34 GIOTTO AND HIS WORKS IN PADUA

and designed the façade of the Duomo, on the death of its former architect, Arnolfo.¹ Some six years afterwards he went to Padua, there painting the chapel which is the subject of our present study, and many other churches. Thence south again, to Assisi,² where he painted half the walls and vaults of the great convent that stretches itself along the slopes of the Perugian hills, and various other minor works on his way there and back to Florence. Staying in his native city but a little while, he engaged himself in other tasks at Ferrara, Verona, and Ravenna, and at last at Avignon, where be became acquainted with Petrarch-working there for some three years, from 1324 to 1327;* and then passed rapidly through Florence and Orvieto on his way to Naples, where “he received the kindest welcome from the good king Robert.... The king, ever partial to men of mind and genius, took especial delight in Giotto’s society, and used frequently to visit him while working in the Castello dell’ Uovo, taking pleasure in watching his pencil and listening to his discourse; ‘and Giotto,’ says Vasari, ‘who had ever his repartee and bonmot ready, held him there, fascinated at once with the magic of his pencil and pleasantry of his tongue.’ We are not told the length of his sojourn at Naples, but it must have been for a considerable period, judging from the quantity of works he executed there. He had certainly returned to Florence in 1332.”³ There he was immediately appointed “chief master” of the works of the Duomo, then in progress, “with a yearly salary of one hundred gold

* Christian Art, vol. ii. p. 242.

¹ [Here Ruskin follows Lord Lindsay (vol. ii. pp. 124-125) into error. Arnolfo did not die till 1310, and the work upon the cathedral stopped till 1334, when (as a document of April 12 in that year attests) Giotto (as Ruskin says lower down) was appointed by public decree Capo-Maestro of the cathedral and architect of the Commune. Tradition records that he then commenced the decoration of the old façade, which, however, was never completed; and then, too, he designed, and executed some part of, the Campanile (Vol. XXIII. pp. lxiii.-lxiv.). The account in the text of Giotto’s other movements must also be taken with some reserve: see the Introduction, above, p. xlvi.]

² [For Giotto and his works at Assisi, see Vol. XXIII. pp. xlii. seq.; and on the date of Giotto’s work there, the Introduction, above, p. xlvi.]

³ [Lord Lindsay (vol. ii. pp. 244, 246).]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]