of their angels on
more timidly, and dwell with greater emphasis upon the human form, and
with less upon the wings, until these last become a species of
decorative appendage,--a mere _sign_ of an angel. But in Giotto's time
an angel was a complete creature, as much believed in as a bird; and
the way in which it would or might cast itself into the air, and lean
hither and thither upon its plumes, was as naturally apprehended as
the manner of flight of a chough or a starling. Hence Dante's simple
and most exquisite synonym for angel, "Bird of God;" and hence also a
variety and picturesqueness in the expression of the movements of the
heavenly hierarchies by the earlier painters, ill replaced by the
powers of foreshortening, and throwing naked limbs into fantastic
positions, which appear in the cherubic groups of later times.

It is needless to point out the frank association of the two
events,--the Nativity, and appearance of the Angel to the Shepherds.
They are constantly thus joined; but I do not remember any other
example in which they are joined so boldly. Usually the shepherds are
seen in the distance, or are introduced in some ornamental border, or
other inferior place. The view of painting as a mode of suggesting
relative or consecutive thoughts, rather than a realisation of any one
scene, is seldom so fearlessly asserted, even by Giotto, as here, in
placing the flocks of the shepherds at the foot of the Virgin's bed.

This bed, it will be noticed, is on a shelf of rock. This is in
compliance with the idea founded on the Protevangelion and the
apocryphal book known as the Gospel of Infancy, that our Saviour was
born in a cave, associated with the scriptural statement that He was
laid in a manger, of which the apocryphal gospels do not speak.

The vain endeavour to exalt the awe of the moment of the Saviour's
birth has turned, in these gospels, the outhouse of the inn into a
species of subterranean chapel, full of incense and candles. "It was
after sunset, when the old woman (the midwife), and Joseph with her,
reached the cave; and they both went into it. And behold, it was all
filled with light, greater than the light of lamps and candles, and
greater than the light of the sun itself." (Infancy, i. 9.) "Then a
bright cloud overshadowed the cave, and the midwife said: This day my
soul is magnified." (Protevangelion, xiv. 10.) The thirteenth chapter
of the Protevangelion is, however, a little more skilful in this