s and
grandeur of two of the figures, the suggestion of which has been
attributed to Dante, the woman Chastity seated beyond assault in her
rocky fortress, and Obedience bowing the neck to curb and yoke. The
fourth fresco pictures the saint who died, 'covered by another's cloak
cast over his wasted body eaten with sores,' enthroned and glorified
amidst the host of Heaven.

I have chosen the second example of the art of Giotto because you may
with comparative ease see it for yourselves. It is in the National
Gallery, London, having belonged to the collection of the late Samuel
Rogers. It is a fragment of an old fresco which had been part of a
series illustrating the life of John the Baptist in the church of the
Carmine, Florence, a church which was destroyed by fire in 1771. The
fragment in the National Gallery has two fine heads of apostles bending
sorrowfully over the body of St John. Though it is not necessary to do
it, in strict justice, because good work rises superior to all accidents
of comparison as well as accidents of circumstance, one must remember in
regarding this, the stilted and frozen figures and faces, which, before
Giotto broke their bonds and inspired them, had professed to tell the
Bible's stories.

The third instance I have chosen to quote is Giotto's portrait of Dante
which was so strangely lost for many years. The portrait occurs in a
painting, the first recorded performance of Giotto's, in which he was
said to have introduced the likeness of many of his contemporaries, on
the wall of the Palazzo dell' Podesta or Council Chamber of Florence.
During the banishment of Dante the wall was plastered or white-washed
over, through the influence of his enemies, and though believed to
exist, the picture was hidden down to 1840, when, after various futile
efforts to recover it, the figures were again brought to light.

This portrait of Dante is altogether removed from the later portraits of
the indignant and weary man, of whom the Italian market-women said that
he had been in Hell as well as in exile. Giotto's Dante on the walls of
the Council Chamber is a noble young man of thirty, full of ambitious
hope and early distinction. The face is slightly pointed, with broad
forehead, hazel eyes, straight brows and nose, mouth and chin a little
projecting. The close cloak or vest with sleeves, and cap in folds
hanging down on the shoulder, the hand holding the triple fruit, in
prognostication of the harvest of v