66 GIOTTO AND HIS WORKS IN PADUA

should be compared with any composition subsequent to the time of Raffaelle, in order to feel its noble freedom from pictorial artifice and attitude. These three comparisons cannot be made carefully without a sense of profound reverence for the national spirit* which could produce a design so majestic, and yet remain content with one so simple.

The small loggia of the Virgin’s house is noticeable, as being different from the architecture introduced in the other pictures, and more accurately representing the Italian Gothic of the dwelling-house of the period. The arches of the windows have no capitals; but this omission is either to save time, or to prevent the background from becoming too conspicuous. All the real buildings designed by Giotto have the capital completely developed.¹

* National, because Giotto’s works are properly to be looked on as the fruit of their own age, and the food of that which followed.

¹ [Here, again, as in No. X., the relief of the faces against the dark sky is noticed in the Introduction (§ 21), above, p. 38.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]