as
sufficient representatives not only of the art of their time, but of all
subsequent; Giotto, the first of the great line of dramatists,
terminating in Raffaelle; Orcagna, the head of that branch of the
contemplative school which leans towards sadness or terror, terminating
in Michael Angelo; and Angelico, the head of the contemplatives
concerned with the heavenly ideal, around whom may be grouped first
Duccio, and the Sienese, who preceded him, and afterwards Pinturiccio,
Perugino, and Leonardo da Vinci.

61. The fourth letter opens in the fields of Vespignano. The
circumstances of the finding of Giotto by Cimabue are well known.
Vasari's anecdote of the fly painted upon the nose of one of Cimabue's
figures might, we think, have been spared, or at least not instanced as
proof of study from nature "nobly rewarded." Giotto certainly never
either attempted or accomplished any small imitation of this kind; the
story has all the look of one of the common inventions of the ignorant
for the ignorant; nor, if true, would Cimabue's careless mistake of a
black spot in the shape of a fly for one of the living annoyances of
which there might probably be some dozen or more upon his panel at any
moment, have been a matter of much credit to his young pupil. The first
point of any real interest is Lord Lindsay's confirmation of Foerster's
attribution of the Campo Santo Life of Job, till lately esteemed
Giotto's, to Francesco da Volterra. Foerster's evidence appears
incontrovertible; yet there is curious internal evidence, we think, in
favor of the designs being Giotto's, if not the execution. The landscape
is especially Giottesque, the trees being all boldly massed first with
dark brown, within which the leaves are painted separately in light:
this very archaic treatment had been much softened and modified by the
Giotteschi before the date assigned to these frescoes by Foerster. But,
what is more singular, the figure of Eliphaz, or the foremost of the
three friends, occurs in a tempera picture of Giotto's in the Academy of
Florence, the Ascension, among the apostles on the left; while the face
of another of the three friends is again repeated in the "Christ
disputing with the Doctors" of the small tempera series, also in the
Academy; the figure of Satan shows much analogy to that of the Envy of
the Arena chapel; and many other portions of the design are evidently
either sketches of this very subject by Giotto himself, or dexterous