;--a man faithful to his profession, at all +events. + +The next one has no such courage. Collapsed altogether, he has nothing +more to say for himself or his creed. Giotto hangs the cloak upon him, +in Ghirlandajo's fashion, as from a peg, but with ludicrous narrowness +of fold. Literally, he is a 'shut-up' Magus--closed like a fan. He turns +his head away, hopelessly. And the last Magus shows nothing but his +back, disappearing through the door. + +Opposed to them, in a modern work, you would have had a St. Francis +standing as high as he could in his sandals, contemptuous, denunciatory; +magnificently showing the Magi the door. No such thing, says Giotto. A +somewhat mean man; disappointing enough in presence-even in feature; +I do not understand his gesture, pointing to his forehead--perhaps +meaning, 'my life, or my head, upon the truth of this.' The attendant +monk behind him is terror-struck; but will follow his master. The +dark Moorish servants of the Magi show no emotion--will arrange their +masters' trains as usual, and decorously sustain their retreat. + +Lastly, for the Soldan himself. In a modern work, you would assuredly +have had him staring at St. Francis with his eyebrows up, or frowning +thunderously at his Magi, with them bent as far down as they would go. +Neither of these aspects does he bear, according to Giotto. A perfect +gentleman and king, he looks on his Magi with quiet eyes of decision; he +is much the noblest person in the room--though an infidel, the true hero +of the scene, far more than St. Francis. It is evidently the Soldan +whom Giotto wants you to think of mainly, in this picture of Christian +missionary work. + +He does not altogether take the view of the Heathen which you would get +in an Exeter Hall meeting. Does not expatiate on their ignorance, their +blackness, or their nakedness. Does not at all think of the Florentine +Islington and Pentonville, as inhabited by persons in every respect +superior to the kings of the East; nor does he imagine every other +religion but his own to be log-worship. Probably the people who really +worship logs--whether in Persia or Pentonville--will be left to worship +logs to their hearts' content, thinks Giotto. But to those who worship +_God_, and who have obeyed the laws of heaven written in their hearts, +and numbered the stars of it visible to them,--to these, a nearer star +may rise; and a higher God be revealed. + +You are to note, therefore, that Giotto's Soldan is the type of all +noblest religion and law, in countries where the name of Christ has not +been preached. There was no doubt what king or people should be chosen: +the country of the three Magi had already been indicated by the miracle +of Bethlehem; and the religion and morality of Zoroaster were the +purest, and in spirit the oldest, in the heathen world. Therefore, when +Dante, in the nineteenth and twentieth books of the Paradise, gives his +final interpretation of the law of human and divine justice in relation +to the gospel of Christ--the lower and enslaved body of the heathen +being represented by St. Philip's convert, ("Christians like these +the Ethiop shall condemn")--the noblest state of heathenism is at once +chosen, as by Giotto: "What may the _Persians_ say unto _your_ kings?" +Compare also Milton,-- + + "At the Soldan's chair, + Defied the best of Paynim chivalry." + +And now, the time is come for you to look at Giotto's St. Louis, who is +the type of a Christian king. + +You would, I suppose, never have seen it at all, unless I had dragged +you here on purpose. It was enough in the dark originally--is trebly +darkened by the modern painted glass--and dismissed to its oblivion +contentedly by Mr. Murray's "Four saints, all much restored and +repainted," and Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcasella's serene "The St. Louis +is quite new." + +Now, I am the last person to call any restoration whatever, judicious. +Of all destructive manias, that of restoration is the frightfullest and +foolishest. Nevertheless, what good, in its miserable way, it can bring, +the poor art scholar must now apply his common sense to take; there is +no use, because a great work has been restored, in now passing it by +altogether, not even looking for what instruction we still may find in +its design, which will be more intelligible, if the restorer has had any +conscience at all, to the ordinary spectator, than it would have been +in the faded work. When, indeed, Mr. Murray's Guide tells you that a +_building_ has been 'magnificently restored,' you may pass the building +by in resigned despair; for _that_ means that every bit of the old +sculpture has been destroyed, and modern vulgar copies put up in its +place. But a restored picture or fresco will often be, to _you_, more +useful than a pure one; and in all probability--if an important piece +of art--it will have been spared in many places, cautiously completed +in others, and still assert itself in a mysterious way--as Leonardo's +Cenacolo does--through every phase of reproduction. [Footnote: For a +test of your feeling in the matter, having looked well at these two +lower frescos in this chapel, walk round into the next, and examine the +lower one on your left hand as you enter that. You will find in your +Murray that the frescos in this chapel "were also till lately, (1862) +covered with whitewash"; but I happen to have a long critique of this +particular picture written in the year 1845, and I see no change in it +since then. Mr. Murray's critic also tells you to observe in it that +"the daughter of Herodias playing on a violin is not unlike Perugino's +treatment of similar subjects." By which Mr. Murray's critic means that +the male musician playing on a violin, whom, without looking either at +his dress, or at the rest of the fresco, he took for the daughter +of Herodias, has a broad face. Allowing you the full benefit of this +criticism--there is still a point or two more to be observed. This is +the only fresco near the ground in which Giotto's work is untouched, at +least, by the modern restorer. So felicitously safe it is, that you may +learn from it at once and for ever, what good fresco painting +is--how quiet--how delicately clear--how little coarsely or vulgarly +attractive--how capable of the most tender light and shade, and of the +most exquisite and enduring colour. + +In this latter respect, this fresco stands almost alone among the works +of Giotto; the striped curtain behind the table being wrought with a +variety and fantasy of playing colour which Paul Veronese could not +better at his best. + +You will find, without difficulty, in spite of the faint tints, the +daughter of Herodias in the middle of the picture---slowly _moving_, +not dancing, to the violin music--she herself playing on a lyre. In the +farther corner of the picture, she gives St. John's head to her mother; +the face of Herodias is almost entirely faded, which may be a farther +guarantee to you of the safety of the rest. The subject of the +Apocalypse, highest on the right, is one of the most interesting mythic +pictures in Florence; nor do I know any other so completely rendering +the meaning of the scene between the woman in the wilderness, and the +Dragon enemy. But it cannot be seen from the floor level: and I have no +power of showing its beauty in words.] + +But I can assure you, in the first place, that St. Louis is by no means +altogether new. I have been up at it, and found most lovely and true +colour left in many parts: the crown, which you will find, after our +mornings at the Spanish chapel, is of importance, nearly untouched; +the lines of the features and hair, though all more or less reproduced, +still of definite and notable character; and the junction throughout of +added colour so careful, that the harmony of the whole, if not delicate +with its old tenderness, is at least, in its coarser way, solemn +and unbroken. Such as the figure remains, it still possesses extreme +beauty--profoundest interest. And, as you can see it from below with +your glass, it leaves little to be desired, and may be dwelt upon with +more profit than nine out of ten of the renowned pictures of the Tribune +or the Pitti. You will enter into the spirit of it better if I first +translate for you a little piece from the Fioretti di San Francesco. + +_"How St. Louis, King of France, went personally in the guise of a +pilgrim, to Perugia, to visit the holy Brother Giles._--St. Louis, King +of France, went on pilgrimage to visit the sanctuaries of the world; and +hearing the most great fame of the holiness of Brother Giles, who had +been among the first companions of St. Francis, put it in his heart, and +determined assuredly that he would visit him personally; wherefore he +came to Perugia, where was then staying the said brother. And coming to +the gate of the place of the Brothers, with few companions, and being +unknown, he asked with great earnestness for Brother Giles, telling +nothing to the porter who he was that asked. The porter, therefore, goes +to Brother Giles, and says that there is a pilgrim asking for him at +the gate. And by God it was inspired in him and revealed that it was the +King of France; whereupon quickly with great fervour he left his cell +and ran to the gate, and without any question asked, or ever having seen +each other before, kneeling down together with greatest devotion, they +embraced and kissed each other with as much familiarity as if for a long +time they had held great friendship; but all the while neither the +one nor the other spoke, but stayed, so embraced, with such signs of +charitable love, in silence. And so having remained for a great while, +they parted from one another, and St. Louis went on his way, and Brother +Giles returned to his cell. And the King being gone, one of the brethren +asked of his companion who he was, who answered that he was the King +of France. Of which the other brothers being told, were in the greatest +melancholy because Brother Giles had never said a word to him; and +murmuring at it, they said, 'Oh, Brother Giles, wherefore hadst thou so +country manners that to so holy a king, who had come from France to see +thee and hear from thee some good word, thou hast spoken nothing?' + +"Answered Brother Giles: 'Dearest brothers, wonder not ye at this, that +neither I to him, nor he to me, could speak a word; for so soon as we +had embraced, the light of the divine wisdom revealed and manifested, +to me, his heart, and to him, mine; and so by divine operation we looked +each in the other's heart on what we would have said to one another, and +knew it better far than if we had spoken with the mouth, and with more +consolation, because of the defect of the human tongue, which cannot +clearly express the secrets of God, and would have been for discomfort +rather than comfort. And know, therefore, that the King parted from me +marvellously content, and comforted in his mind.'" + +Of all which story, not a word, of course, is credible by any rational +person. + +Certainly not: the spirit, nevertheless, which created the story, is +an entirely indisputable fact in the history of Italy and of mankind. +Whether St. Louis and Brother Giles ever knelt together in the street +of Perugia matters not a whit. That a king and a poor monk could be +conceived to have thoughts of each other which no words could speak; and +that indeed the King's tenderness and humility made such a tale credible +to the people,--this is what you have to meditate on here. + +Nor is there any better spot in the world,--whencesoever your pilgrim +feet may have journeyed to it, wherein to make up so much mind as +you have in you for the making, concerning the nature of Kinghood and +Princedom generally; and of the forgeries and mockeries of both which +are too often manifested in their room. For it happens that this +Christian and this Persian King are better painted here by Giotto than +elsewhere by any one, so as to give you the best attainable conception +of the Christian and Heathen powers which have both received, in the +book which Christians profess to reverence, the same epithet as the King +of the Jews Himself; anointed, or Christos:--and as the most perfect +Christian Kinghood was exhibited in the life, partly real, partly +traditional, of St. Louis, so the most perfect Heathen Kinghood was +exemplified in the life, partly real, partly traditional, of Cyrus of +Persia, and in the laws for human government and education which had +chief force in his dynasty. And before the images of these two Kings +I think therefore it will be well that you should read the charge to +Cyrus, written by Isaiah. The second clause of it, if not all, will here +become memorable to you--literally illustrating, as it does, the very +manner of the defeat of the Zoroastrian Magi, on which Giotto founds +his Triumph of Faith. I write the leading sentences continuously; what I +omit is only their amplification, which you can easily refer to at home. +(Isaiah xliv. 24, to xlv. 13.) + +"Thus saith the Lord, thy Redeemer, and he that formed thee from the +womb. I the Lord that maketh all; that stretcheth forth the heavens, +alone; that spreadeth abroad the earth, alone; _that turneth wise men +backward, and maketh their knowledge, foolish; that confirmeth the word +of his Servant, and fulfilleth the counsel of his messengers_: that +saith of Cyrus, He is my Shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure, +even saying to Jerusalem, 'thou shalt be built,' and to the temple, 'thy +foundations shall be laid." + +"Thus saith the Lord to his Christ;--to Cyrus, whose right hand I have +holden, to subdue nations before him, and I will loose the loins of +Kings. + +"I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight; I will +break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron; +and I will give _thee_ the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of +secret places, that thou mayest know that I the Lord, which call thee by +thy name, am the God of Israel. + +"For Jacob my servant's sake, and Israel mine elect, I have even called +thee by thy name; I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me. + +"I am the Lord, and there is none else; there is no God beside me. I +girded thee, though thou hast not known me. That they may know, from the +_rising of the sun_, and from the west, that there is none beside me; +I am the Lord and there is none else. _I form the light_, and create +darkness; I make peace, and create evil. I the Lord do all these things. + +"I have raised him up in Righteousness, and will direct all his ways; he +shall build my city, and let go my captives, not for price nor reward, +saith the Lord of Nations." + +To this last verse, add the ordinance of Cyrus in fulfilling it, +that you may understand what is meant by a King's being "raised up in +Righteousness," and notice, with respect to the picture under which you +stand, the Persian King's thought of the Jewish temple. + +"In the first year of the reign of Cyrus, [Footnote: 1st Esdras vi. 24.] +King Cyrus commanded that the house of the Lord at Jerusalem should +be built again, _where they do service with perpetual fire_; (the +italicized sentence is Darius's, quoting Cyrus's decree--the decree +itself worded thus), Thus saith Cyrus, King of Persia: [Footnote: Ezra +i. 3, and 2nd Esdras ii. 3.] The Lord God of heaven hath given me all +the kingdoms of the earth, and he hath charged me to build him an house +at Jerusalem. + +"Who is there among you of all his people?--his God be with him, and let +him go up to Jerusalem which is in Judah, and let the men of his place +help him with silver and with gold, and with goods and with beasts." + +Between which "bringing the prisoners out of captivity" and modern +liberty, free trade, and anti-slavery eloquence, there is no small +interval. + +To these two ideals of Kinghood, then, the boy has reached, since the +day he was drawing the lamb on the stone, as Cimabue passed by. You will +not find two other such, that I know of, in the west of Europe; and yet +there has been many a try at the painting of crowned heads,--and King +George III and Queen Charlotte, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, are very fine, +no doubt. Also your black-muzzled kings of Velasquez, and Vandyke's +long-haired and white-handed ones; and Rubens' riders--in those handsome +boots. Pass such shadows of them as you can summon, rapidly before your +memory--then look at this St. Louis. + +His face--gentle, resolute, glacial-pure, thin-cheeked; so sharp at +the chin that the entire head is almost of the form of a knight's +shield--the hair short on the forehead, falling on each side in the old +Greek-Etruscan curves of simplest line, to the neck; I don't know if you +can see without being nearer, the difference in the arrangement of it +on the two sides-the mass of it on the right shoulder bending inwards, +while that on the left falls straight. It is one of the pretty changes +which a modern workman would never dream of--and which assures me the +restorer has followed the old lines rightly. + +He wears a crown formed by an hexagonal pyramid, beaded with pearls +on the edges: and walled round, above the brow, with a vertical +fortress-parapet, as it were, rising into sharp pointed spines at the +angles: it is chasing of gold with pearl--beautiful in the remaining +work of it; the Soldan wears a crown of the same general form; the +hexagonal outline signifying all order, strength, and royal economy. We +shall see farther symbolism of this kind, soon, by Simon Memmi, in the +Spanish chapel. + +I cannot tell you anything definite of the two other frescos--for I can +only examine one or two pictures in a day; and never begin with one till +I have done with another; and I had to leave Florence without looking +at these--even so far as to be quite sure of their subjects. The central +one on the left is either the twelfth subject of Assisi--St. Francis +in Ecstacy; [Footnote: "Represented" (next to St. Francis before the +Soldan, at Assisi) "as seen one night by the brethren, praying, elevated +from the ground, his hands extended like the cross, and surrounded by a +shining cloud."--_Lord Lindsay_.] or the eighteenth, the Apparition of +St. Francis at Arles; [Footnote: "St. Anthony of Padua was preaching at +a general chapter of the order, held at Arles, in 1224, when St. +Francis appeared in the midst, his arms extended, and in an attitude of +benediction."--_Lord Lindsay_.] while the lowest on the right may admit +choice between two subjects in each half of it: my own reading of them +would be--that they are the twenty-first and twenty-fifth subjects of +Assisi, the Dying Friar [Footnote: "A brother of the order, lying on his +deathbed, saw the spirit of St. Francis rising to heaven, and springing +forward, cried, 'Tarry, Father, I come with thee!' and fell back +dead."--_Lord Lindsay_.] and Vision of Pope Gregory IX.; [Footnote: +"He hesitated, before canonizing St. Francis; doubting the celestial +infliction of the stigmata. St. Francis appeared to him in a vision, and +with a severe countenance reproving his unbelief, opened his robe, and, +exposing the wound in his side, filled a vial with the blood that +flowed from it, and gave it to the Pope, who awoke and found it in his +hand."--_Lord Lindsay_.] but Crowe and Cavalcasella may be right in +their different interpretation; [Footnote: "As St. Francis was carried +on his bed of sickness to St. Maria degli Angeli, he stopped at an +hospital on the roadside, and ordering his attendants to turn his head +in the direction of Assisi, he rose in his litter and said, 'Blessed +be thou amongst cities! may the blessing of God cling to thee, oh holy +place, for by thee shall many souls be saved;' and, having said this, he +lay down and was carried on to St. Maria degli Angeli. On the evening of +the 4th of October his death was revealed at the very hour to the bishop +of Assisi on Mount Sarzana."--_Crowe and Cavalcasella._] in any case, +the meaning of the entire system of work remains unchanged, as I have +given it above. + + + + +THE FOURTH MORNING. + +THE VAULTED BOOK. + + +As early as may be this morning, let us look for a minute or two into +the cathedral:--I was going to say, entering by one of the side doors +of the aisles;--but we can't do anything else, which perhaps might +not strike you unless you were thinking specially of it. There are no +transept doors; and one never wanders round to the desolate front. From +either of the side doors, a few paces will bring you to the middle of +the nave, and to the point opposite the middle of the third arch +from the west end; where you will find yourself--if well in the +mid-wave--standing on a circular slab of green porphyry, which marks +the former place of the grave of the bishop Zenobius. The larger +inscription, on the wide circle of the floor outside of you, records +the translation of his body; the smaller one round the stone at your +feet--"quiescimus, domum hanc quum adimus ultimam"--is a painful truth, +I suppose, to travellers like us, who never rest anywhere now, if we can +help it. + +Resting here, at any rate, for a few minutes, look up to the whitewashed +vaulting of the compartment of the roof next the west end. + +You will see nothing whatever in it worth looking at. Nevertheless, look +a little longer. + +But the longer you look, the less you will understand why I tell you to +look. It is nothing but a whitewashed ceiling: vaulted indeed,--but so +is many a tailor's garret window, for that matter. Indeed, now that you +have looked steadily for a minute or so, and are used to the form of +the arch, it seems to become so small that you can almost fancy it the +ceiling of a good-sized lumber-room in an attic. + +Having attained to this modest conception of it, carry your eyes back +to the similar vault of the second compartment, nearer you. Very little +further contemplation will reduce that also to the similitude of a +moderately-sized attic. And then, resolving to bear, if possible--for it +is worth while,--the cramp in your neck for another quarter of a minute, +look right up to the third vault, over your head; which, if not, in the +said quarter of a minute, reducible in imagination to a tailor's garret, +will at least sink, like the two others, into the semblance of a common +arched ceiling, of no serious magnitude or majesty. + +Then, glance quickly down from it to the floor, and round at the space, +(included between the four pillars), which that vault covers. It is +sixty feet square,[Footnote: Approximately. Thinking I could find the +dimensions of the duomo anywhere, I only paced it myself,--and cannot, +at this moment, lay my hand on English measurements of it.]--four +hundred square yards of pavement,--and I believe you will have to look +up again more than once or twice, before you can convince yourself that +the mean-looking roof is swept indeed over all that twelfth part of an +acre. And still less, if I mistake not, will you, without slow proof, +believe, when you turn yourself round towards the east end, that +the narrow niche (it really looks scarcely more than a niche) which +occupies, beyond the dome, the position of our northern choirs, is +indeed the unnarrowed elongation of the nave, whose breadth extends +round you like a frozen lake. From which experiments and comparisons, +your conclusion, I think, will be, and I am sure it ought to be, that +the most studious ingenuity could not produce a design for the interior +of a building which should more completely hide its extent, and throw +away every common advantage of its magnitude, than this of the Duomo of +Florence. + +Having arrived at this, I assure you, quite securely tenable conclusion, +we will quit the cathedral by the western door, for once, and as quickly +as we can walk, return to the Green cloister of Sta. Maria Novella; and +place ourselves on the south side of it, so as to see as much as we +can of the entrance, on the opposite side, to the so-called 'Spanish +Chapel.' + +There is, indeed, within the opposite cloister, an arch of entrance, +plain enough. But no chapel, whatever, externally manifesting itself as +worth entering. No walls, or gable, or dome, raised above the rest +of the outbuildings--only two windows with traceries opening into the +cloister; and one story of inconspicuous building above. You can't +conceive there should be any effect of _magnitude_ produced in the +interior, however it has been vaulted or decorated. It may be pretty, +but it cannot possibly look large. + +Entering it, nevertheless, you will be surprised at the effect of +height, and disposed to fancy that the circular window cannot surely be +the same you saw outside, looking so low, I had to go out again, myself, +to make sure that it was. + +And gradually, as you let the eye follow the sweep of the vaulting +arches, from the small central keystone-boss, with the Lamp carved on +it, to the broad capitals of the hexagonal pillars at the angles,--there +will form itself in your mind, I think, some impression not only of +vastness in the building, but of great daring in the builder; and at +last, after closely following out the lines of a fresco or two, and +looking up and up again to the coloured vaults, it will become to you +literally one of the grandest places you ever entered, roofed without a +central pillar. You will begin to wonder that human daring ever achieved +anything so magnificent. + +But just go out again into the cloister, and recover knowledge of the +facts. It is nothing like so large as the blank arch which at home we +filled with brickbats or leased for a gin-shop under the last railway we +made to carry coals to Newcastle. And if you pace the floor it covers, +you will find it is three feet less one way, and thirty feet less the +other, than that single square of the Cathedral which was roofed like a +tailor's loft,--accurately, for I did measure here, myself, the floor of +the Spanish chapel is fifty-seven feet by thirty-two. + +I hope, after this experience, that you will need no farther conviction +of the first law of noble building, that grandeur depends on proportion +and design--not, except in a quite secondary degree, on magnitude. Mere +size has, indeed, under all disadvantage, some definite value; and so +has mere splendour. Disappointed as you may be, or at least ought to be, +at first, by St. Peter's, in the end you will feel its size,--and its +brightness. These are all you _can_ feel in it--it is nothing more than +the pump-room at Leamington built bigger;--but the bigness tells at +last: and Corinthian pillars whose capitals alone are ten feet high, +and their acanthus leaves, three feet six long, give you a serious +conviction of the infallibility of the Pope, and the fallibility of +the wretched Corinthians, who invented the style indeed, but built with +capitals no bigger than hand-baskets. + +Vastness _has_ thus its value. But the glory of architecture is to +be--whatever you wish it to be,--lovely, or grand, or comfortable,--on +such terms as it can easily obtain. Grand, by proportion--lovely, by +imagination--comfortable, by ingenuity--secure, by honesty: with such +materials and in such space as you have got to give it. + +Grand--by proportion, I said; but ought to have said by _dis_proportion. +Beauty is given by the relation of parts--size, by their comparison. +The first secret in getting the impression of size in this chapel is +the _dis_proportion between pillar and arch. You take the pillar for +granted,--it is thick, strong, and fairly high above your head. You look +to the vault springing from it--and it soars away, nobody knows where. + +Another great, but more subtle secret is in the _in_equality and +immeasurability of the curved lines; and the hiding of the form by the +colour. + +To begin, the room, I said, is fifty-seven feet wide, and only +thirty-two deep. It is thus nearly one-third larger in the direction +across the line of entrance, which gives to every arch, pointed and +round, throughout the roof, a different spring from its neighbours. + +The vaulting ribs have the simplest of all profiles--that of a chamfered +beam. I call it simpler than even that of a square beam; for in barking +a log you cheaply get your chamfer, and nobody cares whether the level +is alike on each side: but you must take a larger tree, and use much +more work to get a square. And it is the same with stone. + +And this profile is--fix the conditions of it, therefore, in your +mind,--venerable in the history of mankind as the origin of all Gothic +tracery-mouldings; venerable in the history of the Christian Church as +that of the roof ribs, both of the lower church of Assisi, bearing the +scroll of the precepts of St. Francis, and here at Florence, bearing the +scroll of the faith of St. Dominic. If you cut it out in paper, and cut +the corners off farther and farther, at every cut, you will produce a +sharper profile of rib, connected in architectural use with differently +treated styles. But the entirely venerable form is the massive one in +which the angle of the beam is merely, as it were, secured and completed +in stability by removing its too sharp edge. + +Well, the vaulting ribs, as in Giotto's vault, then, have here, under +their painting, this rude profile: but do not suppose the vaults are +simply the shells cast over them. Look how the ornamental borders +fall on the capitals! The plaster receives all sorts of indescribably +accommodating shapes--the painter contracting and stopping his design +upon it as it happens to be convenient. You can't measure anything; you +can't exhaust; you can't grasp,--except one simple ruling idea, which a +child can grasp, if it is interested and intelligent: namely, that the +room has four sides with four tales told upon them; and the roof four +quarters, with another four tales told on those. And each history in +the sides has its correspondent history in the roof. Generally, in good +Italian decoration, the roof represents constant, or essential facts; +the walls, consecutive histories arising out of them, or leading up +to them. Thus here, the roof represents in front of you, in its main +quarter, the Resurrection--the cardinal fact of Christianity; opposite +(above, behind you), the Ascension; on your left hand, the descent of +the Holy Spirit; on your right, Christ's perpetual presence with His +Church, symbolized by His appearance on the Sea of Galilee to the +disciples in the storm. + +The correspondent walls represent: under the first quarter, (the +Resurrection), the story of the Crucifixion; under the second quarter, +(the Ascension), the preaching after that departure, that Christ will +return--symbolized here in the Dominican church by the consecration of +St. Dominic; under the third quarter, (the descent of the Holy Spirit), +the disciplining power of human virtue and wisdom; under the fourth +quarter, (St. Peter's Ship), the authority and government of the State +and Church. + +The order of these subjects, chosen by the Dominican monks themselves, +was sufficiently comprehensive to leave boundless room for the invention +of the painter. The execution of it was first intrusted to Taddeo Gaddi, +the best architectural master of Giotto's school, who painted the +four quarters of the roof entirely, but with no great brilliancy of +invention, and was beginning to go down one of the sides, when, luckily, +a man of stronger brain, his friend, came from Siena. Taddeo thankfully +yielded the room to him; he joined his own work to that of his less able +friend in an exquisitely pretty and complimentary way; throwing his +own greater strength into it, not competitively, but gradually and +helpfully. When, however, he had once got himself well joined, and +softly, to the more simple work, he put his own force on with a will and +produced the most noble piece of pictorial philosophy [Footnote: There +is no philosophy _taught_ either by the school of Athens or Michael +Angelo's 'Last Judgment,' and the 'Disputa' is merely a graceful +assemblage of authorities, the effects of such authority not being +shown.] and divinity existing in Italy. + +This pretty, and, according to all evidence by me attainable, entirely +true, tradition has been all but lost, among the ruins of fair old +Florence, by the industry of modern mason-critics--who, without +exception, labouring under the primal (and necessarily unconscious) +disadvantage of not knowing good work from bad, and never, therefore, +knowing a man by his hand or his thoughts, would be in any case +sorrowfully at the mercy of mistakes in a document; but are tenfold more +deceived by their own vanity, and delight in overthrowing a received +idea, if they can. + +Farther: as every fresco of this early date has been retouched again and +again, and often painted half over,--and as, if there has been the least +care or respect for the old work in the restorer, he will now and then +follow the old lines and match the old colours carefully in some places, +while he puts in clearly recognizable work of his own in others,--two +critics, of whom one knows the first man's work well, and the other the +last's, will contradict each other to almost any extent on the securest +grounds. And there is then no safe refuge for an uninitiated person but +in the old tradition, which, if not literally true, is founded assuredly +on some root of fact which you are likely to get at, if ever, through +it only. So that my general directions to all young people going to +Florence or Rome would be very short: "Know your first volume of Vasari, +and your two first books of Livy; look about you, and don't talk, nor +listen to talking." + +On those terms, you may know, entering this chapel, that in Michael +Angelo's time, all Florence attributed these frescos to Taddeo Gaddi and +Simon Memmi. + +I have studied neither of these artists myself with any speciality +of care, and cannot tell you positively, anything about them or their +works. But I know good work from bad, as a cobbler knows leather, and I +can tell you positively the quality of these frescos, and their relation +to contemporary panel pictures; whether authentically ascribed to Gaddi, +Memmi, or any one else, it is for the Florentine Academy to decide. + +The roof, and the north side, down to the feet of the horizontal line +of sitting figures, were originally third-rate work of the school of +Giotto; the rest of the chapel was originally, and most of it is still, +magnificent work of the school of Siena. The roof and north side have +been heavily repainted in, many places; the rest is faded and injured, +but not destroyed in its most essential qualities. And now, farther, you +must bear with just a little bit of tormenting history of painters. + +There were two Gaddis, father and son,--Taddeo and Angelo. And there +were two Memmis, brothers,--Simon and Philip. + +I daresay you will find, in the modern books, that Simon's real name was +Peter, and Philip's real name was Bartholomew; and Angelo's real name +was Taddeo, and Taddeo's real name was Angelo; and Memmi's real name +was Gaddi, and Gaddi's real name was Memmi. You may find out all that at +your leisure, afterwards, if you like. What it is important for you to +know here, in the Spanish Chapel, is only this much that follows:--There +were certainly two persons once called Gaddi, both rather stupid in +religious matters and high art; but one of them, I don't know or care +which, a true decorative painter of the most exquisite skill, a perfect +architect, an amiable person, and a great lover of pretty domestic life. +Vasari says this was the father, Taddeo. He built the Ponte Vecchio; and +the old stones of it--which if you ever look at anything on the +Ponte Vecchio but the shops, you may still see (above those wooden +pent-houses) with the Florentine shield--were so laid by him that they +are unshaken to this day. + +He painted an exquisite series of frescos at Assisi from the Life of +Christ; in which,--just to show you what the man's nature is,--when the +Madonna has given Christ into Simeon's arms, she can't help holding +out her own arms to him, and saying, (visibly,) "Won't you come back to +mamma?" The child laughs his answer--"I love _you_, mamma; but I'm quite +happy just now." + +Well; he, or he and his son together, painted these four quarters of +the roof of the Spanish Chapel. They were very probably much retouched +afterwards by Antonio Veneziano, or whomsoever Messrs. Crowe and +Cavalcasella please; but that architecture in the descent of the Holy +Ghost is by the man who painted the north transept of Assisi, and there +need be no more talk about the matter,--for you never catch a restorer +doing his old architecture right again. And farther, the ornamentation +of the vaulting ribs _is_ by the man who painted the Entombment, No. 31 +in the Galerie des Grands Tableaux, in the catalogue of the Academy for +1874. Whether that picture is Taddeo Gaddi's or not, as stated in the +catalogue, I do not know; but I know the vaulting ribs of the Spanish +Chapel are painted by the same hand. + +Again: of the two brothers Memmi, one or other, I don't know or care +which, had an ugly way of turning the eyes of his figures up and their +mouths down; of which you may see an entirely disgusting example in the +four saints attributed to Filippo Memmi on the cross wall of the north +(called always in Murray's guide the south, because he didn't notice the +way the church was built) transept of Assisi. You may, however, also +see the way the mouth goes down in the much repainted, but still +characteristic No. 9 in the Uffizii. [Footnote: This picture bears the +inscription (I quote from the French catalogue, not having verified it +myself), "Simon Martini, et Lippus Memmi de Senis me pinxerunt." I have +no doubt whatever, myself, that the two brothers worked together on +these frescoes of the Spanish Chapel: but that most of the Limbo is +Philip's, and the Paradise, scarcely with his interference, Simon's.] + +Now I catch the wring and verjuice of this brother again and again, +among the minor heads of the lower frescoes in this Spanish Chapel. +The head of the Queen beneath Noah, in the Limbo,--(see below) is +unmistakable. + +Farther: one of the two brothers, I don't care which, had a way of +painting leaves; of which you may see a notable example in the rod in +the hand of Gabriel in that same picture of the Annunciation in the +Uffizii. No Florentine painter, or any other, ever painted leaves as +well as that, till you get down to Sandro Botticelli, who did them much +better. But the man who painted that rod in the hand of Gabriel, painted +the rod in the right hand of Logic in the Spanish Chapel,--and nobody +else in Florence, or the world, _could_. + +Farther (and this is the last of the antiquarian business); you see that +the frescoes on the roof are, on the whole, dark with much blue and +red in them, the white spaces coming out strongly. This is the +characteristic colouring of the partially defunct school of Giotto, +becoming merely decorative, and passing into a colourist school which +connected itself afterwards with the Venetians. There is an exquisite +example of all its specialities in the little Annunciation in the +Uffizii, No. 14, attributed to Angelo Gaddi, in which you see the +Madonna is stupid, and the angel stupid, but the colour of the whole, as +a piece of painted glass, lovely; and the execution exquisite,--at once +a painter's and jeweller's; with subtle sense of chiaroscuro underneath; +(note the delicate shadow of the Madonna's arm across her breast). + +The head of this school was (according to Vasari) Taddeo Gaddi; and +henceforward, without further discussion, I shall speak of him as the +painter of the roof of the Spanish Chapel,--not without suspicion, +however, that his son Angelo may hereafter turn out to have been the +better decorator, and the painter of the frescoes from the life of +Christ in the north transept of Assisi,--with such assistance as his son +or scholars might give--and such change or destruction as time, Antonio +Veneziano, or the last operations of the Tuscan railroad company, may +have effected on them. + +On the other hand, you see that the frescos on the walls are of paler +colours, the blacks coming out of these clearly, rather than the whites; +but the pale colours, especially, for instance, the whole of the Duomo +of Florence in that on your right, very tender and lovely. Also, you may +feel a tendency to express much with outline, and draw, more than paint, +in the most interesting parts; while in the duller ones, nasty green and +yellow tones come out, which prevent the effect of the whole from being +very pleasant. These characteristics belong, on the whole, to the school +of Siena; and they indicate here the work _assuredly_ of a man of vast +power and most refined education, whom I shall call without further +discussion, during the rest of this and the following morning's study, +Simon Memmi. + +And of the grace and subtlety with which he joined his work to that of +the Gaddis, you may judge at once by comparing the Christ standing on +the fallen gate of the Limbo, with the Christ in the Resurrection above. +Memmi has retained the dress and imitated the general effect of the +figure in the roof so faithfully that you suspect no difference of +mastership--nay, he has even raised the foot in the same awkward way: +but you will find Memmi's foot delicately drawn-Taddeo's, hard and +rude: and all the folds of Memmi's drapery cast with unbroken grace and +complete gradations of shade, while Taddeo's are rigid and meagre; also +in the heads, generally Taddeo's type of face is square in feature, with +massive and inelegant clusters or volutes of hair and beard; but Memmi's +delicate and long in feature, with much divided and flowing hair, often +arranged with exquisite precision, as in the finest Greek coins. Examine +successively in this respect only the heads of Adam, Abel, Methuselah, +and Abraham, in the Limbo, and you will not confuse the two designers +any more. I have not had time to make out more than the principal +figures in the Limbo, of which indeed the entire dramatic power is +centred in the Adam and Eve. The latter dressed as a nun, in her fixed +gaze on Christ, with her hands clasped, is of extreme beauty: and +however feeble the work of any early painter may be, in its decent and +grave inoffensiveness it guides the imagination unerringly to a certain +point. How far you are yourself capable of filling up what is left +untold and conceiving, as a reality, Eve's first look on this her child, +depends on no painter's skill, but on your own understanding. Just above +Eve is Abel, bearing the lamb: and behind him, Noah, between his wife +and Shem: behind them, Abraham, between Isaac and Ishmael; (turning from +Ishmael to Isaac), behind these, Moses, between Aaron and David. I have +not identified the others, though I find the white-bearded figure behind +Eve called Methuselah in my notes: I know not on what authority. Looking +up from these groups, however, to the roof painting, you will at once +feel the imperfect grouping and ruder features of all the figures; +and the greater depth of colour. We will dismiss these comparatively +inferior paintings at once. + +The roof and walls must be read together, each segment of the roof +forming an introduction to, or portion of, the subject on the wall +below. But the roof must first be looked at alone, as the work of Taddeo +Gaddi, for the artistic qualities and failures of it. + +I. In front, as you enter, is the compartment with the subject of the +Resurrection. It is the traditional Byzantine composition: the guards +sleeping, and the two angels in white saying to the women, "He is not +here," while Christ is seen rising with the flag of the Cross. + +But it would be difficult to find another example of the subject, so +coldly treated--so entirely without passion or action. The faces are +expressionless; the gestures powerless. Evidently the painter is not +making the slightest effort to conceive what really happened, but merely +repeating and spoiling what he could remember of old design, or himself +supply of commonplace for immediate need. The "Noli me tangere," on +the right, is spoiled from Giotto, and others before him; a peacock, +woefully plumeless and colourless, a fountain, an ill drawn toy-horse, +and two toy-children gathering flowers, are emaciate remains of Greek +symbols. He has taken pains with the vegetation, but in vain. Yet Taddeo +Gaddi was a true painter, a very beautiful designer, and a very amiable +person. How comes he to do that Resurrection so badly? + +In the first place, he was probably tired of a subject which was a great +strain to his feeble imagination; and gave it up as impossible: doing +simply the required figures in the required positions. In the second, he +was probably at the time despondent and feeble because of his master's +death. See Lord Lindsay, II. 273, where also it is pointed out that in +the effect of the light proceeding from the figure of Christ, Taddeo +Gaddi indeed was the first of the Giottisti who showed true sense +of light and shade. But until Lionardo's time the innovation did not +materially affect Florentine art. + +II. The Ascension (opposite the Resurrection, and not worth looking at, +except for the sake of making more sure our conclusions from the first +fresco). The Madonna is fixed in Byzantine stiffness, without Byzantine +dignity. + +III. The Descent of the Holy Ghost, on the left hand. The Madonna +and disciples are gathered in an upper chamber: underneath are the +Parthians, Medes, Elamites, etc., who hear them speak in their own +tongues. + +Three dogs are in the foreground--their mythic purpose the same as that +of the two verses which affirm the fellowship of the dog in the journey +and return of Tobias: namely, to mark the share of the lower animals in +the gentleness given by the outpouring of the Spirit of Christ. + +IV. The Church sailing on the Sea of the World. St. Peter coming to +Christ on the water. + +I was too little interested in the vague symbolism of this fresco to +examine it with care--the rather that the subject beneath, the literal +contest of the Church with the world, needed more time for study in +itself alone than I had for all Florence. + +On this, and the opposite side of the chapel, are represented, by Simon +Memmi's hand, the teaching power of the Spirit of God, and the saving +power of the Christ of God, in the world, according to the understanding +of Florence in his time. + +We will take the side of Intellect first, beneath the pouring forth of +the Holy Spirit. + +In the point of the arch beneath, are the three Evangelical Virtues. +Without these, says Florence, you can have no science. Without Love, +Faith, and Hope--no intelligence. + +Under these are the four Cardinal Virtues, the entire group being thus +arranged:-- + + A + B C + D E F G + +A, Charity; flames issuing from her head and hands. B, Faith; holds +cross and shield, quenching fiery darts. This symbol, so frequent in +modern adaptation from St. Paul's address to personal faith, is rare in +older art. C, Hope, with a branch of lilies. D, Temperance; bridles a +black fish, on which she stands. E, Prudence, with a book. F, Justice, +with crown and baton. G, Fortitude, with tower and sword. + +Under these are the great prophets and apostles; on the left,[Footnote: +I can't find my note of the first one on the left; answering to Solomon, +opposite.] David, St. Paul, St. Mark, St. John; on the right, St. +Matthew, St. Luke, Moses, Isaiah, Solomon. In the midst of the +Evangelists, St. Thomas Aquinas, seated on a Gothic throne. + +Now observe, this throne, with all the canopies below it, and the +complete representation of the Duomo of Florence opposite, are of +finished Gothic of Orecagna's school--later than Giotto's Gothic. But +the building in which the apostles are gathered at the Pentecost is of +the early Romanesque mosaic school, with a wheel window from the duomo +of Assisi, and square windows from the Baptistery of Florence. And +this is always the type of architecture used by Taddeo Gaddi: while +the finished Gothic could not possibly have been drawn by him, but is +absolute evidence of the later hand. + +Under the line of prophets, as powers summoned by their voices, are +the mythic figures of the seven theological or spiritual, and the seven +_ge_ological or natural sciences: and under the feet of each of them, +the figure of its Captain-teacher to the world. + +I had better perhaps give you the names of this entire series of figures +from left to right at once. You will see presently why they are numbered +in a reverse order. + + Beneath whom +8. Civil Law. The Emperor Justinian. 9. Canon Law. Pope Clement V. 10. +Practical Theology. Peter Lombard. 11. Contemplative Theology. Dionysius +the Areopagite. 12. Dogmatic Theology. Boethius. 13. Mystic Theology. +St. John Damascene. 14. Polemic Theology. St. Augustine. 7. Arithmetic. +Pythagoras. 6. Geometry. Euclid. 5. Astronomy. Zoroaster. 4. Music. +Tubalcain. 3. Logic. Aristotle. 2. Rhetoric. Cicero. 1. Grammar. +Priscian. + +Here, then, you have pictorially represented, the system of manly +education, supposed in old Florence to be that necessarily instituted +in great earthly kingdoms or republics, animated by the Spirit shed down +upon the world at Pentecost. How long do you think it will take you, +or ought to take, to see such a picture? We were to get to work this +morning, as early as might be: you have probably allowed half an hour +for Santa Maria Novella; half an hour for San Lorenzo; an hour for the +museum of sculpture at the Bargello; an hour for shopping; and then it +will be lunch time, and you mustn't be late, because you are to leave by +the afternoon train, and must positively be in Rome to-morrow morning. +Well, of your half-hour for Santa Maria Novella,--after Ghirlandajo's +choir, Orcagna's transept, and Cimabue's Madonna, and the painted +windows, have been seen properly, there will remain, suppose, at the +utmost, a quarter of an hour for the Spanish Chapel. That will give you +two minutes and a half for each side, two for the ceiling, and three for +studying Murray's explanations or mine. Two minutes and a half you have +got, then--(and I observed, during my five weeks' work in the chapel, +that English visitors seldom gave so much)--to read this scheme given +you by Simon Memmi of human spiritual education. In order to understand +the purport of it, in any the smallest degree, you must summon to your +memory, in the course of these two minutes and a half, what you happen +to be acquainted with of the doctrines and characters of Pythagoras, +Zoroaster, Aristotle, Dionysius the Areopagite, St. Augustine, and +the emperor Justinian, and having further observed the expressions and +actions attributed by the painter to these personages, judge how far he +has succeeded in reaching a true and worthy ideal of them, and how large +or how subordinate a part in his general scheme of human learning he +supposes their peculiar doctrines properly to occupy. For myself, +being, to my much sorrow, now an old person; and, to my much pride, +an old-fashioned one, I have not found my powers either of reading +or memory in the least increased by any of Mr. Stephenson's or Mr. +Wheatstone's inventions; and though indeed I came here from Lucca in +three hours instead of a day, which it used to take, I do not think +myself able, on that account, to see any picture in Florence in less +time than it took formerly, or even obliged to hurry myself in any +investigations connected with it. + +Accordingly, I have myself taken five weeks to see the quarter of this +picture of Simon Memmi's: and can give you a fairly good account of that +quarter, and some partial account of a fragment or two of those on the +other walls: but, alas! only of their pictorial qualities in either +case; for I don't myself know anything whatever, worth trusting to, +about Pythagoras, or Dionysius the Areopagite; and have not had, and +never shall have, probably, any time to learn much of them; while in +the very feeblest light only,--in what the French would express by +their excellent word 'lueur,'--I am able to understand something of +the characters of Zoroaster, Aristotle, and Justinian. But this only +increases in me the reverence with which I ought to stand before the +work of a painter, who was not only a master of his own craft, but so +profound a scholar and theologian as to be able to conceive this scheme +of picture, and write the divine law by which Florence was to live. +Which Law, written in the northern page of this Vaulted Book, we will +begin quiet interpretation of, if you care to return hither, to-morrow +morning. + + + + +THE FIFTH MORNING. + +THE STRAIT GATE. + + +As you return this morning to St. Mary's, you may as well observe--the +matter before us being concerning gates,--that the western facade of +the church is of two periods. Your Murray refers it all to the latest of +these;--I forget when, and do not care;--in which the largest flanking +columns, and the entire effective mass of the walls, with their riband +mosaics and high pediment, were built in front of, and above, what the +barbarian renaissance designer chose to leave of the pure old Dominican +church. You may see his ungainly jointings at the pedestals of the great +columns, running through the pretty, parti-coloured base, which, with +the 'Strait' Gothic doors, and the entire lines of the fronting and +flanking tombs (where not restored by the Devil-begotten brood of modern +Florence), is of pure, and exquisitely severe and refined, fourteenth +century Gothic, with superbly carved bearings on its shields. The small +detached line of tombs on the left, untouched in its sweet colour and +living weed ornament, I would fain have painted, stone by stone: but one +can never draw in front of a church in these republican days; for all +the blackguard children of the neighbourhood come to howl, and +throw stones, on the steps, and the ball or stone play against these +sculptured tombs, as a dead wall adapted for that purpose only, is +incessant in the fine days when I could have worked. + +If you enter by the door most to the left, or north, and turn +immediately to the right, on the interior of the wall of the facade is +an Annunciation, visible enough because well preserved, though in the +dark, and extremely pretty in its way,--of the decorated and ornamental +school following Giotto:--I can't guess by whom, nor does it much +matter; but it is well To look at it by way of contrast with the +delicate, intense, slightly decorated design of Memmi,--in which, when +you return into the Spanish chapel, you will feel the dependence for +its effect on broad masses of white and pale amber, where the decorative +school would have had mosaic of red, blue, and gold. + +Our first business this morning must be to read and understand the +writing on the book held open by St. Thomas Aquinas, for that informs us +of the meaning of the whole picture. + +It is this text from the Book of Wisdom VII. 6. + + "Optavi, et datus est mihi sensus. + Invocavi, et venit in me Spiritus Sapientiae, + Et preposui illam regnis et sedibus." + + "I willed, and Sense was given me. + I prayed, and the Spirit of Wisdom came upon me. + And I set her before, (preferred her to,) kingdoms + and thrones." + +The common translation in our English Apocrypha loses the entire meaning +of this passage, which--not only as the statement of the experience of +Florence in her own education, but as universally descriptive of the +process of all noble education whatever--we had better take pains to +understand. + +First, says Florence "I willed, (in sense of resolutely desiring,) and +Sense was given me." You must begin your education with the distinct +resolution to know what is true, and choice of the strait and rough road +to such knowledge. This choice is offered to every youth and maid at +some moment of their life;--choice between the easy downward road, so +broad that we can dance down it in companies, and the steep narrow way, +which we must enter alone. Then, and for many a day afterwards, they +need that form of persistent Option, and Will: but day by day, the +'Sense' of the rightness of what they have done, deepens on them, not in +consequence of the effort, but by gift granted in reward of it. And the +Sense of difference between right and wrong, and between beautiful and +unbeautiful things, is confirmed in the heroic, and fulfilled in the +industrious, soul. + +That is the process of education in the earthly sciences, and the +morality connected with them. Reward given to faithful Volition. + +Next, when Moral and Physical senses are perfect, comes the desire +for education in the higher world, where the senses are no more our +Teachers; but the Maker of the senses. And that teaching, we cannot get +by labour, but only by petition. + +"Invocavi, et venit in me Spiritus Sapientiae"--"I prayed, and the +Spirit of Wisdom," (not, you observe, _was given_, [Footnote: I in +careless error, wrote "was given" in 'Fors Clavigera.] but,) "_came_ +upon me." The _personal_ power of Wisdom: the "[Greek: sophia]" or Santa +Sophia, to whom the first great Christian temple was dedicated. This +higher wisdom, governing by her presence, all earthly conduct, and by +her teaching, all earthly art, Florence tells you, she obtained only by +prayer. + +And these two Earthly and Divine sciences are expressed beneath in the +symbols of their divided powers;--Seven terrestrial, Seven celestial, +whose names have been already indicated to you:--in which figures I +must point out one or two technical matters, before touching their +interpretation. They are all by Simon Memmi originally; but repainted, +many of them all over, some hundred years later,--(certainly after the +discovery of America, as you will see)--by an artist of considerable +power, and some feeling for the general action of the figures; but of no +refinement or carelessness. He dashes massive paint in huge spaces over +the subtle old work, puts in his own chiaro-oscuro where all had been +shadeless, and his own violent colour where all had been pale, and +repaints the faces so as to make them, to his notion, prettier and more +human: some of this upper work has, however, come away since, and the +original outline, at least, is traceable; while in the face of the +Logic, the Music, and one or two others, the original work is very +pure. Being most interested myself in the earthly sciences, I had a +scaffolding put up, made on a level with them, and examined them inch +by inch, and the following report will be found accurate until next +repainting. + +For interpretation of them, you must always take the central figure of +the Science, with the little medallion above it, and the figure below, +all together. Which I proceed to do, reading first from left to right +for the earthly sciences, and then from right to left the heavenly ones, +to the centre, where their two highest powers sit, side by side. + +We begin, then, with the first in the list given above, (Vaulted Book, +page 75):--Grammar, in the corner farthest from the window. + +1. GRAMMAR: more properly Grammatice, "Grammatic Act" the Art of +_Letters_ or "Literature," or using the word which to some English ears +will carry most weight with it,--"Scripture," and its use. The Art +of faithfully reading what has been written for our learning; and of +clearly writing what we would make immortal of our thoughts. Power +which consists first in recognizing letters; secondly, in forming them; +thirdly, in the understanding and choice of words which errorless shall +express our thought. Severe exercises all, reaching--very few living +persons know, how far: beginning properly in childhood, then only to be +truly acquired. It is wholly impossible--this I say from too sorrowful +experience--to conquer by any effort or time, habits of the hand (much +more of head and soul) with which the vase of flesh has been formed and +filled in youth,--the law of God being that parents shall compel the +child in the day of its obedience into habits of hand, and eye, +and soul, which, when it is old, shall not, by any strength, or any +weakness, be departed from. + +"Enter ye in," therefore, says Grammatice, "at the Strait Gate." She +points through it with her rod, holding a fruit(?) for reward, in her +left hand. The gate is very strait indeed--her own waist no less so, +her hair fastened close. She had once a white veil binding it, which is +lost. Not a gushing form of literature, this,--or in any wise disposed +to subscribe to Mudie's, my English friends--or even patronize Tauchnitz +editions of--what is the last new novel you see ticketed up today in +Mr. Goodban's window? She looks kindly down, nevertheless, to the three +children whom she is teaching--two boys and a girl: (Qy. Does this mean +that one girl out of every two should not be able to read or write? I am +quite willing to accept that inference, for my own part,--should perhaps +even say, two girls out of three). This girl is of the highest classes, +crowned, her golden hair falling behind her the Florentine girdle round +her hips--(not waist, the object being to leave the lungs full play; but +to keep the dress always well down in dancing or running). The boys are +of good birth also, the nearest one with luxuriant curly hair--only +the profile of the farther one seen. All reverent and eager. Above, the +medallion is of a figure looking at a fountain. Underneath, Lord Lindsay +says, Priscian, and is, I doubt not, right. + +_Technical Points_.--The figure is said by Crowe to be entirely +repainted. The dress is so throughout--both the hands also, and the +fruit, and rod. But the eyes, mouth, hair above the forehead, and +outline of the rest, with the faded veil, and happily, the traces left +of the children, are genuine; the strait gate perfectly so, in the +colour underneath, though reinforced; and the action of the entire +figure is well preserved: but there is a curious question about both +the rod and fruit. Seen close, the former perfectly assumes the shape +of folds of dress gathered up over the raised right arm, and I am not +absolutely sure that the restorer has not mistaken the folds--at the +same time changing a pen or style into a rod. The fruit also I have +doubts of, as fruit is not so rare at Florence that it should be made a +reward. It is entirely and roughly repainted, and is oval in shape. In +Giotto's Charity, luckily not restored, at Assisi, the guide-books have +always mistaken the heart she holds for an apple:--and my own belief is +that originally, the Grammatice of Simon Memmi made with her right hand +the sign which said, "Enter ye in at the Strait Gate," and with her +left, the sign which said, "My son, give me thine Heart." + +II. RHETORIC. Next to learning how to read and write, you are to learn +to speak; and, young ladies and gentlemen, observe,--to speak as little +as possible, it is farther implied, till you _have_ learned. + +In the streets of Florence at this day you may hear much of what some +people call "rhetoric"--very passionate speaking indeed, and quite "from +the heart"--such hearts as the people have got. That is to say, you +never hear a word uttered but in a rage, either just ready to burst, +or for the most part, explosive instantly: everybody--man, woman, or +child--roaring out their incontinent, foolish, infinitely contemptible +opinions and wills, on every smallest occasion, with flashing +eyes, hoarsely shrieking and wasted voices,--insane hope to drag by +vociferation whatever they would have, out of man and God. + +Now consider Simon Memmi's Rhetoric. The Science of Speaking, primarily; +of making oneself _heard_ therefore: which is not to be done by +shouting. She alone, of all the sciences, carries a scroll: and being a +speaker gives you something to read. It is not thrust forward at you at +all, but held quietly down with her beautiful depressed right hand; her +left hand set coolly and strongly on her side. + +And you will find that, thus, she alone of all the sciences _needs no +use of her hands_. All the others have some important business for them. +She none. She can do all with her lips, holding scroll, or bridle, or +what you will, with her right hand, her left on her side. + +Again, look at the talkers in the streets of Florence, and see how, +being essentially _un_able to talk, they try to make lips of their +fingers! How they poke, wave, flourish, point, jerk, shake finger and +fist at their antagonists--dumb essentially, all the while, if they knew +it; unpersuasive and ineffectual, as the shaking of tree branches in the +wind. + +You will at first think her figure ungainly and stiff. It is so, partly, +the dress being more coarsely repainted than in any other of the series. +But she is meant to be both stout and strong. What she has to say is +indeed to persuade you, if possible; but assuredly to overpower you. And +_she_ has not the Florentine girdle, for she does not want to move. She +has her girdle broad at the waist--of all the sciences, you would at +first have thought, the one that most needed breath! No, says Simon +Memmi. You want breath to run, or dance, or fight with. But to +speak!--If you know _how_, you can do your work with few words; very +little of this pure Florentine air will be enough, if you shape it +rightly. + +Note, also, that calm setting of her hand against her side. You think +Rhetoric should be glowing, fervid, impetuous? No, says Simon Memmi. +Above all things,--_cool_. + +And now let us read what is written on her scroll:--Mulceo, dum loquor, +varios induta colores. + +Her chief function, to melt; make soft, thaw the hearts of men with kind +fire; to overpower with peace; and bring rest, with rainbow colours. The +chief mission of all words that they should be of comfort. + +You think the function of words is to excite? Why, a red rag will do +that, or a blast through a brass pipe. But to give calm and gentle heat; +to be as the south wind, and the iridescent rain, to all bitterness +of frost; and bring at once strength, and healing. This is the work of +human lips, taught of God. + +One farther and final lesson is given in the medallion above. Aristotle, +and too many modern rhetoricians of his school, thought there could +be good speaking in a false cause. But above Simon Memmi's Rhetoric is +_Truth_, with her mirror. + +There is a curious feeling, almost innate in men, that though they are +bound to speak truth, in speaking to a single person, they may lie as +much as they please, provided they lie to two or more people at once. +There is the same feeling about killing: most people would shrink from +shooting one innocent man; but will fire a mitrailleuse contentedly into +an innocent regiment. + +When you look down from the figure of the Science, to that of Cicero, +beneath, you will at first think it entirely overthrows my conclusion +that Rhetoric has no need of her hands. For Cicero, it appears, has +three instead of two. + +The uppermost, at his chin, is the only genuine one. That raised, with +the finger up, is entirely false. That on the book, is repainted so as +to defy conjecture of its original action. + +But observe how the gesture of the true one confirms instead of +overthrowing what I have said above. Cicero is not speaking at all, +but profoundly thinking _before_ he speaks. It is the most abstractedly +thoughtful face to be found among all the philosophers; and very +beautiful. The whole is under Solomon, in the line of Prophets. + +_Technical Points_.--These two figures have suffered from restoration +more than any others, but the right hand of Rhetoric is still entirely +genuine, and the left, except the ends of the fingers. The ear, and hair +just above it, are quite safe, the head well set on its original line, +but the crown of leaves rudely retouched, and then faded. All the lower +part of the figure of Cicero has been not only repainted but changed; +the face is genuine--I believe retouched, but so cautiously and +skilfully, that it is probably now more beautiful than at first. + +III. LOGIC. The science of reasoning, or more accurately Reason herself, +or pure intelligence. + +Science to be gained after that of Expression, says Simon Memmi; so, +young people, it appears, that though you must not speak before you have +been taught how to speak, you may yet properly speak before you have +been taught how to think. + +For indeed, it is only by frank speaking that you _can_ learn how to +think. And it is no matter how wrong the first thoughts you have may +be, provided you express them clearly;--and are willing to have them put +right. + +Fortunately, nearly all of this beautiful figure is practically safe, +the outlines pure everywhere, and the face perfect: the _prettiest_, +as far as I know, which exists in Italian art of this early date. It is +subtle to the extreme in gradations of colour: the eyebrows drawn, not +with a sweep of the brush, but with separate cross touches in the line +of their growth--exquisitely pure in arch; the nose straight and fine; +the lips--playful slightly, proud, unerringly cut; the hair flowing in +sequent waves, ordered as if in musical time; head perfectly upright on +the shoulders; the height of the brow completed by a crimson frontlet +set with pearls, surmounted by a _fleur-de-lys_. + +Her shoulders were exquisitely drawn, her white jacket fitting close +to soft, yet scarcely rising breasts; her arms singularly strong, at +perfect rest; her hands, exquisitely delicate. In her right, she holds a +branching and leaf-bearing rod, (the syllogism); in her left, a scorpion +with double sting, (the dilemma)--more generally, the powers of rational +construction and dissolution. + +Beneath her, Aristotle,--intense keenness of search in his half-closed +eyes. + +Medallion above, (less expressive than usual) a man writing, with his +head stooped. + +The whole under Isaiah, in the line of Prophets. + +_Technical Points_.--The only parts of this figure which have suffered +seriously in repainting are the leaves of the rod, and the scorpion. I +have no idea, as I said above, what the background once was; it is now a +mere mess of scrabbled grey, carried over the vestiges, still with care +much redeemable, of the richly ornamental extremity of the rod, which +was a cluster of green leaves on a black ground. But the scorpion is +indecipherably injured, most of it confused repainting, mixed with the +white of the dress, the double sting emphatic enough still, but not on +the first lines. + +The Aristotle is very genuine throughout, except his hat, and I think +that must be pretty nearly on the old lines, through I cannot trace +them. They are good lines, new or old. + +IV. MUSIC. After you have learned to reason, young people, of course you +will be very grave, if not dull, you think. No, says Simon Memmi. By no +means anything of the kind. After learning to reason, you will learn to +sing; for you will want to. There is so much reason for singing in the +sweet world, when one thinks rightly of it. None for grumbling, provided +always you _have_ entered in at the strait gate. You will sing all along +the road then, in a little while, in a manner pleasant for other people +to hear. + +This figure has been one of the loveliest in the series, an extreme +refinement and tender severity being aimed at throughout. She is +crowned, not with laurel, but with small leaves,--I am not sure what +they are, being too much injured: the face thin, abstracted, wistful; +the lips not far open in their low singing; the hair rippling softly on +the shoulders. She plays on a small organ, richly ornamented with Gothic +tracery, the down slope of it set with crockets like those of Santa +Maria del Fiore. Simon Memmi means that _all_ music must be "sacred." +Not that you are never to sing anything but hymns, but that whatever +is rightly called music, or work of the Muses, is divine in help and +healing. + +The actions of both hands are singularly sweet. The right is one of the +loveliest things I ever saw done in painting. She is keeping down one +note only, with her third finger, seen under the raised fourth: the +thumb, just passing under; all the curves of the fingers exquisite, and +the pale light and shade of the rosy flesh relieved against the ivory +white and brown of the notes. Only the thumb and end of the forefinger +are seen of the left hand, but they indicate enough its light pressure +on the bellows. Fortunately, all these portions of the fresco are +absolutely intact. + +Underneath, Tubal-Cain. Not Jubal, as you would expect. Jubal is +the inventor of musical instruments. Tubal-Cain, thought the old +Florentines, invented harmony. They, the best smiths in the world, knew +the differences in tones of hammer strokes on anvil. Curiously enough, +the only piece of true part-singing, done beautifully and joyfully, +which I have heard this year in Italy, (being south of Alps exactly six +months, and ranging from Genoa to Palermo) was out of a busy smithy +at Perugia. Of bestial howling, and entirely frantic vomiting up of +hopelessly damned souls through their still carnal throats, I have heard +more than, please God, I will ever endure the hearing of again in one of +His summers. + +You think Tubal-Cain very ugly? Yes. Much like a shaggy baboon: +not accidentally, but with most scientific understanding of baboon +character. Men must have looked like that, before they had invented +harmony, or felt that one note differed from another, says, and knows +Simon Memmi. Darwinism, like all widely popular and widely mischievous +fallacies, has many a curious gleam and grain of truth in its tissue. + +Under Moses. + +Medallion, a youth drinking. Otherwise, you might have thought only +church music meant, and not feast music also. + +_Technical Points_.--The Tubal-Cain, one of the most entirely pure and +precious remnants of the old painting, nothing lost: nothing but the +redder ends of his beard retouched. Green dress of Music, in the body +and over limbs entirely repainted: it was once beautifully embroidered; +sleeves, partly genuine, hands perfect, face and hair nearly so. Leaf +crown faded and broken away, but not retouched. + +V. ASTRONOMY. Properly Astro-logy, as (Theology) the knowledge of so +much of the stars as we can know wisely; not the attempt to define their +laws for them. Not that it is unbecoming of us to find out, if we can, +that they move in ellipses, and so on; but it is no business of ours. +What effects their rising and setting have on man, and beast, and leaf; +what their times and changes are, seen and felt in this world, it is +our business to know, passing our nights, if wakefully, by that divine +candlelight, and no other. + +She wears a dark purple robe; holds in her left hand the hollow globe +with golden zodiac and meridians: lifts her right hand in noble awe. + +"When I consider the heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the moon and the +stars, which Thou hast ordained." + +Crowned with gold, her dark hair in elliptic waves, bound with +glittering chains of pearl. Her eyes dark, lifted. + +Beneath her, Zoroaster,[Footnote: Atlas! according to poor Vasari, +and sundry modern guides. I find Vasari's mistakes usually of this +_brightly_ blundering kind. In matters needing research, after a while, +I find _he_ is right, usually.] entirely noble and beautiful, the +delicate Persian head made softer still by the elaborately wreathed +silken hair, twisted into the pointed beard, and into tapering plaits, +falling on his shoulders. The head entirely thrown back, he looks up +with no distortion of the delicately arched brow: writing, as he gazes. + +For the association of the religion of the Magi with their own in the +mind of the Florentines of this time, see "Before the Soldan." + +The dress must always have been white, because of its beautiful +opposition to the purple above and that of Tubal-Cain beside it. But it +has been too much repainted to be trusted anywhere, nothing left but +a fold or two in the sleeves. The cast of it from the knees down is +entirely beautiful, and I suppose on the old lines; but the restorer +could throw a fold well when he chose. The warm light which relieves the +purple of Zoroaster above, is laid in by him. I don't know if I should +have liked it better, flat, as it was, against the dark purple; it +seems to me quite beautiful now. The full red flush on the face of the +Astronomy is the restorer's doing also. She was much paler, if not quite +pale. + +Under St. Luke. + +Medallion, a stern man, with sickle and spade. For the flowers, and for +us, when stars have risen and set such and such times;--remember. + +_Technical Points_.--Left hand globe, most of the important folds of +the purple dress, eyes, mouth, hair in great part, and crown, genuine. +Golden tracery on border of dress lost; extremity of falling folds from +left sleeve altered and confused, but the confusion prettily got out of. +Right hand and much of face and body of dress repainted. + +Zoroaster's head quite pure. Dress repainted, but carefully, leaving +the hair untouched. Right hand and pen, now a common feathered quill, +entirely repainted, but dexterously and with feeling. The hand was once +slightly different in position, and held, most probably, a reed. + +VI. GEOMETRY. You have now learned, young ladies and gentlemen, to read, +to speak, to think, to sing, and to see. You are getting old, and will +have soon to think of being married; you must learn to build your house, +therefore. Here is your carpenter's square for you, and you may safely +and wisely contemplate the ground a little, and the measures and laws +relating to that, seeing you have got to abide upon it:--and that +you have properly looked at the stars; not before then, lest, had you +studied the ground first, you might perchance never have raised your +heads from it. This is properly the science of all laws of practical +labour, issuing in beauty. + +She looks down, a little puzzled, greatly interested, holding her +carpenter's square in her left hand, not wanting that but for practical +work; following a diagram with her right. + +Her beauty, altogether soft and in curves, I commend to your notice, +as the exact opposite of what a vulgar designer would have imagined +for her. Note the wreath of hair at the back of her head, which though +fastened by a _spiral_ fillet, escapes at last, and flies off loose in a +sweeping curve. Contemplative Theology is the only other of the sciences +who has such wavy hair. + +Beneath her, Euclid, in white turban. Very fine and original work +throughout; but nothing of special interest in him. + +Under St. Matthew. + +Medallion, a soldier with a straight sword (best for science of +defence), octagon shield, helmet like the beehive of Canton Vaud. As the +secondary use of music in feasting, so the secondary use of geometry +in war--her noble art being all in sweetest peace--is shown in the +medallion. + +_Technical Points_.--It is more than fortunate that in nearly every +figure, the original outline of the hair is safe. Geometry's has +scarcely been retouched at all, except at the ends, once in single +knots, now in confused double ones. The hands, girdle, most of her +dress, and her black carpenter's square are original. Face and breast +repainted. + +VII. ARITHMETIC. Having built your house, young people, and +understanding the light of heaven, and the measures of earth, you may +marry--and can't do better. And here is now your conclusive science, +which you will have to apply, all your days, to all your affairs. + +The Science of Number. Infinite in solemnity of use in Italy at this +time; including, of course, whatever was known of the higher abstract +mathematics and mysteries of numbers, but reverenced especially in its +vital necessity to the prosperity of families and kingdoms, and first +fully so understood here in commercial Florence. + +Her hand lifted, with two fingers bent, two straight, solemnly +enforcing on your attention her primal law--Two and two are--four, you +observe,--not five, as those accursed usurers think. + +Under her, Pythagoras. + +Above, medallion of king, with sceptre and globe, counting money. Have +you ever chanced to read carefully Carlyle's account of the foundation +of the existing Prussian empire, in economy? + +You can, at all events, consider with yourself a little, what empire +this queen of the terrestrial sciences must hold over the rest, if they +are to be put to good use; or what depth and breadth of application +there is in the brief parables of the counted cost of Power, and number +of Armies. + +To give a very minor, but characteristic, instance. I have always felt +that with my intense love of the Alps, I ought to have been able to make +a drawing of Chamouni, or the vale of Cluse, which should give people +more pleasure than a photograph; but I always wanted to do it as I saw +it, and engrave pine for pine, and crag for crag, like Albert Duerer. +I broke my strength down for many a year, always tiring of my work, +or finding the leaves drop off, or the snow come on, before I had well +begun what I meant to do. If I had only _counted_ my pines first, and +calculated the number of hours necessary to do them in the manner of +Duerer, I should have saved the available drawing time of some five +years, spent in vain effort. + +But Turner counted his pines, and did all that could be done for them, +and rested content with that. + +So in all the affairs of life, the arithmetical part of the business is +the dominant one. How many and how much have we? How many and how much +do we want? How constantly does noble Arithmetic of the finite lose +itself in base Avarice of the Infinite, and in blind imagination of it! +In counting of minutes, is our arithmetic ever solicitous enough? +In counting our days, is she ever severe enough? How we shrink from +putting, in their decades, the diminished store of them! And if we ever +pray the solemn prayer that we may be taught to number them, do we even +try to do it after praying? + +_Technical Points_.--The Pythagoras almost entirely genuine. The upper +figures, from this inclusive to the outer wall, I have not been able to +examine thoroughly, my scaffolding not extending beyond the Geometry. + +Here then we have the sum of sciences,--seven, according to the +Florentine mind--necessary to the secular education of man and woman. Of +these the modern average respectable English gentleman and gentlewoman +know usually only a little of the last, and entirely hate the prudent +applications of that: being unacquainted, except as they chance here +and there to pick up a broken piece of information, with either grammar, +rhetoric, music, [Footnote: Being able to play the piano and admire +Mendelssohn is not knowing music.] astronomy, or geometry; and are not +only unacquainted with logic, or the use of reason, themselves, but +instinctively antagonistic to its use by anybody else. + +We are now to read the series of the Divine sciences, beginning at the +opposite side, next the window. + +VIII. CIVIL LAW. Civil, or 'of citizens,' not only as distinguished from +Ecclesiastical, but from Local law. She is the universal Justice of +the peaceful relations of men throughout the world, therefore holds the +globe, with its _three_ quarters, white, as being justly governed, in +her left hand. + +She is also the law of eternal equity, not erring statute; therefore +holds her sword _level_ across her breast. She is the foundation of +all other divine science. To know anything whatever about God, you must +begin by being Just. + +Dressed in red, which in these frescoes is always a sign of power, +or zeal; but her face very calm, gentle and beautiful. Her hair bound +close, and crowned by the royal circlet of gold, with pure thirteenth +century strawberry leaf ornament. + +Under her, the Emperor Justinian, in blue, with conical mitre of white +and gold; the face in profile, very beautiful. The imperial staff in his +right hand, the Institutes in his left. + +Medallion, a figure, apparently in distress, appealing for justice. +(Trajan's suppliant widow?) + +_Technical Points_.--The three divisions of the globe in her hand were +originally inscribed ASIA, AFRICA, EUROPE. The restorer has ingeniously +changed AF into AME--RICA. Faces, both of the science and emperor, +little retouched, nor any of the rest altered. + +IX. CHRISTIAN LAW. After the justice which rules men, comes that which +rules the Church of Christ. The distinction is not between secular law, +and ecclesiastical authority, but between the equity of humanity, and +the law of Christian discipline. + +In full, straight-falling, golden robe, with white mantle over it; a +church in her left hand; her right raised, with the forefinger lifted; +(indicating heavenly source of all Christian law? or warning?) + +Head-dress, a white veil floating into folds in the air. You will find +nothing in these frescoes without significance; and as the escaping hair +of Geometry indicates the infinite conditions of lines of the higher +orders, so the floating veil here indicates that the higher relations of +Christian justice are indefinable. So her golden mantle indicates that +it is a glorious and excellent justice beyond that which unchristian men +conceive; while the severely falling lines of the folds, which form a +kind of gabled niche for the head of the Pope beneath, correspond with +the strictness of true Church discipline firmer as well as more luminous +statute. + +Beneath, Pope Clement V., in red, lifting his hand, not in the position +of benediction, but, I suppose, of injunction,--only the forefinger +straight, the second a little bent, the two last quite. Note the strict +level of the book; and the vertical directness of the key. + +The medallion puzzles me. It looks like a figure counting money. + +_Technical Points_.--Fairly well preserved; but the face of the science +retouched: the grotesquely false perspective of the Pope's tiara, one of +the most curiously naive examples of the entirely ignorant feeling after +merely scientific truth of form which still characterized Italian art. + +Type of church interesting in its extreme simplicity; no idea of +transept, campanile, or dome. + +X. PRACTICAL THEOLOGY. The beginning of the knowledge of God being Human +Justice, and its elements defined by Christian Law, the application of +the law so defined follows, first with respect to man, then with respect +to God. + +"Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's--and to God the things +that are God's." + +We have therefore now two sciences, one of our duty--to men, the other +to their Maker. + +This is the first: duty to men. She holds a circular medallion, +representing Christ preaching on the Mount, and points with her right +hand to the earth. + +The sermon on the Mount is perfectly expressed by the craggy pinnacle +in front of Christ, and the high dark horizon. There is curious evidence +throughout all these frescos of Simon Memmi's having read the Gospels +with a quite clear understanding of their innermost meaning. + +I have called this science Practical Theology:--the instructive +knowledge, that is to say, of what God would have us do, personally, in +any given human relation: and the speaking His Gospel therefore by act. +"Let your light so shine before men." + +She wears a green dress, like Music her hair in the Arabian arch, with +jewelled diadem. + +Under David. Medallion, Almsgiving. Beneath her, Peter Lombard, + +_Technical Points_.--It is curious that while the instinct of +perspective was not strong enough to enable any painter at this time to +foreshorten a foot, it yet suggested to them the expression of elevation +by raising the horizon. + +I have not examined the retouching. The hair and diadem at least are +genuine, the face is dignified and compassionate, and much on the old +lines. + +XI. DEVOTIONAL THEOLOGY.--Giving glory to God, or, more accurately, +whatever feelings He desires us to have towards Him, whether of +affection or awe. + +This is the science or method of _devotion_ for Christians universally, +just as the Practical Theology is their science or method of _action_. + +In blue and red: a narrow black rod still traceable in the left hand; I +am not sure of its meaning. ("Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me?") +The other hand open in admiration, like Astronomy's; but Devotion's is +held at her breast. Her head very characteristic of Memmi, with +upturned eyes, and Arab arch in hair. Under her, Dionysius the +Areopagite--mending his pen! But I am doubtful of Lord Lindsay's +identification of this figure, and the action is curiously common and +meaningless. It may have meant that meditative theology is essentially a +writer, not a preacher. + +The medallion, on the other hand, is as ingenious. A mother lifting her +hands in delight at her child's beginning to take notice. + +Under St. Paul. + +_Technical Points_.--Both figures very genuine, the lower one almost +entirely so. The painting of the red book is quite exemplary in fresco +style. + +XII. DOGMATIC THEOLOGY.--After action and worship, thought becoming too +wide and difficult, the need of dogma becomes felt; the assertion, that +is, within limited range, of the things that are to be believed. + +Since whatever pride and folly pollute Christian scholarship naturally +delight in dogma, the science itself cannot but be in a kind of disgrace +among sensible men: nevertheless it would be difficult to overvalue the +peace and security which have been given to humble persons by forms of +creed; and it is evident that either there is no such thing as theology, +or some of its knowledge must be thus, if not expressible, at least +reducible within certain limits of expression, so as to be protected +from misinterpretation. + +In red,--again the sign of power,--crowned with a black (once golden?) +triple crown, emblematic of the Trinity. The left hand holding a scoop +for winnowing corn; the other points upwards. "Prove all things--hold +fast that which is good, or of God." + +Beneath her, Boethius. Under St. Mark. Medallion, female figure, laying +hands on breast. + +_Technical Points_.--The Boethius entirely genuine, and the painting of +his black book, as of the red one beside it, again worth notice, showing +how pleasant and interesting the commonest things become, when well +painted. + +I have not examined the upper figure. + +XIII. MYSTIC THEOLOGY. [Footnote: Blunderingly in the guide-books called +'Faith!'] Monastic science, above dogma, and attaining to new revelation +by reaching higher spiritual states. + +In white robes, her left hand gloved (I don't know why)--holding +chalice. She wears a nun's veil fastened under her chin, her hair +fastened close, like Grammar's, showing her necessary monastic life; +all states of mystic spiritual life involving retreat from much that is +allowable in the material and practical world. + +There is no possibility of denying this fact, infinite as the evils are +which have arisen from misuse of it. They have been chiefly induced by +persons who falsely pretended to lead monastic life, and led it without +having natural faculty for it. But many more lamentable errors have +arisen from the pride of really noble persons, who have thought it would +be a more pleasing thing to God to be a sibyl or a witch, than a useful +housewife. Pride is always somewhat involved even in the true effort: +the scarlet head-dress in the form of a horn on the forehead in the +fresco indicates this, both here, and in the Contemplative Theology. + +Under St. John. + +Medallion unintelligible, to me. A woman laying hands on the shoulders +of two small figures. + +_Technical Points_.--More of the minute folds of the white dress left +than in any other of the repainted draperies. It is curious that minute +division has always in drapery, more or less, been understood as an +expression of spiritual life, from the delicate folds of Athena's peplus +down to the rippled edges of modern priests' white robes; Titian's +breadth of fold, on the other hand, meaning for the most part bodily +power. The relation of the two modes of composition was lost by Michael +Angelo, who thought to express spirit by making flesh colossal. + +For the rest, the figure is not of any interest, Memmi's own mind being +intellectual rather than mystic. + +XIV. POLEMIC THEOLOGY.[Footnote: Blunderingly called 'Charity' in the +guide-books.] + +"Who goes forth, conquering and to conquer?" "For we war, not with flesh +and blood," etc. + +In red, as sign of power, but not in armour, because she is herself +invulnerable. A close red cap, with cross for crest, instead of helmet. +Bow in left hand; long arrow in right. + +She partly means Aggressive Logic: compare the set of her shoulders and +arms with Logic's. + +She is placed the last of the Divine sciences, not as their culminating +power, but as the last which can be rightly learned. You must know all +the others, before you go out to battle. Whereas the general principle +of modern Christendom is to go out to battle without knowing _any one_ +of the others; one of the reasons for this error, the prince of errors, +being the vulgar notion that truth may be ascertained by debate! Truth +is never learned, in any department of industry, by arguing, but by +working, and observing. And when you have got good hold of one +truth, for certain, two others will grow out of it, in a beautifully +dicotyledonous fashion, (which, as before noticed, is the meaning of +the branch in Logic's right hand). Then, when you have got so much true +knowledge as is worth fighting for, you are bound to fight for it. But +not to debate about it, any more. + +There is, however, one further reason for Polemic Theology being put +beside Mystic. It is only in some approach to mystic science that any +man becomes aware of what St. Paul means by "spiritual wickedness in +heavenly [Footnote: With cowardly intentional fallacy, translated 'high' +in the English Bible.] places;" or, in any true sense, knows the enemies +of God and of man. + +Beneath St. Augustine. Showing you the proper method of +controversy;--perfectly firm; perfectly gentle. + +You are to distinguish, of course, controversy from rebuke. The +assertion of truth is to be always gentle: the chastisement of wilful +falsehood may be--very much the contrary indeed. Christ's sermon on the +Mount is full of polemic theology, yet perfectly gentle:--"Ye have heard +that it hath been said--but _I_ say unto you";--"And if ye salute your +brethren only, what do ye more than others?" and the like. But His "Ye +fools and blind, for whether is greater," is not merely the exposure of +error, but rebuke of the avarice which made that error possible. + +Under the throne of St. Thomas; and next to Arithmetic, of the +terrestrial sciences. + +Medallion, a soldier, but not interesting. + +Technical Points.--Very genuine and beautiful throughout. Note the use +of St. Augustine's red bands, to connect him with the full red of the +upper figures; and compare the niche formed by the dress of Canon Law, +above the Pope, for different artistic methods of attaining the same +object,--unity of composition. + +But lunch time is near, my friends, and you have that shopping to do, +you know. + + + + +THE SIXTH MORNING. + +THE SHEPHERD'S TOWER. + + +I am obliged to interrupt my account of the Spanish chapel by the +following notes on the sculptures of Giotto's Campanile: first because +I find that inaccurate accounts of those sculptures are in course of +publication; and chiefly because I cannot finish my work in the Spanish +chapel until one of my good Oxford helpers, Mr. Caird, has completed +some investigations he has undertaken for me upon the history connected +with it. I had written my own analysis of the fourth side, believing +that in every scene of it the figure of St. Dominic was repeated. Mr. +Caird first suggested, and has shown me already good grounds for his +belief,[Footnote: He wrote thus to me on 11th November last: "The three +preachers are certainly different. The first is Dominic; the second, +Peter Martyr, whom I have identified from his martyrdom on the other +wall; and the third, Aquinas."] that the preaching monks represented +are in each scene intended for a different person. I am informed also +of several careless mistakes which have got into my description of the +fresco of the Sciences; and finally, another of my young helpers, Mr. +Charles F. Murray,--one, however, whose help is given much in the form +of antagonism,--informs me of various critical discoveries lately made, +both by himself, and by industrious Germans, of points respecting the +authenticity of this and that, which will require notice from me: more +especially he tells me of certification that the picture in the Uffizii, +of which I accepted the ordinary attribution to Giotto, is by Lorenzo +Monaco,--which indeed may well be, without in the least diminishing the +use to you of what I have written of its predella, and without in the +least, if you think rightly of the matter, diminishing your confidence +in what I tell you of Giotto generally. There is one kind of knowledge +of pictures which is the artist's, and another which is the antiquary's +and the picture-dealer's; the latter especially acute, and founded on +very secure and wide knowledge of canvas, pigment, and tricks of touch, +without, necessarily, involving any knowledge whatever of the qualities +of art itself. There are few practised dealers in the great cities of +Europe whose opinion would not be more trustworthy than mine, (if you +could _get_ it, mind you,) on points of actual authenticity. But they +could only tell you whether the picture was by such and such a master, +and not at all what either the master or his work were good for. Thus, +I have, before now, taken drawings by Varley and by Cousins for early +studies by Turner, and have been convinced by the dealers that they knew +better than I, as far as regarded the authenticity of those drawings; +but the dealers don't know Turner, or the worth of him, so well as I, +for all that. So also, you may find me again and again mistaken among +the much more confused work of the early Giottesque schools, as to the +authenticity of this work or the other; but you will find (and I say it +with far more sorrow than pride) that I am simply the only person who +can at present tell you the real worth of _any_; you will find that +whenever I tell you to look at a picture, it is worth your pains; +and whenever I tell you the character of a painter, that it _is_ his +character, discerned by me faithfully in spite of all confusion of work +falsely attributed to him in which similar character may exist. Thus, +when I mistook Cousins for Turner, I was looking at a piece of subtlety +in the sky of which the dealer had no consciousness whatever, which was +essentially Turneresque, but which another man might sometimes equal; +whereas the dealer might be only looking at the quality of Whatman's +paper, which Cousins used, and Turner did not. + +Not, in the meanwhile, to leave you quite guideless as to the main +subject of the fourth fresco in the Spanish chapel,--the Pilgrim's +Progress of Florence,--here is a brief map of it: + +On the right, in lowest angle, St. Dominic preaches to the group of +Infidels; in the next group towards the left, he (or some one very like +him) preaches to the Heretics: the Heretics proving obstinate, he sets +his dogs at them, as at the fatallest of wolves, who being driven away, +the rescued lambs are gathered at the feet of the Pope. I have copied +the head of the very pious, but slightly weak-minded, little lamb in the +centre, to compare with my rough Cumberland ones, who have had no such +grave experiences. The whole group, with the Pope above, (the niche of +the Duomo joining with and enriching the decorative power of his mitre,) +is a quite delicious piece of design. + +The Church being thus pacified, is seen in worldly honour under the +powers of the Spiritual and Temporal Rulers. The Pope, with Cardinal +and Bishop descending in order on his right; the Emperor, with King and +Baron descending in order on his left; the ecclesiastical body of the +whole Church on the right side, and the laity,--chiefly its poets and +artists, on the left. + +Then, the redeemed Church nevertheless giving itself up to the vanities +and temptations of the world, its forgetful saints are seen feasting, +with their children dancing before them, (the Seven Mortal Sins, say +some commentators). But the wise-hearted of them confess their sins +to another ghost of St. Dominic; and confessed, becoming as little +children, enter hand in hand the gate of the Eternal Paradise, crowned +with flowers by the waiting angels, and admitted by St. Peter among the +serenely joyful crowd of all the saints, above whom the white Madonna +stands reverently before the throne. There is, so far as I know, +throughout all the schools of Christian art, no other so perfect +statement of the noble policy and religion of men. + +I had intended to give the best account of it in my power; but, when at +Florence, lost all time for writing that I might copy the group of the +Pope and Emperor for the schools of Oxford; and the work since done +by Mr. Caird has informed me of so much, and given me, in some of its +suggestions, so much to think of, that I believe it will be best and +most just to print at once his account of the fresco as a supplement +to these essays of mine, merely indicating any points on which I have +objections to raise, and so leave matters till Fors lets me see Florence +once more. + +Perhaps she may, in kindness forbid my ever seeing it more, the wreck +of it being now too ghastly and heartbreaking to any human soul that +remembers the days of old. Forty years ago, there was assuredly no spot +of ground, out of Palestine, in all the round world, on which, if you +knew, even but a little, the true course of that world's history, you +saw with so much joyful reverence the dawn of morning, as at the foot of +the Tower of Giotto. For there the traditions of faith and hope, of +both the Gentile and Jewish races, met for their beautiful labour: the +Baptistery of Florence is the last building raised on the earth by the +descendants of the workmen taught by Daedalus: and the Tower of Giotto is +the loveliest of those raised on earth under the inspiration of the men +who lifted up the tabernacle in the wilderness. Of living Greek work +there is none after the Florentine Baptistery; of living Christian work, +none so perfect as the Tower of Giotto; and, under the gleam and shadow +of their marbles, the morning light was haunted by the ghosts of the +Father of Natural Science, Galileo; of Sacred Art, Angelico, and the +Master of Sacred Song. Which spot of ground the modern Florentine has +made his principal hackney-coach stand and omnibus station. The hackney +coaches, with their more or less farmyard-like litter of occasional hay, +and smell of variously mixed horse-manure, are yet in more permissible +harmony with the place than the ordinary populace of a fashionable +promenade would be, with its cigars, spitting, and harlot-planned +fineries: but the omnibus place of call being in front of the door of +the tower, renders it impossible to stand for a moment near it, to look +at the sculptures either of the eastern or southern side; while the +north side is enclosed with an iron railing, and usually encumbered with +lumber as well: not a soul in Florence ever caring now for sight of any +piece of its old artists' work; and the mass of strangers being on the +whole intent on nothing but getting the omnibus to go by steam; and so +seeing the cathedral in one swift circuit, by glimpses between the puffs +of it. + +The front of Notre Dame of Paris was similarly turned into a +coach-office when I last saw it--1872. [Footnote: See Fors Clavigera in +that year.] Within fifty yards of me as I write, the Oratory of the Holy +Ghost is used for a tobacco-store, and in fine, over all Europe, mere +Caliban bestiality and Satyric ravage staggering, drunk and desperate, +into every once enchanted cell where the prosperity of kingdoms ruled +and the miraculous-ness of beauty was shrined in peace. + +Deluge of profanity, drowning dome and tower in Stygian pool of vilest +thought,--nothing now left sacred, in the places where once--nothing was +profane. + +For _that_ is indeed the teaching, if you could receive it, of the Tower +of Giotto; as of all Christian art in its day. Next to declaration +of the facts of the Gospel, its purpose, (often in actual work the +eagerest,) was to show the _power_ of the Gospel. History of Christ in +due place; yes, history of all He did, and how He died: but then, and +often, as I say, with more animated imagination, the showing of His +risen presence in granting the harvests and guiding the labour of the +year. All sun and rain, and length or decline of days received from His +hand; all joy, and grief, and strength, or cessation of labour, +indulged or endured, as in His sight and to His glory. And the familiar +employments of the seasons, the homely toils of the peasant, the +lowliest skills of the craftsman, are signed always on the stones of the +Church, as the first and truest condition of sacrifice and offering. + +Of these representations of human art under heavenly guidance, the +series of bas-reliefs which stud the base of this tower of Giotto's must +be held certainly the chief in Europe. [Footnote: For account of the +series on the main archivolt of St. Mark's, see my sketch of the schools +of Venetian sculpture in third forthcoming number of 'St. Mark's +Rest.'] At first you may be surprised at the smallness of their scale +in proportion to their masonry; but this smallness of scale enabled the +master workmen of the tower to execute them with their own hands; and +for the rest, in the very finest architecture, the decoration of most +precious kind is usually thought of as a jewel, and set with space +round it,--as the jewels of a crown, or the clasp of a girdle. It is in +general not possible for a great workman to carve, himself, a greatly +conspicuous series of ornament; nay, even his energy fails him in +design, when the bas-relief extends itself into incrustation, or +involves the treatment of great masses of stone. If his own does not, +the spectator's will. It would be the work of a long summer's day to +examine the over-loaded sculptures of the Certosa of Pavia; and yet in +the tired last hour, you would be empty-hearted. Read but these inlaid +jewels of Giotto's once with patient following; and your hour's study +will give you strength for all your life. So far as you can, examine +them of course on the spot; but to know them thoroughly you must have +their photographs: the subdued colour of the old marble fortunately +keeps the lights subdued, so that the photograph may be made more tender +in the shadows than is usual in its renderings of sculpture, and there +are few pieces of art which may now be so well known as these, in quiet +homes far away. + +We begin on the western side. There are seven sculptures on the western, +southern, and northern sides: six on the eastern; counting the Lamb over +the entrance door of the tower, which divides the complete series +into two groups of eighteen and eight. Itself, between them, being the +introduction to the following eight, you must count it as the first +of the terminal group; you then have the whole twenty-seven sculptures +divided into eighteen and nine. + +Thus lettering the groups on each side for West, South, East, and North, +we have: + + W. S. E. N. + 7 + 7 + 6 + 7 = 27; or, + + W. S. E. + 7 + 7 + 4 = 18; and, + + E. N. + 2 + 7 = 9 + +There is a very special reason for this division by nines but, +for convenience' sake, I shall number the whole from 1 to 27, +straightforwardly. And if you will have patience with me, I should +like to go round the tower once and again; first observing the general +meaning and connection of the subjects and then going back to examine +the technical points in each, and such minor specialties as it may be +well, at the first time, to pass over. + +1. The series begins, then, on the west side, with the Creation of +Man. It is not the beginning of the story of Genesis; but the simple +assertion that God made us, and breathed, and still breathes, into our +nostrils the breath of life. + +This, Giotto tells you to believe as the beginning of all knowledge and +all power. [Footnote: So also the Master-builder of the Ducal Palace of +Venice. See Fors Clavigera for June of this year.] This he tells you to +believe, as a thing which he himself knows. + +He will tell you nothing but what he _does_ know. + +2. Therefore, though Giovanna Pisano and his fellow sculptors had given, +literally, the taking of the rib out of Adam's side, Giotto merely gives +the mythic expression of the truth he knows,--"they two shall be one +flesh." + +3. And though all the theologians and poets of his time would have +expected, if not demanded, that his next assertion, after that of the +Creation of Man, should be of the Fall of Man, he asserts nothing of +the kind. He knows nothing of what man was. What he is, he knows best of +living men at that hour, and proceeds to say. The next sculpture is of +Eve spinning and Adam hewing the ground into clods. Not _digging_: you +cannot, usually, dig but in ground already dug. The native earth you +must hew. + +They are not clothed in skins. What would have been the use of Eve +spinning if she could not weave? They wear, each, one simple piece of +drapery, Adam's knotted behind him, Eve's fastened around her neck with +a rude brooch. + +Above them are an oak and an apple-tree. Into the apple-tree a little +bear is trying to climb. + +The meaning of which entire myth is, as I read it, that men and women +must both eat their bread with toil. That the first duty of man is to +feed his family, and the first duty of the woman to clothe it. That the +trees of the field are given us for strength and for delight, and that +the wild beasts of the field must have their share with us. [Footnote: +The oak and apple boughs are placed, with the same meaning, by Sandro +Botticelli, in the lap of Zipporah. The figure of the bear is again +represented by Jacopo della Quercia, on the north door of the Cathedral +of Florence. I am not sure of its complete meaning.] + +4. The fourth sculpture, forming the centre-piece of the series on the +west side, is nomad pastoral life. + +Jabal, the father of such as dwell in tents, and of such as have cattle, +lifts the curtain of his tent to look out upon his flock. His dog +watches it. + +5. Jubal, the father of all such as handle the harp and organ. + +That is to say, stringed and wind instruments;--the lyre and reed. The +first arts (with the Jew and Greek) of the shepherd David, and shepherd +Apollo. + +Giotto has given him the long level trumpet, afterwards adopted so +grandly in the sculptures of La Robbia and Donatello. It is, I think, +intended to be of wood, as now the long Swiss horn, and a long and +shorter tube are bound together. + +6. Tubal Cain, the instructor of every artificer in brass and iron. + +Giotto represents him as sitting, _fully robed_, turning a wedge of +bronze on the anvil with extreme watchfulness. + +These last three sculptures, observe, represent the life of the race +of Cain; of those who are wanderers, and have no home. _Nomad_ pastoral +life; Nomad artistic life, Wandering Willie; yonder organ man, whom you +want to send the policeman after, and the gipsy who is mending the old +schoolmistress's kettle on the grass, which the squire has wanted so +long to take into his park from the roadside. + +7. Then the last sculpture of the seven begins the story of the race of +Seth, and of home life. The father of it lying drunk under his trellised +vine; such the general image of civilized society, in the abstract, +thinks Giotto. + +With several other meanings, universally known to the Catholic world of +that day,--too many to be spoken of here. + +The second side of the tower represents, after this introduction, the +sciences and arts of civilized or home life. + +8. Astronomy. In nomad life you may serve yourself of the guidance of +the stars; but to know the laws of _their_ nomadic life, your own must +be fixed. + +The astronomer, with his sextant revolving on a fixed pivot, looks up +to the vault of the heavens and beholds their zodiac; prescient of what +else with optic glass the Tuscan artist viewed, at evening, from the top +of Fesole. + +Above the dome of heaven, as yet unseen, are the Lord of the worlds and +His angels. To-day, the Dawn and the Daystar: to-morrow, the Daystar +arising in the heart. + +9. Defensive architecture. The building of the watchtower. The beginning +of security in possession. + +10. Pottery. The making of pot, cup, and platter. The first civilized +furniture; the means of heating liquid, and serving drink and meat with +decency and economy. + +11. Riding. The subduing of animals to domestic service. + +12. Weaving. The making of clothes with swiftness, and in precision of +structure, by help of the loom. + +13. Law, revealed as directly from heaven. + +14. Daedalus (not Icarus, but the father trying the wings). The conquest +of the element of air. + +As the seventh subject of the first group introduced the arts of home +after those of the savage wanderer, this seventh of the second group +introduces the arts of the missionary, or civilized and gift-bringing +wanderer. + +15. The Conquest of the Sea. The helmsman, and two rowers, rowing as +Venetians, face to bow. + +16. The Conquest of the Earth. Hercules victor over Antaeus. Beneficent +strength of civilization crushing the savageness of inhumanity. + +17. Agriculture. The oxen and plough. + +18. Trade. The cart and horses. + +19. And now the sculpture over the door of the tower. The Lamb of God, +expresses the Law of Sacrifice, and door of ascent to heaven. And then +follow the fraternal arts of the Christian world. + +20. Geometry. Again the angle sculpture, introductory to the following +series. We shall see presently why this science must be the foundation +of the rest. + +21. Sculpture. + +22. Painting. + +23. Grammar. + +24. Arithmetic. The laws of number, weight, and measures of capacity. + +25 Music. The laws of number, weight (or force), and measure, applied to +sound. + +26. Logic. The laws of number and measure applied to thought. + +27. The Invention of Harmony. + +You see now--by taking first the great division of pre-Christian and +Christian arts, marked by the door of the Tower; and then the divisions +into four successive historical periods, marked by its angles--that +you have a perfect plan of human civilization. The first side is of the +nomad life, learning how to assert its supremacy over other wandering +creatures, herbs, and beasts. Then the second side is the fixed home +life, developing race and country; then the third side, the human +intercourse between stranger races; then the fourth side, the harmonious +arts of all who are gathered into the fold of Christ. + +Now let us return to the first angle, and examine piece by piece with +care. + +1. _Creation of Man._ + +Scarcely disengaged from the clods of the earth, he opens his eyes to +the face of Christ. Like all the rest of the sculptures, it is less +the representation of a past fact than of a constant one. It is the +continual state of man, 'of the earth,' yet seeing God. + +Christ holds the book of His Law--the 'Law of life'--in His left hand. + +The trees of the garden above are,--central above Christ, palm (immortal +life); above Adam, oak (human life). Pear, and fig, and a large-leaved +ground fruit (what?) complete the myth of the Food of Life. + +As decorative sculpture, these trees are especially to be noticed, with +those in the two next subjects, and the Noah's vine as differing in +treatment from Giotto's foliage, of which perfect examples are seen in +16 and 17. Giotto's branches are set in close sheaf-like clusters; and +every mass disposed with extreme formality of radiation. The leaves of +these first, on the contrary, are arranged with careful concealment of +their ornamental system, so as to look inartificial. This is done so +studiously as to become, by excess, a little unnatural!--Nature herself +is more decorative and formal in grouping. But the occult design is very +noble, and every leaf modulated with loving, dignified, exactly +right and sufficient finish; not done to show skill, nor with mean +forgetfulness of main subject, but in tender completion and harmony with +it. + +Look at the subdivisions of the palm leaves with your magnifying glass. +The others are less finished in this than in the next subject. Man +himself incomplete, the leaves that are created with him, for his life, +must not be so. + +(Are not his fingers yet short; growing?) + +2. _Creation of Woman._ + +Far, in its essential qualities, the transcendent sculpture of this +subject, Ghiberti's is only a dainty elaboration and beautification of +it, losing its solemnity and simplicity in a flutter of feminine grace. +The older sculptor thinks of the Uses of Womanhood, and of its dangers +and sins, before he thinks of its beauty; but, were the arm not lost, +the quiet naturalness of this head and breast of Eve, and the bending +grace of the submissive rendering of soul and body to perpetual +guidance by the hand of Christ--(_grasping_ the arm, note, for full +support)--would be felt to be far beyond Ghiberti's in beauty, as in +mythic truth. + +The line of her body joins with that of the serpent-ivy round the tree +trunk above her: a double myth--of her fall, and her support afterwards +by her husband's strength. "Thy desire shall be to thy husband." The +fruit of the tree--double-set filbert, telling nevertheless the happy +equality. + +The leaves in this piece are finished with consummate poetical care +and precision. Above Adam, laurel (a virtuous woman is a crown to +her husband); the filbert for the two together; the fig, for fruitful +household joy (under thy vine and fig-tree [Footnote: Compare Fors +Clavigera, February, 1877.]--but vine properly the masculine joy); and +the fruit taken by Christ for type of all naturally growing food, in his +own hunger. + +Examine with lens the ribbing of these leaves, and the insertion on +their stem of the three laurel leaves on extreme right: and observe that +in all cases the sculptor works the moulding _with_ his own part of the +design; look how he breaks variously deeper into it, beginning from +the foot of Christ, and going up to the left into full depth above the +shoulder. + +3. _Original labour._ + +Much poorer, and intentionally so. For the myth of the creation of +humanity, the sculptor uses his best strength, and shows supremely the +grace of womanhood; but in representing the first peasant state of life, +makes the grace of woman by no means her conspicuous quality. She +even walks awkwardly; some feebleness in foreshortening the foot +also embarrassing the sculptor. He knows its form perfectly--but its +perspective, not quite yet. + +The trees stiff and stunted--they also needing culture. Their fruit +dropping at present only into beasts' mouths. + +4. _Jabal._ + +If you have looked long enough, and carefully enough, at the three +previous sculptures, you cannot but feel that the hand here is utterly +changed. The drapery sweeps in broader, softer, but less true folds; the +handling is far more delicate; exquisitely sensitive to gradation over +broad surfaces--scarcely using an incision of any depth but in outline; +studiously reserved in appliance of shadow, as a thing precious and +local--look at it above the puppy's head, and under the tent. + +This is assuredly painter's work, not mere sculptor's. I have no doubt +whatever it is by the own hand of the shepherd-boy of Fesole. Cimabue +had found him drawing, (more probably _scratching_ with Etrurian point,) +one of his sheep upon a stone. These, on the central foundation-stone of +his tower he engraves, looking back on the fields of life: the time soon +near for him to draw the curtains of his tent. + +I know no dog like this in method of drawing, and in skill of giving the +living form without one touch of chisel for hair, or incision for eye, +except the dog barking at Poverty in the great fresco of Assisi. + +Take the lens and look at every piece of the work from corner to +corner--note especially as a thing which would only have been enjoyed by +a painter, and which all great painters do intensely enjoy--the _fringe_ +of the tent, [Footnote: "I think Jabal's tent is made of leather; the +relaxed intervals between the tent-pegs show a curved ragged edge like +leather near the ground" (Mr. Caird). The edge of the opening is still +more characteristic, I think.] and precise insertion of its point in the +angle of the hexagon, prepared for by the archaic masonry indicated in +the oblique joint above; [Footnote: Prints of these photographs which +do not show the masonry all round the hexagon are quite valueless for +study.] architect and painter thinking at once, and _doing_ as they +thought. + +I gave a lecture to the Eton boys a year or two ago, on little more than +the shepherd's dog, which is yet more wonderful in magnified scale of +photograph. The lecture is partly published--somewhere, but I can't +refer to it. + +5. _Jubal_. + +Still Giotto's, though a little less delighted in; but with exquisite +introduction of the Gothic of his own tower. See the light surface +sculpture of a mosaic design in the horizontal moulding. + +Note also the painter's freehand working of the complex mouldings of the +table--also resolvedly oblong, not square; see central flower. + +6. _Tubal Cain_. + +Still Giotto's, and entirely exquisite; finished with no less care than +the shepherd, to mark the vitality of this art to humanity; the spade +and hoe--its heraldic bearing--hung on the hinged door. [Footnote: +Pointed out to me by Mr. Caird, who adds farther, "I saw a forge +identical with this one at Pelago the other day,--the anvil resting on +a tree-stump: the same fire, bellows, and implements; the door in two +parts, the upper part like a shutter, and used for the exposition +of finished work as a sign of the craft; and I saw upon it the same +finished work of the same shape as in the bas-relief--a spade and a +hoe."] For subtlety of execution, note the texture of wooden block under +anvil, and of its iron hoop. + +The workman's face is the best sermon on the dignity of labour yet +spoken by thoughtful man. Liberal Parliaments and fraternal Reformers +have nothing essential to say more. + +7. _Noah_. + +Andrea Pisano's again, more or less imitative of Giotto's work. + +8. _Astronomy_. + +We have a new hand here altogether. The hair and drapery bad; the face +expressive, but blunt in cutting; the small upper heads, necessarily +little more than blocked out, on the small scale; but not suggestive +of grace in completion: the minor detail worked with great mechanical +precision, but little feeling; the lion's head, with leaves in its ears, +is quite ugly; and by comparing the work of the small cusped arch at the +bottom with Giotto's soft handling of the mouldings of his, in 5, you +may for ever know common mason's work from fine Gothic. The zodiacal +signs are quite hard and common in the method of bas-relief, but quaint +enough in design: Capricorn, Aquarius, and Pisces, on the broad heavenly +belt; Taurus upside down, Gemini, and Cancer, on the small globe. + +I think the whole a restoration of the original panel, or else an +inferior workman's rendering of Giotto's design, which the next piece +is, with less question. + +9. _Building_. + +The larger figure, I am disposed finally to think, represents civic +power, as in Lorenzetti's fresco at Siena. The extreme rudeness of +the minor figures may be guarantee of their originality; it is the +smoothness of mass and hard edge work that make me suspect the 8th for a +restoration. + +10. _Pottery_. + +Very grand; with much painter's feeling, and fine mouldings again. +The _tiled_ roof projecting in the shadow above, protects the first +Ceramicus-home. I think the women are meant to be carrying some kind of +wicker or reed-bound water-vessel. The Potter's servant explains to them +the extreme advantages of the new invention. I can't make any conjecture +about the author of this piece. + +11. _Riding_. + +Again Andrea Pisano's, it seems to me. Compare the tossing up of the +dress behind the shoulders, in 3 and 2. The head is grand, having nearly +an Athenian profile: the loss of the horse's fore-leg prevents me from +rightly judging of the entire action. I must leave riders to say. + +12. _Weaving_. + +Andrea's again, and of extreme loveliness; the stooping face of the +woman at the loom is more like a Leonardo drawing than sculpture. The +action of throwing the large shuttle, and all the structure of the +loom and its threads, distinguishing rude or smooth surface, are quite +wonderful. The figure on the right shows the use and grace of finely +woven tissue, under and upper--that over the bosom so delicate that the +line of separation from the flesh of the neck is unseen. + +If you hide with your hand the carved masonry at the bottom, the +composition separates itself into two pieces, one disagreeably +rectangular. The still more severely rectangular masonry throws out +by contrast all that is curved and rounded in the loom, and unites the +whole composition; that is its aesthetic function; its historical one is +to show that weaving is queen's work, not peasant's; for this is palace +masonry. + +13. _The Giving of Law_. + +More strictly, of _the_ Book of God's Law: the only one which _can_ +ultimately be obeyed. [Footnote: Mr. Caird convinced me of the real +meaning of this sculpture. I had taken it for the giving of a book, +writing further of it as follows:-- + +All books, rightly so called, are Books of Law, and all Scripture is +given by inspiration of God. (What _we_ now mostly call a book, the +infinite reduplication and vibratory echo of a lie, is not given but +belched up out of volcanic clay by the inspiration of the devil.) On the +Book-giver's right hand the students in cell, restrained by the lifted +right hand: + +"Silent, you, till you know"; then, perhaps, you also. + +On the left, the men of the world, kneeling, receive the gift. + +Recommendable seal, this, for Mr. Mudie! + +Mr. Caird says: "The book is written law, which is given by Justice to +the inferiors, that they may know the laws regulating their relations +to their superiors--who are also under the hand of law. The vassal is +protected by the accessibility of formularized law. The superior is +restrained by the right hand of power." ] + +The authorship of this is very embarrassing to me. The face of the +central figure is most noble, and all the work good, but not delicate; +it is like original work of the master whose design No. 8 might be a +restoration. + +14 _Daedalus_. + +Andrea Pisano again; the head superb, founded on Greek models, feathers +of wings wrought with extreme care; but with no precision of arrangement +or feeling. How far intentional in awkwardness, I cannot say; but note +the good mechanism of the whole plan, with strong standing board for the +feet. + +15. _Navigation_. + +An intensely puzzling one; coarse (perhaps unfinished) in work, and done +by a man who could not row; the plaited bands used for rowlocks being +pulled the wrong way. Right, had the rowers been rowing Englishwise: +but the water at the boat's head shows its motion forwards, the way the +oarsmen look. I cannot make out the action of the figure at the stern; +it ought to be steering with the stern oar. + +The water seems quite unfinished. Meant, I suppose, for surface and +section of sea, with slimy rock at the bottom; but all stupid and +inefficient. + +16. _Hercules and Antaeus._ + +The Earth power, half hidden by the earth, its hair and hand becoming +roots, the strength of its life passing through the ground into the oak +tree. With Cercyon, but first named, (Plato, _Laws_, book VII., 796), +Antaeus is the master of contest without use;--[GREEK: philoneikias +achrestou]--and is generally the power of pure selfishness and its +various inflation to insolence and degradation to cowardice;--finding +its strength only in fall back to its Earth,--he is the master, in a +word, of all such kind of persons as have been writing lately about the +"interests of England." He is, therefore, the Power invoked by Dante +to place Virgil and him in the lowest circle of Hell;--"Alcides whilom +felt,--that grapple, straitened sore," etc. The Antaeus in the sculpture +is very grand; but the authorship puzzles me, as of the next piece, by +the same hand. I believe both Giotto's design. + +17. _Ploughing._ + +The sword in its Christian form. Magnificent: the grandest expression +of the power of man over the earth and its strongest creatures that I +remember in early sculpture,--(or for that matter, in late). It is the +subduing of the bull which the sculptor thinks most of; the plough, +though large, is of wood, and the handle slight. But the pawing and +bellowing labourer he has bound to it!--here is victory. + +18. _The Chariot._ + +The horse also subdued to draught--Achilles' chariot in its first, and +to be its last, simplicity. The face has probably been grand--the figure +is so still. Andrea's, I think by the flying drapery. + +19. _The Lamb, with the symbol of Resurrection._ + +Over the door: 'I am the door;--by me, if any man enter in,' etc. Put +to the right of the tower, you see, fearlessly, for the convenience of +staircase ascent; all external symmetry being subject with the great +builders to interior use; and then, out of the rightly ordained +infraction of formal law, comes perfect beauty; and when, as here, +the Spirit of Heaven is working with the designer, his thoughts are +suggested in truer order, by the concession to use. After this sculpture +comes the Christian arts,--those which necessarily imply the conviction +of immortality. Astronomy without Christianity only reaches as far +as--'Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels--and put all +_things_ under His feet':--Christianity says beyond this,--'Know ye +not that we shall judge angels (as also the lower creatures shall judge +us!)' [Footnote: In the deep sense of this truth, which underlies all +the bright fantasy and humour of Mr. Courthope's "Paradise of Birds," +that rhyme of the risen spirit of Aristophanes may well be read under +the tower of Giotto, beside his watch-dog of the fold.] The series of +sculptures now beginning, show the arts which _can_ only be accomplished +through belief in Christ. + +20. _Geometry_. + +Not 'mathematics': _they_ have been implied long ago in astronomy and +architecture; but the due Measuring of the Earth and all that is on it. +Actually done only by Christian faith--first inspiration of the great +Earth-measurers. Your Prince Henry of Spain, your Columbus, your Captain +Cook, (whose tomb, with the bright artistic invention and religious +tenderness which are so peculiarly the gifts of the nineteenth century, +we have just provided a fence for, of old cannon open-mouthed, straight +up towards Heaven--your modern method of symbolizing the only appeal +to Heaven of which the nineteenth century has left itself capable--'The +voice of thy Brother's blood crieth to me'--your outworn cannon, +now silently agape, but sonorous in the ears of angels with that +appeal)--first inspiration, I say, of these; constant inspiration of +all who set true landmarks and hold to them, knowing their measure; the +devil interfering, I observe, lately in his own way, with the Geometry +of Yorkshire, where the landed proprietors, [Footnote: I mean no +accusation against any class; probably the one-fielded statesman is more +eager for his little gain of fifty yards of grass than the squire for +his bite and sup out of the gypsy's part of the roadside. But it is +notable enough to the passing traveller, to find himself shut into a +narrow road between high stone dykes which he can neither see over nor +climb over, (I always deliberately pitch them down myself, wherever I +need a gap,) instead of on a broad road between low grey walls with +all the moor beyond--and the power of leaping over when he chooses in +innocent trespass for herb, or view, or splinter of grey rock.] when +the neglected walls by the roadside tumble down, benevolently repair +the same, with better stonework, _outside_ always of the fallen +heaps;--which, the wall being thus built _on_ what was the public road, +absorb themselves, with help of moss and time, into the heaving swells +of the rocky field-and behold, gain of a couple of feet--along so much +of the road as needs repairing operations. + +This then, is the first of the Christian sciences: division of land +rightly, and the general law of measuring between wisely-held compass +points. The type of mensuration, circle in square, on his desk, I use +for my first exercise in the laws of Fesole. + +21. _Sculpture_. + +The first piece of the closing series on the north side of the +Campanile, of which some general points must be first noted, before any +special examination. + +The two initial ones, Sculpture and Painting, are by tradition the only +ones attributed to Giotto's own hand. The fifth, Song, is known, and +recognizable in its magnificence, to be by Luca della Robbia. The +remaining four are all of Luca's school,--later work therefore, all +these five, than any we have been hitherto examining, entirely different +in manner, and with late flower-work beneath them instead of our +hitherto severe Gothic arches. And it becomes of course instantly a +vital question--Did Giotto die leaving the series incomplete, only its +subjects chosen, and are these two bas-reliefs of Sculpture and Painting +among his last works? or was the series ever completed, and these later +bas-reliefs substituted for the earlier ones, under Luca's influence, by +way of conducting the whole to a grander close, and making their order +more representative of Florentine art in its fulness of power? + +I must repeat, once more, and with greater insistence respecting +Sculpture than Painting, that I do not in the least set myself up for a +critic of authenticity,--but only of absolute goodness. My readers may +trust me to tell them what is well done or ill; but by whom, is quite +a separate question, needing for any certainty, in this school of +much-associated masters and pupils, extremest attention to minute +particulars not at all bearing on my objects in teaching. + +Of this closing group of sculptures, then, all I can tell you is that +the fifth is a quite magnificent piece of work, and recognizably, to +my extreme conviction, Luca della Robbia's; that the last, Harmonia, is +also fine work; that those attributed to Giotto are fine in a different +way,--and the other three in reality the poorest pieces in the series, +though done with much more advanced sculptural dexterity. + +But I am chiefly puzzled by the two attributed to Giotto, because they +are much coarser than those which seem to me so plainly his on the west +side, and slightly different in workmanship--with much that is common +to both, however, in the casting of drapery and mode of introduction of +details. The difference may be accounted for partly by haste or failing +power, partly by the artist's less deep feeling of the importance of +these merely symbolic figures, as compared with those of the Fathers +of the Arts; but it is very notable and embarrassing notwithstanding, +complicated as it is with extreme resemblance in other particulars. + +You cannot compare the subjects on the tower itself; but of my series of +photographs take 6 and 21, and put them side by side. + +I need not dwell on the conditions of resemblance, which are instantly +visible; but the _difference_ in the treatment of the heads is +incomprehensible. That of the Tubal Cain is exquisitely finished, and +with a painter's touch; every lock of the hair laid with studied flow, +as in the most beautiful drawing. In the 'Sculpture,' it is struck out +with ordinary tricks of rapid sculptor trade, entirely unfinished, +and with offensively frank use of the drill hole to give picturesque +rustication to the beard. + +Next, put 22 and 5 back to back. You see again the resemblance in the +earnestness of both figures, in the unbroken arcs of their backs, in the +breaking of the octagon moulding by the pointed angles; and here, even +also in the general conception of the heads. But again, in the one of +Painting, the hair is struck with more vulgar indenting and drilling, +and the Gothic of the picture frame is less precise in touch and later +in style. Observe, however,--and this may perhaps give us some definite +hint for clearing the question,--a picture-frame _would be_ less precise +in making, and later in style, properly, than cusped arches to be put +under the feet of the inventor of all musical sound by breath of man. +And if you will now compare finally the eager tilting of the workman's +seat in 22 and 6, and the working of the wood in the painter's low table +for his pots of colour, and his three-legged stool, with that of Tubal +Cain's anvil block; and the way in which the lines of the forge and +upper triptych are in each composition used to set off the rounding of +the head, I believe you will have little hesitation in accepting my own +view of the matter--namely, that the three pieces of the Fathers of the +Arts were wrought with Giotto's extremest care for the most precious +stones of his tower; that also, being a sculptor and painter, he did the +other two, but with quite definite and wilful resolve that they _should +be_, as mere symbols of his own two trades, wholly inferior to the other +subjects of the patriarchs; that he made the Sculpture picturesque and +bold as you see it is, and showed all a sculptor's tricks in the work of +it; and a sculptor's Greek subject, Bacchus, for the model of it; +that he wrought the Painting, as the higher art, with more care, still +keeping it subordinate to the primal subjects, but showed, for a lesson +to all the generations of painters for evermore,--this one lesson, like +his circle of pure line containing all others,--'Your soul and body must +be all in every touch.' + +I can't resist the expression of a little piece of personal exultation, +in noticing that he holds his pencil as I do myself: no writing master, +and no effort (at one time very steady for many months), having ever +cured me of that way of holding both pen and pencil between my fore +and second finger; the third and fourth resting the backs of them on my +paper. + +As I finally arrange these notes for press, I am further confirmed in my +opinion by discovering little finishings in the two later pieces which +I was not before aware of. I beg the masters of High Art, and sublime +generalization, to take a good magnifying glass to the 'Sculpture' and +look at the way Giotto has cut the compasses, the edges of the chisels, +and the keyhole of the lock of the toolbox. For the rest, nothing +could be more probable, in the confused and perpetually false mass of +Florentine tradition, than the preservation of the memory of Giotto's +carving his own two trades, and the forgetfulness, or quite as likely +ignorance, of the part he took with Andrea Pisano in the initial +sculptures. I now take up the series of subjects at the point where we +broke off, to trace their chain of philosophy to its close. To Geometry, +which gives to every man his possession of house and land, succeed 21, +Sculpture, and 22, Painting, the adornments of permanent habitation. And +then, the great arts of education in a Christian home. First-- + +23. _Grammar_, or more properly Literature altogether, of which we have +already seen the ancient power in the Spanish Chapel series; then, + +24. _Arithmetic_, central here as also in the Spanish Chapel, for the +same reasons; here, more impatiently asserting, with both hands, that +two, on the right, you observe-and two on the left-do indeed and for +ever make Four. Keep your accounts, you, with your book of double entry, +on that principle; and you will be safe in this world and the next, in +your steward's office. But by no means so, if you ever admit the usurers +Gospel of Arithmetic, that two and two make Five. You see by the rich +hem of his robe that the asserter of this economical first principle is +a man well to do in the world. + +25. _Logic_. The art of Demonstration. Vulgarest of the whole series, +far too expressive of the mode in which argument is conducted by those +who are not masters of its reins. + +26. _Song._ + +The essential power of music in animal life. Orpheus, the symbol of it +all, the inventor properly of Music, the Law of Kindness, as Daedalus of +Music, the Law of Construction. Hence the "Orphic life" is one of ideal +mercy, (vegetarian,)--Plato, _Laws_, Book VI., 782,--and he is named +first after Daedalus, and in balance to him as head of the school of +harmonists, in Book III., 677, (Steph.) Look for the two singing +birds clapping their wings in the tree above him; then the five mystic +beasts,--closest to his feet the irredeemable boar; then lion and bear, +tiger, unicorn, and fiery dragon closest to his head, the flames of its +mouth mingling with his breath as he sings. The audient eagle, alas! has +lost the beak, and is only recognizable by his proud holding of himself; +the duck, sleepily delighted after muddy dinner, close to his shoulder, +is a true conquest. Hoopoe, or indefinite bird of crested race, behind; +of the other three no clear certainty. The leafage throughout such as +only Luca could do, and the whole consummate in skill and understanding. + +27. _Harmony._ + +Music of Song, in the full power of it, meaning perfect education in all +art of the Muses and of civilized life: the mystery of its concord is +taken for the symbol of that of a perfect state; one day, doubtless, of +the perfect world. So prophesies the last corner stone of the Shepherd's +Tower. + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Mornings in Florence, by John Ruskin + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MORNINGS IN FLORENCE *** + +***** This file should be named 7227.txt or 7227.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/7/2/2/7227/ + +Produced by Michelle Shephard, Eric Eldred, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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