52 GIOTTO AND HIS WORKS IN PADUA

the maid, evidently being considered an important personage, is at work in the passage. Apart from all reference to the legends, there is something peculiarly beautiful in the simplicity of Giotto’s conception, and in the way in which he has shown the angel entering at the window, without the least endeavour to impress our imagination by darkness, or light, or clouds, or any other accessory; as though believing that angels might appear anywhere, and any day, and to all men, as a matter of course, if we would ask them, or were fit company for them.¹

¹ [See for further mention of this fresco, above, p. 38.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]