t. John Baptist and
St. John the Divine. In 1714, the new Vasari tells us,[105] and, indeed,
we may read as much on the floor of the chapel itself, Bartolommeo di
Simone Peruzzi caused the place to be restored, and it was then, as we
may suppose, that the work of Giotto was covered with whitewash. It was
in 1841 that the Dance of Herodias was discovered, and the whitewash not
very carefully, perhaps, removed, and by 1863 the rest of the frescoes
here were brought to light. In their original brightness they formed
probably "the finest series of frescoes which Giotto ever produced"; but
the hand of the restorer has spoiled them utterly, so that only the
shadow of their former beauty remains, amid much that is hard or
unpleasing.

On the left we see the story of St. John Baptist; above, the Angel
announces to Zacharias the birth of a son; and, with I know not what
mastery of his art, Giotto tells us of it with a simplicity and
perfection beyond praise. If we consider the work merely as a
composition, it is difficult to imagine anything more lovely; and then
how beautiful and full of life is the angel who has entered so softly
into the Holy of Holies, not altogether without dismay to the high
priest, who, busy swinging his censer before the altar, has suddenly
looked up and seen a vision. Below, we see the Birth of St. John
Baptist, where Elizabeth is a little troubled, it may be, about her dumb
husband, to whom the child has been brought. An old man with an eager
and noble gesture seems to argue with Zacharias, holding the child the
while by the shoulder, and Zacharias writes the name on his knee. Below
this again is the Dance of Herodias, the first of these frescoes to be
uncovered and ruined in the process. But even yet, in the perfect
grouping of the figures, the splendour of the viol player, the
frightened gaze of the servants, we may still see the very hand of
Giotto.

But it is in the frescoes on the right wall that Giotto is seen at his
highest: it is the story of St. John the Divine; above he dreams on
Patmos, below he raises Drusiana at the Gate of Ephesus, and is himself
received into heaven. Damaged though they be, there is nothing in all
Italian art more fundamental, more simple, or more living than these
frescoes. It is true that the Dream of St. John is almost ruined, and
what we see to-day is very far from being what Giotto painted, but in
the Raising of Drusiana and in the Ascension of St. John we find a