These solemn heads seem to breathe the very spirit of the master; but
the history of the painting forbids the supposition that we have here
the handiwork, or even the direct influence of Giotto. It is a fragment
from one of the wall-paintings in the chapel of St. John the Baptist in
the church of S. Maria del Carmine at Florence. The frescoes were not
executed till 1350, some years after the death of Giotto. The subject
of the composition to which our fragment belongs was the burial of
the Baptist. The history of these frescoes is typical of that of many
a vicissitude, and recalls the idea suggested in one of Browning's
_Dramatic Lyrics_, in which the soul of the painter watches the gradual
decay and dispersal of his life's work:--
Wherever a fresco peals and drops,
Wherever an outline weakens and wanes
Till the latest life in the painting stops,
Stands One whom each fainter pulse-tick pains:
One, wishful each scrap should clutch the brick,
Each tinge, not wholly escape the plaster,
--A lion who dies of an ass's kick,
The wronged great soul of an ancient Master.
This and two portions from other paintings of the series, now in the
institution at Liverpool, were saved from the fire which destroyed
this chapel in 1771, and became the property of Mr. Thomas Patch, the
engraver. They were brought to England by Mr. Townley. This fragment
was subsequently in the collection of the Right Hon. C. Greville, from
whom it passed into the possession of Mr. Rogers, and at the sale of
his pictures in 1856 was purchased for the National Gallery. Some other
fragments are preserved in the Cappella dell' Ammannati, in the Campo
Santo at Pisa, and one is in the town gallery at Pavia.