[1] This essay was originally written for, and will ultimately appear in, the series of "Illustrated Biographies of the Great Artists," published by Messrs. Sampson Low, and Co.

[2] See Pre-Raphaelitism, by John Ruskin. 1862.

[3] In this connection the following quotation from Mr. Ruskin's description of the origin of English pre-Raphaelitism may be found interesting. He is here speaking of Messrs. Millais, Hunt, and Rossetti: "Pupils in the same schools receiving precisely the same instruction, which for so long a time has paralysed every one of our painters; these boys agree in disliking to copy the antique statues set before them. They copy them as they are bid, and they copy them better than anybody else; they carry off prize after prize, and yet they hate their work. At last they are admitted to study from the life, they find the life very different from the antique, and they say so. Their teachers tell them the antique is the best, and they must not copy the life. They agree among themselves that they like the life and that copy it they will. They do copy it faithfully, and their masters forthwith declare them to be lost men. Their fellow-students hiss them whenever they enter the room. They cannot help it, they join hands and tacitly resist both the hissing and the instruction. Accidentally a few prints of the works of Giotto, a few casts from that of Ghiberti, fall into their hands, and they see in them something which they never saw before; something eternally and everlastingly true."

[4] "From Giotto's old age to the youth of Raphael the advance consists principally in two great steps: the first, that distant objects were more or less invested with a blue colour; the second, that trees were no longer painted with a black ground but with a rich dark brown, or dark green one."—John Ruskin.

[5] See Kugler's Handbook of Painting, edited by Lady Eastlake, 1874, pp. 17 and 18, for a description of the origin of mosaic art.

[6] For origin of mosaic work see Pliny xxv., xxxiii., xxxv. See also the Iconographic EncyclopÆdia, by Heck, translated from the German by Spencer F. Baird, New York, 1851, vol. ii. p. 77, &c., and Fosbroke's CyclopÆdia of Antiquities, 1840.

[7] See Art of Illumination, 1844, and Illuminated Books of the Middle Ages, 1849. By Henry Noel Humphreys.

[8] For more on this subject see the Nouveau TraitÉ de Diplomatie of the Benedictines.

[9] Brown's Sacred Architecture, 1845, pp. 24, 25.

[10] Brown's Sacred Architecture, 1845.

[11] Cadell's Italy, vol. ii. p. 339.

[12] For a very interesting description of this feature in Byzantine work see The Stones of Venice, by John Ruskin, vol. ii.

[13] Ruskin's Crown of Wild Olive, Introduction.

[14] For an account of Christian Symbolism, see Mrs. Jameson's Sacred and Legendary Art.

[15] See A New History of Painting in Italy. By J.A. Crowe and G.B. Cavalcaselle, 1864; vol. i. chap. 4.

[16] Lord Lindsay, in his History of Christian Art, asserts that in painting, the schools of Giotto, Siena, and Bologna spring immediately from the work of Niccola Pisano. Vol. ii., p. 113. See, for an account of his pupils, pages 115 et seq. of vol. ii.

[17] History of Painting in Italy, vol. i. p. 9; Roscoe's translation, 1828.

[18] See The Antiquities of Italy, translated from the original Latin of Bernard de Montfaucon. London, 1725.

[19] For a full discussion of this question see Kugler's Handbook of Painting, Italian Schools, vol. i. pp. 43 et seq.

[20] For an interesting account of building in terra-cotta, and the various operations of drying, baking the tiles, &c., see GrÜner's Terra-Cotta Architecture of Italy. Introductory Essay. 1867.

[21] See also chapter xxii. of Hope's Historical Essay on Architecture.

[22] Though frequently wrongly used as synonymous with secco.

[23] Recent researches by Signors Gaetano and Carlo Milanesi (Florence, 1859) prove this date, which is given by Tambroni and in Mrs. Merrifield's translation, to be only that of the copy of the original MS. Cennini's work was originally written in all probability at least ten years earlier.

[24] In fresco some colours cannot be used, as artiemen, cinnabar, azuno della magna, mina, biucca, verdesume, and lacca.—Cennini.

[25] According to Mrs. Jameson, Lives of the Painters, p. 8, all movable pictures were, up to 1440, painted on panels of prepared wood; an evident mistake, made from a superficial examination of the back of the pictures.

[26] EncyclopÉdie MÉthodique. Paris, 1788.

[27] I have, throughout this essay, followed the mass of authority which describes Giotto's father as a poor tenant farmer, or lower still in the social scale; but the most recent researches go to prove that he was in well-to-do circumstances, was, in fact, of the rank of "Cavaliere," and it is certain that Giotto inherited some property from him.

[28] Vasari, Lives of the most Eminent Painters, &c., vol. i. p. 42.

[29] Lord Lindsay gives the date of his death as 1302, on the authority of Ciampi.

[30] See notes to Mrs. Foster's translation of Vasari.

[31] There are excellent engravings of both these pictures in Kugler's Handbook of Painting, pages 105 and 109 of the fifth edition.

[32] History of Painting in Italy, vol. i. p. 205.

[33] Look, for instance, at the natural manner in which the border of the Virgin's drapery falls into its folds. The woodcut of this picture here given does little more than show the arrangement of the picture; but even here the advance is perceptible.

[34] Vol. i. p. 206. Vasari attributes the loss of colour in Buffulmacco's pictures to the use of a peculiar purple mixed with salt, which corroded the other colours; possibly this may be the case with Cimabue's.

[35] Since writing the above sentence I have been to the Rucellai Chapel for the purpose of studying the great Cimabue referred to above, the description of which is accordingly given in a later chapter.

[36] It is noticeable that in Lindsay's Christian Art, it is to the influence of the sculptor, Niccola Pisano, rather than that of Cimabue, that Giotto owed his study of nature, &c., vol. ii. p. 82.

[37] "The date is disputed. Crowe now gives 1266, but I have, throughout, followed Vasari and other writers who give 1276. All the chronology of Giotto, except the date of his death, is highly uncertain."—H.Q.

[38] "At Pietro Mala. The flames rise two or three feet above the stony ground out of which they spring, white and fierce enough to be visible in the intense rays even of the morning sun."—J.R.

[39] This fresco is, I think, the work of one of Giotto's pupils, but probably executed from the master's design, or under his superintendence, or in any case is an imitation of Giotto's method of introducing animal life into his compositions.

[40] After working at Assisi and Pisa, according to Vasari, who is followed by Kugler. It is quite clear that Kugler is wrong in supposing that when Giotto visited Rome in 1298, he had previously executed the frescoes on the ceiling of the Lower Church at Assisi, for those works are evidently later than those of the Upper Church, and even in point of time it is impossible that both series could have been painted prior to 1298, when the painter was but twenty-two.

[41] Vasari says Benedict XI., but Rumohr shows it was Boniface who invited Giotto to Rome. Schorn, in note to Vasari.

[42] Giotto and his Works in Padua. Published for the Arundel Society.

[43] Portions of what is called the Stefaneschi altar piece; I am informed very fine in quality, but cannot speak from experience.

[44] It was subsequently defrayed by the Tuscan government.

[45] Crowe considers them to be undoubtedly his.

[46] That the large fresco of Paradise, in which the portraits of Dante and Corso Donati occur is by Giotto, is, I think, quite certain.

[47] The house where Dante lived is still shown to strangers.

[48] I may here say once for all that owing to my ignorance of the Italian language, and the small amount of time at my disposal, it has been out of my power to undertake that research amongst the MSS. stored in the public libraries of Italy by which alone could the accurate chronology of Giotto's life be determined.

[49] Those who are interested in this subject will find an article discussing it in the Spectator of November 10th, 1877, entitled "The Human Element in Landscape Painting."

[50] How a certain reviewer would have scoffed at Giotto for representing the Virgin in this manner!

[51] It has been removed since, and its whereabouts is not now known.

[52] There is a dispute about the period when these frescoes were executed, but the weight of evidence is in favour of their having been done at the earliest period of Giotto's artistic career.

[53] Mr. Thomas Patch does not seem to have appreciated the master much, for he can see little difference between his work and that of the other painters of the same period, e.g. the Sienese and Pisan schools.

[54] According to Baldinucci, Vasari says Benedict IX., and Crowe and Cavalcaselle, Benedict XI (1303). Vide supra, p. 35.

[55] Portrait of Boniface VIII. preserved under glass in the church. Ed. Flor.

[56] I may perhaps mention that Mr. Fairfax Murray, who accompanied me to the Bargello, and gave me his valuable opinion as to the authorship of the frescoes, also felt certain of Giotto only having painted one or two of the number.

[57] See note at the end of this chapter for Ruskin's account of the chapel's use and its founder.

[58] I beg the custodian's pardon, for on going to the chapel again this year, I find that it is the Royal Society of Api-Culture who are responsible for the dozen or so of hives.

[59] It would take me at least a page to justify and define this assertion. I must trust my readers to understand that it is written in no depreciation of later artists, and that it only refers to colour as seen in light, scarcely modified at all by shade.

[60] Throughout this book I have purposely avoided, wherever it was possible, long descriptions of the subject matter of the pictures mentioned. The almost inevitable tendency of such description, unless it is done with the greatest reticence as well as skill, is to withdraw the reader's attention from the artist, either to the author or the subject spoken of, and as my main endeavour in writing this book has been to bring the peculiarities of the artist into constant prominence, it would have defeated my purpose to enter into descriptive writing.

[61] See Lower Church of Assisi, Chapter X.

[62] See Chapter on the Lower Church of Assisi, p. 111.

[63] Almost the only artist who ever thoroughly vanquished the difficulty of representing the Last Supper, without stiffness of arrangement, was Tintoretto in his great picture in the Scuola San Rocco. The celebrated Leonardo fresco at Milan of this subject suffers in a measure from the same difficulty as Giotto's work, though in a less degree.

[64] A small portion of this chapter appeared in the Spectator last year under the title of "The Shrine of Poverty," and is here reprinted by the kind permission of the editors of that paper.

[65] I may as well mention that the hotel given by Bradshaw, though the largest, is very poor in its accommodation, and the visitor would probably do better to go to the Albergo Subasio close to the monastery.

[66] Pages 168-174 and 210-228, vol. i.

[67] In Appendix C, at the end of this book, will be found a list of the works attributed to Giotto by Lord Lindsay, Crowe and Cavalcaselle, Ruskin, and Dohme.

[68] It would, however, be unsafe to found any conclusion on the naturalism found here, as it is certain that painters of many later periods worked in this lower church.

[69] According to Crowe and Cavalcaselle, the original drawing for this fresco is in the possession of H.R.H. the Duc d'Aumale. It is a pen drawing on vellum.

[70] Vasari, vol. i. p. 348.

[71] It is in no spirit of carping criticism that I must here express my inability to discover clearly when Crowe and Cavalcaselle do intend to make Giotto visit Assisi. I have found so much difficulty in finding any definite statements throughout their work that I have almost ceased to expect them. I believe they mean that the Assisi frescoes were previously executed to those of Padua.

[72] Mr. Ruskin has here been mistaken in asserting that this fresco has not suffered from restoration; a good opera glass will satisfy any one of this fact, as the restoration has not only been great in amount, but most execrable in the quality of its work.

[73] Amongst those with which I am personally acquainted I hear on good authority that the panel picture known as the Stefaneschi altarpiece, at Rome, is of exceeding beauty.

[74] Of the Palazzo Vecchio.