of its exertion. The
inferior mind intently watches its own processes, and dearly values
its own produce; the master-mind is intent on other things than
itself, and cares little for the fruits of a toil which it is apt to
undertake rather as a law of life than a means of immortality. It will
sing at a feast, or retouch an old play, or paint a dark wall, for its
daily bread, anxious only to be honest in its fulfilment of its
pledges or its duty, and careless that future ages will rank it among
the gods.

I think it unnecessary to repeat here any other of the anecdotes
commonly related of Giotto, as, separately taken, they are quite
valueless. Yet much may be gathered from their general _tone_. It is
remarkable that they are, almost without exception, records of
good-humoured jests, involving or illustrating some point of practical
good sense; and by comparing this general colour of the reputation of
Giotto with the actual character of his designs, there cannot remain
the smallest doubt that his mind was one of the most healthy, kind,
and active, that ever informed a human frame. His love of beauty was
entirely free from weakness; his love of truth untinged by severity;
his industry constant, without impatience; his workmanship accurate,
without formalism; his temper serene, and yet playful; his imagination
exhaustless, without extravagance; and his faith firm, without
superstition. I do not know, in the annals of art, such another
example of happy, practical, unerring, and benevolent power.

I am certain that this is the estimate of his character which must be
arrived at by an attentive study of his works, and of the few data
which remain respecting his life; but I shall not here endeavour to
give proof of its truth, because I believe the subject has been
exhaustively treated by Rumohr and Foerster, whose essays on the works
and character of Giotto will doubtless be translated into English, as
the interest of the English public in mediaeval art increases. I shall
therefore here only endeavour briefly to sketch the relation which
Giotto held to the artists who preceded and followed him, a relation
still imperfectly understood; and then, as briefly, to indicate the
general course of his labours in Italy, as far as may be necessary for
understanding the value of the series in the Arena Chapel.

The art of Europe, between the fifth and thirteenth centuries, divides
itself essentially into great branches, one springing fro