I am obliged to interrupt my account of the Spanish chapel by the
following notes on the sculptures of Giotto's Campanile: first because
I find that inaccurate accounts of those sculptures are in course of
publication; and chiefly because I cannot finish my work in the Spanish
chapel until one of my good Oxford helpers, Mr. Caird, has completed
some investigations he has undertaken for me upon the history connected
with it. I had written my own analysis of the fourth side, believing
that in every scene of it the figure of St. Dominic was repeated. Mr.
Caird first suggested, and has shown me already good grounds for his
belief,[Footnote: He wrote thus to me on 11th November last: "The three
preachers are certainly different. The first is Dominic; the second,
Peter Martyr, whom I have identified from his martyrdom on the other
wall; and the third, Aquinas."] that the preaching monks represented
are in each scene intended for a different person. I am informed also
of several careless mistakes which have got into my description of the
fresco of the Sciences; and finally, another of my young helpers, Mr.
Charles F. Murray,--one, however, whose help is given much in the form
of antagonism,--informs me of various critical discoveries lately made,
both by himself, and by industrious Germans, of points respecting the
authenticity of this and that, which will require notice from me: more
especially he tells me of certification that the picture in the Uffizii,
of which I accepted the ordinary attribution to Giotto, is by Lorenzo
Monaco,--which indeed may well be, without in the least diminishing the
use to you of what I have written of its predella, and without in the
least, if you think rightly of the matter, diminishing your confidence
in what I tell you of Giotto generally. There is one kind of knowledge
of pictures which is the artist's, and another which is the antiquary's
and the picture-dealer's; the latter especially acute, and founded on
very secure and wide knowledge of canvas, pigment, and tricks of touch,
without, necessarily, involving any knowledge whatever of the qualities
of art itself. There are few practised dealers in the great cities of
Europe whose opinion would not be more trustworthy than mine, (if you
could _get_ it, mind you,) on points of actual authenticity. But they
could only tell you whether the picture was by such and such a master,
and not at all what either the master or his work were good for. Thus,
I have, before now, taken drawings by Varley and by Cousins for early
studies by Turner, and have been convinced by the dealers that they knew
better than I, as far as regarded the authenticity of those drawings;
but the dealers don't know Turner, or the worth of him, so well as I,
for all that. So also, you may find me again and again mistaken among
the much more confused work of the early Giottesque schools, as to the
authenticity of this work or the other; but you will find (and I say it
with far more sorrow than pride) that I am simply the only person who
can at present tell you the real worth of _any_; you will find that
whenever I tell you to look at a picture, it is worth your pains;
and whenever I tell you the character of a painter, that it _is_ his
character, discerned by me faithfully in spite of all confusion of work
falsely attributed to him in which similar character may exist. Thus,
when I mistook Cousins for Turner, I was looking at a piece of subtlety
in the sky of which the dealer had no consciousness whatever, which was
essentially Turneresque, but which another man might sometimes equal;
whereas the dealer might be only looking at the quality of Whatman's
paper, which Cousins used, and Turner did not.
Not, in the meanwhile, to leave you quite guideless as to the main
subject of the fourth fresco in the Spanish chapel,--the Pilgrim's
Progress of Florence,--here is a brief map of it:
On the right, in lowest angle, St. Dominic preaches to the group of
Infidels; in the next group towards the left, he (or some one very like
him) preaches to the Heretics: the Heretics proving obstinate, he sets
his dogs at them, as at the fatallest of wolves, who being driven away,
the rescued lambs are gathered at the feet of the Pope. I have copied
the head of the very pious, but slightly weak-minded, little lamb in the
centre, to compare with my rough Cumberland ones, who have had no such
grave experiences. The whole group, with the Pope above, (the niche of
the Duomo joining with and enriching the decorative power of his mitre,)
is a quite delicious piece of design.
The Church being thus pacified, is seen in worldly honour under the
powers of the Spiritual and Temporal Rulers. The Pope, with Cardinal
and Bishop descending in order on his right; the Emperor, with King and
Baron descending in order on his left; the ecclesiastical body of the
whole Church on the right side, and the laity,--chiefly its poets and
artists, on the left.
Then, the redeemed Church nevertheless giving itself up to the vanities
and temptations of the world, its forgetful saints are seen feasting,
with their children dancing before them, (the Seven Mortal Sins, say
some commentators). But the wise-hearted of them confess their sins
to another ghost of St. Dominic; and confessed, becoming as little
children, enter hand in hand the gate of the Eternal Paradise, crowned
with flowers by the waiting angels, and admitted by St. Peter among the
serenely joyful crowd of all the saints, above whom the white Madonna
stands reverently before the throne. There is, so far as I know,
throughout all the schools of Christian art, no other so perfect
statement of the noble policy and religion of men.
I had intended to give the best account of it in my power; but, when at
Florence, lost all time for writing that I might copy the group of the
Pope and Emperor for the schools of Oxford; and the work since done
by Mr. Caird has informed me of so much, and given me, in some of its
suggestions, so much to think of, that I believe it will be best and
most just to print at once his account of the fresco as a supplement
to these essays of mine, merely indicating any points on which I have
objections to raise, and so leave matters till Fors lets me see Florence
once more.
Perhaps she may, in kindness forbid my ever seeing it more, the wreck
of it being now too ghastly and heartbreaking to any human soul that
remembers the days of old. Forty years ago, there was assuredly no spot
of ground, out of Palestine, in all the round world, on which, if you
knew, even but a little, the true course of that world's history, you
saw with so much joyful reverence the dawn of morning, as at the foot of
the Tower of Giotto. For there the traditions of faith and hope, of
both the Gentile and Jewish races, met for their beautiful labour: the
Baptistery of Florence is the last building raised on the earth by the
descendants of the workmen taught by Dædalus: and the Tower of Giotto is
the loveliest of those raised on earth under the inspiration of the men
who lifted up the tabernacle in the wilderness. Of living Greek work
there is none after the Florentine Baptistery; of living Christian work,
none so perfect as the Tower of Giotto; and, under the gleam and shadow
of their marbles, the morning light was haunted by the ghosts of the
Father of Natural Science, Galileo; of Sacred Art, Angelico, and the
Master of Sacred Song. Which spot of ground the modern Florentine has
made his principal hackney-coach stand and omnibus station. The hackney
coaches, with their more or less farmyard-like litter of occasional hay,
and smell of variously mixed horse-manure, are yet in more permissible
harmony with the place than the ordinary populace of a fashionable
promenade would be, with its cigars, spitting, and harlot-planned
fineries: but the omnibus place of call being in front of the door of
the tower, renders it impossible to stand for a moment near it, to look
at the sculptures either of the eastern or southern side; while the
north side is enclosed with an iron railing, and usually encumbered with
lumber as well: not a soul in Florence ever caring now for sight of any
piece of its old artists' work; and the mass of strangers being on the
whole intent on nothing but getting the omnibus to go by steam; and so
seeing the cathedral in one swift circuit, by glimpses between the puffs
of it.
The front of Notre Dame of Paris was similarly turned into a
coach-office when I last saw it--1872. [Footnote: See Fors Clavigera in
that year.] Within fifty yards of me as I write, the Oratory of the Holy
Ghost is used for a tobacco-store, and in fine, over all Europe, mere
Caliban bestiality and Satyric ravage staggering, drunk and desperate,
into every once enchanted cell where the prosperity of kingdoms ruled
and the miraculous-ness of beauty was shrined in peace.
Deluge of profanity, drowning dome and tower in Stygian pool of vilest
thought,--nothing now left sacred, in the places where once--nothing was
profane.
For _that_ is indeed the teaching, if you could receive it, of the Tower
of Giotto; as of all Christian art in its day. Next to declaration
of the facts of the Gospel, its purpose, (often in actual work the
eagerest,) was to show the _power_ of the Gospel. History of Christ in
due place; yes, history of all He did, and how He died: but then, and
often, as I say, with more animated imagination, the showing of His
risen presence in granting the harvests and guiding the labour of the
year. All sun and rain, and length or decline of days received from His
hand; all joy, and grief, and strength, or cessation of labour,
indulged or endured, as in His sight and to His glory. And the familiar
employments of the seasons, the homely toils of the peasant, the
lowliest skills of the craftsman, are signed always on the stones of the
Church, as the first and truest condition of sacrifice and offering.
Of these representations of human art under heavenly guidance, the
series of bas-reliefs which stud the base of this tower of Giotto's must
be held certainly the chief in Europe. [Footnote: For account of the
series on the main archivolt of St. Mark's, see my sketch of the schools
of Venetian sculpture in third forthcoming number of 'St. Mark's
Rest.'] At first you may be surprised at the smallness of their scale
in proportion to their masonry; but this smallness of scale enabled the
master workmen of the tower to execute them with their own hands; and
for the rest, in the very finest architecture, the decoration of most
precious kind is usually thought of as a jewel, and set with space
round it,--as the jewels of a crown, or the clasp of a girdle. It is in
general not possible for a great workman to carve, himself, a greatly
conspicuous series of ornament; nay, even his energy fails him in
design, when the bas-relief extends itself into incrustation, or
involves the treatment of great masses of stone. If his own does not,
the spectator's will. It would be the work of a long summer's day to
examine the over-loaded sculptures of the Certosa of Pavia; and yet in
the tired last hour, you would be empty-hearted. Read but these inlaid
jewels of Giotto's once with patient following; and your hour's study
will give you strength for all your life. So far as you can, examine
them of course on the spot; but to know them thoroughly you must have
their photographs: the subdued colour of the old marble fortunately
keeps the lights subdued, so that the photograph may be made more tender
in the shadows than is usual in its renderings of sculpture, and there
are few pieces of art which may now be so well known as these, in quiet
homes far away.
We begin on the western side. There are seven sculptures on the western,
southern, and northern sides: six on the eastern; counting the Lamb over
the entrance door of the tower, which divides the complete series
into two groups of eighteen and eight. Itself, between them, being the
introduction to the following eight, you must count it as the first
of the terminal group; you then have the whole twenty-seven sculptures
divided into eighteen and nine.
Thus lettering the groups on each side for West, South, East, and North,
we have:
W. S. E. N.
7 + 7 + 6 + 7 = 27; or,
W. S. E.
7 + 7 + 4 = 18; and,
E. N.
2 + 7 = 9
There is a very special reason for this division by nines but,
for convenience' sake, I shall number the whole from 1 to 27,
straightforwardly. And if you will have patience with me, I should
like to go round the tower once and again; first observing the general
meaning and connection of the subjects and then going back to examine
the technical points in each, and such minor specialties as it may be
well, at the first time, to pass over.
1. The series begins, then, on the west side, with the Creation of
Man. It is not the beginning of the story of Genesis; but the simple
assertion that God made us, and breathed, and still breathes, into our
nostrils the breath of life.
This, Giotto tells you to believe as the beginning of all knowledge and
all power. [Footnote: So also the Master-builder of the Ducal Palace of
Venice. See Fors Clavigera for June of this year.] This he tells you to
believe, as a thing which he himself knows.
He will tell you nothing but what he _does_ know.
2. Therefore, though Giovanna Pisano and his fellow sculptors had given,
literally, the taking of the rib out of Adam's side, Giotto merely gives
the mythic expression of the truth he knows,--"they two shall be one
flesh."
3. And though all the theologians and poets of his time would have
expected, if not demanded, that his next assertion, after that of the
Creation of Man, should be of the Fall of Man, he asserts nothing of
the kind. He knows nothing of what man was. What he is, he knows best of
living men at that hour, and proceeds to say. The next sculpture is of
Eve spinning and Adam hewing the ground into clods. Not _digging_: you
cannot, usually, dig but in ground already dug. The native earth you
must hew.
They are not clothed in skins. What would have been the use of Eve
spinning if she could not weave? They wear, each, one simple piece of
drapery, Adam's knotted behind him, Eve's fastened around her neck with
a rude brooch.
Above them are an oak and an apple-tree. Into the apple-tree a little
bear is trying to climb.
The meaning of which entire myth is, as I read it, that men and women
must both eat their bread with toil. That the first duty of man is to
feed his family, and the first duty of the woman to clothe it. That the
trees of the field are given us for strength and for delight, and that
the wild beasts of the field must have their share with us. [Footnote:
The oak and apple boughs are placed, with the same meaning, by Sandro
Botticelli, in the lap of Zipporah. The figure of the bear is again
represented by Jacopo della Quercia, on the north door of the Cathedral
of Florence. I am not sure of its complete meaning.]
4. The fourth sculpture, forming the centre-piece of the series on the
west side, is nomad pastoral life.
Jabal, the father of such as dwell in tents, and of such as have cattle,
lifts the curtain of his tent to look out upon his flock. His dog
watches it.