“THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ART” 217

are always clumsy about the waist and bust, and most of them are underjawed, which certainly detracts from the sweetness of the female countenance. His delineation of the naked is excellent, as compared with the works of his predecessors, but far unequal to what he attained in his later years,-the drapery, on the contrary, is noble, majestic, and statuesque; the colouring is still pale and weak,-it was long ere he improved in this point; the landscape displays little or no amendment upon the Byzantine; the architecture, that of the fourteenth century, is to the figures that people it in the proportion of dolls’ houses to the children that play with them,-an absurdity long unthinkingly acquiesced in, from its occurrence in the classic bas-reliefs from which it had been traditionally derived;-and, finally, the lineal perspective is very fair, and in three of the compositions an excellent effect is produced by the introduction of the same background with varied dramatis personś, reminding one of Retszch’s illustrations of Faust. The animals too are always excellent, full of spirit and character.”-Vol. ii. pp. 183-199.

48. This last characteristic is especially to be noticed.¹ It is a touching proof of the influence of early years. Giotto was only ten years old when he was taken from following the sheep. For the rest, as we have above stated, the manipulation of these frescoes is just as far inferior to that of the Podestŕ chapel as their dimensions are less; and we think it will be found generally that the smaller the work the more rude is Giotto’s hand. In this respect he seems to differ from all other masters.

“It is not difficult, gazing on these silent but eloquent walls, to repeople them with the group once, as we know-five hundred years ago-assembled within them,-Giotto intent upon his work, his wife Ciuta admiring his progress, and Dante, with abstracted eye, alternately conversing with his friend and watching the gambols of the children playing on the grass before the door. It is generally affirmed that Dante, during this visit, inspired Giotto with his taste for allegory, and that the Virtues and Vices of the Arena were the first-fruits of their intercourse; it is possible, certainly, but I doubt it,-allegory was the universal language of the time, as we have seen in the history of the Pisan school.”-Vol. ii. pp. 199, 200.

It ought to have been further mentioned, that the representation of the Virtues and Vices under these Giottesque figures continued long afterwards. We find them copied, for instance, on the capitals of the Ducal Palace at Venice, with an amusing variation on the “Stultitia,” who has neither

¹ [On Giotto’s rendering of dogs, see Mornings in Florence, § 132.]

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