GIOTTO AND HIS WORKS IN PADUA 43

windows, and on it therefore the frescoes are continuous, lighted from the south windows. The several spaces numbered 1 to 38 are occupied by a continuous series of subjects, representing the life of the Virgin and of Christ; the narrow panels below, marked a, b, c, etc., are filled by figures of the cardinal virtues and their opponent vices: on the lunette above the tribune is painted a Christ in glory [o on the plan], and at the western extremity, the Last Judgment.¹ Thus the walls of the chapel are covered with a continuous meditative poem on the mystery of the Incarnation, the acts of Redemption, the vices and virtues of mankind as proceeding from their scorn or acceptance of that Redemption, and their final judgment.

The first twelve pictures of the series are exclusively devoted to the apocryphal history of the birth and life of the Virgin. This the Protestant spectator will observe, perhaps, with little favour, more especially as only two compartments are given to the ministry of Christ, between his Baptism and Entry into Jerusalem. Due weight is, however, to be allowed to Lord Lindsay’s remark,² that the legendary history of the Virgin was of peculiar importance in this chapel, as especially dedicated to her service; and I think also that Giotto desired to unite the series of compositions in one continuous action, feeling that to have enlarged on the separate miracles of Christ’s ministry would have interrupted the onward course of thought. As it is, the mind is led from the first humiliation of Joachim to the Ascension of Christ in one unbroken and progressive chain of scenes; the ministry of Christ being completely typified by his first and last conspicuous miracle: while the very unimportance of some of the subjects, as for instance that of the Watching the Rods, is useful in directing the spectator rather to pursue the course of the narrative, than

¹ [Beyond a small vignette of a portion of the Last Judgment on the title-page of the volume of engravings, the set of woodcuts published by the Arundel Society in 1854-1860 contained no reproduction of the Christ in Glory, the Last Judgment and the fourteen Virtues and Vices. See now below, pp. 113 seq.]

² [Christian Art, vol. ii. p. 184.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]