Chapter 7 THE EARLY WORK OF GIOTTO AT FLORENCE AND ROME.

But little remains to us of the work of Giotto's student days, and those years immediately following; but sufficient is known to show that his first works were, as we should naturally expect, executed in Florence itself.

The following description of some of these frescoes is taken from Vasari. "The first pictures of Giotto were painted for the Chapel of the High Altar in the Abbey of Florence, where he executed many works considered extremely fine. Among these an Annunciation is particularly admired; the expression of fear and astonishment in the countenance of the Virgin, when receiving the salutation of Gabriel, is vividly depicted;[50] she appears to suffer the extremity of terror, and seems almost ready to take flight. The altarpiece of that chapel is also by Giotto; but this has been, and continues to be, preserved,[51] rather from the respect felt for the work of so distinguished a man, than from any other motive."

The large Madonna Enthroned, of which we speak at length a little further on, was also executed at this period. This was painted for the altar of the church of the Ognissanti, and is probably the first quite certain work which now remains of this master. There is a Madonna in the Brera Gallery at Milan which, if Giotto's work, probably belongs to an early period, but is (according to Professor Dobbert) of a less formal character; but I have not seen this work, and cannot speak as to its authenticity or character.

Giotto also painted at this time in the church of the Carmine,[52] which was burnt in 1771, but a few of these frescoes were rescued and engraved by Thomas Patch;[53] according to Waagen, two of these fragments are in Liverpool, one in the collection of Mr. Rogers, and others in the Campo Santo of Pisa. The picture in the National Gallery attributed to Giotto is a fragment of one of these frescoes, and represents the heads of two of the apostles. Whether these two heads are by Giotto's own hand is almost impossible to say, but they are in any case works of his school, and of an early period. Judging by the type of face, I should think it less probable of the two uncertainties that they were executed by Giotto; but the matter is of little importance, as the qualities they possess chiefly are not those we find in Giotto's work. The two heads are genuine early fresco at all events. There are several other works in the refectory, Pisa, attributed to Giotto by Vasari, amongst which are a Tree of the Cross, a Last Supper, and scenes from the life of St. Louis, a figure of the Virgin, and a St. John and the Magdalene at the foot of the cross; the last three of which are now concealed by whitewash, and the authorship of any of the pictures in the refectory is considered doubtful by Rumohr. Of the two series of panels illustrating the lives of Christ and St. Francis, I have spoken at length below; it is sufficient here to say that Vasari assigns them to Giotto.

Vasari makes Giotto execute various paintings, amongst them the whole Assisi series, and the frescoes (since discovered not to be by this master) in the Campo Santo of Pisa, between these early works and his visit to Rome. This, however, is impossible, from the date of that visit being fixed by strong evidence between the years 1296 and 1298, which leaves the young painter the barest time possible to execute his numerous early works in Florence after his six years' apprenticeship to Cimabue. In 1296, however, occurred the incident of the O related elsewhere, and in that or the following year Giotto visited Rome at the invitation of Pope Boniface VIII.[54]

According to Vasari, he here executed a large picture in the sacristy of St. Peter's, "with five others in the church itself-these last being passages from the life of Christ; all of which he executed with so much care, that no better work in distemper ever proceeded from his hands.... The Pope having seen these works of Giotto, whose manner pleased him infinitely, commanded that he should paint subjects from the Old and New Testaments entirely around the walls of St. Peter's; and for a commencement the artist executed in fresco the angel seven toreccecia high, which is now over the organ: this was followed by many other pictures, of which some have been restored in our own days, while more have been either destroyed in laying the foundations of the new walls, or have been taken from the old edifice of St. Peter's and set under the organ, as is the case with a Madonna that was cut out of the wall that it might not totally be destroyed, and being supported with beams and bars of iron was thus carried away and secured for its beauty in the place wherein the pious love which the Florentine doctor, Messer Nicolo Acciainoli, has ever borne to the excellent in art, desired to see it enshrined, and where he has richly adorned the work of Giotto with a framework composed of modern pictures and of ornaments in stucco. The picture in mosaic known as the Navicella, and which stands above the three doors of the portico in the vestibule of St. Peter's, is also from the hand of Giotto-a truly wonderful work, and deservedly eulogised by all enlightened judges; and this not only for the merit of the design, but also for that of the grouping of the apostles, who labour in various attitudes to guide their boat through the tempestuous sea, while the winds blow in a sail which is swelling with so vivid a reality that the spectator could almost believe himself to be looking at a real sail. Yet it must have been excessively difficult to produce the harmony and interchange of light and shadow which we admire in this work, with mere pieces of glass, and that in a sail of such magnitude-a thing which even with the pencil could only be equalled by great effort. There is a fisherman also standing on a rock and fishing with a line, in whose attitude the extraordinary patience proper to that occupation is most obvious, while the hope of prey and his desire for it are equally manifest in his countenance."

The above must be taken for what it is worth, as all the works named in the quotation have perished, with the exception of the Navicella and one other.[55] I have preferred to quote Vasari's description of the Navicella to any more elaborate one, for its simplicity, and a certain strain of honest enthusiasm rare in contemporary criticism. The remark about the extraordinary patience of the fisherman, and his mingled hope and desire for prey, is delightful in its unconscious satire. This mosaic still remains, but so defaced by restoration as to have little traces of the original which roused Vasari's enthusiasm.

The production of these various works in Rome occupied Giotto six years, at the end of which he returned to Florence in the year 1302, and was employed to paint frescoes in the hall of the Podesta, or as it is now more commonly called the Bargello. I found it impossible, as I have said above, on examining these frescoes carefully, to believe that the greater portion of them were executed by Giotto;[56] and owing to damp and restoration the majority have suffered so severely, as to render it a question of little but antiquarian interest whose work they originally were. The large fresco of the Paradise at the end of the chapel, in which are the famous portraits of Dante and Corso Donati, has been greatly restored, especially the Dante head, which has been wholly re-painted. The portrait, nevertheless, is one of great interest, and the spirit of the composition has been preserved by the restorer, though the painting itself is hard and heavy compared with the untouched work of our master.

It was shortly after the execution of this work, that Giotto prepared the designs for the fa?ade of the Duomo, which were executed by Andrea Pisano; and in the succeeding year Giotto married, and shortly afterwards removed to Padua.

The large Madonna Enthroned, by Giotto, bears the greatest resemblance to the manner of Cimabue of any of this master's work. Before the throne, which is raised on two high steps, and surrounded with a canopy and pillars crowned by Gothic arches, kneel two angels in white, each bearing a vase of flowers in her hand; on either side of the throne appear six saints and angels. The Madonna is heavily painted, and clothed in a white under-robe, with a long blue-green mantle covering the lower portion of the figure. The Virgin gazes straight out of the picture with something of the peculiar lack-lustre gaze so invariably found in the pictures of the Byzantine masters, and which was seldom absent from the faces of Cimabue himself. The two front angels on the east side of the throne are in green, and offer to the Virgin a model of the church (in which the picture was to serve as an altarpiece) and a crown. The infant Christ has his hand raised as if to address the spectator; in his face there is little of the infantine playfulness or expression which is to be found in Giotto's later work, as, for instance, in the fresco of the Presentation in the Temple in the Arena Chapel, where the infant Christ is struggling to escape from the high priest to the Virgin, who stretches her arms towards him. Indeed, throughout this picture, there is hardly to be found a trace of the characteristic merits of Giotto's later work, and it must have been executed in the early days of his apprenticeship to Cimabue, whose method of arrangement has been almost slavishly copied. The type of face, however, both of the Virgin and the Christ, are of a broader, heavier type than in the Byzantine model, the chin fuller and less retreating, the eye less elliptical, and the expression, though somewhat blank, has not that drooping, half-dreamy look of the older schools. If we turn from this Madonna, to the gigantic one by Cimabue which hangs on the opposite side of the entrance in the Accademia, we can see clearly the advance made by Giotto even in this early work. Besides the differences above mentioned, there is a fresher, more life-like air about the whole picture; the figures are arranged less for graceful lines, and more in accordance with nature; the drapery is not so severely conventional in the arrangement of its folds, there is a nearer approach to the sweeping curves of nature than to the formal vertical lines which had grown common from the imitation of Byzantine mosaics.

When, however, all these differences are noted and allowed their full value, we can only conclude that this work of Giotto's is one of his earliest and least spontaneous productions, and that the colour in it must have suffered great deterioration. Like nearly all the pictures painted upon panel of this period, the colour has probably darkened and lost much of its original beauty, and this will perhaps account for the work having little of that purity of tint that is so noticeable in Giotto's frescoes. Of the ten small scenes from the life of St. Francis, which are generally attributed to Giotto, the same remarks apply as to the series of scenes from the New Testament spoken of below, and the assertion must be reiterated that there is no reason to attribute either of these series to the hand of Giotto, the colouring especially being contrary to the general work of that master. There is a crude vermilion tint employed in almost every one of these panels that may be sought for in vain in any of the frescoes at Padua, Assisi, or in the Santa Croce at Florence.

With regard to the twenty-two small designs on panel which are in the Accademia under the title of being portions of the great altarpiece at Santa Maria Novella, it scarcely admits of doubt that they are bad imitations of the master rather than specimens of even his earliest work. If we take the slightest of the drawings in the Arena Chapel and compare them with one of these panels, we shall find a total dissimilarity, both in colour and design. These works do not err on the side of incompleteness of design or a tentative method of execution. They rather belong to a school which carries its execution farther than its thought, and is in fact a complacent imitation of the work of Giotto. I see in these no traces of Giotto's work, though many traces of his manner, and feel sure that if these designs belong in any way to Giotto, they must have been utterly spoilt in the re-painting. They do not, however, seem to me to have been his designs, as even in the sadly-spoilt frescoes in the Bargello, can the traces of the master's handiwork be clearly seen, despite damp, whitewash, and restoration, and it is excessively improbable that these smaller panels should have needed or received equal alteration.

They are in all probability the work of Taddeo Gaddi, or one of his pupils; but this is hardly the place to enter upon the discussion of their authorship, further than to explain it not to belong to the hand of Giotto.

In the chapel of the Castellani, in the Santa Croce, is the crucifix generally ascribed to Giotto by Lord Lindsay and other writers, but it is difficult to discover any ground, save such as is derived from popular tradition, for such an assumption. The lines of the figure are stiff and formal, the colour lifeless and heavy, and the whole work seems to belong to the Sienese school in the character of the design. It should be noted that this work is set far back behind a double row of huge pewter candlesticks, and great branches of artificial flowers, and is placed immediately beneath the only window that lights the chapel, so that it is impossible to speak with certainty of the merits of the colouring. A curious instance of the difficulty of deciding a work to be by Giotto on account of the merit or originality of the design is to be seen in this very chapel, where there are seven frescoes on the right of the crucifix, by Agnolo Gaddi, which are full of so-called Giottesque traits. Very evidently Giotto's influence was in the air, and the very winds of heaven seem to have carried the matter. In the Baroncelli Chapel we have an opportunity of comparing undoubted works by Taddeo Gaddi with those frescoes in the Upper Church at Assisi, which I have refused to consider as Giotto's; but if these Florentine ones be by the same hand it has undoubtedly advanced in skill; the architecture, especially, is of a considerably more elaborate character, and is more akin to that of the Lower Church at Assisi. It must be noticed too that there is in these Gaddi frescoes, more observation of nature than in those of the Upper Church; in one composition alone are there no less than four different species of trees introduced into the background; orange, palm, a species of laurel, and a round-topped tree, which might be anything from a sycamore to a cedar. Various characteristics of Giotto's works are to be traced in these frescoes; the colouring is evidently an unsuccessful imitation, and gesture and action are used somewhat overmuch, without helping to tell the story, as we can fancy would be done by one trying to follow Giotto's method.